Disputes that involve moderators

[confocaloid]

(thread renamed after a suggestion to change focus, previously "Editors should not act as moderators in disputes in which they have been involved")

User:Dvgrn protected the article OCA:tlife with the following summary in the log:

Protected "OCA:Tlife": Edit-war-type controversial edits are still inexplicably continuing, in spite of multiple clear moderator requests for that behavior to stop until discussion and cool-off periods are complete as per LW:DR ([Edit=Allow only administrators] (indefinite) [Move=Allow only administrators] (indefinite))

I agree that edit wars and people angry at each other are bad things, and trying to find some common ground from which to proceed is a better thing.

What I do strongly object to is dvgrn acting as a moderator in issues where they are an involved party. Editors should not act as moderators in disputes in which they have been involved.

What is described as 'multiple clear moderator requests' in the quoted text above, all are requests coming from dvgrn, who is a side in the dispute between them and myself on the "condition vs. transition" issue specifically.
* beginning from this edit and later edits
* beginning from this reply on the talk page and later replies
* beginning from this forum post and later posts

Protecting the page from editing is also an administrative action in the same dispute.

(To clarify, I do not object to the page protection in itself.
I do strongly object to dvgrn continuing to present themselves as a moderator in this edit war. Here they are only another editor with a specific preference and strong feelings on the issue.
While it is something obvious to me, I would appreciate it, if dvgrn acknowledged this directly and left any future administrative actions in this dispute for some other moderator or other moderators.)

Posting this as a new thread for two reasons: first, it is not about the terminology itself; second, it applies to any other similar disagreements.

[confocaloid]

To answer your various complaints about me being a participant in the debate, so that I shouldn't be trying to moderate it: briefly, the question of whether I take various moderator actions or not is not your decision to make. If you have complaints about something that I do, follow the escalation procedure. [...]

I've protected the page -- with your changes in place exactly as you made them. Compared to your recent rule-breaking, the temporary content of that page is an absolutely insignificant issue.

It is not my choice whether or not you take various moderator actions.
It is my choice to directly state here, that you are seriously mishandling this issue, by doing moderation on it while at the same time being involved in it as a side.

Whether or not the page stays with my rewording kept in future, or whether it gets reverted at some point, does not change the fact that you are taking 'various moderator actions' in a dispute between myself and you, where you have a specific preference on the content issue under debate.

[dvgrn]

I asked you a direct and relevant question in my last post above, which you haven't answered:

I don't think it's any kind of a problem that you didn't understand that rule on November 21 and 22 -- no blame needs to be assigned. I would like to make sure that you know to follow that rule in the future, though -- can you please say something to confirm that?

Please respond to that question. There's really no use trying to discuss 'transition' vs. 'condition' (in the other thread, or anywhere else) until you're following LifeWiki rules a lot better than you have been recently.

[confocaloid]

In your quoted post, you wrote 'Again in my capacity as moderator,' and 'speaking a LifeWiki moderator' and so on.

You are mishandling this LifeWiki content issue, by taking moderator actions directly related to the disagreement while at the same time being involved in the disagreement as a side with specific preferences on the content.

Please stop appealing to being a moderator to gain upper hand. This is destructive. You are only an editor in this dispute, regardless of what you can do technically.

[dvgrn]

While it is something obvious to me, I would appreciate it, if dvgrn acknowledged this directly and left any future administrative actions in this dispute for some other moderator or other moderators.)

I'm happy to acknowledge directly that it would be a wonderful thing if another moderator would magically come along and take over this issue, and solve it successfully to everyone's satisfaction. I would be overjoyed, in fact.

I'd also be very happy if this hypothetical magical moderator would successfully resolve every other issue where you have reverted other LifeWiki editors' edits multiple times, on grounds that seem logically rock-solid to you but seem completely inadequate to the other LifeWiki editor involved.

However, I've spent a week asking for help from every other active moderator, and have finally gotten the attention of three out of four of them enough to find out that ... they're all quite busy right now.

I seem to be the only moderator who was available to lock the OCA:tlife page to stop your third edit war on that one page. I'd advise you not to bother complaining about that particular action, since your edits are still there and undamaged in that locked article, waiting for you to answer the question in my previous post.

-- So, no, unfortunately I can't promise to leave future administrative actions in this dispute to other moderators. They aren't available at the moment.

