User talk:Bkonrad/3RR

I was aware of the mailing list post. I found it a good deal too critical of my actions in light of the fact that both of us were editing for the exact same very good reason - to correct a major visual problem as we saw it. I hold no ill will toward you about your reasons for making your edits. The problem I had was with your action of blindy reverting me without helping to get to the root of the issue. In this dispute, you clearly broke 3RR, and were justifiably blocked. I don't really care whether the dispute was "over" or not, because it is your tactics, not the dispute that was the violation. I posted numerous times on the talk page, and also proposed a couple variations to the table to try to resolve the issue, and you blindly reverted (leaving snide edit summaries directed at me, also a "no-no"). You broke the rule, don't go try saying I was in the wrong for reporting it. I'd expect that you'd do the exact same thing if things were reversed. I've been blocked for a 3RR violation once myself (though it wasn't as clear-cut), and it's not the end of the world. It is there to send an important message.

All that said, for me, it's over. If you want to feel negative towards me for making the report, you're free to. I would like to encourage you instead to look at this situation and decide that I am not so bad after all. In hindsight, I hope you can see why I have nothing to be ashamed of in the way I handled the situation. Give me the benefit of the doubt in the future, and you'll have it from me. No hard feelings from this end. -- Netoholic @ 05:17, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

My response
My point in the posting to the mailing list is that the 3RR is intended to put an end (or at least a temporary stop) to sterile edit wars. It should not be the first resort to end a disagreement. The fact is that discussion was progressing on the talk page indicated it was not a "sterile" edit war. You're immediate resort to legalistic retribution is un-wikilike in the extreme and far more disrespectful than simply reverting and continuing discussion. I emphatically would NOT have pursued the 3RR remedies against you in this situation while discussions were progressing. Further, I would never seek legalistic remedies against a logged in user of good standing without giving warning. It is an insult and undermines the process of seeking consensus.

You claim that I was blindly reverting [you] without helping to get to the root of the issue. That is simply untrue. Your first edit to the template was at 20:34, Feb 9, 2005, done without any indication on the talk page as to what you were doing or why, other than a cryptic edit summary of "restyle". I reverted this at 20:40, Feb 9, 2005. Granted, I also did not take this to the talk page at this point as in retrospect I probably should have. At 20:43, Feb 9, 2005, you reverted, with a summary "explain on the talk page why this template shouldn't be more compact" although at this point you still had not made any justification for your change on the talk page either. I reverted again at 20:46, Feb 9, 2005.

Your first comments to the talk page were at 20:49, Feb 9, 2005 in which you claim to have made technical and visual improvements in the template (without being specific about what these were) and made a subjective judgement that your version was less "ugly". You also invited anyone who preferred your version to to revert it -- which did not happen.

I replied on the talk page at 21:09, Feb 9, 2005, asking for an explanation as to how a TOC that took up more vertical space and less horizontal space was better than one with less vertical space but was wider. I also clumsily indicated I didn't understand whatever techincal improvements you might have made and that I had no objection to incorporated such changes.

At 21:25, Feb 9, 2005, on the talk page you suggested "Let's stop using this for a while, saying it would be better as a MediaWiki feature. CatherineMunro and SamuelWantman both expressed disagreement with this.

At 04:18, Feb 10, 2005, you created another version of the template, still with double-lines rather than a single line, rationalizing it only with an edit comment of "slimmer, format closer to other TOCs".

At 06:32, Feb 10, 2005, SamuelWantman reverted your edits and at 06:42, Feb 10, 2005, posted to the talk page indicating support for the single-line version over the double-line version. At 20:34, Feb 10, 2005, CatherineMunro incorporated some of your improvements into the single line version. At 21:03, Feb 10, 2005, you made another attempt at a multi-line TOC, which was essentially a revert to your previous version with the addition of "valign=top". This was not accompanied by any discussion on the talk page and the only justification was an edit summary of "slimmer, format closer to other TOCs".I reverted this at 21:11, Feb 10, 2005, saying in the edit summary "Net, so far nobody except you wants the multi-line version", which I felt was a pretty accurate summary of the situation at that point.

