User talk:Betsythedevine/BikeLane

This is raw material for an essay about a project to improve the civility of discussing "involvement"

The bike lane metaphor
A couple of years ago, the City of Cambridge did some "traffic calming" work on Sparks Street. It didn't solve all traffic problems, but it solved some of them. Of course if all drivers were always polite, we would not have needed traffic calming or the new bike lane at all.

I have seen many disruptive "collisions" at ANI, AfD, and elsewhere when talk about the topic at hand degenerates into fighting about who is "involved" (Wikipedia jargon that means having some reason to prejudge the issues.) Of course most participants in any discussion have some past thoughts on the topic and on one or more of the other participants. Even people who think of themselves as not at all "involved" may be considered so by some other participant.

"sample made-up discussion"

I would like to see Wikipedia have a "bike lane" to separate these two kinds of talk. All talk about who is or is not "involved" would not be allowed in the main discussion thread, but would be relegated to a separate footnote section. Maybe I should create a separate sandbox ANI mockup to show what I mean.

Civility and Wikipedia's problem with Tu quoque
(This is something I posted to the talk page of OhioStandard, with his reply.)

As you know, I was thinking about creating some specific restrictions on incivility. It seems to me that Wikipedia as a whole would benefit if the behavior discouraged by WP:PA would be expanded using language from WP:HOUND specifying edits with "an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor."

WP:PA says "Comment on the content, not on the contributor." Certain kinds of comments about other contributors are allowed, however -- for example stating (with evidence) that someone may have a conflict of interest. The difference between an illegitimate PA and a legitimate comment on a contributor seems to hinge on two main distinctions:


 * 1) Relevance Is something about the contributor relevant to understanding their contribution to this discussion?
 * 2) Evidence Is there evidence to support what you are saying about the other contributor?

I wonder under what circumstances, if ever, it is relevant and therefore allowable to mention that another user has created very few new articles, or has been publicly criticized for some particular action, or is under restrictions by ArbComm, or has been blocked in the past, or has had an article deleted at AfD ... It seems to me that all statements like this, and certainly using words like "troll" or "hound," because of the high likelihood of "creating irritation, annoyance or distress" should require a very high threshold of relevance to illuminating the topic discussed.

One thing that might help defuse the angry accusations that editors with an opposing viewpoint are "involved" would be creating a simple footnote section where people could flag the alleged involvement of other editors. That way the argument about who is "involved" with the subject area or who is "involved" because they like or dislike one of the participants could be kept separate from discussions of the actual topic being discussed. What do you think of this?

Could I interest you in pursuing improvements to the policy WP:PA as an alternative to the AE discussion proposed above? Your energy, compassion, and restraint would be a great advantage toward improving Wikipedia in this way.betsythedevine (talk) 13:15, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I have no objection to flattery, as long as it's sincere. ;-) I've been considering your suggestion, and agree that a clearer policy statement would be beneficial. Let me give it some more thought; I'll get back to you, soon. –  OhioStandard  (talk) 06:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

What do you think about finding a way to separate discussion of who is "involved" from discussion of a topic?
(This is something I posted to BorisG's talk page with his replies and also some commentary from Hodja Nasreddin)

I would like your input on an idea that I think might help to reduce the angry tone of discussions at ANI, AfDs and elsewhere.

I have already seen, and you have probably seen more often than I have, how much unnecessary drama and bad feeling arises from the way people introduce the "involvement" of other editors. What I think would help is two things we don't have -- neutral wording to make specific claims and a place to display such claims separate from topic discussion.

There could be a template that provides neutrally-worded ways to express that editor A has made specific claim about editor B and offered a diff C as evidence or explanation for the claim D: ""

The typical claims could be expressed in a brief shorthand that is much less wounding than the spur-of-the-moment ways people now come up with to try to make a point. For example,


 * Claim D1 = "may be motivated by past friendly interactions"
 * Claim D2 = "may be motivated by past unfriendly interactions"
 * Claim D3 = "has elsewhere expressed opinions that would predispose favoring one side of the current discussion"

