User:Sbowers3/sandbox/rfc-user

Outside view by Sbowers3[edit]

As far as I know I have not previously had any contact with any of the users or topics involved in this RFC. I have no particular interest in the topics.

What does interest me is fair and appropriate process - and I think this RFC is somewhat flawed. The evidence section is good, better than many RFCs I have seen. The structure of the section is good - it lists particular policies and diffs to the "accused's" (is there a better word?) behavior.

So why do I say the RFC is flawed - somewhat flawed?

The purpose of an RFC is not to punish past bad behavior; it is (one hopes) to eliminate future bad behavior. So the evidence should show recent bad behavior. Much of this evidence is from more than a month ago, or even two or three months ago.
An RFC must show "Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute". This section is not so good.
- The first two items do not provide any diffs; they invite us to wade through very long talk pages to find the evidence.
- The middle three items appear to be (I have not read through them) good evidence of trying to resolve the dispute.
- The AN/I reports are not so much evidence of trying to resolve the dispute but of getting other admins to stop the disputed behavior.
The RFC must show "Evidence of ... failing to resolve the dispute" - i.e. evidence that the attempts to resolve the dispute resulted in failure. The only evidence that would show the attempts failed is evidence of bad behavior after attempting to resolve the dispute.

Because the only relevant evidence is evidence that occurred after trying to resolve the dispute, I discard evidence from before 21 January. Some of the remaining evidence is weak and implies that Strider2 has improved her past bad behavior.

I see no recent evidence of violations of WP:CANVASS, WP:Talk page guidelines, WP:V, WP:COI, or WP:Tendentious editing. (Telling a total of two editors that they might be interested in this RFC hardly seems like canvassing to me.)
The WP:AGF and WP:NPA complaints seem weak to me. Her response to the 3RR block was mostly about content and not about persons. The analogy to holocaust deniers is no worse than the common use of "global warming deniers" as an analogy to holocaust deniers.
Strider12's user of her WP:USERPAGE is - so far - within the spirit of the guideline. She is explicitly allowed a "reasonable time" to prepare material for a dispute resolution procedure. As a relative newcomer she reasonably needs more time to prepare, and she has updated that page within the last week. I would suggest that she remove material that is older than one month and that she delete the page within one month or initiate DR.
WP:Wikilawyering is an essay rather than a guideline so technically is not germane here but even so I read her comments as being about the principles involved, not nitpicking about the letter of the policies/guidelines.
The WP:SOAPBOX case seems weak. I suspect that most editors concentrate in one topic area at the beginning. (Remember that she has edited for little more than three months.) I edited almost exclusively on one topic for about three months before I branched out and then rarely returned to that same topic area.

The 3RR evidence is the most compelling but has some weaknesses.
- There are no diffs for the accusation that Strider12 "continuously reinserts the same disputed material, often 2-3 times a day, without any progress on the talk page". The evidence should include diffs for every complaint or the complaint should be omitted. Assuming that there are diffs to support this point, then her behavior is troubling - but has it occurred recently?
- A 3RR notice that resulted in no action, only a warning, is not strong evidence.
- The four reverts in one hour appear to be two reverts plus two additions of new material. There might be other diffs to show that the additions were reverts, but the supplied diffs do not.
- Her comment in response to the 3RR block is certainly not evidence of 3RR or of edit warring but does indicate that she may not fully understand the principle of 3RR.

I have found that many editors (myself included at one time) have misconceptions about 3RR. The wording of the policy is pretty clear - except that what actually consitutes a revert is not so clear - but the wording of warnings issued to users is not at all clear. The warning points them to the policy but the warning could explain more clearly exactly how the user ran afoul of the policy. Strider12, like many other users, thought that three reverts applied to reverting the same material ("I thought 3RR was reverting the same material back and forth." and "A review of the four edits provided by MastCell will demonstrate that I was adding new and DIFFERENT material each time. This is not a violation of 3RR."). Looking through her User talk page and its history, I don't see a single warning that clearly explained 3RR before she was blocked.

Recommendations for all RFCs:

Provide diffs for all complaints or omit the complaint.
Focus on recent behavior, and particularly on behavior after trying to resolve the dispute.

Recommendations regarding Strider12:

Clearly explain the principles of 3RR. Each time she comes close, warn her with specific diffs. If she persists, then report to 3RR each and every time to establish a record of her behavior. Let a neutral admin at 3RR evaluate her edits.
Request her to delete User:Strider12/Disruption within a month unless she files a DR request.

Recommendations regarding 3RR and all users:

When warning users about 3RR and prior to reporting violations, clearly explain with diffs to her edits and with quotations from WP:3RR exactly how she is in danger of violating the policy.

Users who endorse this summary:

Sbowers3 (talk) 00:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)