In order to go back to evidence page: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/WHEELER/Evidence.
I am a Classicist. I am trying to write articles for Category:Classical studies. The Classical meaning of words is very different from modern words. We live in an era where everything is "political". Words are used as political rudders, the meaning of words is changing. My whole outlook is to preserve Classical Antiquity and its meanings and language and culture.
I am trying to get an external link to the article [Republic] and I am having a devil of a time at Talk:Republic. I have been doing a lot of reading and new information I receive makes it more certain that the [Classical definition of republic] be revived. I have a ton of evidence that needs to be re-considered. I have tried to put it back up on VFUD but User:Snowspinner has deleted it. I stopped. I don't know why my re-request was deleted. I think it needs some serious study. But I am engaged in talking and trying to find a compromise. WHEELER 15:50, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
From what interaction I've had with WHEELER (Who I'll call W throughout the rest of this note), he strikes me as someone who is difficult to deal with and sometimes disruptive in that sense, but not someone who is disruptive in the greater sense of contravening policy in any significant way. It is true that his focus on classics, and his attempt to ensure the primacy of classical thought on Wikipedia is something that causes disagreement with a lot of other editors (including me). However, I don't think this falls within the bounds of POV pushing as it instead seems to be part of legitimate discussion on proper use of terms in articles. Arbitration has been used against people who have kind of similar issues (Chuck F, for example), but in those cases, I think judgement was made against them because they both were more clearly pushing a POV and their breaking the rules of the community in a clear way (evading bans). W may eventually step over that line, but at least given the evidence I have seen, he has not yet. I recommend this be taken again to mediation -- the goal of arbitration should not be to beat down people until everyone can edit harmoniously (as important as that is), but rather to deal with cases where people have stepped way over the line. If W has done that, then more evidence to that effect would be a good thing. -- Improv 16:43, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I do plan to add evidence here. Life has been getting in the way for the past few days. I expect to be able to work on the evidence page on Thursday. I hope the case won't move to decision by then. Snowspinner 05:08, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
I would like to point out some other help in my case Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/WHEELER. Comments are adde below:
Both of you sum things up well. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 13:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Wheeler, It's not our job to care about cultural transformations. We're here to encyclopedically cover topics, which primarily means covering them in their current usage. Languages evolve. That may be unfortunate from some perspectives, but it's a fact of life. It's probably a good idea to cover in some fashion what a lot of these terms used to mean, in an appropriate location and type. It is a bad idea to "set anchor" with ancient meanings of things and have our encyclopedia be a guide to seeing the world through a time machine. I appreciate though that your tone is more mild in this note, with no yelling. -- Improv 16:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just want to say that User:AndyL is a good guy and Wikipedian. He may have expressed something in the background of all this. But he is a good guy and I appreciate him and others. I do acknowledge my stridency and other failures but classical definition of republic did not need to be deleted. WHEELER 17:05, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Improv thinks that "cultural transformation" is of no importance to encyclopaedia's. Are we not in a Cultural War now?!?!? The only answer is Yes. Knowledge HAS become political. Socrates and Plato recognized this a long time ago. Knowledge and words are manipulated. That is the unmitigated truth. What impact does this have on Wikipedia? A very big impact. Yet, we all want to run and hide from this fact or just slander Wheeler with being a NPOV and a nonconformist.
