[WikiEN-l] cancelation of the deletion review of the satanism userbox

Mon Jun 5 04:05:28 UTC 2006

G'day Tony,

> On 6/5/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>It is never good to piss people off.
>>
>>That you feel that you have to do so is a stunning indictment of your
>>current attitude problem.
> 
> I don't have an attitude problem.  I don't have to piss people off.
> However it seems to me that some people are queuing up to be pissed
> off over trivia.  There is no substance to the complaint.
> 
> And that is quite a different situation.

You're both wrong.  Sometimes pissing people off is inevitable; it's to 
be regretted, certainly, but just because Hothead Jock McHothead, the 
hottest head to grace the field of professional hotheads since 1872, has 
become upset doesn't mean we're going to say "damn, Hothead Jock got 
upset with me, what have I done wrong?"  There are editors on Wikipedia 
who do not understand how things work, and get upset as a result; worse, 
there are editors on Wikipedia who get upset just for the fun of it, and 
that's hardly Tony's fault.

On the other hand, this "I don't have to piss people off" bizzo implies 
that *nobody* ever has a legitimate complaint against Tony Sidaway. 
While legit complaints aren't as common as certain userbox-loving 
newbies think, they *do* exist, and we can't dismiss them all.  If a 
legitimate editor starts complaining about your attitude, you don't 
decide "they're complaining, they must not be legitimate" --- what you 
do is say "what have I done that has upset this person?  How can I 
achieve my aim without pissing off such people?"

-- 
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse