On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, tarquin wrote:
This gives me a thought: maybe we should all of us
spend a week or so
cleaning up ALL talk pages that have arguments, particularly the
long-resolved stuff.
Maybe these play a significant part in *not* conveying the impression
that we play nicely here.
We could begin here:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/How_to_destroy_Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_commentary/Responses_to_How_to_Dest…
I don't believe those pages have been refactored and I'm sure some people
would object if they were. In fact, if we're *really* interested in
cleaning up divisive pages that convey the impression that we don't play
nicely, what would we do with this page?
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/Bias_Talk
A number of listmembers will find quotations from themselves on that page.
Perhaps Cunc wants it known that people don't play nicely with him; but he
never has explained why he has such a page, when no one else does. He
also fails to supply the context that explains why he has elicited the
reactions that he has, which isn't exactly nice itself.
(What if *I* were to put up such a page of quotations critical of me?
How would you react? What if we *all*, each one of us, maintained a page
listing all quotations that were critical of us? That doesn't sound like
it would be a civilizing influence.)
If we were *really* serious about making Wikipedia more civil, we would
demonstrate that we have the maturity and courage to talk about such
problems openly and seriously--and then finally committing ourselves to
burying the hatchet.
Cunc's pages aren't particularly important, of course. They're just an
example of a festering issue that is easily glossed over in calls for
civility and kindness. There are usually legitimate if not fully
exculpating reasons for nastiness of all sorts on the website, and mere
calls to cooperate will not solve them. Actually talking about them
openly, however, might. Hopefully, such conversation could itself be done
with civility.
I really would look forward to an atmosphere in which participants
*actually did* show respect for each other. That might actually might
persuade *me* to participate more again!
Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell