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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by WarriorScribe (talk | contribs) at 14:35, 27 November 2005 (Perhaps a policy review is in order). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

To my critics

This will not become a soap box for my critics. If you want to say negative things about me, you can do it on your own web site or somewhere else. Hateful things are subject to speedy deletion. Furthermore, continued vandalism will be reported and stopped.

Anonymous, unsigned comments from IP addresses will be subject to speedy deletion. When you try and contribute to a discussion page, look at the very bottom and you'll see the proper Wikiquette. --Jason Gastrich 04:46, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Socks

Lately, more and more, I've seen the value of using a single user account. Even though I had been seeking (and waiting for) a 3rd party admin to exhort me on my use of socks, I've deleted the conversation. I'll be using my main user account for the vast majority of my posts. If I ever do decide to use a sock, some time down the road, I'll make sure to use them very sparingly and within the Wiki rules.--Jason Gastrich 23:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jason , congratulations on this decision, I think you will be taken a lot more seriously by other users without the socks. David D. (Talk) 00:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Why are user pages and associated discussion pages editable, anyway?

It seems to me that this invites the sort of thing we saw here. Gastrich is clearly using Wiki as a platform for personal promotion, POV pushing, and advertising, but as long as that happens in articles that are supposed to be objective evaluations of the subject matter, they can be edited. On the other hand, as long as pages in which users may describe themselves are edited, and as long as (even very minor) controversial figures like Gastrich hang out here, there will always be the chance that someone they ran afoul of will "edit" the page in ways that someone won't like. Looking at the history, it's clear that Gastrich did keep removing things that he didn't want to answer and that he didn't want people to see, e.g., the last statement about the definition of "vandalism," and the comments about the sincerity of his "Christianity." Someone else decided that these things needed to be addressed and kept restoring them. Through what was pretty clearly invalid and subjective criteria, the comments were declared "vandalism" and removed, and though this was done by a handful of editors, the reasons were not that the comments were vandalism, but that the "vandal" appeared to have the temerity to challenge the "authority" of the people whom kept removing and restoring Gastrich's fluff, so they took it personally, and never considered the validity of the comments. All that did was expose the parties involved to others with respect to their objectivity. And then this cycle was revisted over and over again.

If that's how it's going to be, what's the point of having a "talk" page for a user? If any old comment can be arbitrarily called "vandalism" and removed by anyone else who thinks that's what it is (whether it is or not), there's no discussion going on. Sadly, it's exactly this sort of thing that's causing Wiki to lose credibility as an objective resource.

Consider leaving user pages closed to editing by anyone but the user and the site administration. Consider, also, requiring registration before one may edit or write to a user "talk" page, and then, ruling that only admins can remove material from the discussion area once it has been entered. WarriorScribe 14:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)