So, my wife tells me that I'm being too nice with this, that it should be a 3 day suspension, then infinite. I am frequently too nice about things like this. Chadlupkes 15:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
- I think that the 3rr should come into effect before an edit war. Once editor(s) reach 3r, then an edit war should be declared and a resolution proposed. Ignoring the resolution of an edit war once should merit a block for a day, then more if repeated. Jfingers88 15:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Jfingers88. The 3R could be used to declare an edit war. The declaration of an edit war could cause the page to be protected by an admin for 24 hours (cool-down period) and set to a vote. The vote could last 5 days (as with same-sex marriage cat). When the vote is finished, the result is adopted as a rule. From there, if 3R is reached again (by someone ignoring the vote result), that user is banned for 3 days. Here comes the part where I agree with your wife, Chad. If a user knows the vote result (hopefully it will be published on the article) and insists on reverting, without discussing, we block and warn that user that the vote result is considered a rule until further discussion and vote. If the user reaches 3R after having been banned, then the block should be infinite. This is partly because it is obvious the user is not intending to contribute to the community, and partly because admins shouldn't have to keep track of vandals for so long. --ШΔLÐSΣИ 16:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Proposed amendments[]
What does "concensus" mean?[]
The policy uses the term "concensus vote" to talk about how an edit war will be resolved and below whosawhatsis? seems to be using it as "the group's decision arrived at by any process". I always understood concesus to be a special kind of decision where everyone agreed. I've been part of activist groups that considered using "concensus voting" where that was understood to mean you keep doing an edit/vote cycle on a proposal until the vote was unanimous even if it takes hours or days or weeks or whatever. In other words, it's impossible for someone to "disagree with the concensus"... that would imply they aren't part of the group or it wasn't really a concensus. See wikipedia on concensus. The deeper principle involved is that any time there's disagreement it implies a failure of process taking minority views into account, not a failure on the part of the person who disagrees to "respect the decision". Banning such people will *make* the decision a concensus by virtue of eliminating voices of dissent, but generally don't activist groups want to *expand* their membership and influence by getting more and more buy in from the society they are trying to change? - JenniferForUnity 16:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
- I'll agree that the terminology has room for improvement, but the policy is a good one, and is absolutely necessary. We have to have a way to settle disputes, and the most fair method available to us is a democratic one. --whosawhatsis? 22:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Violation of consensus[]
Should it really take 3 reversions after the vote for it to kick in? I can see this for people who weren't involved in the vote and can claim ignorance, but for someone involved in the vote, even reverting the decision once is obviously a willful violation of the rules. At that point, it's clear that the person has no regard for the rules, and while banning is never something that you want to do, there's really no other way to deal with such people. --whosawhatsis? 19:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
- I think the rule should stand as written. We've established a process, and a defined set of actions. Willful disregard of the rules should not be cause to change the rules, only to follow those rules. They'll work. Chadlupkes 19:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not suggesting a retroactive change, that wouldn't be fair, but I think what's going on right now proves that this rule gives too much latitude to those who have shown that they will not respect the rules. --whosawhatsis? 19:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
- I thought of a better way to state it. If a user who was involved in the vote (and thus cannot claim ignorance) acts against the consensus, that should qualify as vandalism. Vandalism should not, and in the past has not required three reversions of the same edit before taking action against the vandal. --whosawhatsis? 21:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Calling a new vote[]
Another thought, should there be more requirements for calling a new vote? Right now, it seems that all that is required is two people who disagree with the original decision (one to move for a new vote, and one to second the movement). This would allow a very small bloc of users to keep calling votes on the same subject until they badger enough others to give up and vote their way. I think that the movement should be accompanied by "new evidence", such as a change in the applicable policies since the original vote. Obviously it would be unfair to hold the current events to this requirement retroactively, but I think they prove the need for such a revision for the future. --whosawhatsis? 00:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems a bit early[]
The 3RR is what you need when you are so large that you can't use love to change people's mind. In our case, we are still small, and I think it is better to reach out to be people and ask nicely for them to knock it off. :)
In these early days we are better off all following a personal 3RR rule, i.e. posting on our user pages that we will respect the 3RR rule even without it being a rule... a gesture of good faith and trust in each other. :) --Jimbo Wales 00:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Jim, I would certainly agree, except we're already potentially facing a situation where we need it. We're anticipating that User:Lou franklin will refuse to honor the result of a consensus vote on the question of whether the same-sex marriage articles should have the Civil Rights category, and we've been going back and forth enough times that I got nervous. He started out by doing a countdown on his user page, which I asked him about. Please take a look at the history of the debate, and you'll see that we've all tried to use love and words to get him to at least allow words to be displayed on a wiki page. His answer seems to be that any use of a civil rights label is propaganda.
- This user has already been banned from Wikipedia, so he has a history. We're trying our best to work with him, but after a week, I started trying to put together a way to justify action if it becomes necessary. The 3RR came from a discussion with one of the staff members. Chadlupkes 01:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- It's also worth noting that with the changes I made to the template, the category is now stored there, so that can be locked-down without protecting the entire article from editing, so that the template would have to be removed to remove the category. This and ensuring that the category was consistent across the pages of the article (which it often wasn't) were part of my motivation for modifying the template. --whosawhatsis? 02:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- That's good to hear, although I'm sure it will frustrate our friend. Let's see about that count, btw. I see the time is after 15 August UTC. Chadlupkes 03:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Sadly, we proposed 3RR because we thought it was time. We've had some problems (two edit wars; one including a very insistent user), and we needed a less arbitrary way of dealing with such situations. --ШΔLÐSΣИ 05:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
- Three, if you count Digital Rights, which is still locked after repeated edits by dozens of sockpuppets using proxies to get around IP blocks. --whosawhatsis? 05:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)