Wikipedia:Requests for comment/How to present a case: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:41, 12 June 2008

Revision as of 01:47, 13 June 2008

Line 42:

==Effective arguments==

The community generally considersbelieves that the Wikipedia method works,; that Wikipedia is, on the whole, a successful project, and that admins are generally trustworthy. They explicitly choose any outcome that resultswill result in Wikipedia working better.

ArgumentsPursuing opposingarguments that oppose Wikipedia's basic principles, suggesting the existence of a massive cabal of rogue admins, or holdingtreating the dispute resolution process toas if it bewere an end in itself will not work.

It is mistaken to argue on the assumption that an RFC functions like a court of law. See [[Wikipedia:Wikilawyering]].

Arguing about flaws in the Mediation and RFC process is usually a waste of time and will make editors, admins, and eventually Arbitrators look dimly upon you. Take the time that you could spend arguing about the details of the process and apply it to trying to gather useful evidence. The first to try to rules-lawyer the arbitration process invariably loses — because they wouldn't be rules-lawyering if they had a case, and the same may be taken to be true of RFCs, with the addition that rules-lawyering an RFC tends to predict the progression of the case to ArbCom, and might reasonably also be used as a cue to take it there, rather than waiting for tardy responses to be completed.

==Discussion==