Interesting:

He locks out and protects an article from anonymous editors through January 2008:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=176375725

But the problem is, he's directly involved in a content dispute there on the same article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history

Someone should report this on-Wiki.

Again, more self-defeating idiocy from JzG... All this is does is provide us with more ammunition, and incentive to start issuing press releases and generally increase our outreach. As if we even need to, he's been drawing so much attention to us lately!

What would be really interesting would be to see if the Guardian article could survive the same argument. You cannot dismiss it especially as the cabal deliberately argued mainstream newspapers as reliable sources - and recently removed text that tried to add some common sense qualifications to press articles. This seems an ideal venue to prove the error of their ways.

Ignore all rules, remember?

He also violated 3RR.

Someone should report him for both.

From JzG's talkpage:


Yep, Guy's the arbiter of what is news worthy and what isn't these days, I remember when Jimbo made a similar statement sometime ago, when they blocked one of Qatar's only ISPs or something and there were some articles on it.

Try 2 keep↑ — Yer obviously not hip the new WP:VER/RS —

WP:WUT


Jonny

Sounds like Guy's original research.

Here's a strange edit summary to ponder:

Yep, they've been planted out of. No wonder they're false.

The obvious problem with the edit JzG reverted is that it wikilinks to user pages, giving it the appearance of harassment. Such a story, if it merits inclusion, should be dispassionately quoted as if one didn't know the people involved. The wikilinks suggest active malice, which plays right into JzG's preconceptions and game plan.

So I guess all those examples of reliable sources will soon be replaced with WP:JZG'SBLATHER

We've already established that JzG's iPod is a more reliable source than Kobb??'s Complete Opera Book.

He's flailing around like a drowning man on this page. Here he edits a protected page. And here he is trying to argue that his opinion and knowledge should overrule the guardian and the register.



Maybe someone should point him to Wikipedia:The Truth: "This essay in a nutshell: Your opinions are The Truth, and thus are unquestionably correct." And he is also trying to argue that The Register article is somehow a primary source showing that he is either a hypocrite or just a fanatic. The article is obviously wrong because it is "just repeating the claims stated to be false by every single known member of the mailing list and every single known recipient of the Durova email?" Someone needs to revisit some of the core policies.

What do you mean, in this context?




They should get rid of 3RR. It is essentially used as an ad hominem
attack in content disputes to distract from real issues like what the
article should actually say.

How can "so-and-so reverted more than three times in a single day" be ad hominem?

Agreed. The bad side of the 3rr rule is that it creates an atmosphere that encourages system gaming, but that is still outweighed by the good of the disruption it prevents.

Didn't WP have something in their literature about commenting
on content, not contributors? Or did I just dream that up?

But anyway, it's completely irrelevant to what the article should
actually say, whether you think the standards should be
accuracy, 'verifiability' (whatever that means), 'neutrality',
wikiality, or whatever.

Rather than crying 'oh noes someone on that side of the debate
broke a rule!', they should actually try to make the article good.

The only way revert-warring detracts from that is by wasting
time that could be spent debating what exactly would make the
article good. But see, wasting time is much better than making
editorial decisions based on who had certain points of view,
rather than what the points of view actually are.

If you are going for accuracy, what if the person who reverted
more than three times in a single day is right?

If you are going for 'verifiability', what if the person reverting
to add 'properly cited' (whatever that means) material, or to
remove uncited material?

If you are going for 'neutrality', I believe their theory of neutrality
is that the article should be acceptable to people from all sides
of the debate. Hence, removing a side of the debate makes
their idea of 'neutrality' impossible.

And if you are going for wikiality, then of course you are rewriting
the meaning of 'a reality that everyone can agree on' by removing
the person from 'everyone'.

The union of all principles and rules yields an infeasible set.

I block them anyway if I think they are gaming the system.

If the system is mathematically isomorphic to a game, how can you tell for sure if they are gaming the system or simply playing the game?

Good, I always laugh at the people who are like, "But I only reverted four times in 24 hours 12 minutes!" It does get bad on pages like Allegations of State terrorism by the United States where you have warring parties instead of individuals.

