[WikiEN-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

Thu Apr 20 21:07:33 UTC 2006

Matt Brown wrote:
> I feel that the immediatist attitude of the vandal-fighter has
> infected many of the decision-making processes of en-wikipedia way too
> much.  Everything must be fixed NOW.  We must act as if we have the
> attention span of a mayfly, because later is as good as never.

With the absolute deepest respect for the vandal fighters, whose
immediatist attitude saves us from untold volumes of unspeakable
horrors, I will say that I agree totally with Matt here.

Some things require immediate action.  Even some things having to do
with WP:OFFICE, although my view is that if it comes to that, what we
really really should do is look at what failure of process led us to
that impasse in the first place.

But mostly, no.  Mostly, if we (any of us! for any reason!) stub a
controversial article and demand careful sourcing for rebuilding it,
that's fine, EVEN IF THE ARTICLE SUCKS FOR A FEW DAYS.

> Whereas in my belief most administrator actions do NOT need to be
> fixed *right now*, even if they are wrong.  Bans and blocks - in most
> cases, the world will not end if an individual can't edit Wikipedia
> for a day.  Frustrating though it might be.  Page protection: everyone
> can live with not editing an article for a little bit.  Deletion:
> undeletion can be done at any time, and unless an article is a very
> high-traffic one, our readers are unlikely to even notice.

Totally.  Some of the silliest fights we have gotten into about alleged
'censorship by admins' was over the most trivial of topics.

> The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
> damaging.  It escalates arguments, builds up pressure, makes everyone
> tense, encourages revert wars.  Nothing on Wikipedia should be settled
> by a fight.  I feel that instant, no-discussion reverts of anything
> other than *obvious vandalism* - whether edits or administrative
> actions - encourages a quite unpleasant pattern of behaviour.
> 
> If we feel we have to do things instantly because it's too hard to
> keep track of things otherwise, then we need tools - procedure or
> software - to help with that.

Absolutely!