Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2020/April

Dispute resolution assistance required: Where is the rule on talk page curation?

Hi. Gryllida and I need something settled.

We need to know where to find the policy covering talk pages. Years ago I saw one here on Wikinews that said "We use this one [link] from Wikipedia." The sticking point is that the one on Wikipedia says the person whose talk page it is does get to delete posts so long as doing so does not misrepresent anything (as in deleting a post to which a third party had already replied).

Basically, if one person is saying things on a talk page that the subject of that talk page finds hurtful, or if the the two people are falling into a talking-in-circles pattern of a discussion that they have already had many times before, and the subject of the talk page tells the other party, starting subtly but moving toward more direct, "your time is better spent elsewhere" to "now leave me alone," and the second person keeps posting on the talk page anyway, is the subject of the talk page allowed to delete their posts, read or unread? What is existing, written Wikinews policy and guidance on this? If there is no rule about it either way, we need to know that too.

There is a global pandemic on. Wikinews sends people emails when someone posts on their talk page. A Wikinewie might wish to be alerted of posts about other things, even posts made by the same person about those other things, but not continue the hurtful/repetitive conversation.

I'm trying to prevent a fight, but being a victim is not one of the things I'm willing to do to prevent it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:15, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Things have escalated. Pi zero has accused me of harassing people, which I have not done, and you can see above that I consider Gryllida's actions toward me harassment as well, though perhaps "badgering" is more appropriate. There are two questions before the community:

• 1) Are people allowed to delete posts from their talk pages as I have done?
• 1b) If not, then how do you get someone to leave you alone when asking and telling did not work?
• 1c) What about time-stretching measures meant for cooldown, like "I've deleted your post. If you still want to say it in 24 hours, put it back and I'll leave it up."
• 2) Are people who aren't admins allowed to give their opinions?

@Green Giant, Ottawahitech, SVTCobra, Robertinventor, DannyS712, Md Tanbir Islam: Ottawa is an involved party.

This exchange reminds me of a SLAPP lawsuit. John Oliver explains what that is better than I ever could in this non-paywalled video.

If the actual problem is that people are not allowed to voice opinions on Wikinews, negative or positive, then we should all get together and draft a guideline and either apply it to everyone equally or define which duties are owed to whom and by whom. Right now, policy says "everyone's opinion matters as much as everyone else's" and "Wikinews aspires to be non-heirarchical, with an exception for technical matters." Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:36, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

If you don't want want to continue a discussion, simply don't reply. --Pi zero (talk) 16:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

There are two problems with that: 1) A third or fourth party could feel the need to respond to the second party, prolonging the conversation. Deleting the comment prevents a fight and leaving it there does not. 2) The person has dumped their negative emotions at me, knowing that an email will shove it right in my face. There is a global pandemic on and I don't have room to be a punching bag in that way.

Thank you for sharing your personal opinion as one of the involved parties. Where is the written policy on this? Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

By all means deleting the first message on receipt can be more productive than responding to it a few times first, initiating a conversation, and then muting it by deleting the last message of the other party. It would help to have an edit summary of 'confirmed receipt' without using it for discussions. Perhaps this approach will be suitable for messages which you don't want to become a subject of a continued discussion, and perhaps it will resolve both of the problems which you have raised here. (It won't resolve the problem of email notifications; this can be partially remedied by writing a large "Please do not talk with me here." banner at the top of your talk page, but seemingly important feedback would still sip in. This is not possible to mute this on a wiki.) Gryllida (talk) 18:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not at all unusual for threads to start out civil and seemingly productive and then devolve into a repetition. That is what happened here. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt to see if you'd improved yourself.

So you, as one of the involved parties, think it is okay to delete the first post that someone makes in a thread, just not later on. What an interesting view. Do you know where the written rule about this is so we can all consult it as well? Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I haven't had the "start out civil and seemingly productive and then devolve into a repetition [implied there will be ongoing discussion that does not stop]" issue on my talk page. Have you seen it on someone else's without your participation? Gryllida (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, actually. Off the top of my head, I remember some people at WT:MoS start out polite and then repeat repeat repeat over time. It was years ago, but it happened often enough to be a thing. Of course, there weren't many threads that I read but didn't participate in. Hm... When I was working 3O a lot of the convos I ended up 3O-ing had started out like that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I request that we the involved parties step back and allow uninvolved parties (or hopefully someone who knows where that policy I saw years ago is) to contribute without having to read a book first. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Darkfrog24: I am trying very hard not to get involved in squables until the covid-emergency is resolved. I would like to say to the other people involved in this walloftext discussion here that I have not witnessed Darkfrog24 harrassing anyone, and would be very surprised if they are. I think it is more likely that they are the harrased party here (sorry I dont visit wikinews often enough to know for sure).

In any event I really think wikinews has bigger issues to deal with at the moment. Last I looked all the articles on the wikinews front page were VERY old news. What is the point of limiting new articles here because they are more than a couple of days old, while nothing gets refreshed on the front page? I am not saying issues of harrasment should not be dealt with just saying keep your eyes on the ball during the game, otherwise you will lose in the grand scheme of things. Just my $.02. I'm off, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd suggest to be careful creating conclusions without a careful look.

Alas, publishing is delayed when there is a long interview in the queue and only one reviewer on duty. Gryllida (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Sweet Margaret, there is so much chatter here, I can't even suss out what the heck the chat is about!! --Bddpaux (talk) 22:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)