Thus digitally branding the person with a black mark that
will lead to further ad hominem attacks, along the lines
of 'you were blocked for adding that content, therefore
it must be wrong', preventing actual discussion about
what is accurate/verifiable/neutral/wikial/what the article
should actually say.

They edit war, they get blocked. Simple as that. Knowingly gaming 3RR is almost worse than intentionally breaking it. All types of edit warring are very posionous and I will use either protection or blocks to very rapidly resolve the situation (depending on the nature of the warring).

You have not addressed my concerns that it is an ad hominem
attack which prevents well-reasoned discussion about what
articles should actually say.

Additionally, fear is not the proper motivator for ethical decisions.
By saying that people should not edit war for fear of getting
blocked, you disrespect those people.

Accusing other of 3rr (and just about anything else on WP) can be ans if requently used to attack the other person without resolving the issue. Not however my problem generally. If they are edit warring, wwell reasoned discussion ussually ISNT taking place, the fastest way to get a discussion occuring is to either block a single protagonist when there is one causing the problem, or protect the article when it is many.

People whouldnt edit war for fear of getting blocked or for any other reason either. Edit warring is against the rules (because it creates far more heat than light), you know the rules, you break the rules and you deal with the consequences. Ideally there would be no edit warring and only productive discussion, but that does not work in practice.

Your attitiue is far too "kid glove" when it comes to dealing withpeople who have no intention whatsoever of discussing the issue, untill such time as they are forced to, either through being blocked or threatened with being blocked or through the pge being protected.

I don't mean 'personal attack' in the WP definition sense, which
seems to be a double-standard. I mean ad hominem attack in
the sense of saying 'The world is flat because X, who believes
the world is round, did bad things!'

Sure, blocking leads to that sort of discussion, which is totally
unrelated to what the article should say. If you want real
discussion, protect the article for a long time and drag them
over to the MedCab or MedCom. Also, I've seen 3RR blocks
in the middle of mediations, and it really has a tendency to
derail said mediations. (Disclaimer: Mediation is voluntary.
Not responsible for failed mediations.)

Once you start making 3RR blocks or threats of blocks, you
pretty much kill any hope of discussing ideas based on their
merit and not based on who holds them.



Errr, I've never been blocked for 3RR. Once, someone on the
opposite side of me was reported for 3RR. I offered to report
myself for 3RR in the hopes of the page being protected rather
than the person getting blocked. Some admin did that, without
calling my bluff. (The only diffs I had to report as evidence
against myself showed me revert-warring against myself over
a dummy edit. I was doing this in order to leave messages in
the edit summaries, which was recommended by Meta.)
I've also been frustrated when disputes I was trying to help
resolve were escalated by 3RR reports.

Anyway, 'I don't want to get blocked' is emphatically not a good
reason to refrain from edit warring.



By saying fear of the rules is a proper motivator, you disrespect
them. And let's face it - a warning is a threat, and many people
do not respond well to threats.

Thing is, there isn't really any ethical problem with edit warring,
which I guess is why y'all rely on the threat of blocking to
enforce the prohibition of edit warring. This is a shame, as
some people may feel ethically obligated to edit war. Example:
edit warring to remove defamatory material.



Errr, in some cases, they are discussing the issue, in mediation
even. Other times, they will once the option of edit warring is cut
off by a page protection.

And doesn't your project have a policy against making negative
assumptions about people's intentions?

Being decent to people isn't 'kid glove'. People come to WP to
volunteer their time for free. Trying to 'force' them to not do
things you find annoying is disrespectful. The block log is a
permanent record. Even if they are being annoying, they don't
deserve that kind of ad hominem attack.

I've always thought that's sort of like someone getting a ticket for going 55 in a 55 MPH zone. A rule should keep you safe if you follow it and put you in danger if you break it. Punishing some people who follow the rule, on the grounds that they were almost not following it, is neither fair nor productive.

AB, obviously both reverting parties think they are right. That's the problem: you can't really say "the ones who are right may revert freely" when people disagree on who's right. I can't even believe I'm explaining this, it should be so obvious. Without revert restrictions, individuals like MONGO and JzG could just mercilessly edit war their opponents into exhaustion.

