Thoughts on the edit warring policy

That's... how notifiers work, though. You have to come back and check if the person has stopped doing whatever they were notified about.

Well, of course. I just think that a notifier doesn't serve this purpose as well as it does with other editing issues, if only because it doesn't inherently lead to the necessary discussion. ATT kills two birds with one stone by informing them and giving them a venue.

As for ATT being a moderation forum.. that doesn't track with how we've been asked to use the forum in the past, nor with how I've seen it used? I've seen so many discussions play out without a mod ever even needing to be involved, and I've seen a handful of edit wars end suspensionless because the people involved got directed to ATT in time. Calling ATT a place specifically for mod reports means that a lot of what goes on there daily is misuse, and if that's the case it's not really "Ask The Tropers" anymore, is it? More like "Ask The Mods" or "Call The Mods"? My point is, I think ATT is and should be just fine as a place to call edit warring tropers in, let them discuss, and to eventually get a mod's attention if things continue to spiral.

Well, I think using the discussion page is better, instead of putting everything in ATT. Besides, stuff gets lost more quickly in ATT.

The idea though is that ATT allows more voices to come in; people won't visit a discussion page unless they're actively checking the trope or work out and have interest in seeing what's up for discussion at that moment. I don't think it makes sense to discourage using ATT for this sort of thing at all, if it allows for productive conversation. As for things getting lost, well, that depends on how often you navigate it. I check all the time so it's not hard for me to track each conversation.

The flip side is that too many cooks spoil the broth, which seems like it goes double for single entries on random pages.

Eh, that doesn't happen unless it's something really contentious though. ATT has been used to have discussions on edit wars and examples all the time and it rarely gets out of control. At worst it ends up moving to the forums because things get off-topic, but all that means is that some discussions should be taken to the forums to begin with.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 28th 2023 at 2:49:56 PM

i mean, i dont think anyone is suggesting that all edit disputes be taken to ATT. Edit wars are reported there already.

It could just be two-strikes=ban instead of one-strike? As in, the first edit war is reported on ATT, and the person is notified about the problem (either with a notifier or a ping, idc). If they respond, great, problem solved, if not, they've still gotten their warning. So if they continue the edit war, OR have a second edit war, it's clear they won't listen without a ban.

yea, exactly. the definition is fine, the first response is a little harsh

Edited by Tremmor19 on Dec 28th 2023 at 3:03:42 PM

My suggestion has been essentially just "let people make ATT threads like they already do, but instead ping the tropers over instead of going for the ban right away". ATT can't and shouldn't be used for everything but if people are still gonna use ATT to report the edit wars it's easy enough to just ask people to invite the warring tropers over if possible.

Basically I'm just in favor of "keep the ABA rule the same but don't immediately resort to a suspension without at least attempting to spur the discussion first".

Unrelatedly, we should probably clarify more on what scenarios aren't an edit war? With the TLP thing discussed in Edit Banned for instance, I swear there was another scenario where a troper got suspended for an edit war because they reverted something back to how it was when they launched the trope. And it was treated as a normal edit war the entire time. If the idea is now that such things don't count or at least require a broader conflict, it should be noted on the rules page.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 28th 2023 at 3:04:18 PM

Should we also make it so that pulling the disputed entry to discussion isn't an edit war? That is, removing the entry (with edit reason) and placing it in the discussion?

I would still say it's odd for a notifier to tell people to go to an ATT thread (that may or may not exist), rather than the actual expected first place to resolve the dispute, whether that be a conversation directly with the other person or the discussion page.

Yeah, if we go the notifier route then it should make the "4 discussion options" clear.

Re #33： Full disclosure, I was involved with both incidents and took the resolution in the previous incident—that page creation could count as the first edit in an edit war chain—as precedent for the current one.

I do like the idea of an edit war notifier that should be sent before a suspension (though I wonder if we possibly have too many notifier options at this point and wonder if anything could be done to slim the list down a bit).

Notifier stuff gets discussed here, we're considering combining YMMV and Trivia into a broader one which would release a slot. But that's off topic.

TLP should probably be "needs a close look" cases. There's a difference when a sponsor lets the community talk it out while keeping the draft mostly unchanged before launching, vs making new changes a day before and taking lack of comments as approval.

Well, the particular example on PlayingWith.Bloodstained Defloration was apparently discussed on the discussion page and also in an ATT that's not linked anywhere. Actually multiple ATT, but that one's had people opining on the example itself instead of the disciplinary matters. And yet there is no indication in the page history or the discussion page. Great example of how bringing discussion to ATT can fragment the conversation and make it hard to keep track of - how is anyone who only follows the playing with page supposed to know?

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Dec 29th 2023 at 9:10:08 PM

The stuff on the discussion page was taken to that page after two of the three ATT threads were made. The newest one was less about the entry and more about the conflict between the tropers. IDK if it's fair to say that things got fragmented because that's not even what happened here. Edits were made with no discussion, a report was made, troper got suspended and then released, and now they finally went to the discussion page. The ideal order of events is backwards but the fault doesn't lie in it being taken to ATT.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 29th 2023 at 3:14:45 PM

The order of events isn't the issue I have there, the existence of an ATT discussion that is relevant to the question of whether the entry stays and yet isn't linked anywhere is. Now that has little to do with the edit warring policy but it's this sort of thing that makes me think that people need to go to the discussion page, and not to ATT, first - unlike the discussion page, ATT is not inherently connected to an article.

Well, yes, Discussion pages are the primary venue of debating, while ATT is for when that fails. In practice ATT is when there are any question about pages go, not helped by Discussion tab's poor visibility, isolation from the public areas, and requiring an extra step to add to Following.

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 29th 2023 at 11:51:15 PM

We may need some sort of "recent discussion posts" tab. They show up on "new edits" right now (along with query posts for some reason) but that's too easy to miss. A page that only tells you that someone posted on a discussion is more likely to get people's attention. ATT is used more often now because it's a million times easier to get attention from multiple parties, while discussion pages require checking that page in the first place which few people will even think to do.

I was just about to bring up an analogue of Recent Edits as well. If we can get people check on it as frequently as ATT, a lot of isolated discussions could get a reply faster (if at all).

part of the issue is that most of the places that are officially for example discussion are difficult to use. discussion pages don't get checked. the "is this an example" thread moves fast and gets far more questions than answers. This is out of the scope of the solutions in this thread, obviously, but the format for ATT and trope finder would work really well for discussing examples, actually. it's all in one place, and it's easy to see recent unanswered questions, and the discussion for each individual topic doesn't interfere with other topics

OK, putting aside the venue question, what do people think of suspending people only if there is a repeated back-and-forth or the troper in question is clearly being uncooperative?

If it's clear that they're being uncooperative, then I think there's more of a case for suspending than if a re-addition or re-removal happens by accident. Repeated back-and-forths are also obviously a bigger problem than the ABA pattern we currently have as the minimum for what counts as an edit war.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 29th 2023 at 3:51:44 AM

If a troper re-commits their edit with a combatative edit reason, then it's likely apparent they don't feel the need to discuss it even if it to be brought to their attention.

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 29th 2023 at 1:14:55 PM

Then I think you need to define combative. Since "this belongs here because [X]" does at least show that they're willing to give a reason for it... it's just the wrong place to do so.