Summary style (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Response to Bryan Derken)

Thu Jun 10 16:24:33 UTC 2004

Geoff Burling wrote:

>On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>  
>
>>Abe Sokolov wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>maveric149 at yahoo.com:
>>>
>>>"The ability to write good summaries is a rarer trait than the ability
>>>to write at length on a subject. Let those who can summarize help
>>>improve the article series by making it useful to people who don't
>>>want to read for an hour."
>>>
>>>Are you saying that I can't. FYI, I've written dozens of brief
>>>articles on broad subjects too. I just don't list them on my user page
>>>because I don't want to give stalkers a guidebook.
>>>      
>>>
>>I would prefer to take Mav's statement at the face value of a generality
>>without any implicit criticism of you or anybody else.  Personalizing
>>somebody's general comments is not very encouraging for interwikipedian
>>relations. O:-)
>>    
>>
>Treating the topic as a personal afront appears to be 172's strategy in
>every interaction. One is left with one of two reactions: bewildered shock
>that one has inadvertently caused offense, or suspicion that 172 is
>acting in bad faith. I have offered evidence in my previous email why I
>embrace the latter interpretation, but here's one more example:
>
>172 complains that he doesn't have the time to make certain changes in the
>article under discussion, & that the article isn't important enough for him
>to make them. Mav offers to do the work, & 172's response is to find offense.
>
>I haven't written further about the matters of my earlier email to allow
>172 time to respond to my accusations, but he has not seen fit to answer
>them, let alone acknowledge them. I assume that a lack of answer indicates
>his tacit consent to my charges.
>  
>
The problem here is in assuming bad faith.  Personal affront strikes me 
as an expected by-product of a siege mentality when faced with attacks 
from a broad range of sources.  No-one can keep up with detailed 
responses to the volume of material that has emerged on 172's behaviour 
in respect of a wide range of historical articles.  Attempting to answer 
everything only increases the probability of further offence in both 
directions.  A kind of positive feedback loop.  When the auditorium 
speakers start screeching the worst thing you can do is keep talking 
into the microphone.
Ec