Here is the complete reference to Machiavelli:
And yet, we want to refuse this methodology exists and then only clamor for "new" and "modern" definitions of terms. Contrary to Snowspinner, Improv and the majority of editors on Wikipedia, there is ongoing cultural transformation and it does affect knowledge and it is political. That is what is behind Antonio Gramsci's theory of Radical Social Change. On my user page I do tell that I am a reactionary. I am DWEM. My POV is the POV of the Christian Classical World. That our definitions and words are not to be allowed on Wikipedia—then, it is not "Free and Open" content. WHEELER 15:56, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
And then is there a "Secret Policy" amongst Wikipedians that is not "official" Wikipedian policy, i.e. "covering them in their current usage". Where is this official Wikipedian policy? WHEELER 15:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Easy, I oppose voting on matters of factual accuracy or NPOV, and especially the idea that such votes are in any way binding or based on some objective standard of truth. The majority is usually wrong, IMO. As far as what WHEELER and his opposition need to do, they need to argue to the issues, not to the person, and increase the level of civility. WHEELER tends to label his opposition as "modernists", and they in turn tend to seek him and his edits out for removal and reversion. Thats simply not helpful. Anyhow, I am not suggesting substantial changes to the wiki process at this juncture, but rather a drastically reduced emphasis on voting, and a much greater emphasis on intellectual rigor and real concensus (i.e. unaminity rather than majority rule). ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 17:02, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
A question on unanimity -- one of the issues with it is that a lot of the time people are not persuadable by any means, and prefer the status quo over any changes. I'm not sure that a community as big as this one should remain paralyzed because of the need to please every last person, especially if they see every vote as a means to trade power on some other issue. People either will act in bad faith to that end, or will drag their feet for the will of the community. I share your concern that voting can be problematic, but for most areas, I don't see a realistic alternative. As for reverting W's edits, I don't know if that's always a bad thing -- when I see a problem user pushing a POV in one article, I think it's reasonable to look at their other edits and revert them if it's merited. So long as only the attention bar is moved and not the judgement, I think that's fine. I personally have, to my memory, never reverted W, but I can't say that it wouldn't've been unreasonable to do so in some cases. He does produce fine content, but his notion of the primacy of classics leads him to do things that are otherwise unacceptable. If my attention had been drawn to it, I probably would have voted to merge or rename his article on classical definition of republic rather than to simply delete it, but I don't watch VfD much these days. I think that classics has a place, but it's not the foremost place, and that his article had a bad name. "Classical Republic" may have fit the bill. I don't think W needs to be disciplined (yet), but I think he has a major attitude problem, and I don't see such a problem with the people who are bothered by his behavior. If he had a better attitude, I would be willing to support him more often when I think he's produced good content (although he may need my support less in such a situation). As for you Sam, I think it's problematic to call the votes nonbinding. For now, that's the way we do things on Wikipedia, and I don't think there are realistic alternatives for who we are and what we're trying to do here. Votes are of course not meant to decide on what is true -- if that were the case, we wouldn't need to vote! They do, however, determine the will of the community as well as help us get a consensus on what interpretations to put on issues of what is reasonable and what things mean. If you have concrete suggestions on how to handle policy differently, by all means bring them up at the Village Pump. If they're major enough, I suspect people will be skeptical on them and they won't win, because we have a lot to lose at this point if the rules break the community. If you want to make big enough changes, perhaps your ideas will be good enough that they can lead to a fork that picks up momentum of its own. I sometimes get the feeling that you're aiming for big policy changes or to have a successful fork, with the way you take care to greet so many new users and to defend many of the "problem users" of Wikipedia. I can't say I'm against such efforts without knowing in advance what they are, but it is interesting to watch. Hopefully this exchange hasn't gotten too off-topic. -- Improv 18:34, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Policy Changes? How about establishing a "Classical Field Board" with Kevin M. Marshal, Stan Shebs and Smoody, (not me) as is seen in Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by fields of interest C-D#Classics. Let them judge my work. When I have a dispute with User:Mihnea Tudoreanu at Ochlocracywhen he deletes whole sections of work and a work specifically about ochlocracy, I can go to them and they can go to User:Tudoreanu and tell him that what I have put in is perfectly alright. WHEELER 16:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I like that idea. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 18:35, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted, such a review board would go against a Foundation principle. Snowspinner 17:59, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't see the part about experts. I do agree there is a great deal of valid criticism about special treatment for experts, especially w the failure of nupedia. See M:Wikipedia needs editors for an interesting (and much earlier) idea. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 06:46, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That would certainly appear to be your opinion. I should hope you agree it is not a necessary interpretation however. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 05:33, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
On behalf of WHEELER I find this common cry of "original research" to be disheartening. It appears to me that editors who do what should be done, that is cite sources are being labeled in this fashion.
WHEELER personally interviewing Aristotle or Socrates would be original research, citing their works most certainly is not. -- Wgfinley 20:18, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In order to go back to evidence page: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/WHEELER/Evidence.
