Can sweet reason still work on en:wp? Occasionally.

[David Gerard-2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Colorado_balloon_incident

Cheers to Bigtimepeace for this one. Read the detailed explanation.


- d.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

I like this. Ideally IAR should never be "invoked", as its not a rule; IAR
should be assumed. That said, I agree with the call and want to give props
for the detailed explanation, which should help smooth things over.

- causa sui

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:40 AM, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:

>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Colorado_balloon_incident
>
> Cheers to Bigtimepeace for this one. Read the detailed explanation.
>
>
> - d.
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> I like this. Ideally IAR should never be "invoked", as its not a rule; IAR
> should be assumed. That said, I agree with the call and want to give props
> for the detailed explanation, which should help smooth things over.

I disagree. Following rules should be the default. We should only
ignore them if we have a good reason to do so. Otherwise, there is no
point having rules at all.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Charles Matthews]

Thomas Dalton wrote:

> 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
>  
>> I like this. Ideally IAR should never be "invoked", as its not a rule; IAR
>> should be assumed. That said, I agree with the call and want to give props
>> for the detailed explanation, which should help smooth things over.
>>    
>
> I disagree. Following rules should be the default. We should only
> ignore them if we have a good reason to do so. Otherwise, there is no
> point having rules at all.
>  

I'm happy with that. As long as we agree that all rules should have a
point, also. If a rule is arbitrary, it needs a specially good point
(example, which side of the road to drive on).

Charles


_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>wrote:

> 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> > I like this. Ideally IAR should never be "invoked", as its not a rule;
> IAR
> > should be assumed. That said, I agree with the call and want to give
> props
> > for the detailed explanation, which should help smooth things over.
>
> I disagree. Following rules should be the default. We should only
> ignore them if we have a good reason to do so. Otherwise, there is no
> point having rules at all.
>
>

This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not itself
a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added by
saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X" where
X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well skip
to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because X",
just say "I did this because X."

- causa sui
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
> that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
> allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not itself
> a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added by
> saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X" where
> X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well skip
> to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because X",
> just say "I did this because X."

It's not a misunderstanding, it is an understanding of how things
actually work in the real world. "X" will need to include an
explanation of why the usual rules don't apply (that may be obvious
from just explanation why what you did was a good idea), so it makes
sense to acknowledge from the beginning that you aren't following the
usual rules.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>wrote:

> 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> > This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
> > that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
> > allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not
> itself
> > a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added
> by
> > saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X"
> where
> > X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well
> skip
> > to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because
> X",
> > just say "I did this because X."
>
> It's not a misunderstanding, it is an understanding of how things
> actually work in the real world. "X" will need to include an
> explanation of why the usual rules don't apply (that may be obvious
> from just explanation why what you did was a good idea), so it makes
> sense to acknowledge from the beginning that you aren't following the
> usual rules.
>
>

Do you think a reason X that persuaded you that A was the right thing to do
despite rule R that seems to forbid A would cause you to believe that the
rules didn't apply, or would you need to be specifically reminded of that
fact every time?

- causa sui
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...> wrote:
> This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
> that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
> allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not itself
> a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added by
> saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X" where
> X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well skip
> to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because X",
> just say "I did this because X."

And WP:IAR has said as much at various times; but such explanation
tends to be unstable because it eventually leads to people attempting
to codify rules regulating when it is permissible to IAR.  O_o

That said, sometimes after you've said "I did this because it was the
right thing to do caused no harm, and because failing to do this would
cause harm and rules X,Y,Z were created without any consideration of
this case, and ..." several times only be to be rebutted by some
person who, without refuting any aspect of your position, keeps
pointing out your flagrant violation of the strict letter of rule
27B/6 ... well, about the only thing to do is to cite back WP:IAR as a
rule. At that moment the rule-pushers head will either explode, or
he'll go burn himself out trying to edit war on WP:IAR, either way
your problem is solved. (or so you hope!)

