[WikiEN-l] Mother Teresa article

Mon Oct 27 07:16:59 UTC 2003

> Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
> My last edit to [[Mother Teresa]] was on October 21. It is now October
27.
> I have also abstained from editing other articles where Jtdirl is
> involved. I made a peace offer to him, trying to agree on some ground
> rules for editing the article and apologizing for any past offenses to
> him, on October 22. That offer has been ignored by Jtdirl. Instead, he
has
> now opened a vote on whether the article is "POV" or "NPOV", with each
> voter who votes POV being a crown witness in his permanent attacks
against
> me.

1) Your peace offer was admirable and it is unfortunate that everyone
now is not on the same page. (Or avoiding the page, as the case may be.)
2) It's possible that Jtdirl isn't trying to build a personal case
against you, but in a misguided manner is trying to figure out how to
deal with the article.
3) Jtdirl's actions are a prime example of the kind of broken behavior
that comes from the muddled, ugly current conception of NPOV, combined
with the destructive institution of voting on everything as a simplistic
and biased substitute for constructing consensus.

That is to say, in my opinion, the root causes for this current upset
lie in failures of the institution (Wikipedia policies and customs)
rather than the individuals--though the individuals should be able to
transcend the current failures of the institution by avoiding such
temptations as calling for NPOV votes.

> He does this even though I have already agreed to various
modifications,
> including using a massive rewrite as a basis for the article. He
continues
> attacking me on a personal level on the talk page, other users' talk
pages
> and on the mailing list, while I have done nothing of the sort to him
ever
> since my PO (and even before that, very little).

Sad, isn't it? I guess Jtdirl has to get it out of his system every so
often. 

> With the exception of Cimon avaro, no Wikipedian has challenged
Jtdirl's
> behavior. When this happened for the first time, and I announced
> complaining to Jimbo about it, I was immediately attacked for
> "threatening" Jtdirl. I have proposed a policy to remove and refactor
> personal attacks. Currently there's a very slim majority in favor of
it,
> but nothing close to consensus. Those opposing it say that this is an
easy
> cop-out, that this behavior needs to be dealt with on a social level,
with
> Wikipedians sending a clear signal to offenders that such behavior is
not
> allowed.

You didn't announce complaining to Jimbo. You said you wanted him to be
banned. There have been failures of tone on all sides. One important
difference is that you tried apologizing.