Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Freakofnurture reverts of Tedernst: mediation needed?

Freakofnurture reverts of Tedernst: mediation needed?

(Let me start by saying this is my first edit on this page; I have no horse in this race and no opinion on any disputes in progress, and am attempting to offer myself as a consensus-builder.)

Please look at this list of Freakofnurture (talk · contribs) 's recent edits. This editor reverted 79 of Tedernst (talk · contribs)'s edits to make dab pages meet this MoS guide.

I wonder if one or both of these editors are in violation of WP:POINT. While there may be cases where Tedernst's changes resulted in loss of information from the dab page, there are some cases where there seems to be no possible argument for harm on Tedernst's part. For instance, see this edit — as far as I can tell, the only effect of this edit was to revert an article which complied with the MoS into one that once again did not.

I will invite both users to please discuss these changes here. I have a question for each:

1. To Freakofnurture: did you read these edits and make a case-by-case decision on whether to revert them? Or did you simply mass-revert these 79 edits?
2. To Tedernst: did you consider the possibility in each case as to whether this MoS should properly be ignored, or were you being overly bureaucratic with respect to this style guide?

I will monitor this discussion and attempt to mediate if I can. This is unacceptable behavior on someone's part — let's get to a consensus. --TreyHarris 07:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Dude, this talk page is too busy for this mediation. Move it to subpage or something.--Commander Keane 08:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

This mediation — I think — is relevant to this page and the disputes that have gone on recently. I haven't heard either side yet, but from the looks of it I think it's a case of POINT, not just poor judgment on the part of two editors. If it does turn out to be of limited relevancy to the larger issues, I will move it to a subpage. Let's get Freakofnurture and Tedernst's responses first. --TreyHarris 08:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

This is definitely a case of Tedernst being overly bureaucratic. The MoS is obviously incomplete, so it is wrong to say that "because X is not mentioned in the MoS, it shouldn't be allowed". I'm alright with anyone proposing any change, just not with them using bad rationale. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-31 16:12

I was informed by a fellow administrator (via IRC) that Tedernst was on a rampage, and that he needed help reverting Tedernst's changes. I took a random sample of Tedernst's contributions and found that they usually did one or more of the following things:

1. Removed all context (i.e. hints to the reader as to which link to click on next)
2. Removed {{geodis}} and {{hndis}} in favor of the generic {{disambig}}, even when all possibilities listed fell squarely into a more specific category.
3. Removed evidence that the disambiguation page had ever been edited by somebody familiar with the topic. See for example Záluží which was created by Pavel Vozenilek who clearly stated that there are other villages by that name.

So I proceded to revert as advised. This morning I reviewed all 79 of the reverts and in many cases reverted myself, and in other cases changed the page to yet a third version. I apologize for slapping anybody's face — perhaps I picked the wrong diffs to sample. I'm done dealing with this now. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 16:06, Dec. 31, 2005

Thanks for your input. --TreyHarris 23:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It was just a miscommunication between myself and Freakofnurture. Tedernst decided to go forward with his proposal of redirecting all the disambig templates to the same one, and getting rid of all the disambig subcategories, effectively undoing hundreds or thousands of edits, without much discussion at all. I didn't know how widespread his actions were, just that they needed to be reverted, so I asked for help in #wikipedia. There's no need for mediation; it was just a miscommunication. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-31 16:08

I don't understand why rollback was used to revert. Rollback is for vandalism, and Tedernst edits were not vandalism (if they were, wouldn't a {{test2a}} tag been put on his userpage?). Could someone explain this to me?--Commander Keane 17:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Commander Keane - this rollback was a sledgehammer approach to tackle a relatively small problem with an editor acting in good faith that was in some ... many, but not all by any means ... cases contrary to established consensus that has not been explicitly codified in the wording of the MoS. I agree with the notion that codification of all consensus as written guideline is a tough thing to do and that someone coming in and reading a MoS then applying those guidelines without considering both precedent and unwritten consensus is a problem waiting to happen. That doesn't equate to vandalism and doesn't justify a blanket rollback - no matter how annoyed individual editors might be. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:10, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for setting the record straight, Brian. I agree that mediation (at least between Freakofnurture and Tedernst) is unneeded, but I think Commander Keane and Ceyockey make good points above that should be addressed. --TreyHarris 23:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Observations