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@...> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>
> wrote:
> > This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
> > that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
> > allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not
> itself
> > a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added
> by
> > saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X"
> where
> > X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well
> skip
> > to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because
> X",
> > just say "I did this because X."
>
> And WP:IAR has said as much at various times; but such explanation
> tends to be unstable because it eventually leads to people attempting
> to codify rules regulating when it is permissible to IAR.  O_o
>
> That said, sometimes after you've said "I did this because it was the
> right thing to do caused no harm, and because failing to do this would
> cause harm and rules X,Y,Z were created without any consideration of
> this case, and ..." several times only be to be rebutted by some
> person who, without refuting any aspect of your position, keeps
> pointing out your flagrant violation of the strict letter of rule
> 27B/6 ... well, about the only thing to do is to cite back WP:IAR as a
> rule. At that moment the rule-pushers head will either explode, or
> he'll go burn himself out trying to edit war on WP:IAR, either way
> your problem is solved. (or so you hope!)
>

This is an important point. A proper application of IAR should go unnoticed
-- at least, by everyone except the "rules are rules" folks who memorize the
laws and are ready to deliver citations for all your transgressions whenever
you step a quarter inch out of line. If what you did was a good idea and
everyone agrees it was a good idea, nobody should even notice that it was
against the rules or that IAR was necessary. Explicitly announcing that you
are invoking IAR rarely accomplishes more than triggering "rules are rules"
responses and starting up another round of the perennial IAR interpretation
debates. (See what has happened in this very thread?)

-causa sui
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> Do you think a reason X that persuaded you that A was the right thing to do
> despite rule R that seems to forbid A would cause you to believe that the
> rules didn't apply, or would you need to be specifically reminded of that
> fact every time?

I would like the person ignoring the rules to make it clear they are
aware of the rules and that it is a concious decision to ignore them
because it is the right thing to do and no just someone not
understanding why we usually do it another way. (Of course, that is
for the "rules getting in the way" reason for invoking IAR, not the
"policy pages are too long to read so I'll just do what seems right"
reasons - admins should only be using the former reason, we expect
them to already be familiar with policy.)

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> This is an important point. A proper application of IAR should go unnoticed
> -- at least, by everyone except the "rules are rules" folks who memorize the
> laws and are ready to deliver citations for all your transgressions whenever
> you step a quarter inch out of line. If what you did was a good idea and
> everyone agrees it was a good idea, nobody should even notice that it was
> against the rules or that IAR was necessary. Explicitly announcing that you
> are invoking IAR rarely accomplishes more than triggering "rules are rules"
> responses and starting up another round of the perennial IAR interpretation
> debates. (See what has happened in this very thread?)

In an ideal world, that is how things would work. We don't live in an
ideal world. What actually happens is people complain that you having
followed the rules and never get as far as reading your explanation.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>wrote:

> 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> > This is an important point. A proper application of IAR should go
> unnoticed
> > -- at least, by everyone except the "rules are rules" folks who memorize
> the
> > laws and are ready to deliver citations for all your transgressions
> whenever
> > you step a quarter inch out of line. If what you did was a good idea and
> > everyone agrees it was a good idea, nobody should even notice that it was
> > against the rules or that IAR was necessary. Explicitly announcing that
> you
> > are invoking IAR rarely accomplishes more than triggering "rules are
> rules"
> > responses and starting up another round of the perennial IAR
> interpretation
> > debates. (See what has happened in this very thread?)
>
> In an ideal world, that is how things would work. We don't live in an
> ideal world. What actually happens is people complain that you having
> followed the rules and never get as far as reading your explanation.
>
>

You're right-- we don't live in an ideal world, and people often do insist
on inappropriately citing policy as a response to a reasoned argument. You
might notice that usually the people who do this do it on the basis of
arguments rather like the ones you are making in this thread.

-- causa sui
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/21 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> You're right-- we don't live in an ideal world, and people often do insist
> on inappropriately citing policy as a response to a reasoned argument. You
> might notice that usually the people who do this do it on the basis of
> arguments rather like the ones you are making in this thread.

I don't see the connection between blindly applying policy and
observing that things don't always work the way we would like them
to...

