Contribution Or Contention

Which produces the most desirable results ThinkingOutLoud.DonaldNoyes.20110707

It seems there are at least two possibilities, when one considers modifications or additions to this wiki:

Contributions

Contentions

If you are capable of either, do more of the first and less of the second.

It seems that when contributions are offered that editors seem to prefer disagreement to augmentation. It is easier it seems for readers become editors to find fault or bring up exceptions and contentions rather than contributing enhancements and extensions to the initial presentation.

What do you think?

I am all in favour of collaboration and augmentation, but the quality of some contributions leaves no room for either. When the entirety of a submission is poor, the only alternatives are to:

1. Edit it.

2. Disagree with it.

3. Replace it.

Option 3 is a form of DisagreeByDeleting and option 1 risks an EditWar if the originator doesn't agree with the edits, so that leaves the only option: 2. Disagree with it.

What about adding a new item #4:

That's often an element of "2. Disagree with it." Whilst you might offer convincing alternatives in order to play Devil's advocate or ensure all points are represented, more often it's because you disagree with the original viewpoint.

One way of contributing on this wiki is to make links between material contributed by different people who were unaware of each others contribution. One form of this is to collect more pages into a category, when a pattern of information often becomes aparent. I have been around here so long I sometimes come across my own previous contributions which I have forgotten about. -- JohnFletcher

Folks, don't we already have a mechanism in place for the resolution of these situations? (Hint: think ThesisAntithesisSynthesis) To wit: "split the page into three parts: Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, none of which are signed. Most of the threads can be summarized in Thesis and Antithesis. A few may fall into Synthesis. As time goes by, maybe Synthesis grows until thesis and antithesis fall away. Or maybe not; still it'll look clean, and more thread mode discussion can be appended if necessary, then swept up into one of the three piles when viewpoints meet/polarize."

See: StructuredContention

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