Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Gravitor

As predicted this RFC has only egged Gravitor on. At least it has given me a new understanding of what acceptable behavior is on Wikipedia. Thanks folks Numskll 02:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I haven't been editing pages for very long, but it seems to me that Wikipedia is filled with people pushing their pet points of view. I have spend a little time reading through all the mediations and arbitrations. To me, the system looks almost broken. Liberal Classic 06:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. I feel that I've been called to the carpet for just the kind of exhange you've just had with Gravitor, while he was praised for the same conversation and excused becausehe was somehow egged on. At least I have a better idea of how standards actually get applied. Numskll 12:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Please don't take this the wrong way, but to a certain extent you and Wahkeenah did allow yourselves to be dragged down to his level. Two wrongs don't make a right.  By policy, the correct thing to do is to back off and call for comments, informal mediation, formal mediation, and then arbitration.  However, these all take a great deal of time and energy that could be better spent editing articles. In the interim, people who push their points of view are at liberty to do so. How dose someone of good faith handle this? That's what I see as one of Wikipedia's greatest faults: it is far, far to easy to game the system. I have seen it in technology pages, pages on religion, pages on computer games, pages on politics, and now this one.  Of the topics that interest me and even the topics I stumble into from the recent changes page, they are all filled with people trying to game the system to move the site to conform to their points of view. Wikipedia is filled to the brim with people like Gravitor who are just snide enough to not get blocked, and just abusive enough to bull-bait the other side into crossing the line. Maybe Wikipedia was better in the early days, but contrary to the notion that it isn't Usenet, it is.  It's turning from the big-8 into the alt hierarchy. Liberal Classic 18:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with everything you said. I'm not going to quibble about balance and which were the lesser evils as I've said most of it on the RFC. And besides you are dead right when you say that I allowed myself to react to outside forces. It's not as if I didn't have a choice. Thanks Numskll 18:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you agree with Liberal Classic, Numskll. This was the point I was trying to make but seem to have failed. And in response to my one praise of Gravitor, it was only to point that that the RFC in general made him out to be completely horrid with no redeeming qualities, for which that one point proves isn't true. But that doesn't mean or excuse or mean I generally disagree with the main RFC point. -- MECU ≈ talk 21:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, but that still doesn't fix the issue or even do anything productive towards fixing it. It's not not like I invented Gravitor's behavior or that he was simply defending himself against mean and hostile me. No matter how fair your judgment with respect to my actions (open to debate) might have been, the end result of this RFC has been to egg Gravitor on and offer him justification for his actions.  You essentially proved his strategy worked and fanned the flames. His endless attacks on me will go on without censure.  We've given him license to call me and any other editor every name in the book and to treat WP:POINT and WP:OWN as if they only apply to others and to treat me in any manner he pleases with full knowledge that there will be no constriants and that any response on my part other than to simply back off and will be met with censure by admins concerned with defending the underdog in place of looking at there actions. You've given him license to edit in any manner he choses without regard to any discussion and or respect for anything approaching consensus. In short, all the crap Gravitor has heaped upon me and other editors  these passed few weeks has been fully justified by this process. And my actions thoroughly condemned.  Even my typing this response will be read as more bad behavior on my part and more refusal to see how I made Gravior behave the way he did. So, I guess you can say this has been a learning experience for me. I hope I have the sense to never participate in any adminstrative action  again. I hope I can become as good as Gravitor at insults and bad behavior. Given his success I could do worse than emulate his model.  Numskll 22:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I said a couple of weeks ago or so, that the only way to beat this Gravitor character's game was to stop engaging him, to let him have his way with the page without responding, and then he would get bored and go away because no one would play with him any more. I still think so. Wahkeenah 01:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

A new round
After a break of a month or so, Gravitor is back, and a quick look at his (or her) edits to any of the usual articles show the familiar pattern which caused this RFC in the first place. Before we all get scalded again for responding to him - how do we pull this to some kind of conclusion? LeeG 23:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Nothing has changed. Specifically, making changes without discussion or consensus, and issuing that very hypocritical complaint when they are un-done. Nothing changes with this guy. And until something is done, nothing will. Wahkeenah 02:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)