[WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

Wed Mar 9 17:57:38 UTC 2005

--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu> wrote:
> ...2) what appears to be a personal attack on the part of Adam Carr 
> is simply an example of how members of the community, acting in their
> anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the quality of articles 
> after reasonable, polite efforts have failed.
      (..merging two posts...)
> If an editor is obstructing improvement of the article, or is damaging the 
> article, we need an effective mechanism to deal with that problem, directly.

Would none of the measures in [[Wikipedia:Resolving disputes]] have been
appropriate in this instance? For example, quantifying consensus via a vote,
requesting sanctions against a user who flouts consensus...etc. I'm not
convinced Adam Carr was placed in a situation where he had no other choice but
to be rude in order to maintain the quality of the article.

In any case, becoming abusive is a completely ineffectual tactic in these
situations -- it's only likely to exacerbate the situation. Moreover, for third
parties, it muddies the waters about who is in the "right" in a dispute: at
first glance, it's very tempting to favour the side of whoever sounds calm,
measured and rational, regardless of the substance of the debate itself.

--Matt

[[User:Matt Crypto]]

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