[WikiEN-l] Me and my 3 reverts

Fri Feb 4 20:48:31 UTC 2005

Dante Alighieri wrote,

>I responded to a DIRECT request that Slrubenstein be blocked for violating 
>the 3RR. Note that this direct request was posted not only on the Admin 
>noticeboard, but on my Talk page. Now, in my opinion (as someone who reads 
>the 3RR to mean what it SAYS, "three reverts to the same ARTICLE in 24 
>hours") was that Slr had obviously violated the rule. That he had pretty 
>clearly been baited was irrelevant. How would it have looked if we ignored 
>a straightforward violation by a longtime contributor and told the "new 
>guy" that he had "done it too" and that that somehow made it OK?

As Dante mentioned, he and I have had quite pleasant and civil discussions 
of this.  Since some people misinterpreted the intent of my first e-mail, I 
was not in any way accusing Dante of any kind of misconduct.  My comment 
that I thought the application of the rule in this case was frivolous was 
not a comment on Dante's judgement or intentions -- it was a comment on the 
limits of the rule.  And, as most people understand, my intention was only 
to raise some general issues worth discussion.

Earlier, David Gerard wrote:
>The article history doesn't matter. It won't actually be a disaster for the
>article to have something stupid in it for ten minutes.

And my point is, that there are situations where the article history really 
does matter.  There are different reasons for edit wars, and different 
reasons for reversion.  I guess many people disagree with me, but I think 
that different kinds of edit wars for different reasons might require 
different policies.  I certainly agree that when one edit is reverted back 
and forth several times (the narrowest understanding of the 3RR), then the 
block policy makes perfect sense and is necessary.

Sometimes the volleys of reverts are both the result of and expressions of 
a serious lack of wiki-etiquette and incivility.  In these cases, the block 
policy makes perfect sense and is necessary.

But sometimes the reverts have to do with serious differences over 
content.  I think this is an important distinction, because in such cases 
having a night, a couple of days, even a week to cool down, will not change 
things.  Moreover, our other dispute-resolution mechanisms (mediation, 
arbitration) are not well-suited to resolving conflicts over content.  I've 
said this before and I will say it again, we need some sort of mechanism, 
or series of mechanisms, for resolving major conflicts over content.  In 
cases where everyone has a fair amount of knowledge about something (Bush's 
inaugural speech or Doom), we can count on the disorganized sensibilities 
of the community as a whole to sort out conflicts.  But in cases where only 
a small number of community members have the knowledge or interest to 
involve themselves in an article, the informal mechanism doesn't work very 
well.  I am not advocating anything like peer-review; I am not sure what I 
would recommend -- I just think it is something we need to think about and 
discuss.

And in the cases where several -- five, ten, fifteen -- reverts involve as 
many different edits of different passages, this could be an indication 
that, despite brief volleys of reverts, participants are finding ways to 
work through the situation on their own.  In my experience this occurs 
where there is a serious conflict over content, but a desire for people to 
come up with some mutually acceptable solution.  In such cases, two or more 
parties might willingly tolerate some multiple reverts.

I know that in my case Jalnet2 asked for me to be blocked.  I just wonder 
whether he would have changed his mind if he knew that he would be blocked 
too.  Maybe I am wrong, maybe my case is not the best example.  But I do 
believe that there have been and will be cases like the ones I suggest 
above, where we could use other policies.

Steve

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