I reject your claim that what I said about needing to neutrally use good evidence as an editor was a dig, since it was simply an explanation saying what the duties of an editor are (and I very clearly stated that I believed you were likely to do it well, unless you’re somehow objecting to me calling it frustrating, which is just obvious?), because it was necessary when talking about what the policy should be. This failure of communication is exactly what I was talking about with people being unable to tell good vs. bad engagement on a topic. You assumed I was making a dig when I was doing nothing of the sort. (It is, of course, possible someone else would say exactly that as a dig.) My arguments should be evaluated on their own merits, not on whether or not someone guesses they are made for good or bad reasons.
Your duties as an editor do, in fact, determine what you should be doing, for the most obvious of reasons. The neutral use of good evidence is vital to the official reasons for Wikipedia’s very existence. (It is very explicit that there should be neutrality, though that is often not true in practice since everyone involved is human.)
I’ll expand the sentence you said you wanted rephrased into an equivalent paragraph: I am advocating a difficult policy on how to deal with changing Wikipedia pages explicitly based on levels of evidence on controversial parts. It would be much easier to use the SOL approach than to do this. The levels of evidence policy, however is not significantly different than what I believe should be the policy on every page, not just on controversial ones. It does not simply seem like a burden (though it clearly is one), but a way to improve Wikipedia. (It is also very much in keeping with the intended spirit of Wikipedia).
I do agree that telling off a person acting badly in the sci-fi example can be a good thing, (and would note that the satisfaction it engenders is a positive under a utilitarianism), and I’m perfectly willing to accept that you want it to be that way as a reason for supporting it -we’ll simply disagree that it somehow makes up for all of the obvious negative effects. You don’t seem to have engaged at all with the idea that intentionally making it get to that point was a clearly bad thing under most moral systems (which was the main point I made). Your assumption that things have to go to the very end is what seems like a ‘dodge’ to me.
To make something clear, how we get to a specific situation matters. When one side has intentionally provoked a conflict, they don’t get to act the same way they could reasonably act when they didn’t; this is true even if the side that engaged in it is morally correct to do so. It matters that the student chose this conflict. The teacher acts very badly, but is merely continuing things. When you choose conflict rather than cooperation in a shared endeavor, you have a stronger moral duty to use means that are clearly good to the extent possible. The student had better means available.
I made multiple points on alternatives to bare stopping which I endorse, all of which are clearly related to the further purposes you claim SOL has. In the sci-fi example, I advocated making an actual defense of sci-fi earlier in the string of events, preferably a calm and well-reasoned one, rather than intentionally violating expectations on an assignment to pick a fight. Then, when they’ve said their piece, they can stop. The ball is then in the teacher’s court, and they can choose how they will react. The student can then stop if there is no point in dialogue with the teacher, without having lost, nor having implemented a bad policy, or they can continue if it is worthwhile to do so.
In the Wikipedia case, making a real policy on how, when, and why engagement will happen is the correct approach. This is much more in keeping with the ideals of a community made encyclopedia than simply ignoring people whose viewpoints pattern-match ones that have been annoying before, and provides a good reason for why failure to respond is not an good proxy for losing. (Care must be taken so that it is not a despotic policy.)
Online harassment is a guaranteed thing. SOL gives more attention to the simple troll than it deserves as compared to simply ignoring it. More dedicated trolls can simply stalk you across the site, and SOL would encourage them, so unless you enjoy being trolled, it doesn’t seem worth using. You can continue to talk to other participants in the discussion while ignoring them, if you are still interested in the rest of the discussion.
The only place explicitly stopping that way has a use case is when you have a duty to be involved with all genuine participants in the conversation (this duty can be self-imposed), and need to explain why you think someone isn’t, but that is definitely a niche case.
Alternately, you can simply restrict the size and emotional tenor of your responses, and let the conversation die naturally in many cases. This doesn’t work if others are feeding the troll, but most trolls rely on the reactions of the people they are trolling directly.
If there is a whole pack of trolls, simply avoiding them seems clearly best (unless it rises to the level where you can and should remove them.).
