Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Dmcdevit: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:42, 14 January 2006

Revision as of 05:48, 14 January 2006

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:I think when we talk about these templates, there are a few things at play here. There is, first and foremost, the good of the encyclopedia, and how having them directly benefits or harms it, and then also how to go about dealing with it in a way that's also good for the encyclopedia. As to the tempates specifically, I think there are certainly some that have gone too far. Like user pages, userboxes should be used for Wikipedia-related information, personal information and views, and even silliness, but all within reason. User pages, including their templates, while given wide latitude, are still the collective property of the community. Inappropriate or offensive material can be and has been removed from user pages and subpages without the direction of the Arbitration Committee. I also believe that ''some'' of these templates (and their categories in particular) have, intentionally and unintentionally, caused partisanship over both their content and their existence, and that has been harmful. As to the point of freedom of speech, I would agree with Improv there, and also point out that, for the good of the encyclopedia, (for those Americans) "the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it." Nothing on Wikipedia should serve to be divisive amongst its own editors, especially if we can do something about it.

:It has also been true, though, that some of the partisanship and harm has been caused by deletion of the templates without warning, and even some wheel warring that went with it. The harm of wheel warring, regardless of the reason, needs no explication, and it has been grounds for desysopping before. An arbitrator should have all of these considerations in mind, and try to strike a solution with the long temterm goal of the project inmind. This would include finding the balance between user page autonomy and its boundaries, as well as administrative enforcement of the boundaries for the overall good (and administrative disagreements over the administrative enforcement) and the boundries of that enforcement (when it becomes harmful) that is the most sensible, considering the circumstances presented in whatever the potential case is. [[User:Dmcdevit|Dmcdevit]]·[[User talk:Dmcdevit|t]] 05:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)