I am a Classicist. I am trying to write articles for Category:Classical studies. The Classical meaning of words is very different from modern words. We live in an era where everything is "political". Words are used as political rudders, the meaning of words is changing. My whole outlook is to preserve Classical Antiquity and its meanings and language and culture.
I am trying to get an external link to the article [Republic] and I am having a devil of a time at Talk:Republic. I have been doing a lot of reading and new information I receive makes it more certain that the [Classical definition of republic] be revived. I have a ton of evidence that needs to be re-considered. I have tried to put it back up on VFUD but User:Snowspinner has deleted it. I stopped. I don't know why my re-request was deleted. I think it needs some serious study. But I am engaged in talking and trying to find a compromise. WHEELER 15:50, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
From what interaction I've had with WHEELER (Who I'll call W throughout the rest of this note), he strikes me as someone who is difficult to deal with and sometimes disruptive in that sense, but not someone who is disruptive in the greater sense of contravening policy in any significant way. It is true that his focus on classics, and his attempt to ensure the primacy of classical thought on Wikipedia is something that causes disagreement with a lot of other editors (including me). However, I don't think this falls within the bounds of POV pushing as it instead seems to be part of legitimate discussion on proper use of terms in articles. Arbitration has been used against people who have kind of similar issues (Chuck F, for example), but in those cases, I think judgement was made against them because they both were more clearly pushing a POV and their breaking the rules of the community in a clear way (evading bans). W may eventually step over that line, but at least given the evidence I have seen, he has not yet. I recommend this be taken again to mediation -- the goal of arbitration should not be to beat down people until everyone can edit harmoniously (as important as that is), but rather to deal with cases where people have stepped way over the line. If W has done that, then more evidence to that effect would be a good thing. -- Improv 16:43, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I do plan to add evidence here. Life has been getting in the way for the past few days. I expect to be able to work on the evidence page on Thursday. I hope the case won't move to decision by then. Snowspinner 05:08, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
I would like to point out some other help in my case Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/WHEELER. Comments are adde below:
Both of you sum things up well. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 13:43, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Wheeler, It's not our job to care about cultural transformations. We're here to encyclopedically cover topics, which primarily means covering them in their current usage. Languages evolve. That may be unfortunate from some perspectives, but it's a fact of life. It's probably a good idea to cover in some fashion what a lot of these terms used to mean, in an appropriate location and type. It is a bad idea to "set anchor" with ancient meanings of things and have our encyclopedia be a guide to seeing the world through a time machine. I appreciate though that your tone is more mild in this note, with no yelling. -- Improv 16:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just want to say that User:AndyL is a good guy and Wikipedian. He may have expressed something in the background of all this. But he is a good guy and I appreciate him and others. I do acknowledge my stridency and other failures but classical definition of republic did not need to be deleted. WHEELER 17:05, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Improv thinks that "cultural transformation" is of no importance to encyclopaedia's. Are we not in a Cultural War now?!?!? The only answer is Yes. Knowledge HAS become political. Socrates and Plato recognized this a long time ago. Knowledge and words are manipulated. That is the unmitigated truth. What impact does this have on Wikipedia? A very big impact. Yet, we all want to run and hide from this fact or just slander Wheeler with being a NPOV and a nonconformist.