It appears to me (again, not getting involved in this dispute, but just making observations) that the current MoS will have the effect, in many cases, of deleting some information from disambiguation pages. (It appears that what information gets deleted is one of the disputes in process — do you keep the dab pigeonhole subcategories, do you keep interesting information in bullet points, etc.) Not to condemn this MoS; I am just pointing out that if a codicil of "except when it will delete information" were added, which seems to be what some are suggesting, then this MoS would cease to have any effect except in the degenerate cases. It seems to me that part of the dispute is precisely about what the difference is between the trivial and in-between cases, and where to draw the line between losing important information and simply streamlining a dab page to conform with other dab pages. While it's undoubtedly true that this MoS is not complete and finalized, that's true of every policy on Wikipedia. This one is less complete and final than most MoS's, but one can't say it therefore has no force as a guideline.

I would urge Tedernst and others to consider, for now, standardizing just those dab pages that will be mostly unaffected by the outcome of current debate, and would suggest that others refrain from reverting without explanation and a case-by-case reading. Certainly a rollback seems incredibly heavy-handed for the behavior being responded to. This isn't rocket-science; it's just WP:POINT and standard Wikiquette.

I do worry that I won't be the first to see behavior that seems to need mediation, though, because complying with this MoS, as it currently stands, will often delete information. Many folks take a very dim view of information getting deleted and will revert that, without mercy, and certainly without bothering to read this MoS, let alone the discussion of its finer points. You have the potential of creating edit wars across thousands of pages.

The standardization of non-trivial cases should be discussed on talk pages first. Yes, that will probably result in completion of disambiguation page standardization taking much longer than if you just hammered away at standardization without discussion, but it's worth it, I think. You might consider a noncompliance tag template to leave on talk pages; in many cases, the editors who already have edited the dab page will figure out the best way to comply themselves, and you won't have revert wars. --TreyHarris 23:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I still have not not recieved satisfaction on the rollback issue. Take a look at Wikipedia:Rollback. Using rollback is not just "incredibly heavy-handed" it is unacceptable - a violation of the trust that was given to Freakofnurture at her/his RfA. I would like to see a statement from Freakofnurture saying that s/he understands the violation and will never use the rollback to revert non-vandalism ever again (possilby TreyHarris could encourage a response)--Commander Keane 10:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC).

I haven't reviewed all of my edits that were reverted yet, or subsequent edits on those pages. I'm not sure what the current status of this issue is. If there is a dispute with my form of editing, I hope someone will being it to my attention. I will not remove any of the subcategory disambiguation tags until there is a larger consensus; see the topic above this one on this page.

As for the context issue, please point out specifically where I'm taking away needed information. I do review every single item before taking away information so if I'm working under a premis that's in dispute, I need to know so we can resolve without my edits simply being reverted all the time.

As for the removing of information that a knowledgeable editor edited the page, I have no idea what this is about. These are disambiguation pages and shouldn't require any speical knowledge, as far as I know.

And what happens with the rollback issue? Tedernst | talk 02:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "If there is a dispute with my form of editing, I hope someone will being it to my attention." Have you read any comments on this page regarding the editing you have done? That's meant to be a rhetorical question. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course I've read the comments, the the fact that you're trying to be funny. But no one has yet to come to me with something specific about the way I edit. I've had plenty of complaints about specific pages and when we talk about them, we seem to have some agreement.