You reverted at 23:15, Feb 10, 2005, with the same edit summary of "slimmer, format closer to other TOCs". I reverted at 23:18, Feb 10, 2005, At 23:19, Feb 10, 2005, added a comment on the talk page in which you assert "I've made a further set of changes to make this look much more like a normal TOC and further reduce the wasted space." I might point out that at this point, I was looking at this with Firefox and there was no obvious wasted space in the single line version, and a clear disadvantage to the multiline version, so your comments simply seemed unintelligible to me. In retrospect, I should have inquired more into precisely what you meant by wasted space. But, I was working under the mistaken assumption that we were both looking at essentially the same thing, but in fact the differences between the browsers were quite dramatic.

At 23:28, Feb 10, 2005, you posted again to the talk page, repsonding to SamuelWantman's earlier comments. At this point you speculated that "I must have a large monitor", which was beginning to hit on the possiblity that there may be some difference in the interface through which we were seeing the template. But you also claimed to want to make the template look like the regular TOCs -- which was another mystifying comment for me as your multi-line revisions looked to me decidedly less like the regular TOCs than the single-line version. I replied at 01:48, Feb 11, 2005, and said as much. You replied at 01:55, Feb 11, 2005, interpreting my comments as sarcasm. My tone may have been less cordial than it could have been, but I was not being sarcastic. However, here you finally begin to explain your rationale in more detail, talking about taking up less than 50% of screen width and the extra spacing caused by the plainlinks. However, you also suggested a red herring in justifying the desirability by saying "a great deal of people view at 800x600." I say red herring, because the problem was browser-related and not due to the display. I replied at 02:06, Feb 11, 2005, saying as much. CatherineMunro agreed on this point at 02:27, Feb 11, 2005, voicing much of the same concerns that I had with the multi-line version.

At 03:34, Feb 11, 2005, you attempted to create a "smaller single line version". At 04:37, Feb 11, 2005, SamuelWantman raised an objection to this revision on the talk page regarding lack of line wrapping. You replied at 04:43, Feb 11, 2005, that this was intentional. At 04:52, Feb 11, 2005, CatherineMunro raised some questions and asked you to explain your reasoning. At 05:07, Feb 11, 2005, SamuelWantman again objected to the new revision.

I reverted the template at 13:20, Feb 11, 2005, because it was completely unsuable in Firefox (although at this point we still did not realize that browsers were the variable and not skins or resolutions). I explained my revision on the talk page. At 15:11, Feb 11, 2005, you expressed incredulity (about as much as I felt when you said you were making it look "more compact" and more "like the regular TOCs") and dismissed my concerns, implying that "it must be [my] settings". You reverted the template at 15:13, Feb 11, 2005, with an edit summary "rvt. looks fine under standard skins and browsers", which was a patently untrue statement, as it was unusuable in Firefox.

I reverted the unusable version of the template at 15:45, Feb 11, 2005, and added a comment on the talk page. It was only after this point that the differences in browsers became apparent.

And in the meantime, you reported me on Administrators' noticeboard/3RR at 16:17, 2005 Feb 11, without so much as a mention to me concerning this. That is what I consider to be bad faith on your part--whatever our disagreement over the template, we were dicussing it in what I thought were fairly civil terms and your resort to legalism was disrespectful in the extreme.

The point
You voted in favor of Three revert rule enforcement, right?

You broke that rule right? Reverted four times in under 24 hours?

Plenty of people have been blocked as a punitive measure for breaking the rule, just like you were. -- Netoholic @ 17:39, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)


 * You seem to think that I am arguing for some sort of special dispensation because I am admin or something like that. That is not my point at all. I absolutely agree that admins and non-admins and even anons should all be treated equally. Admins should not have special privileges to revert more than others. My point is that the 3RR is not intended to be the first step in resolving disuputes. You breed ill-will by immediately seeking such legalistic retribution rather than first working to resolve a disagreement through discussion. The 3RR was intended to address the abuses of sterile edit wars, such as was seen with Wik/Gzornenplatz, where reverts would continue for days or weeks on end with little or no discussion. It is a very blunt instrument, and really should only be invoked when other avenues have already been exhausted. That is the 3RR that I voted to support and if that is not how the 3RR is being interpreted now, then I withdraw my support for it. older &ne; wiser 18:38, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)