Wiki Censorship Resolution

From WikiCensorship anti-pattern.

Proposed Resolution: When such a thing occurs, given the current bias of the wiki software, the only acceptable outcome if the WikiCensor? does not behave is the deletion of the topic.

Arguments:

(1) It is entirely unacceptable for any wiki contributor to be actively prevented by a wiki censor to contribute to any particular page.

(2) It is proven by history of wiki and existing pages, that were it not for the malintent and personal misguided ambition, wiki can host heated controversies in which participants refrain from deleting or editing each other's arguments for the reason that even when/if such editing would improve the content, it is important to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The current pattern is that even when one of the parties is absolutely convinced that the other is wrong both parties take it into ThreadMode at extended length, putting every reasonable effort into bringing out all possible arguments on the subject. If the other party can be convinced, and only after the other party is convinced, extensive editing is undertaken. If the other party cannot be convinced (and sometimes it can happen/happens because the matter is entirely subjective), then typically the exchange is refactored in 2 pages: one is XxxTopic? and another one is XxxTopicDiscussion?, the later preserving all the arguments as originally brought in their raw form. The reason for leaving the raw material is, again, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. If the opposite party feels something important was omitted from the main page, he/she is always 1 or 2 easy edits from resurrecting the argument. The XxxTopic? is typically edited to reflect that there are 2 different views on the subject and a link is put to the original exchange, in case the future reader wants to go into extended details. This pattern evolved naturally and was good enough for many controversies or heated exchanges on this wiki. Sometimes, one of the parties comes back a long time afterwards and adds a postscript about his change of mind on the subject.

(3) The above pattern for dealing with controversies should be encouraged, but it cannot work unless all parties involved do a best effort and in good faith to follow it. If one of the parties acts in bad faith, it is next to impossible for the other party to steer the discussion back to following the good pattern. We reach the bad pattern (1). The only real alternative to parties acting in bad faith is deterrence (deletion of the whole subject).

(4) It's true that the resolution in (3) has an unpleasant feeling for many wiki contributors that they perceive as the wrong thing to do. However, there's an argument to be made even for that. Typically, it's mostly RK that acts following the pattern described in (3). That he does that, he professed it himself that that's his proud way of doing things on wiki and he exposed an elaborate justification for doing that with which most wiki contributors who expressed publicly on the matter disagreed. Furthermore, the magnitude of the problem is further reduced by the fact that not even RK follows the pattern in (3) regularly. Typically, when he does it, it's on very heated and controversial subjects, pertaining to or having some tangent with his peculiar way of seeing things about life, philosophy, metaphysics, morality, etc. Such subjects are very likely to be OffTopic on wiki and we could use our energies better on more OnTopic subjects that historically have proven much less likely to follow the pattern in (3).

The concept is good but, as you point out, this requires that all the players subscribe to it. If you get a player whose take is "I don't have to take this from them, how dare they tell me how to interact!" or some variation on this, enforcing this model would be non-viable. When the neighborhood vandals threw eggs on my car, I had to evaluate the benefits vs drawbacks of losing the sleep required to catch them, and decided to just wash the stuff off my car: they have more time to dedicate to vandalism than I have to guard against it. They've made the conscious decision that the rules of "be a good neighbor" and "respect others" don't apply to them. -- GarryHamilton