User talk:Brews ohare/Dealing with minority views

Problems with the proposal

I see a number of issues with this proposal. I may extend this list as time allows.

• Encourages perpetual, low-level edit warring

  This proposal, as written, appears to endorse perpetual low-level edit warring in order to restrain the inappropriate addition of fringe viewpoints to articles. ("[The majority] can use the WP:3RR rule to permanently revert any Main page edits by the minority.")

  The only way to stop the ongoing edit warring is to conduct a bureaucratic poll.

• Presumed 'right of inclusion'

  The presumption of this document is always that the 'minority' (i.e. 'fringe') viewpoint is actually appropriate for the article, neglecting any reference to or understanding of WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOT, WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, etc. If a proposed inclusion is rejected, there is no provision to say to fringe editors "enough, already". The onus is placed on holders of the majority, mainstream view to perform a detailed critique of all new proposals. The fringe editors are encouraged not to take no for an answer, but to simply reformulate their proposal for resubmission ad infinitum.

• Time sink for holders of minority views

  The process encourages holders of a minority viewpoint to waste their own time by expressly discouraging the contribution or involvement of 'majority' editors in the formulation or discussion of their proposals. This will lead to the disillusionment and frustration of naive minority editors who are suddenly shocked to discover that their smoothly-progressing proposal is actually widely objected to.

• Requirements imposed on the 'majority' are unreasonable

  The requirement for "careful Talk page explanation of the reasoning involved" with "guideline violations...to be explained in detail, referring carefully to exactly the wording or sources that are considered violations" for every single reverted edit is unreasonably onerous. Saying the same thing over and over again is a waste of time. "That explanation does not consist of dangling about WP:OR, WP:POV and other guideline acronyms..." — This appears to be an attempt to reactivate a resoundingly defeated policy proposal which Brews made a few weeks ago which aimed to bar all use of policy shortcuts in edit summaries as incivil.

On a related note, I drafted a never-quite finished essay in my userspace about a year ago, called The Policy Reform Treadmill, or Why the Cabal Killed Your Proposal. While it was mostly written with a recent spate of de-adminship process proposals in mind, there are distinct similarities with the present situation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades: I believe that to a large extent you have read the essay not as a number of suggestions, but as legislation that must be applied. Most probably the suggestions will be resorted to only after some trouble arises, just like the engineer who reads the directions to a construction kit only when his intuition hasn't worked. Brews ohare (talk) 18:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nonetheless, you raise a number of points. I wonder if you would take the time to suggest some rewording that might meet your reservations? Brews ohare (talk) 18:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Below are my initial reactions to your points:

• Low-level edit warring: my objective here was to reassure the majority of their de facto veto power to encourage them to take a mediatory stance. Apparently I haven't succeeded. I have made three suggestions to deal with the minority: persuasion, 3RR and reaching a majority opinion about Main page edits that can be used as a clear case for AN/I. Do you have other suggestions?
• Right of inclusion: The essay suggests that the minority present a proposed addition to the majority on the Talk page for their comments. That doesn't sound like a "right of inclusion" to me. The majority is invited to use WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOT, WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, etc in their appraisal with the suggestion that they explain the use of guidelines, and not expect the minority to read minds in order to understand what is being talked about. Do you have some suggestions to make this more clear?
• Time sink: the suggestion is that the majority detail their objections at the stage of a proposed contribution rather than actively engaging in the minority deliberations. However, constructive majority participation is encouraged. Have you read this correctly, and could you suggest some rewording?
• Unreasonable requirements: The essay suggests reference to the exact wording that is considered a violation of a guideline. That is, of course, a suggestion, and will be brought up by the parties only when it is a problem. The problem normally arises when the majority assumes it understands the minority, but actually has not. That misconception is then attacked with guidelines, when what actually was meant doesn't fit at all. This kind of "mistaken identity" is at the bottom of a lot of dispute and can be avoided by forcing the actual wording used to be addressed, not some paraphrase or elliptical summary used like a Procrustean bed by the majority. How can this be worded better? Brews ohare (talk) 18:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades has declined to contribute further. Brews ohare (talk) 22:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Finell

This proposed essay misstates and conflicts with existing policies and guidelines, and therefore cannot be published as an essay in project space. Consensus explicitly is not about majority rule, and the majority does not always get its way. 3RR explicitly is not a right. Wikipedia and its talk pages are not about the rights of majorities, minorities, or individuals. Wikipedia and its talk pages are about building an encyclopedia and building consensus as to its contents. This proposed essay reads like proposed rules for warfare. Wikipedia is not a battleground, and editors who try to make it into one have problems here. This proposed essay appears to be based on the unstated misconception that Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and processes broke down in the Speed of light arbitration. It is understandable that editors who were sanctioned feel that way. Nevertheless, that case dealt appropriately with editors who were violating Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and thereby disrupting the project of writing an encyclopedia. —Finell (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

—Finell: I believe that battlegrounds do develop on Talk pages, and a problem exists. This essay is not a rehash of Speed of light arbitration, although the behavior on Talk: Speed of light, even today, certainly is an example of what can go wrong when tempers rise and matters go to arbitration.

It is evident that an essay is a suggestion as to actions that might mitigate or avoid a mêlée. Perhaps you have some suggestions of your own that might do this? It doesn't help to say such problems don't arise: they do. Brews ohare (talk) 17:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Finell has declined to contribute further. Brews ohare (talk) 22:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Count Iblis

I think this is a very good essay. Some comments. Reading Ten's comment about low level edit warring above, I think you could simply reverse the argument and say that for the minority to add some text in an artiucle against the will of the majority would necessarily lead to edit warring and lead to Adminstrative intervention. If you put it this way then the text doesn't encourage any edit warring anymore.

