[WikiEN-l] me and my three reverts

Wed Feb 2 17:57:25 UTC 2005

On February 2 Frank v Waveren wrote:

>On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 11:00:15AM -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> > topic.  When Jalnet2 insists on making uninformed claims, he is not
> > insulting me -- he is insulting the hard work of scores of evolutionary
> > scientists, and dishonoring the integrity of Wikipedia, which depends on
> > editors doing some research.
>I'd advise you not to see edits you disagree with as insults, no
>matter how stupid you find them; Whether you considerd them insults to
>you or things you hold dear doesn't matter, in the end no good can
>come of it. Think of them as mistakes or disagreements, it gives a
>much more pleasant atmosphere.

Frank, you are absolutely right, and I thank you for making this point.  To 
be clear, though, my intention in the passage you quote is that I do not 
take Jalnet2's reversions personally -- I do not think he is insulting me.

The issue in this particular case was that over the course of Jalnet2 was 
making a variety of edits almost all of which were variations on the same 
point, since November 11, and I am one of eight editors who has reverted 
this point.  His point being that most evolutionary scientists or most 
social scientists accept an essentialist notion of race, and if he has any 
evidence of this he has never presented it.  In the countless reverts since 
he first inserted this point on 11/11, various people have provided 
explanations in the talk section; he has never given a substantive 
response.  (by way of contrast, I think he is the only one who has reverted 
any of my work on this page -- at least since 11/11/04.  There are, of 
course, many who have edited my contributions; sometimes I see their point 
immediately, other times we discuss it in the talk pages, all I can say for 
myself is that I have always been satisfied that whatever the outcome of 
these edits and discussions has been, it has led to the improvement of the 
article).

So I do see in Jalnet2's edits a real disregard for our process and for the 
principles of verification and quality of edits.  On the other hand, his 
edits have been limited to this one point, so he has not done any of the 
kind of damage to an article that would lead me to RfC or mediation.  I 
have to add that I am not sure how that would help.  My complaint about 
Jalnet2 is not that he often reverts my edits, and I really do not care 
about how he has treated me.  My complaint is that he keeps asserting 
something that is wrong, and one would have to know a fair amount about 
population genetics and human evolution to see that.  In short, his 
behavior does irritate me, but not enough that I feel justified making a 
formal complaint.  It is the content that concerns me, and my sense is that 
our process for resolving conflicts focusses on behavior rather than 
content.  I just do not see this as useful here.  So what if Jalnet2 limits 
himself to two reverts a day?  As long as the content of his edits are 
wrong, they just have to be deleted.

I want to be crystal clear about what I think is the main point here: in 
the two-plus months that Jalnet2 has been making edits, there has been no 
evolution or change in his view.  His basic point remains the same.  It is 
one thing if you make 100 mistakes but they are all different mistakes.  It 
is another if you make the same mistake 100 times.  There has been enough 
discussion on the talk page over the past two and a half months to show 
that Jalnet2 is the only editor currently making this mistake; none of the 
others active on the article have agreed with him, and many have explained 
why on the talk page.  As long as Jalnet2 persists in putting misleading 
information into the article, someone is going to have to revert it.

Someone claimed that I was moaning about the three-revert rule.  I really 
do stand by it -- it is clear that we need it, and even if I think Dante's 
action yesterday was unnecessary, I am more than willing to live with it as 
the consequence of a needed policy.

However, I think the real need for the 3-revert rule is to put a brake on 
serious behavioral problems.  The problem with the 3-revert rule is that it 
is utterly neutral to content.  I think when there are repeated problems 
with content, we may need other mechanisms.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701