[uf-discuss] Unjust banning of Andy Mabbett

[Jim R. Wilson]

David Janes said:
> I'm very sympathetic to the case Ryan,
> et. al. are making. If the Wiki becomes a battleground for edits over
> pedantic over-interpretation of the community rules and standards, it
> will quickly become useless to anyone and a time drain on everyone.

I read the how-to-play article on Microformats.org[1], and a great
deal of the items there are, as Manu pointed out, editorial
preferences - which indicate that MediaWiki is very much the wrong
choice for Microformats documentation.

You don't want people to rename headings? Don't use MediaWiki.
You don't want people to use Talk pages to discuss things? Don't use MediaWiki.
You don't want people to relegate articles to Categories for
organization? Don't use MediaWiki.
You don't want people making stylistic or global changes? Don't user MediaWiki.

Also, item #24 really irks me - it starts "If you notice that someone
is iteratively editing a page (say by watching the IRC channel, or the
Special:Recentchanges page) that you'd like to edit, consider waiting
at least 10 minutes after the most recent edit before doing so,..."

If you want to have protection against "iterative" editing, don't use
MediaWiki, use Moinmoin (which will warn users if you're editing an
article).  To expect people to detect whether you're editing
something, and take steps so as not to interrupt you is lunacy.  Use
the "Preview" button rather than so-called "iterative edits".

Finally, under the Wiki Cleaning heading at the bottom, it says: "If
you see something which you think needs massive cleanup on the wiki,
please point it out to admins on the irc channel or
microformats-discuss list rather than doing it yourself."

Again, if you don't want people taking the initiative to produce and
maintain documentation - don't use MediaWiki!

Microformats shouldn't have a wiki, they should have a CMS.  Something
that the admins can execute explicit control over from their
ivory-tower control center.

[1] http://microformats.org/wiki/how-to-play

-- Jim R. Wilson (jimbojw)


On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 5:27 PM, John Allsopp <john at westciv.com> wrote:
> Ben,
>
>
>  > Even in the past 10 days, only a small minority of people have shown
>  > an inclination to engage in this meta-discussion.
>
>
>  there might be cultural reasons for that.
>
>  I for myself have bitten my tongue, as I've found these discussions
>  tend to produce negative outcomes.
>
>  But I'd suggest that lack of piping up on this form is not entirely
>  evidence that people don't care.
>
>  john
>
>
>  John Allsopp
>
>  style master :: css editor :: http://westciv.com/style_master
>  about me :: http://johnfallsopp.com
>  Web Directions Conferences :: http://webdirections.org
>  My Microformats book :: http://microformatique.com/book
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>
>
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