Then if someone was in a debate and felt one of these claims should be considered by others participating in the discussion, they could just put the "warning template" into a footnote section reserved for that purpose. If I made a claim about you and you wanted to challenge it, you could also challenge it down in the warning/footnote section, not up in the topic thread. This is a somewhat expanded version of an idea I posted at OhioStandard's talk page but he hasn't yet responded. Do you think something like this might help to reduce drama and dissension? betsythedevine (talk) 18:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello. Interesting. Actually we need some way of reducing the volume of material put forward by involved (broadly speaking) editors on noticeboards. At the same time, their input may be important to provide context. Your templates may be helpful, but I would not endorse this outright just yet and would prefer to see other inputrs into this discussion. One reason I refused repeated suggestions to run for adminship is because I would like to remain independent and not having to judge every time whether I am involved. It follows that sometimes a person does not even know themselves that they are involved or biased or whatever. But it is an interesting suggestion. Cheers. - BorisG (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I just came up with this idea this morning, so it is not exactly well thought-out or polished. You and OhioStandard are the only people I have asked about it, so you can see I really would welcome any advice about improving the idea or where else I should proposed it for consideration. Maybe it is too complicated the way it is and I should propose one idea at a time somewhere -- either start with asking people to use neutral wording for the most common claims of "involvement" or else start with asking people to discuss "involvement" in a dedicated section separate from content discussion. Thanks for taking the time to reply already. betsythedevine (talk) 01:57, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the best way "to reduce drama" is to simply do not make bad faith accusations anywhere such as "may be motivated by past friendly/unfriendly interactions" and ignore dramas created by others. AfD you mentioned above is not the place to make any personal claims ("may be motivated"). It serves to discuss deletion of articles. Same with many other noticeboards. But we talked about this before, did not we? Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 02:08, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Hodja, but what I am hoping is to improve the way people actually do things right now in Wikipedia -- and people in discussions often do describe others as "involved." Discussions would be more civil if people never did that. As a metaphor, teenagers would be safer if they never had sex -- but if, predictably, some do not abstain, the question becomes how to improve outcomes of what people in fact do. But perhaps I should move this discussion to my userspace instead of pestering BorisG on his. betsythedevine (talk) 11:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In my view, an editor's involvement is relevant to any noticeboard discussion; it is not offensive, in my view, to mention involvement of other editors, but it would be more efficient if the editor did that him/herself. Thus this proposal makes sense. - BorisG (talk) 11:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I am talking about comments like that (at the bottom of diff: "one of Mbz1's buddies pops up again"). You possibly do not realize it, but you are having a "friendly interaction" with Betsy right now. Does it mean you can not comment as a neutral party at AfD and DYKs about articles created by Betsy? That is what such template implies.Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 13:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think everyone can comment, but obviously comments of involved people carry different weights. As to the answer to your question, depends on the subject. I still believe the substance of the comment, and reasoning, is more central than degree of involvement. But degree of involvement is relevant. BTW I did notice that Betsy was involved in those strong exchnages; however the current topic is not partisan. - BorisG (talk) 14:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the expression "uninvolved administrator" makes a lot of sense when it comes to AE sanctions or AfD closings. As about statements by non-administrators at AfDs, DYKs and other talk pages, even including ANI and AE, the division to "involved" and "uninvolved" is actually harmful (like in the diff I gave you above).Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 15:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

(undent) (EC) Boris, and Hodja to some extent, made the issue clearer than I did. Suppose Editor X wanted to flag that I was Boris's "buddy" in some future discussion. Under the system I propose, two things would be better than what happened to Hodja and hurt her feelings. First, Editor X would have a neutral, even respectful way to name the kind of involvement he thinks have with Boris. Second, the template has room for a single URL for evidence, the stand-in for what Boris calls "degree of involvement." So for Boris and me right now the best Editor X could come up with is a link to this thread on Boris's talk page--not much "involvement"! Suppose Boris or I want to contest the idea that I admire Boris so much it warps my judgment -- fine, we could do so, but only down in the "involvement discussion" separate from the main topic discussion. Maybe I would link to some time I said something bad about Boris (hypothetically, since afaik I never did, and I do admire Boris a lot though perhaps not enough to warp my judgment). Then maybe Editor X would link to another discussion thread where Boris was criticized and I defended him. And so on. But unless Boris and I contested the claim we were friends, Editor X would get just one URL to make the case we're involved. The template gives no opportunity to go into a long indictment of what bad people we both are. I would like to see "involvement" treated as a public fact of Wikipedia life, not a scarlet badge of shame that a few try to hide in vain while others find joy in exposing and shaming them. This gives everyone all the more motivation to make civil, well-reasoned statements in the main topic thread instead of just attacking Participant Y or defending Participant Z. If I want to squabble about just how involved I am or you are, there is a separate place to make my case.

Hodja, I think you have made your point quite clearly that you think "involvement" should not be discussed at all for non-admins. Perhaps you would like to make a policy proposal that forbids mentioning "involvement." Like Boris and unlike you, I think that "involvement" can be relevant, that the degree of involvement is relevant, and that our current way of letting people introduce this information into topic discussions creates more upset than necessary. betsythedevine (talk) 16:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So, this is going to be a contest who befriended whom instead of debating the actual issue. P.S. Such comments do not hurt my feelings at all. That was another editor (Mbz1) who complained about this and possibly left the project a couple of days ago. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 18:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I asked Boris to advise me about a change I think would improve Wikipedia, to separate talk about issues from talk about "involvement." I am not proposing that people talk about involvement more than they already do, I am proposing that they talk about it less, that they talk about it formally and politely, and that they talk about it in a place separate from discussion of content, so that people who don't want to read the possible squabbling can skip the entire "involvement" talk if they want to. It's like trying to reduce car-bike collisions by building a bike lane. Both bikes and cars will move better as a result. betsythedevine (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)