Anthony wrote: > What established framework are you talking about, here?
I'm referring to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (and more importantly, the underlying principles). An editor, acting in good faith, might believe that creating pages for dictionary definitions or dessert recipes improves the encyclopedia. Does this mean that we're required to refrain from intervening? Of course not. IAR is one of our most important policies, but it isn't a license to dismiss others' concerns. Perhaps a one-off exception to our vandalism policy *would* improve the encyclopedia, but it isn't Gwern's place to unilaterally determine this and disregard requests to seek consensus. > > _Gwern_ has called it "vandalism" continually (both in this > > discussion and on Jimbo's talk page) and even mocked a user for > > suggesting otherwise. > When, in this discussion (I haven't read the talk page), did he do > that? I just did a search for "vandalism" in this thread, and I don't > see it. >From this discussion: "There's nothing to answer; and I've been copying the most informative or hilarious quotes for posterity, such as an active administrator in good standing wondering if it might actually increase article quality and not constitute vandalism at all! The whole thing was worth it just for that quote; I could not have made up a better example of the sickness." "Obviously I did all my editing as an anon: if even an anonymous IP can get away this kind of blatant vandalism just by invoking the name WP:EL, then that's a lower bound on how much an editor can get away with." >From Jimbo's talk page: "If you read the methodology I posted or even just noticed how I keep using the past tense, you'd know that the vandalism stopped weeks ago." > As I said before, the experiment wouldn't have been at all accurate if > he had consulted beforehand. People would have been on the lookout > for the removal of external links by IP addresses. Gwern provided more information than necessary to convey the experiment's essence. I believe that it would have been fairly easy to omit enough details to avoid impacting the community's scrutiny of the changes, particularly given Wikipedia's quantity of articles and edits. If not, another option was to consult the WMF. (I've noted this several times.) > > Setting aside the issue of terminology (addressed above), our > > default position is to condemn the type of edit that Gwern performed > > and seek to counter it. The onus is on Gwern to establish that a > > special exception should be made. > If you say so. I'm not familiar with that part of the official handbook. You weren't aware that we generally frown upon edits intended to reduce articles' quality? > > > Assume good faith. > > At no point have I accused Gwern of acting in bad faith. > You accused Gwern, several times, of vandalism. I "accused" Gwern of engaging in an act that he/she has repeatedly acknowledged committing? > Good faith edits are not vandalism. Again, we define vandalism as "any addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." Gwern's experiment is based upon compromising the integrity of Wikipedia and observing editors' reactions (or lack thereof). "Vandalism" refers to the immediate harmful act, regardless of any long-term benefits that someone believes will arise from it. And again, we're quibbling over terminology. You may have interpreted my use of the word "vandalism" as an accusation of a bad-faith motive on Gwern's part, but I've explained that it isn't one. David Levy _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l