QUOTE(Cla68 @ Sun 17th October 2010, 6:48am)
QUOTE(ATren @ Sun 17th October 2010, 12:09am)
Why would they change now? The situation is actually more favorable for them now that Lar, you, me, JWB and a bunch of others have been removed while friendly admins like NW and 2/0 remain to clear out any others who dare oppose the house POV. If anything, their tactics will escalate because there is not even a check on their behavior anymore.
I don't think that is entirely the case. First of all, the ArbCom did make it clear that no more monkey business will be allowed with CC BLPs.
It may improve, but this is the biggest problem: the combination of various POVs, which is what often motivates people to edit an article, and knowledge of Wikipedia guidelines and dispute resolution process. ArbComm tends to be slow to act, but then it often acts excessively. Sanctions should be measured, with Talk page access the last to go. If an editor is restricted to making suggestions in Talk, they may soon get it that, first of all, incivility will get them completely banned or at least topic banned, depending on whether they are WMC or not, and, second, if they make suggestions that are not adequately sourced, they will be wasting their time.
I'll say it again: Wikipedia should be quick to ban editors from the article page, except for self-reverted edits -- that was a sophisticated suggestion treated as if it was some attempt to wikilawyer! --, but slow to ban from Talk, because banning from Talk is very often excluding the most knowledgeable editors, and restricting them to Talk means they must respect other editors or they will be ignored.
True POV pushers will attack an article-banned editor, even when the editor follows COI rules (that's equivalent to a rough article ban from making edits that can be expected to be controversial), and that would be obvious for anyone following the activity at Cold fusion, but nobody follows it except for editors with an axe to grind. Cold fusion is under discretionary sanctions, but the only application of these sanctions so far has been to reban me for ... for ... for what? Now, my own question is whether or not I bother appealing this particular blatant stupidity. Indeed, this is how Wikipedia disintegrates: the brightest and smartest, most knowledgeable, and most motivated to create a neutral project, run into the Problem, and mostly just leave. It takes entirely too much time to run dispute resolution process, even at the article level, given the absence of skilled facilitation.
Dispute resolution process requires a lot of discussion! Sound bite exchanges preserve POV disputes and even amplify them, as the motive becomes winning a debate instead of seeking mutual understanding and consensus. The situation is so bad on Wikipedia, when disputes arise, that many experienced Wikipedians believe that factions will always be at each other's throats, that consensus is impossible, therefore the only solution is to ban the most egregious offenders.
Bans should be reserved for those who will not participate in dispute resolution, who will not restrain themselves when under "voluntary ban," i.e., bans not enforced by blocks, pending dispute resolution. And there would be a path to return, always, and that was part of the self-reversion proposal. And it works. It the community respects it! Serious POV-pushers, true fanatics, won't bother with self-reversion, it's easier for them to sock.
Wikipedia desperately needs, not more administrators, but more *facilitators.* And, ironically, that's what I was good at, particularly when I wasn't involved, but even sometimes when I was. So ... ArbComm banned me from it, completely. At the time, it seemed the scope of the MYOB ban was limited, but the cabal made sure that interpretation of it crept up, to the point to becoming an almost complete gag order, applying, for example, to user talk pages where the user welcomed my comments. But someone else objected. "Dispute" was widened to mean, for example, a request on the blacklist talk page for a whitelisting, where nobody had objected, I responded with a suggestion, someone else then objected, and I responded to that. MYOB!
And always the same people filing the enforcement requests. Usually Hipocrite, now banned from Climate Change, but Climate Change was only one area of cabal activity. Too little from ArbComm, too late, and then, paradoxically, too much, too soon.
Content? The hell with content! Protect the admin core, that is the real motivation, and this goes way back, it's a structural defect, which, once built in, can be the devil to change. And the tools of this "policy," which could, of course, never be stated as such, it would be a
User:Abd/Rule 0 violation, are unaware of it, generally. They think they are enforcing this or that policy or rule; what they don't see is how the rules are selectively applied. Until it's too late, and the bell is tolling for them.