[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia moderators and moral authority

Mon Nov 11 19:53:32 UTC 2002

>> My overall point is that if we are looking to find "moral 
>> authority"  we need to think and act in ways which respect 
>> human dignity, and which encourage at least a basic level 
>> of kindness and 
> civility.
> 
> So your point is that we have to treat even our trolls with 
> kindness and civility, and that is what will allow our 
> productive members to be respected and treated as if they had 
> some legitimate authority on the project?  I disagree completely.

No, that is not my point. I'm glad you disagree, because I do too.  My
point is that respect for human dignity is a mandatory subset of what we
should do, not that it is the only thing necessary.

> Your point too is far overstated.  There is much more than we 
> could possibly do than simply "encouraging at least a basic 
> level of kindness and civility."  I do agree that we should 
> do that.

That was my whole point, I did not go further. I made no claims that my
post addressed all the problems we face, so to critique it because "more
can be done" is inaccurate.  

In particular, I did not address the point that we need to make our
rules more clear, and be more consistent in enforcing those rules.  I
think your description of our need in this area is exactly right.
However, I think that even this needs to be done in a way that indicates
our respect for people generally, and specifically for the people who we
are asking not to work on our project any more.  Obviously we need to
also respect the people who've work hard on our project, as well as
experts who donate limited and valuable time to work on our encyclopedia
project.  I don't see these goals as mutually exclusive.  

In particular, as I see it there's just no point tying negative labels
to anybody.  When somebody violates the rules of our project, we should
seek to have the same NPoV description of what they've done that we
expect in other places.  And we don't need to judge their character to
say that we think the project would progress more smoothly without their
participation. 

As far as I can tell, the only real disagreement we seem to have is
about what constitutes a basic respect for human dignity in the context
of a public project. My position is that negative labels just aren't
respectful, and therefore name calling is not appropriate.  In the
office, I expect the people I work for/with to deal fairly with people's
ideas, and not to call each other names.  I expect the same from my
roommates, nephews, parents, and friends. And I would --really like-- to
be able to expect it here.   

I sometimes catch myself occasionally writing one of my colleagues off
as incompetent, or lazy, or stupid, if only in my head.  But when I
recognize this in myself, I recognize it as wrong.  I am more than
willing to admit that others don't share my distaste for negative
labels.  But before you reject it, I'd like to hear why you think
calling Lir "a disruptive child" is better than attempting to briefly
describe Lir's --behavior-- as disruptive, counterproductive, and
lacking in maturity.  As I see it there's no need to judge Lir's value
as a person, we have no idea why Lir is responding in the way she is,
and in other contexts she may be perfectly coherent, mature, and
productive.  

Yours
Mark Christensen