[WikiEN-l] RFC

Thu Jun 23 18:28:13 UTC 2005

I totally agree with Fastfission. There are probably quite a few editors who find themselves peacefully editing when suddenly a nasty POV-pusher comes crashing on the scene overwhelming a perfectly balanced article with biased rubbish.
By the time a POV-pusher has been stopped, a large amount of damage has been done. Often, these edits are not reverted (to keep the peace?) but weaseled down. In other instances, a shouting match develops on the talk page, which then becomes the basis for an RFC. None of this helps the quality of the content.
RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already tired and wants to go back to normal editing.

Jfdwolff

Fastfission wrote:
>Yeah, I don't know. But that seems to fall into the more general 
>category of "people who won't discuss", of which there is no quick and 
>simple solution that I know of. 

>Yes yes, I could take a lot of time filling out an RfC. And then what? 
>Move it to another stage of mediation? I don't have time for that -- 
>it's not how I want to spend my Wikipedia experience. It's probably 
>not how anybody wants to. And honestly, it's really not Wikipedia's 
>best use of ME -- I'm not a mediator by heart, I'm someone who wants 
>to add content by the truckloads and keep POV pushers out. But at the 
>same time I believe strongly in due process. So I don't know. 

>FF