Time for a Legal Analogy
It's kind of like a regular judicial court, a Court of Appeals, and a Supreme Court. There's a clear path for you to escalate your case in situations like this one -- but

1) you'd have to follow the LW:DR rules to make an appeal, which so far you are not doing; and

2) the Court of Appeals (the rest of the moderator team) and the Supreme Court (Nathaniel, the admin who has been keeping this whole amazing conwaylife.com resource available to us all these years) are not obligated to take your case. If the case looks like a frivolous one to them, they might decline to spend a lot of time on it, in favor of doing (for example) actual CA research with the limited time they have available.

Dealing with your uniquely voluminous and vociferous complaints and arguments requires quite a lot of time and quite a lot of patience. Not all moderators have both of those commodities available. I do -- at least for the moment. So you're quite likely stuck with me, until and unless some other moderator shows up to take over.

Summary and next steps
Luckily I'm not particularly angry with you, and I have a very clear sense of the amount of good work that you do here on the forums and on the LifeWiki. 99% of your contributions are clear, cogent, constructive, and non-controversial -- a huge improvement in both the forums and LifeWiki.

The only problem is the remaining 1% of your opinions, as expressed in LifeWiki edits, which are in fact controversial. For some reason it seems impossible in those cases for you to gracefully acknowledge that community sentiment, right or wrong, is against you. Evidence that points in that direction gets labeled as "misleading", and if the people who disagree with you don't back down, you start finding reasons to attack them, in violation of rule 1a. Even when not a single other forum member speaks up to agree with you, as in this transition-vs.-condition case, you keep making a fuss about how much you disagree ... pretty much indefinitely, it seems.

Please disengage. Give it a rest. Wait and see what other moderators say when they have some time.

[confocaloid]

as in this transition-vs.-condition case

I don't have much problem with normal people expressing disagreement / their opinions. Likewise in the question of how to word OCA:tlife, I'm basically trying to clarify my opinion (what is the wording I prefer, and why exactly I prefer it), and in addition to provide evidence (quotes, links) that this wording does agree with common usage in actual non-meta CA-related discussions.

What is a real problem is the sheer volume of your posts in all the disagreements between myself and you specifically, and the fact that you put yourself above me and other people in these disputes.

There is the community. You are not the community.
Specific members of the community are not the community.

Instead of filling all the threads with your attempts to gain upper hand over the dispute, you could let the discussion evolve naturally.

Please stop abusing your moderator position to gain upper hand.

[Sokwe]

I would appreciate it, if dvgrn... left any future administrative actions in this dispute for some other moderator or other moderators.

This simply isn't a big enough community to be able to swap out moderators when there is a dispute. I for one have been too busy lately to do much moderation. I will say that I do not think Dave has abused his moderator position in any way, and I support his decision to lock OCA:tlife. From what I've seen Dave has been very careful, thoughtful, and considerate in his moderation actions and has only taken them when he's exhausted all other reasonable options.

[confocaloid]

I would appreciate it, if dvgrn... left any future administrative actions in this dispute for some other moderator or other moderators.

This simply isn't a big enough community to be able to swap out moderators when there is a dispute. I for one have been too busy lately to do much moderation. I will say that I do not think Dave has abused his moderator position in any way, and I support his decision to lock OCA:tlife. From what I've seen Dave has been very careful, thoughtful, and considerate in his moderation actions and has only taken them when he's exhausted all other reasonable options.

I do not object to the decision to lock the page specifically.
I object to those posts, replies, edit summaries where dvgrn puts themselves above the dispute, without honestly acknowledging that they're an involved party in this disagreement on the wiki content.

dvgrn is a side on the question "should OCA:tlife use the word 'condition' or the word 'transition'?".
Their assertion "This was a moderator's attempt to stop an edit war" is incorrect because there was no edit war on this issue before dvgrn's edit in OCA:tlife.

