User:BalCoder

February 2016: For some eighteen months I spent some effort improving and protecting the Proportional representation article, but now I have given up. There's no point. Admins are just not prepared to follow up warnings against disruptive editors with sanctions (others are complaining about this too: [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_126#Is_it_simply_Wild_West.3F]).

One reason seems to be a reluctance to sanction new users, presumably in an attempt to counter the decline in the number of active editors. The irony that other editors are thereby driven away is obvious. The poor quality of all electoral systems articles is testimony enough to the transiency of their editors: for whatever reason most soon give up.

Another is that admins lack the necessary specialist knowledge to understand disputes. If that is so, then clearly an alternative needs to be found, a group of editors which does have the necessary knowledge. In the particular case of electoral systems such a group may already exist: the members of WP:WikiProject Politics (or WP:WikiProject Voting systems). A mechanism allowing such a group to oversee articles needing their expertise also already seems to exist: "pending changes, level 2". What the experience with that has been I don't know but it could transform these articles. As hitherto, anyone would be able to edit, but nothing would get into the article until it had been OK'd by a member of the group; the bulk of edits –  over-hasty, ill-considered, unsourced  –  would never make it into the article. Presumably, too, anyone could enroll themselves in the group and so make edits without oversight, but mischievous editors would soon be invited out again (by the group). The scheme would be a quality ratchet, in stark contrast to the inevitable and relentless decay these articles are usually subject to. The juvenile and the partisan would be curbed leaving space for the well-intentioned. Improved article quality might even be a source of satisfaction to group members, encouraging them to remain active and so countering editor attrition.

Of course, this is not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime admins should please actually do what they are supposed to do: block disruptive and bad-faith editors, even if only for a limited period; anything would be better than nothing.

(All my contributions to the Proportional representation article: [//tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/usersearch.py?name=BalCoder&page=Proportional_representation&server=enwiki&max=], and talk page: [//tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/usersearch.py?name=BalCoder&page=Talk%3AProportional_representation&server=enwiki&max=])

UPDATE, 6 Jan.2017: The disruptive other party has been topic banned for 12 months from topic "Abortion".[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ontario_Teacher_BFA_BEd&diff=758588846&oldid=758564826]

At last, about 14 months too late, an admin has followed up a warning with a meaningful sanction. Sadly, it's restricted to abortion rather than applying more generally to politics - about 98% of the DOP's edits are politically motivated WP:NPOV violations, few of them are directly about abortion.

UPDATE, 15 April 2017: The DOP has now been indefinitely blocked, for sockpuppetry in connection with the Kevin O'Leary article.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ontario_Teacher_BFA_BEd&diff=775563283&oldid=775507604]

Good. But the indef is for conduct, not bias. A right-wing shill has been conducting a sustained political campaign, and admins still don't seem to have noticed. Only because the editor made a mistake has he been stopped, an editor who, over 20 months, has been single-mindedly violating NPOV, often blatantly (and is continuing to do so  [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Ontario_Teacher_BFA_BEd/Archive]). This seems to be largely because admins don't understand electoral systems. Admin Bishonen rather concedes this point, calling electoral systems abstruse.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Bishonen&diff=759128928&oldid=759126511]. Abstruse or not (I really don't think they are) these articles deserve a modicum of protection that they are not getting. The system isn't working. Another solution is needed (see above).

Also, pretty much none of the DOP's edits have been reverted. Articles remain mutilated, some grossly, e.g.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mixed-Member_Systems&diff=696127731&oldid=695716395]. The DOP's campaign, one has to admit, has been successful. But all those edits need to be reversed. Who is going to do it? Nobody, it would seem. Not me, the thought of having to go through that experience again without support from admins or others makes me physically ill.