Wikipedia talk:Editors have pride

What to do instead

I just want to state for the record that I'm not sure about this section. My aim with this essay was to point out a bad practice, but not necessarily to suggest a replacement. Frankly there may not be an across-the-board solution, at least none that I know of. Equazcion (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Remove if you want. I'm not attached, but I know that as a solution, that often works. Hipocrite (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

A corollary

Editors have feelings.

It's the best reason why we do not need snarky block/ban templates. -- llywrch (talk) 21:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I've actually been looking for those. I remember seeing them but I don't know where they are. Could you link to a couple if you know offhand? Equazcion (talk) 22:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I was able to find one that was discussed a coujple of months ago on WP:AN/I, but has been since deleted, {{Lolblock}}. You can see what it looked like from this old version of Awickert's user page. (He wanted someone to cover his userpage with it, so I was pleased to oblige -- which is how I was able to find it. My editting was all in good fun, which Wikipedia has damned little of nowadays.) -- llywrch (talk) 07:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought they were still widespread and was gonna make a stink about them (I like making stinks about stuff), but I guess someone else beat me to it. Fiddlesticks. Equazcion (talk) 16:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, most of those incidents have been along the lines of "crabby Admin bans the same vandal for the leventy-umpteenth time, adds a snarky comment out of frustration". The problem is that: 1) this feeds the trolls, & 2) all it takes is doing this to one newbie by accident, & it's a mess. Best to handle such matters with an infuriatingly neutral voice. -- llywrch (talk) 22:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

There was one I saw once that said something like "Congratulations, I've given you a mandatory break from editing, etc". The kind of thing that couldn't possibly not make someone's head explode. This was a long time ago though. I agree, infuriatingly neutral is better than nuclearly and castratingly sarcastic. Equazcion (talk) 23:15, 26 Oct 2009 (UTC)

... on the other hand

Wikipedia isn't an ego support group either. The vast majority of "serious" editors and admins that repeatedly end up in trouble do so because pride got in the way (ownership issues, inability to back down when face with consensus, equating criticism with attacks). It's not clear to me that catering to this does them a good turn any more than it does the project.

Unblocking an editor that got blocked because they so clearly knew better without a profound attitude change to "spare their pride" is just setting them up for an even harder fall (and, generally, after much expense of distraction and disruption). Who did that serve? — Coren ^(talk) 15:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that is the actual scenario the essay addresses. NE Ent 03:49, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Pride in content disputes

This page is only about blocks, but I would like to add a section on pride in content disputes. Often I find that content disputes can be solved if there is an avenue for one party to save face by getting away with a minor point. Kingsindian ♝♚ 15:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

This essay leans too far in the direction of protecting the feelings of blocked editors

We live in a time when torch-carrying Nazis march in the street openly, wearing swastikas and shouting "Jews will not replace us!" and "blood and soil!", a man who pretended to not know what the KKK was to avoid disavowing them on national television was still elected president of the United States. In the years since this essay was written the use of information warfare and internet manipulation has escalated worldwide at all levels by both state and non-state actors. Here at Wikipedia paid-contribution disclosure policy has developed, the conflict of interest guideline has been refined, many conduct guidelines have been expanded with increased specificity and rationale about why certain behavior is a problem, and in particular the disruptive editing guideline has been expanded with a section on WP:NOTGETTINGIT, a behavior that seems particularly pertinent to this essay.

To me, this essay appears to be saying that because the blocked individual making a sincere unblock request will consider the mere presence of their unblock request as an implication that they intend to edit constructively simply the act of submitting appeal paperwork is a fungible replacement for acknowledgement of the conduct that resulted in the sanction and for demonstrating cognizance of the problems surrounding other conduct, which does not at all seem true to me.

I don't think, in the appeals I've looked at, the sanctioned editor is being asked to grovel; some may regard insistence that one genuinely and forthrightly examine one's own actions as a demand for groveling but I don't think that's what it is.

Editors' feelings are important but quite simply, in 2020, there is a whole lot of demonstrably bad-faith editing going on and most types of bad-faith editing have been thoroughly analyzed and articulated, to the point that at least vocal acknowledgement of the cause for sanctions, and a demonstration that the involved principles are understood—lest we have “oops, well no one told me that” recidivism—is reasonable and appropriate, and further analysis of editing behavior beyond mouthing the words is reasonable and appropriate as well.

Beyond that, as far as this essay goes, I've been editing Wikipedia for nearly a decade and a half now and I'm not aware of any point at which it would ever have been reasonable to regard submitting the paperwork to have sanctions lifted as a sincere expression of intent to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines in general or comply with the specific reasoning behind a particular sanction, in and of itself. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:54, 10 November 2020 (UTC)