Now I've been mass-reverted without explanation, an abuse of admin power, it seems to me. So what happens next? Tedernst | talk 04:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

As for the context issue, please point out specifically where I'm taking away needed information. You're begging the question here by adding "needed". My point was that this MoS, applied as written, deletes information under the assumption that it's unneeded information, but many editors will interpret any information deletion as damage, and will revert. As I have said before, I am not here to get involved in the ongoing dispute, which seems to revolve around exactly what information in current noncompliant dab pages is "needed". I am simply pointing out that, if you proceed with performing a large number of non-trivial compliance edits without discussion on the dab pages' talk pages, as you did the other day, you can expect to get reverted.

That said, while I agree with Commander Keane's reading of Wikipedia:Revert with regards to admin rollbacks — see in particular the quote from Brion Vibber — I don't see the overall effect here, with regards to the present dispute, as being any different from if non-admins had manually reverted each of your dab page compliance edits. Should you choose to make a complaint against one or more of the admins responsible for rollbacks, I will lend supporting documentation (let me know on my talk page), but this is not the place to do that.

Brian approached Freakofnurture because he saw information that he apparently thought was "needed" being deleted in the course of your compliance edits. Freakofnurture responded by rolling back — behavior that I agree is not in line with the guidelines in Wikipedia:Revert. However, in response to my queries, he returned to those edits and re-reverted some of them. I think this shows a good-faith effort on his part to undo at least some of the damage he did. In other words:

1. You, Tedernst, did a large number of edits that, in certain cases, were considered as damage by some;
2. These edits were inappropriately rolled back in toto;
3. I intervened and caused Freakofnurture to review his edits;
4. He undid a subset of those.

So, as regards the relevance of this edit-rollback-revert cycle to the disputes currently ongoing on this talk page, I believe the matter can now be closed, provided that in the future:

1. Non-trivial edits to dab pages to make them compliant with this MoS are discussed on talk pages first; and
2. Rollbacks are not used to throw out good MoS-compliance edits with bad.

However, your comments above suggest that item #1 may be unacceptable to you. In particular, you say that you only removed "unneeded" information and that no special knowledge is required to know whether information is "needed" or not. It appears that you still stand behind all of your edits, and you believe the only relief required is that you not be reverted in the future (i.e., you don't see any need to change your own behavior, only that others not block you from that behavior). I hope I am misreading that. Because while it is indisputable that the admins involved acted irresponsibly and you merely acted boldly, it is every editor's responsibility to be responsive to others' reactions to your edits.

Given that at least three people felt your edits were so out of line as to require (inappropriate) rollback, you need to reconsider the contexts of those edits in the future. You can do a great deal towards making the dab pages comply by fixing the trivial cases, and adding cleanup tags to the more problematic ones. Continuing with an absolutist approach will only result in more edit wars. Don't you agree? --TreyHarris 08:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Definitely. I don't have a problem being reverted. I do have a problem with being reverted without communication about what the problem is. Editors can disagree in good faith. I've been reverted plenty of times in the past and in most cases, this leads to good discussion and consensus. I'm a big believer in the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Brian doesn't seem to believe in the 3rd phase (discuss). Tedernst | talk 08:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:BRD is not a policy page. It was created to express a frustration that the author had with other editors. I think it's more common for editors to see a sort of vague heirarchy of edit sensitivity, where the pinnacle are protected pages, then come common templates and important policy pages, then less important templates and policy pages and more important articles, and so on, and so forth, with more disruptive edits being higher in sensitivity than less disruptive edits for the same types of pages. Most editors will, I think, do a "discuss, converge, edit" cycle when they feel they're venturing into the more sensitive edits. Note that Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes says one of the mistakes is:

Deleting without justifying. Deleting anything nontrivial requires some words of justification in the edit summary or on the talk page. If the justification is presented on the talk page, you can simply write "See talk:" in the edit summary box.