I think you also need to write up your essay such that it is clear that Finell's objections are not justified. You could make the introduction larger and explain there that while Wikipedia should not be a battlefield, there are sectors in Wikipedia where there are tensions and a Minority/minority split unfortunately does exists.

You write about the majority prerogatives in point 1 that:

"That explanation does not consist of dangling about WP:OR, WP:POV and other guideline acronyms as though they are self-explanatory."

I think you should add WP:RS here, as that is very often invoked on politcs pages. In the science articles it is very often not an issue because we have very clear cut boundaries between reliable peer reviewed sources and everything else that is non-peer reviewed. On politics pages, WP:RS is often a huge issue.

Example. A long time ago when I was editing the Hamas page, there was a dispute about a sentence saying that "Hamas is best known for conducting suicide bombings" I wanted to change that into someting that would be less contentious. The contentious element here is the "best known" part of the statement. But because a reliable source said this, the people in favor of keeping that sentence could not be conviced.

My compromize proposal was to simply say that: "Hamas is responsible for suicide bombings" or something similar, and then giving the citations for that. The problem with "best known" is of course, that the source that says this is simply giving the opinion of the author who looks at this issue from a certain perspective. It was not based on some poll. But I could not get that argument through because that was OR.

You write about the involvement of the majority in discusssions among the minority:

"The majority should refrain from participating in these threads except to assist the minority in meeting the majority objections. Catcalls, snowballing, bandwagonning, sneers, red herrings and other disruptions to the minority threads are violations of WP:Civil."

It may be better to be a priori more positive toward any engagement by the majority in these discussion. So, you could say that constructive criticism is ok., before saying what they should not do. Also, note that very often a "red herring" is a well meant example that can be shown to be irrelevant. Count Iblis (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've modified the essay in response to your comments, and would appreciate a further evaluation. Brews ohare (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it reads better on these points. In point 1 you write that: "They can use the WP:3RR rule to permanently revert any Main page edits". Perhaps you could reformulate this so that it doesn't read like a licence to edit war. Perhaps by writing that a minority cannot prevail against the will of the majority as any attempt to do so will result in edit warring.

You could perhaps also look at some reasons why you get polarization into two camps in the first place and what can be done to get prevent that. Some time ago I read this interesting article which can perhaps also be applied to Wikipedia :) . Count Iblis (talk) 02:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for those suggestions; I made a stab at following them and included that paper as a source. Be happy to make further modifications, please suggest some more. Brews ohare (talk) 18:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein's comments

I am responding to a request I saw at the DE page. First, I think that (at least as far as disruptive editing goes) the real problem is already covered by WP:Tag team. If you think I am wrong - that this essay covers a different problem - fine, but my adice would be to read over that policy carefully, think about what makes this different, and then revise this to make it really clear where this fits in among other WP essays, guidelines, and policies, like th one on tag-teaming.

Second, as I read the essay there is a slippage between talking about Wikipedia editors, and talking about "significant views from reliable sources" i.e. what WP policy requires. For example, a group of Wikipedia editors who are in the minority may actually be trying to get into the article what is the majority view of relevant people (non-Wikipedians). For example, it is conceivabl that two or three people are fighting against everyone on the Mythology article (I am just picking the name out of a hat, this is a purely hypothetical example)to make sure that what is really th majority or evenmainstream view of historians of religion, folklorists, and anthropologists is included in the article. I understand the point that yo want to make: (1) Wikipedia policy holds that mainstream, majority, and minority views are represented proportionately in artcicles (2) a concerted and coordinated minority of editors can be screwing this up. I get that, and I agree it is a problem. But you have to be much clearer in this essay that the majority and minority views that should be represented in artcles are not the majority and minority views of Wikipedians i.e. the views held by a majority of Wikipedians or held by a minority of Wikipedians. In an articl on dentists, we mean a majority of dentists, not a majority of Wikipedians.; We mean the minority view of dentists, not the view of a minority of Wikipedians. I think this is not clear in the essay and you really have to be crystal clear about this. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'll think about your suggestions and modify the article when I have a bit more time. Brews ohare (talk) 18:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought

Wouldn't a subpage be better than a thread for this purpose? Peter jackson (talk) 11:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Glkanter's thoughts

Using the Monty Hall problem as my sole research, you left out one important item: attrition.

People with any sense would have long ago given up the MHP battle. I'm the worst example of this. In this case, it's *not* the majority who is dominating the article in the ways you describe. Countless 'majority' editors have exercised good judgment, and left the conflict.

I'm not certain any amount of rules will fix things. There is one editor at the MHP who I have disagreed with on every interpretation of Wikipedia policy he has ever stated. I can't 'prove' him wrong, and I'm not optimistic that any Wiki-judicial body ever would.

Now, if you want to discuss admins, and how they frequently respond forcefully, then defensively, when they have not gathered enough info about a dispute, let's go! Glkanter (talk) 11:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Your observations do cast more light upon the problem. Attrition is the result of a badly working system, and takes the form of departure of many from editing WP altogether because of the ridiculous environment here. I've written a few other essays about improving this situation (they are linked on User:Brews ohare), but not only will they never be considered, no formal mechanism for improvement of the operations on WP is envisioned. In fact, a better system isn't dreamt of. Without any vision, well:

You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream

How you gonna have a dream come true?

Happy Talk, South Pacific

Brews ohare (talk) 15:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)