Wiki Zens Tolerating Flames

I rarely see WikiZens step in to stop or curtail AdHominem attacks. Yet many complain about raging FlameWars. If you want a nicer wiki, then why not intervene? I believe I personally don't start most of them (although admit to retaliation), but if I do start one, a friendly reminder is welcome. -top

Actually, you start the vast majority of them. You spout nonsense, we point out the nonsense, you defend your nonsense with more nonsense, we get exasperated, it all goes wrong, The End. However, I don't think you start the FlameWars deliberately. I think your intentions are genuine, perhaps even noble, but you have a unique talent for a weirdly unsupported speculation, presented as pseudo-fact, that some of us find mind-bogglingly irritating.

By "start" do you mean via actual name-calling, or some other "sin" that "deserves" retaliation via name-calling? Please clarify. I am skeptical that I'm usually the first to actually insult people personally, such as "you are stupid". As far as other sins, such as "spouting nonsense", I wont address that here in an attempt to keep the topic on-topic. Take other communication "sins" to another topic, please. (Note: I believe YOU spout nonsense because of your anti-scientific argument-via-elegance stance. I suspect projection above. I can accept somebody personally preferring argument-via-elegance over science, but to insist that the people who don't readily accept it are somehow badly wrong or evil and therefore "deserve" AdHominem is going to far.)

You're right. No one "deserves" AdHominem attacks. They're reflective of frustration. That does not, however, make them right.

And for the sake of argument, if the other party is delusional or mentally ill, is AdHominem going to fix them?

Excellent point. No, it won't. Nothing will.

I don't agree with "nothing will". However, the solution, if there is one, will require lots of patience and probably skill in the field of mental health. Together, those are not something one is likely to find on this wiki.

Actually, I have a lot of the former, and extensive experience with the latter in both professional and personal capacities. Hence, my assessment that "nothing will" fix them. To put a finer point on it, no amount of words will fix them. A wiki is nowt but words; fixing power = zero.

WikiIsNotFair, and at times I still fall into the trap of thinking that it should be. Wiki is about who is in the majority at the given time, and the majority gets its way. If Wiki is currently unfair toward you, wait awhile and see what the next generation of users are like. One can always recruit more support for one's side (point of view) to Wiki. --AnonymousDonor

Perhaps, but I hope at least enough WikiZens want to have it unfair in a semi-civilized way such that they squelch flame-wars and try to return both parties back to the topic. The issue of this topic is name-calling, not necessarily fairness. If we solve that problem, then it may improve fairness to a noticeable extent. Or at least make this wiki a bit more pleasant. -BlackHat

This is an interesting discussion. I have on several occasions been tempted to intervene when two people have been having a robust discussion. The difficulty is to figure out how to intervene without getting drawn into the argument. Maybe a wiki badge such as ChildRen? or BackOff? might be appropriate? I have preferred instead to get on with my own reasons for being on C2. I do intervene often to restore pages which have been messed up for one reason or another. --JohnFletcher