We have policies for a reason - they tend to work well and it helps us
be consistent, which is usually desirable. There is no point having
those policies if we don't consider them the default way to make
decisions, so it makes perfect sense to me that a person deciding to
go against policy should have a duty to explain why (at least if
somebody asks them to - if there are no objections then obviously no
explanation is needed, but there usually are objections so many people
choose to pre-empt them). That explanation could take many forms, but
the simplest way would usually be to explain why the situation in
question is substantially different from the situations the people
that wrote the policy had in mind. Then, once you've established that
existing policy should be disregarded, you can explain why a
particular course of action in the best idea. If you try and explain
that before establishing that the policy shouldn't apply then you are
essentially contesting the policy and that requires a much bigger
discussion than is required to just decide what to do in a specific
situation.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[William Pietri]

Ryan Delaney wrote:
> [...] Since IAR is not itself
> a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added by
> saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X" where
> X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well skip
> to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because X",
> just say "I did this because X."

Are folks here familiar with the shu ha ri model?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/ShuHaRi.html

You can think of it as roughly equivalent to apprentice, journeyman, and
master. This division has been useful to me in my work, helping people
adopting software development methods. In particular, I end up
explaining things differently.

People at the shu level are very focused on rules and rituals. People at
the ri level have transcended them. In that framework, IAR is an
explicit shu-level indicator that there are other levels to work at, and
that rule-followers should honor that.

Given that, I think shu-level participants can sometimes use an explicit
mention that IAR is being invoked, even if it is almost insultingly
obvious to the ri-level participants. In other contexts, IAR is
unnecessary; power structures lets masters do what they want anyhow. But
as in so many other ways, Wikipedia is different.

William

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[stevertigo-2]

On 10/20/09, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
> 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney@...>:
> > This is an important point. A proper application of IAR should go unnoticed
> > -- at least, by everyone except the "rules are rules" folks who memorize the
> > laws and are ready to deliver citations for all your transgressions whenever
> > you step a quarter inch out of line.
>
> In an ideal world, that is how things would work. We don't live in an
> ideal world. What actually happens is people complain that you having
> followed the rules and never get as far as reading your explanation.

What I gather just from a glance is that its not so much an IAR
argument as it is a VIE (voting is evil) argument, and he evokes IAR
just as a procedural justification.

He's right - not that voting itself is evil, but in our context we
need and want to make intelligent editorial decisions. That means
making qualitative discernements about the voting arguments - not just
quantifying votes into a running count.
Formally, we don't currently discern according to editor "quality" -
we just don't have the means to do so. But we also don't formally make
efforts to discern the quality of arguments, and that's why - in spite
of it being "evil" - the formal method is still just basic
quantification.

So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that
we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid,
arguments, from those that aren't? Other than "IAR" that is?

-Steven

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Surreptitiousness]

stevertigo wrote:
> So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that
> we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid,
> arguments, from those that aren't? Other than "IAR" that is?
>
>  
Didn't we used to reformat discussions? Maybe we need to re-integrate
that into our tool-box.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/10/22 Surreptitiousness <surreptitious.wikipedian@...>:
> stevertigo wrote:
>> So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that
>> we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid,
>> arguments, from those that aren't? Other than "IAR" that is?
>>
>>
> Didn't we used to reformat discussions? Maybe we need to re-integrate
> that into our tool-box.

You mean refactoring? Refactoring an ongoing discussion is usually
very controversial and not worth the drama. Refactoring a closed
discussion might make a more useful archive, particularly I'm not sure
archives get read enough to be worth the effort.

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Charles Matthews]

Surreptitiousness wrote:

> stevertigo wrote:
>  
>> So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that
>> we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid,
>> arguments, from those that aren't? Other than "IAR" that is?
>>
>>  
>>    
> Didn't we used to reformat discussions? Maybe we need to re-integrate
> that into our tool-box.
>  

Refactoring talk pages being one of those things that work in theory but
not in practice, I can see why it became less popular (perhaps is
extinct). These days some pages with many talk archives could probably
do with their own FAQ.