I reject your claim that what I said about needing to neutrally use good evidence as an editor was a dig, since it was simply an explanation saying what the duties of an editor are (and I very clearly stated that I believed you were likely to do it well, unless you’re somehow objecting to me calling it frustrating, which is just obvious?), because it was necessary when talking about what the policy should be. This failure of communication is exactly what I was talking about with people being unable to tell good vs. bad engagement on a topic. You assumed I was making a dig when I was doing nothing of the sort. (It is, of course, possible someone else would say exactly that as a dig.) My arguments should be evaluated on their own merits, not on whether or not someone guesses they are made for good or bad reasons.
Your duties as an editor do, in fact, determine what you should be doing, for the most obvious of reasons. The neutral use of good evidence is vital to the official reasons for Wikipedia’s very existence. (It is very explicit that there should be neutrality, though that is often not true in practice since everyone involved is human.)
I’ll expand the sentence you said you wanted rephrased into an equivalent paragraph: I am advocating a difficult policy on how to deal with changing Wikipedia pages explicitly based on levels of evidence on controversial parts. It would be much easier to use the SOL approach than to do this. The levels of evidence policy, however is not significantly different than what I believe should be the policy on every page, not just on controversial ones. It does not simply seem like a burden (though it clearly is one), but a way to improve Wikipedia. (It is also very much in keeping with the intended spirit of Wikipedia).
I do agree that telling off a person acting badly in the sci-fi example can be a good thing, (and would note that the satisfaction it engenders is a positive under a utilitarianism), and I’m perfectly willing to accept that you want it to be that way as a reason for supporting it -we’ll simply disagree that it somehow makes up for all of the obvious negative effects. You don’t seem to have engaged at all with the idea that intentionally making it get to that point was a clearly bad thing under most moral systems (which was the main point I made). Your assumption that things have to go to the very end is what seems like a ‘dodge’ to me.
To make something clear, how we get to a specific situation matters. When one side has intentionally provoked a conflict, they don’t get to act the same way they could reasonably act when they didn’t; this is true even if the side that engaged in it is morally correct to do so. It matters that the student chose this conflict. The teacher acts very badly, but is merely continuing things. When you choose conflict rather than cooperation in a shared endeavor, you have a stronger moral duty to use means that are clearly good to the extent possible. The student had better means available.
I made multiple points on alternatives to bare stopping which I endorse, all of which are clearly related to the further purposes you claim SOL has. In the sci-fi example, I advocated making an actual defense of sci-fi earlier in the string of events, preferably a calm and well-reasoned one, rather than intentionally violating expectations on an assignment to pick a fight. Then, when they’ve said their piece, they can stop. The ball is then in the teacher’s court, and they can choose how they will react. The student can then stop if there is no point in dialogue with the teacher, without having lost, nor having implemented a bad policy, or they can continue if it is worthwhile to do so.
In the Wikipedia case, making a real policy on how, when, and why engagement will happen is the correct approach. This is much more in keeping with the ideals of a community made encyclopedia than simply ignoring people whose viewpoints pattern-match ones that have been annoying before, and provides a good reason for why failure to respond is not an good proxy for losing. (Care must be taken so that it is not a despotic policy.)
Online harassment is a guaranteed thing. SOL gives more attention to the simple troll than it deserves as compared to simply ignoring it. More dedicated trolls can simply stalk you across the site, and SOL would encourage them, so unless you enjoy being trolled, it doesn’t seem worth using. You can continue to talk to other participants in the discussion while ignoring them, if you are still interested in the rest of the discussion.
The only place explicitly stopping that way has a use case is when you have a duty to be involved with all genuine participants in the conversation (this duty can be self-imposed), and need to explain why you think someone isn’t, but that is definitely a niche case.
Alternately, you can simply restrict the size and emotional tenor of your responses, and let the conversation die naturally in many cases. This doesn’t work if others are feeding the troll, but most trolls rely on the reactions of the people they are trolling directly.
If there is a whole pack of trolls, simply avoiding them seems clearly best (unless it rises to the level where you can and should remove them.).