[Wikipedia-l] Less than an outright ban

Tue Oct 22 22:39:47 UTC 2002

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Parmenter" <tompar at world.std.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Cc: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Less than an outright ban

> I missed 24, but in every other case there was a single article or an
> easily identifiable set of articles that were the locus of the
> trouble.  Freezing those articles for a day, week, month, quarter,
> might have solved the problem.
>
> Helga- Copernicus
> DW - Canadian noteworthies
> Lir - Columbus
>
> Did we so much need an article this quarter on these three topics that
> we could tolerate the kind of abuse (let's don't mince words) that
> these people dealt out?
>
> As for the "one other contributor" this is what I had in mind with my
> "master in chancery" proposal, not "police", just someone to filter
> the conflict before it got into an article.
>
Helga wasn't just Copernicus.  She edited and wrote articles on many Central
European historical issues from an anti-Polish, pro-Germanic POV, quasi
historical point of view.  Copernicus was just the last of many edit wars
which she was involved in.

DW also caused trouble over French historical articles when others
questioned his "One True Way" in much the same way as he did with the
Canadian stuff.  Trivial changes and a mite less arrogance on his part would
have avoided the problems.

Freezing articles would not have changed the attitudes of these
contributors, since despite the fact that trouble flares up over particular
articles, it wasn't really a particular article that was the problem.  The
problem was Helga's Point of View and it is DW's and LIr's egos in my
opinion.

Cheers

Derek