Undoubtedly you felt that simply invoking this MoS in your edit summary was justification enough, but it's clear that others disagreed. So what I'm asking you to do is not follow the BRD cycle for the non-trivial cases, but rather to discuss first (or at least, discuss at the same time you make the edits). --TreyHarris 09:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

One additional point. Keep in mind that, for most edits you have an issue with, it is fairly easy to try to incorporate the editor's intentions while fixing the issue. For instance, we all get pretty comfortable with turning a POV edit into an NPOV one. But deletion, especially significant deletion, of material is different. Incrementally undoing deletion involves pulling two windows or tabs up with two different revisions of the article and switching back and forth. It's a big pain, and it should come as no surprise that many will simply revert rather than dealing with that pain. --TreyHarris 09:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've stated above that I will change the way I edit. I understand that my style of working has caused passions to flare. I get it. What I still haven't heard anything about is Brian's use of mass-revert without communicating with me about what he has done and why. Is this seen as acceptable admin behaviour? Tedernst | talk 09:27, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

No, as I said before, this behavior was unacceptable. But what relief are you hoping for? The unacceptable behavior can't be undone, and both Brian and Freakofnurture now have recognized that they acted incorrectly. --TreyHarris 10:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well at least Commander Keane — "I still have not not recieved satisfaction on the rollback issue" —, Tedernst and myself aren't satisfied with the response. True both have explained what they done, but not why they though it fit to apply such a heavy handed approach that is specifically — in policy — only meant to be used on vandalism. Tedernst got a bucketload of reverts, but not a squeek for the folk doing/asking for them - consider that vandals get some sort of warning then something is very wrong here... Thanks/wangi 10:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

That's inaccurate. I certainly "squeeked" at Ted's talk page on "21:06, 9 December 2005" and I see that almost all of his talk is related to his drastic revision of dab pages -- some positive, but most negative! Any time that editors revising dab pages take less than a couple of minutes per reference checking all the cross-references (usually a half hour per page) means the editor wasn't doing the job properly.... And unexplained deletion of multiple entries is vandalism, plain and simple. --William Allen Simpson 12:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

And I thank Ted for (belatedly) agreeing to modify his editting practices. --William Allen Simpson 12:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Several of us have written here and on User:Tedernst's talk page about his editing practices; the notion that noone has told him anything specific (as evidenced by "But no one has yet to come to me with something specific about the way I edit.") is simply a case of denying something that has plainly taken place. Until User:Tedernst agrees that someone has provided him with guidance somewhere, which plainly has happened, I am not confident that any modification of editing practices will take place. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

In every case of someone objecting on my talk page to something I've done, a dialogue ensued and resolution was reached. And are you saying that if I don't edit the way you do, I deserve to be mass-reverted without communication about such action? I'm baffled by this. Tedernst | talk 02:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the only remaining issue is that some editors aren't satisfied with the resolution in respect to, specifically, the use of rollbacks against non-vandal edits. There doesn't seem to be any disagreement with anything else — the conclusions were fine. Remember that Tedernst, I assume, was referring only to the mass-rollbacks, and to nothing else. So, we keep to the violation of admin protocol.

Where I am not satisfied is that while Freakofnurture has reviewed his reversions, (s)he has yet to acknowledge, specifically, the use of rollbacks against non-vandal edits. If there is really anything else, please correct me — the discussion doesn't prove anything else, at least to me, to be controversial at this point. Furthermore, if the acknowledgement and apology is on another page, please point me there. Neonumbers 05:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I will no longer be mediating this dispute. I think the direct issue I offered to mediate has been largely settled. The issue of getting "satisfaction" from the alleged admin abuse is not one that should be addressed here, but rather on the admins' respective talk pages and, if necessary, via the arbitration process. In the course of mediating this, I have become interested in the actual disputes with regard to disambiguation pages, and I don't feel I can insert myself into those arguments without extracting myself from this one first.

I think this entire thread cand and should probably be moved into a subpage. --TreyHarris 00:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)