User:W. Frank/Accusations of collaboration: 3RR hurts Wikipedia

(Modified from an original essay by Alexia Death)

Preface

One of the issues that wastes a lot of productive time (and usually generates more heat than light) is when one group agrees with each other too well [1]. They must surely be sock- (and meat) puppets and need to be banned or punished since they must coordinate their edits somehow behind the scenes!! Well, the accusation itself... it just sounds wrong. Being accused of collaboration in the context of a project that is based on people working together? There must be a logical fault somewhere. Is it not absurd? Why does this happen?

Why is POV pushing successful and why is canvassing a problem? It is all because because of WP:3RR. Whoever designed it had nice ideals and, in theory and if we disregard human nature, 3RR works.

Not so in real life. The goal of this essay is to clearly show why not - and how we could fix it and make editing Wikipedia more pleasant for all of us and more quickly build a better encyclopaedia with less redundant effort and unnecessary stress.

What is wrong with 3RR

At the core of the issue is the way 3 reverts and you're blocked ignores the content under dispute.

The current 3RR rule is designed to facilitate quick administrative decisions (and subsequent enforcement) without requiring evaluation of content. However, in its current form, these decisions do not empower discussion over steamrollering - and that has many adverse affects, ultimately hurting community and creating unnecessary blocks in communication and development.

It's about numbers not about content

3RR makes numbers matter, not the content and its validity. That's its number one fault. Ideally, the current rules should mean that consensus wins.

The winners, the losers, and the victimized content

If an edit prevails through an edit war of this nature then accusations, witch hunts and conflicts are imminent. You can say it is not about winning or losing, but if you get steamrollered in an edit war, it matters naught, for the one just ran over will feel like he just lost.

It is human nature. And the content loses something, that was perhaps unsuitable in the form reverted but, when talked about and refactored might be worth inclusion. If the content is really unsuitable and un-sourced, but the inserter believes it hard enough and has active comrades to edit war over it then nothing is solved and a large scale edit war ensues. Who prevails is the side that runs out of "3 lives" first and that may not be a random thing where teams have prepared clean skin puppets in advance. And again, content suffers. These prolonged edit wars solve nothing and hurt more than is apparent to the eye. They hurt the will to collaborate, just as "good coin drives out bad".

Are all low activity users and newbies not really socks?

Accusations of being sock- and meatpuppets directed towards newly active or low activity editors are common in content disputes, AfD's and CfD's.

If a newbie dares to agree with any side of a heated dispute someone is bound to accuse that newbie or low activity user of being a sock. This negates all rules about not biting newbies and leaves a rather unpleasant feeling in your heart. It is very degrading, if you are discarded as not being an individual. Making an effort to understand the system before participating is also a fault. This is insane! I personally went through this ordeal with disbelief and became very close to being permanently blocked due to these accusations even though they were groundless and both accusers and blocking administrator knew it. WP:RFCU is not magic and makes mistakes.

But there are those who cheat. And the only way to stop that cheating is to remove the perverse motivation for socks to exist - at least at the level of content disputes. Currently that motivation is 3RR.

[I cannot imagine how many potentially good contributors are lost to our project because of ambiguity in interpretation of checkuser results.

This leaves aside the questionable natural justice in a "judicial procedure" that only permits two common verdicts: "puppet" or "probably a puppet - wait a bit and try again".

If one requests an exculpatory check or verdict for oneself, one is told to "stop fishing".

Even with the Hitler era tribunals in Germany it was technically possible to be acquitted!]

Finding assistance and support is BAD

Why is actually developing Wikipedia so stressful?

It's because asking for help in a dispute is frowned on! Getting more people who agree with you involved in disputes is called canvassing.

Why? Because of 3RR! In terms of 3RR, asking for help would give you an unfair advantage. These people could benefit the content, they could bring sources, they could bring a fresh view, but no, asking them is BAD. Editors' stress levels rise, they get upset and lose focus on the goal. Editors fail to assume good faith and bicker. As a result, the content suffers. And when the content suffers, our project suffers and our readers are misled.

Vision for the future: A better 3RR rule

This faulty "system" can be fixed.

The rules CAN be made good for our content and not for edit warriors.

All it would take is a little change to the current 3RR rule: Call it 3RR^PLUS.

1) Reverts are counted per edit not per editor.

2) If an edit/material removal/material addition has been reverted three times and restored again then further reverts are not allowed without consensus on the article's discussion page.

3) Editors new to the article and reverting in ignorance of the disputed status, are reverted by admins, warned not to revert again (and blocked if the warning is ignored) and attempt dispute resolution on the article's discussion page.

4) Disputed content must be tagged appropriately. If content stays removed, then it is replaced with a comment marker, if it is visible, with an appropriate disputed tag.

Wikipedia needs this change. Come, discuss this on the discussion page of this essay. Let's see what can be done to make Wikipedia a better encyclopaedia and a friendlier environment for editors!

Postscript

More modest proposals include:

(1) "...opening up the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR to reporting a group of editors reverting the same "edit"..." "...that smaller change would be more effective then a wholesale reshelving of the 3RR system"
But: "...people don't take kindly to being grouped with random people. Their reasons for engaging in this activity can differ...and groups is ambiguous..."

(2) I agree with Noroton who would like to make it mandatory that any editor who initiates a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (or WP:AN) (a "complainant") be required to notify the the editor whose action resulted in the complaint. That gives the editor a chance to participate in the discussion and seems only fair. If the complainant has some reason not to notify the editor being complained of, then in the first line(s) of the new discussion, the complainant should state why ("I didn't notify User:X because I feared for my life" or even, "I didn't notify User:Y because I'm just too upset to want to deal with that editor."). Then no discussion would take place after the original posting until the next editor who wanted to participate in the discussion could inform everyone (before making any other comment on the matter) that the editor had been informed.

Actions are taken there, with the authority of administrators, that overrule other editors. It seems like basic decency to at least inform the editor that the storm clouds are building before deciding to throw the thunderbolts.

A suitable template for the notification is to be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:ANI-notice

Wikiword for Today

Wikipsychic: The presumed ability of Wikipedians to know, without having been told, of all edits and debates that are of interest to them, all over Wikipedia, but most especially on the Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion and Wikipedia:Templates for Deletion pages. Those who do not believe in Wikipsychic powers and who inform others of votes and debates commit the Wikiheresies of "votestacking" and "canvassing" and must be condemned to Wikiblocks and Wikistonings.