Charles


_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Carcharoth]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews@...> wrote:

> Surreptitiousness wrote:
>> stevertigo wrote:
>>
>>> So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that
>>> we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid,
>>> arguments, from those that aren't? Other than "IAR" that is?
>>>
>> Didn't we used to reformat discussions? Maybe we need to re-integrate
>> that into our tool-box.
>>
> Refactoring talk pages being one of those things that work in theory but
> not in practice, I can see why it became less popular (perhaps is
> extinct). These days some pages with many talk archives could probably
> do with their own FAQ.

Indeed. There is a bot that can help index talk page archives. I'll
give details below.

The best talk page archives ones are accessible both chronologically,
and by topic, and have a well-organised FAQ to pick out the main
points for people new to the article. This does, of course, presume
that lengthy talk page archives are needed for all articles (some need
very little talk page discussion at all). Some subject are genuinely
controversial (i.e. in the real-world as well as here) and need
discussion. Others are more cranks or obsessives arguing back and
forth endlessly. Or politically-active people soapboxing.  Wikipedia
deals with that very poorly.

The best articles, unsurprisingly, are where a good team of editors
and writers (and not too large a team either) work together to produce
a great article. It would be great if that sort of teamwork happened
on some of the messy articles, but the very existence of
highly-charged emotions puts off some of the people that could help
fix things. And some people are happy to just argue incessantly,
rather than move forward and end up with a better article.

Details are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Workshop&oldid=311599558#Proposals_by_Carcharoth

More links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Read_the_archives

Examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Intelligent_design/FAQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Barack_Obama/FAQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Global_warming/FAQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Evolution/FAQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Muhammad/FAQ

Search for talk page FAQs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search=%22FAQ%22&fulltext=Search&ns1=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext=Advanced+search

Search for indexed archives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&ns1=1&redirs=1&advanced=1&search=%22Archive+index%22&limit=250&offset=0

Talk page archive indexing bot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:HBC_Archive_Indexerbot

Examples of bot-generated indexes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Iran/Archive_index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:United_States/Archive_index

Example of manually maintained talk page archive index:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Che_Guevara/Archive_index

How successful these approaches are, does need some looking at.

Carcharoth

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[stevertigo-2]

Carcharoth <carcharothwp@...> wrote:
> Indeed. There is a bot that can help index talk page archives. I'll
> give details below.

Well, while I see the value in raising indexing as a process, I still
have to point out that we aren't talking about talk pages and
organizing them topically for later ease of reference (ie. WP:OBT) ,
but the "refactoring" of actual "vote" discussions wherein we have to
make collective qualitative discernments about the merit of individual
arguments.

In that context we of course realize that IAR is not an actual
solution, and we are now starting to talk about process methods for
dealing with discussions in a meta way. At this point it requires
mentioning that what we are really talking about is in part a rating
system for comments integrated into talk pages, similar to a Scoop or
Slash system. I'm not certain this is a current or even planned
functionality in Liquid Threads, but in any case it seems that the LT
project (or some better-thought out derivation) should be regarded as
a high-priority ("usability") project that we need to put more coders
to work on. AIUI, keeping things still "wiki" - such that discussions
still have basic wiki re-factoring capability seems (typically enough)
to be both a high principle, and an obstruction.

Aside from the rating component, we should consider comment length as
a factor in how sub-comments are nested - some comments are just short
votes of support for an above argument. Nesting those beneath a main
argument seems necessary. In the wild, typically see four basic
dimensions within a discussion:
1) long posts with lots of substance
2) short posts with lots of substance
3) long posts with little substance
4) short posts with little substance

Simplistic, true, and its often hard to atomize long posts -
substantive or not  (which is why I like line-by-line replies). But
ranking helps get rid of the bottom two kinds of posts. Proper nesting
can deal with how the first two interrelate. After that, its possible
to use the tool improperly, where ranking *can indicate which of the
substantive arguments are dominant, but reliance on this can raise the
voting fallacy issue all over again. But what of it? At least 3 and 4
are disposed of, and 1 and 2 are put in place.

-Steven

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l