Wikipedia talk:Forgive and forget

Thoughts?
★ MESSED ROCKER ★  12:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Definitely. You can learn a lot from Meatball; there are many pages there that apply as well to Wikipedia as they do to the smaller online communities that their authors had in mind at the time – Gurch 12:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Good essay, messed..., and maybe a way out of some of the stickier situations we find ourselves in these days. Note that this can work even if not everyone involved actually apologises or forgives... ++Lar: t/c 18:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. :) -WarthogDemon 06:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I like it. It's not like we have a moral imperative to question every single dubious intention when what's over is done. Grace notes T  &#167; 07:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Good essay, but it can sometimes get you into trouble. If the reason for the dispute shows an underlying ongoing issue, such as systemic bias or poor judgment, it is harmful to simply "forget about" the underlying issue.  If a person has a systemic bias in articles about a given topic, forgiving an edit war from last week without taking steps to prevent one in the future will cause history to repeat itself.  Likewise, if a person is asking for increased responsibilities, such as WP:RFA, and he's repeatedly demonstrated poor judgment, it's risky to just ignore his past behavior without waiting awhile to see if his judgment has improved.  In both cases, before "forgiving and forgetting," steps must be taken to make sure there won't be a "next time."  In the case of systemic bias, mentoring with respect to articles he has a bias in is probably in order.  With respect to poor judgment, time, training, and testing can demonstrate if the editor is or is not likely to show poor judgment in the future.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful essay. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The further rising of bullies
I would agree with davidwr. What the current system does is it prevents bullies from rising further up the chain. It is frequently possible on wikipedia to launch attacks on other editors and create nasty situations which are quite hurtful and drive off editors. Some editors specialize in those sorts of techniques and enhance their scope of authority through them. However via RFCs, request for admin status, arb committee elections, steward elections... do is give a chance for the losers of such conflicts to express their feelings. The negative votes and obvious lack of consensus cause bullies to fail to rise further in terms of official powers which often causes their unofficial powers to decrease. The net result is that the damage they cause the project begins to be contained, and their negative behavior curtailed. Moreover the fact that this is a common cycle causes people to be cautious about bullying. Genuine forgiveness requires repentance and making amends. Failure to ask that of person who has done wrong encourages wrong doing. Wikipedia's culture is bad enough due to a lack of redress for wrongs. There is no advantage to create an expectation that the victim of attacks have a positive obligation to try and redress the situation, the obligation should lie with the perpetrators. jbolden1517Talk 13:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Always forgive your enemies ...
I deleted "Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much. Oscar Wilde" from the quote box based on "The linkage to Wilde appears to be spurious. The true originator of the quotation remains unknown." https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/06/11/annoy/. If the quote is reinserted the author would need to be indicated as anonymous, perhaps with a note that the author is not Wilde. Mcljlm (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2022 (UTC)