On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:22 PM, stevertigo <stvrtg(a)gmail.com> wrote: This is the key point, I think. We don't have an absolute definition of neutrality. We don't even have a "I know it when I see it" kind of system. Neutrality -- everywhere -- is a work in progress. Now, SlimVirgin recognises this, which is why the proposal reads "However, looking at an editor's contributions as a whole, it should be clear to any reasonable, and reasonably well-informed, onlooker that the editor is regularly and substantively trying to be fair to both sides." That is obviously an attempt to move away from requiring neutrality and towards requiring a good-faith effort towards neutrality, which is the only way the proposal could work. Nevertheless, I do not think this is enough to actually make it work. The problem is that these disputes are so deep-seated and controversial that such a system will be the subject of constant attempts at gaming. The problem will not be fixed but merely moved. The other problem is that the system pretends that "it should be clear to any reasonable ... onlooker" how the editor is trying to act. Often, this will be the case. Just as often, however, it will not be so very absolutely clear and will rely greatly on the perception of the onlooker. This, I think, is the fatal flaw, because it is the assumption that the whole proposal rests on, that it is always so obvious who is trying to edit in a neutral and helpful fashion and who is being biased. (One additional problem is that it will create bureaucracy -- Wikipedians love bureaucracy and this would turn into something like a rolling Israel-Palestine ArbCom. I don't think that that would be a positive change.) Sam -- Sam PGP public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Korn/public_key

stevertigo a écrit : If I had jumped into reading this conversation halfway through, I'd be extremely confused. CB

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 4:54 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think the results are better than 0%, but they're terrible. When I spend a couple of minutes with an editor and topic specific writeup asking someone to stop and explaining the policy, it seems to be much more effective on average. I also template people - but I leave a paragraph or two of custom note nearly every time I template. I template at the bottom so that other admins who review can see "Oh, that's a uw-foobar-3, one more strike" rather than having to figure their way through the note i left to determine how serious it was etc. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com