Here is the complete reference to Machiavelli:
And yet, we want to refuse this methodology exists and then only clamor for "new" and "modern" definitions of terms. Contrary to Snowspinner, Improv and the majority of editors on Wikipedia, there is ongoing cultural transformation and it does affect knowledge and it is political. That is what is behind Antonio Gramsci's theory of Radical Social Change. On my user page I do tell that I am a reactionary. I am DWEM. My POV is the POV of the Christian Classical World. That our definitions and words are not to be allowed on Wikipedia—then, it is not "Free and Open" content. WHEELER 15:56, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
And then is there a "Secret Policy" amongst Wikipedians that is not "official" Wikipedian policy, i.e. "covering them in their current usage". Where is this official Wikipedian policy? WHEELER 15:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Easy, I oppose voting on matters of factual accuracy or NPOV, and especially the idea that such votes are in any way binding or based on some objective standard of truth. The majority is usually wrong, IMO. As far as what WHEELER and his opposition need to do, they need to argue to the issues, not to the person, and increase the level of civility. WHEELER tends to label his opposition as "modernists", and they in turn tend to seek him and his edits out for removal and reversion. Thats simply not helpful. Anyhow, I am not suggesting substantial changes to the wiki process at this juncture, but rather a drastically reduced emphasis on voting, and a much greater emphasis on intellectual rigor and real concensus (i.e. unaminity rather than majority rule). ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 17:02, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
A question on unanimity -- one of the issues with it is that a lot of the time people are not persuadable by any means, and prefer the status quo over any changes. I'm not sure that a community as big as this one should remain paralyzed because of the need to please every last person, especially if they see every vote as a means to trade power on some other issue. People either will act in bad faith to that end, or will drag their feet for the will of the community. I share your concern that voting can be problematic, but for most areas, I don't see a realistic alternative. As for reverting W's edits, I don't know if that's always a bad thing -- when I see a problem user pushing a POV in one article, I think it's reasonable to look at their other edits and revert them if it's merited. So long as only the attention bar is moved and not the judgement, I think that's fine. I personally have, to my memory, never reverted W, but I can't say that it wouldn't've been unreasonable to do so in some cases. He does produce fine content, but his notion of the primacy of classics leads him to do things that are otherwise unacceptable. If my attention had been drawn to it, I probably would have voted to merge or rename his article on classical definition of republic rather than to simply delete it, but I don't watch VfD much these days. I think that classics has a place, but it's not the foremost place, and that his article had a bad name. "Classical Republic" may have fit the bill. I don't think W needs to be disciplined (yet), but I think he has a major attitude problem, and I don't see such a problem with the people who are bothered by his behavior. If he had a better attitude, I would be willing to support him more often when I think he's produced good content (although he may need my support less in such a situation). As for you Sam, I think it's problematic to call the votes nonbinding. For now, that's the way we do things on Wikipedia, and I don't think there are realistic alternatives for who we are and what we're trying to do here. Votes are of course not meant to decide on what is true -- if that were the case, we wouldn't need to vote! They do, however, determine the will of the community as well as help us get a consensus on what interpretations to put on issues of what is reasonable and what things mean. If you have concrete suggestions on how to handle policy differently, by all means bring them up at the Village Pump. If they're major enough, I suspect people will be skeptical on them and they won't win, because we have a lot to lose at this point if the rules break the community. If you want to make big enough changes, perhaps your ideas will be good enough that they can lead to a fork that picks up momentum of its own. I sometimes get the feeling that you're aiming for big policy changes or to have a successful fork, with the way you take care to greet so many new users and to defend many of the "problem users" of Wikipedia. I can't say I'm against such efforts without knowing in advance what they are, but it is interesting to watch. Hopefully this exchange hasn't gotten too off-topic. -- Improv 18:34, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Policy Changes? How about establishing a "Classical Field Board" with Kevin M. Marshal, Stan Shebs and Smoody, (not me) as is seen in Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by fields of interest C-D#Classics. Let them judge my work. When I have a dispute with User:Mihnea Tudoreanu at Ochlocracywhen he deletes whole sections of work and a work specifically about ochlocracy, I can go to them and they can go to User:Tudoreanu and tell him that what I have put in is perfectly alright. WHEELER 16:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I like that idea. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 18:35, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted, such a review board would go against a Foundation principle. Snowspinner 17:59, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't see the part about experts. I do agree there is a great deal of valid criticism about special treatment for experts, especially w the failure of nupedia. See M:Wikipedia needs editors for an interesting (and much earlier) idea. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 06:46, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That would certainly appear to be your opinion. I should hope you agree it is not a necessary interpretation however. ( Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 05:33, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
On behalf of WHEELER I find this common cry of "original research" to be disheartening. It appears to me that editors who do what should be done, that is cite sources are being labeled in this fashion.
WHEELER personally interviewing Aristotle or Socrates would be original research, citing their works most certainly is not. -- Wgfinley 20:18, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)