Edit: corrected to add a missing item

• My initial edit: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=140860
  [two changes: remove an unused alternative name of the rule tHighLife; reword from 'transition' to 'condition']
  Before: 'This rule is commonly known as "tHighLife" or "Thigh Life", due to it sharing a B6 transition with {{rl|HighLife}}.'
  After: 'This rule is commonly known as "tHighLife", due to it sharing a B6 condition with {{rl|HighLife}}.'
• Edit by Haycat2009: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=141270
  Reverting all my changes without explanation. (Shortly before that, Haycat2009 created a redirect from the unused alternative name of the rule tHighLife. I think it is likely that they objected to removal of that unused name from article. But they never explained.)
• My edit: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=141307
  I restored my edit as there was no explanation from Haycat2009 why it was reverted.
• Edit by Dvgrn: https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?diff ... did=141321
  Change from 'condition' back to 'transition'. The edit summary includes:
  'However, even the original undo was a bad idea because it also stomped on a valid improvement, "condition" -> "transition".'
  This is incorrect. The first undo was Haycat2009's undo of my edit. My preceding edit was an attempt to improve the wording by changing in the other direction.

Only later, a few other people left responses and I already tried to reply to cover some points. Unfortunately the discussion in that thread is mixed with posts that are not about the issue.
viewtopic.php?p=172028#p172028
viewtopic.php?p=172093#p172093

• Haycat2009 never explained reasons for their revert.
• Galoomba claimed that they don't remember seeing 'condition' in this context, but I did post multiple quotes on the first page in this thread, showing that the word 'condition' is commonly used in this context.
• hotdogPi claimed "Common usage calls them transitions." without explaining, but again I already posted multiple quotes to show that 'condition' is in common use.
• snowman posted to share their preference for occurrences in forum posts. However, I did not suggest to change the forum posts. I tried to reword a LifeWiki article aimed at readers, and not forum posts aimed at fellow CA enthusiasts.

In addition I posted quotes to show common usage. So it is not my invented terminology (it is already in use) and the question is which wording is more natural/intuitive/understandable for LifeWiki readers (including newcomers and simply curious readers without deep knowledge / without familiarity with the informal jargon)
viewtopic.php?p=171595#p171595
viewtopic.php?p=171596#p171596
viewtopic.php?p=171671#p171671
viewtopic.php?p=172091#p172091

[Sokwe]

I object to those posts, replies, edit summaries where dvgrn puts themselves above the dispute, without honestly acknowledging that they're an involved party in this disagreement on the wiki content.

Your idea that editors should not act as moderators in disputes in which they have been involved is certainly desirable, but not reasonably implementable at this time. Due to the small size of the community, we often won't have an independent moderator available to resolve such disputes. Our moderators are at least de facto entrusted to apply their moderator authority in such cases, especially when the moderator in question has appealed to other moderators for assistance and been rebuffed, as is the case here.

Their assertion "This was a moderator's attempt to stop an edit war" is incorrect because there was no edit war on this issue before dvgrn's edit in OCA:tlife.

Not everyone will agree on what exactly represents the start of an edit war. I believe you do not have a sufficient reason here to outright deny Dave's stated intent. Remember that rule 1(a) states you should "assume the best of others", and in this case I think that means believing Dave when he says he intended to stop an edit war.

From what I've read of this dispute, it seems Dave has separated his moderator position from his personal position on this topic reasonably well. I do not believe Dave used his moderator position to gain an upper hand in the underlying argument, either consciously or unconsciously, nor did he in any way abuse his moderator position. You should regard this as my analysis as an independent moderator.

I believe continued assertions of misuse of the moderator position in this case are unproductive at this time. I think this thread should instead focus on proposals for how disputes that involve moderators should be handled, specifically with consideration of the fact that we often will not have another moderator available to intervene.

[Haycat2009]

I will clarify: I use transition as transitions are conditions in action. Conditions are just hensel notation configurations (Like 3a), while transitions are the configurations put into practice (Like B3a in Life).

[confocaloid]

I will clarify: I use transition as transitions are conditions in action. Conditions are just hensel notation configurations (Like 3a), while transitions are the configurations put into practice (Like B3a in Life).

Just "3a" does not specify the old state of the center cell. It might be "dead cell with three alive neighbours in a certain configuration" (which is the B3a/A3a condition) or "alive cell with three alive neighbours in a certain configuration" (which is the S3a/D3a condition).

In other words claiming "3a is condition and B3a is not" is incorrect. Both are conditions, but "B3a" specifies more information than just "3a".

When pre-block evolves into a block, one new cell is born because the rule definition (B3/S23) includes the B3a condition. Presence of S3a condition is not important for that birth to happen.
When the block survives, each of four cells survives because the rule definition includes the S3a condition. Presence of the B3a condition is not needed for the block to survive, once it is formed.

Code: Select all

x = 2, y = 2, rule = B3/S23
2o$o!