Well... they could do it faster.

You realize that this allows whoever has the upper hand in power terms on Wikipedia gets to decide what is being written. Lots of the more-powerful there start edit wars by disagreeing, and the person they've started it against (who they disagree with) get subsequently blocked for so-called edit warring.

Are you in any manner familiar with academic debate? Because the very discourse which you see to negatively judge is a normal part of a debate whereby consensus might be reached.

Expecting a discourse to be completed in one-edit is completely unrealistic.

What you are doing, when you say "I ban edit warring" is saying "I disallow dialogue".


Heat/light is a kneejerk terminology.This is a very trendy phrase on WP these days. Have you examined what it means? More heat than light means "more trouble than elucidation". What I see heat/light being used for is an excuse to extinguish elucidation, on the grounds that it is too much trouble (heat producing).

Do you want good quality substance? Or do you want to be able to tell people what to do?

If it is the latter, heat/light is an excellent piece of verbiage to use to that end.

There's really not a good system for discussions - most reverters don't go to the talk page, and those who do usually are quite strident in their pronouncements of what they find right and wrong with the material.
I see a lot of cabal gaming of 3RR. Don't accuse me of edit warring and losing. I'm in good standing. But I don't edit partly because I don't like beating my head against a wall, and I disagree too much with the current state of things.


I see blocks being threatened all the time, pre-discussion.

And to labor a point - being decent to people is not "kid glove". If you were a paid professional administrator such punitive or police-like attitudes would be unacceptable. Pity this mentality isn't promoted as an ideal.

That's just silly. Edit warring on Wikipedia doesn't even have a passing similarity to academic dialogue. Academics aren't able to edit each other's papers over and over until the writer of the paper gives up trying to protect their contribution. And the bad on edit warring doesn't prohibit multiple edits - it just prohibits reverting continuously until everyone says "fine, have it your way."

Edit warring reminds me much more of debates I've witnessed at my small college, which were "won" when some group of people essentially would not shut up, and anyone who wished to challenge them decided not to bother.

When 3RR is abused to block the application of WP:BLP "Do No Harm" clause, the abusive application of 3RR does considerable harm to both the adversarial editors and to the integrity of the project.

Sure you can, you just have to also devise a system to determine who's right.



Isn't faster better? If JzG and MONGO are going to win anyway, what's the sense in dragging things out?

Kudos to you Derktar for the correct use of the word of "arbiter," as opposed to the WP notion that an "arbiter" is someone who conducts arbitrations.

Not going to answer everyone specifically because I am at work and therefore lack the time. When there is revert warring beyond 3RR, or revert warring gaming 3rr, the participants typically are NOT discussing the issue at all, all they are doing is reverting each other. There is no chilling effect in applying blocks in situations like that, because there is no dialogue to chill.

When it is one person who has broken 3RR, edit warring with multiple others (>2), there is more likely to be attempts at dialogue on the talk page, not always the case however. If the 3RR breaker is being overly disruptive then they will recieve a block from me, anyone else who wants to weigh in then, can do so.

If there is multiple parties involved, revert warring from both sides, the article will be protected. Protection in my experience is the quickest way to promote dialogue between multiple parties, and therefore reach a resolution.

Lastly, I always try to treat people decently, but there is a difference between kid gloves, and decently/fairly.

Hang on a minute here.
This is just a complete lie, obviously, from someone rapidly becoming famous for lying.

Here's what "Cade" actually wrote:

That's supposed to be the "Judd Bagley view of the naked shorting dispute"? That the "mainstream press" has painted Byrne as a "raving madman"?

I don't see how anyone who's actually honest could think that the article's coverage of the naked shorting dispute is biased in any way whatsoever... I could see Wikipedians thinking that the way it portrays WP's handling of the situation is "biased," but only because it doesn't portray Mr. Bagley himself as some sort of drooling, diabolical monster, i.e., the way they've portrayed him on their various talk pages. I suspect they've become so accustomed to each other accepting that portrayal unquestioningly, it must simply astonish them that someone might actually disagree with it.

Yeah, do you think that system will involve stale revert warring???

Geez.