Ive done a little more thinking on it; its funny that
most of these mechanisms are in place, but the
disconnect is still there with highly controversial
issues, among percieved partisan editors. Mediation is
besides the point: Its like having to go to
psychiatric counseling to fix something wrong with
your car. Others have complained about the problems
with the rigid tie-your-hands WP:PP policy.
The solution seems simple enough: allow "moderation"
to refer to the first-step process by which articles
are moderated by a pair of chosen sysops. Rather than
let things blow out of control so much, and have 1-2
talk pages filled before things get unprotected and
continued, let the two sysops edit the protected
article under a short unobtrusive {{moderatoredit}}
banner. This kind of thing was done lots of times
before, but the PP policy restricted it to a large
degree such that "editing the protected page" is
taboo.
The idea of banning people from the pages for a time
is controversial, and I certainly dont think that a
month should be necessary - we already protect pages
long enough for people to just get tired of it - the
point is to speed things up. Id like to see 1.
obligatory immediate protections, even by sysops
involved in a dispute - so that business between 172
and whats his name on Adolf Hitler and something else
doesnt happen. After that, limiting edits to 2 chosen
moderators for a couple of days should air most of the
concerns. The few problem users (including sysops)
who overreact, revert, etc can face sanction - though
this is an extra detail best left to the largely well
functioning mediation and arbitration processes.
-S
--- Pierre Hentges <pyropir(a)gmx.net> wrote:
SV is right that the current policy on page
protection
isn't great. Pages are often protected for a long
time
without any progress on the actual conflict. For
example
[[anti-American sentiment]] has been protected for
nearly
two weeks without VV and GBWR making the slightest
effort
to resolve their dispute, despite me trying to help.
It's
very frustrating for everybody else. The current
policy
just isn't conducive to conlict resolution.
SV's proposal is interesting but I think there are
drawbacks: quite substantial changes are required,
admins
workload will go up ; there is no justification for
the
assumption that admins can deal with edit conflicts
better
than common Wikipedians
I'd like to make an alternative proposal for dealing
with
page protection:
1) in case of an edit war the page in question is
protected
as before. Then the following steps are taken:
2) the admin who protected the page makes a list (on
the
talk page) of the editors involved in the edit
conflict ;
3) the named editors each outline their view of the
disagreement (talk page) ;
4) the named editors (with the help of fellow
Wikipedians
if this is helpful) try to hammer out a compromise ;
5) if no compromise can be found within a week, this
is
taken as proof that they are unable to resolve their
conflict. Therefore the page is unprotected but the
listed
editors are banned from editing the article in
question for
a period of, say, a month. Editors that were not
involved
in the edit conflict can edit the article and get a
chance
to deal with the controversial points ;
6) Since this system could be abused by people who
raise
spurious conflicts just to get other editors banned
from an
article, there is need for a further step: if one of
the
editors feels their opponent is acting in bad faith,
they
can ask for a vote on this, and if there is a
consensus
(say 3/4) then their ban is lifted.
pros:
=====
1) nobody wants to get banned from an article they
are
interested in, therefore Wikipedians will try to
avoid edit
wars ; willingness to compromise and to be civil
will
increase ;
2) a more formal way of dealing with edit conflicts
;
3) no big changes required (software, new sysop
roles
etc.) ;
4) Wikipedians who avoid edit wars don't get shut
out of
protected articles for long periods ;
5) the workload of admins stays the same
cons:
=====
1) protection policy change
2) ??
I'll copy this to the PPP draft page.
pir
On Friday 23 July 2004 12:04,
wikien-l-request(a)Wikipedia.org wrote:
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:14:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: "S. Vertigo" <sewev(a)yahoo.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protected page policy rethuk
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Message-ID:
<20040723051411.84168.qmail(a)web90005.mail.scd.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
...Wikipedia RC seems to be zipping by quite fast
lately. (Its already impossible to just scan RC as
a
way to catch up; Im actually using my watchlist
for
the first time...) But it seems that with the
controversial set, its time for a rethinking of
the
protected page policy, and Ive written some basic
stuff here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protected_page/Draft]]
Basically, my idea calls for sort of dance steps
to
how to deal with contested articles. Essentially,
allowing certain sysops to act according to formal
roles with respect to each contested article, and
to
have those articles be protected in degrees,
based
on
what the situation calls for. Protection is
degree-less, but sysops can and should act
responsibly
to continue developing articles in accordance
with
the
concerns of the partisans. Because any disputes
about
who can act in each role are an abstract issue
from
the article, they can be dealt with judiciously
as
a
separate dispute by moderates not interested in
getting mud thrown at them. With templates and
categories, this can be more quickly done.
Of course, this would mean that sysopdom does have
some responsibility and privelige for which they
would
be more accountable, but this is weighed against
the
need to have controversial articles not be such
black
holes on Wikipedia.
--
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