[WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

Tue Feb 28 17:51:07 UTC 2006

> I don't think anyone engaged in an edit war is ever feted as a hero.

I've seen it.  You're wrong.

And, in fact, many editors did compliment me on my persistence in
keeping our articles from being ruined.

> Also, I don't believe anyone is suggesting you are not acting in good
> faith. It just sounds like your way of going about your business is
> possibly a little confrontational...

That is a false impression created by the way these arguments were
portrayed.  I was dealing with this "editor" for almost a year, and
went through every community channel available to try to deal with his
patterns of destruction.  This is all explained in my appeal.  People
(many more than just me) resorted to reverting him because he was
immune to argument and further discussion, and would just create new
sockpuppet accounts to continue it.

> People who don't revert others' changes without discussing them on the
> talk pages are second-class editors? I wish we could banish first
> class.

Again, this is ripping it out of context.  An editor who is following
me around and reverting all my edits does not to be talked with on
every page he reverts, to explain in detail why I made each edit he
probably hadn't even looked at.  That is obvious.

I clearly was always responsible in using the talk pages.  This too is
well-documented.  But there are obvious cases such as vandalism where
no one bothers to go to talk, for again obvious reasons.  And when a
person goes on a rampage blanking large sections of articles and
making the same discredited edit to a dozen articles that we've
already discussed twenty times over the last year, it's clear the
option of dialogue has been exhausted.  Look at how many archived talk
pages there are on [[Khmer Rouge]] going in circles with someone who
is clearly just here to push an agenda and not interested in the
facts.

> At the end of the day, anyone with a particular agenda they're trying
> to push (whether valid or not), has to tread carefully. If there are
> people bent on denying that particular agenda, then doubly so. Being
> right isn't all that matters, after all. What else needs to be said?

It's not just a matter of being "right".  There are legitimate content
disputes and illegitimate ones.  Writing, "bobby is gay", on the
George Bush article is not legitimate and does not warrant a
discussion.  Call that an "agenda" if you wish.  Similarly, erasing
volumes of sourced material is not legitimate.  If one's agenda is a
devotion to accuracy and neutrality, there is no issue.

VV