Colin

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Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Colin. because of what I consider to be insulting language in your two recent edits.

Jmabel ! talk 05:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Note

I very much appreciate all the time and thought you've committed to improving the project. That's a rare quality and one that very many people admire. I would very much appreciate if you would adopt a more measured tone with other contributors going forward. You have a lot of insight and experience that can be valuable in community discussions, and I don't want that to be drowned out by an overly adversarial approach. GMG^talk 13:35, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo In my not inconsiderable experience with conflicts (mostly other people's I should stress), it is my universal experience that when someone engages in tone policing one of two things are going on.

1. Bad faith. The most famous example is when Zelensky got Tone Policed by Tump/Vance for not wearing a suit and accused of not saying he was grateful. It often occurs at Admin notice boards where users bearing long-term grudges, with nothing of value to say wrt the issue at hand, spot an opportunity to score points. This kind of Tone Policing is a weapon when you have no useful argument and want to hit someone you don't like.
2. Good faith but naïve. Yes the world would be nicer if we were all super kind to each other all the time. But we are in a world half a dozen people on Commons voted to vandalise 2,760 freely licenced professional-class images that don't belong to them and they are supposed to be looking after. Of which 1,699 are used on WMF projects a total of 23,415 times, 3,076 on en:wp and 1,237 fr:wp alone and 173 WMF projects using at least 10 images, and 50 using at least 100 images.[1]

There can be a confusion (deliberate in the case of bad faith) between strong criticism and a personal attack. Clever people can do or propose stupid things. Happens all the time. Most people with a optimal level of personal awareness, respond to being told they did or proposed or said something supremely suboptimal, and which indeed was so, with acceptance. "My bad!" is a common modern way of admitting to a mistake of this kind and moving on. If the action or proposal was not in fact as fantastically poor as suggested, the diagram on the right indicates the correct way of arguing about it. Complaining about tone is near the bottom. (Calling people "trolls" is right at the bottom.)

Now, we could disagree on what level of criticism was appropriate for the mistake unfolding on Commons. I am reminded of a old joke where two men are fighting in a library, and one is on top of the other and strangling him. The librarian asks if this man could please keep his cries for help down, as it is disturbing the other readers.

It is telling that Diliff is not here and thus some feel empowered on the internet to label another user they likely don't even know a "copyleft troll". Which is a personal attack I'd expect admins to deal with. Revdel even. Users with real names throwing that kind of language around could find themselves on the wrong end of a libel action.

It is also telling that withing minutes of someone proposing to vandalise 2,760 freely licenced professional-class images, users started !voting support, without anyone analysing the impact or practicality.

These images do not belong to any of the users in those discussions. If we choose to host them, we look after them. Attribution, licence terms, and warnings to users and reusers are the job of the website HTML, and both WMF and users can play a part in improving that. Vandalising our repository is not the solution. The scale and quality of Diliff's contributions would I think cause existential problems for Commons if that proposal went ahead. The fireworks that would result could well be participation-ending for some, and leave a permanent derogatory personal impact on them recorded in the press. Being swiftly told the idea is stupid is really really at the very mild end. -- Colin (talk) 18:45, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

But is it really the most effective approach? I'm just looking at it as a pragmatist. I think you genuinely care about this issue, but you seem to be a bit shooting yourself in the foot with the presentation. GMG^talk 19:16, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo, you wrote earlier "it's something on the level of what my second grader might say if she gets frustrated". That's commenting on something I said, comparing it to an outburst typical of the emotionally instability and intellectual underdevelopment of a seven-year-old child. Ouch! Harsh insult!! Did I run off to AN and complain GMG was mean to me and would a grown up please do something about it before I start crying? Did I !vote support of an indef should you dare to robustly criticise another on Commons ever again?

Is "This proposal to vandalise 23,415 images across hundreds of Wikimedia projects is something on the level of what my second grader might do if she gets frustrated" fundamentally any different to "... is stupid". And I didn't just throw an insult but engaged fully on the issue with "and here's why....". I'm quite curious about the reaction and the responses.

I suggest you have bigger problems with other users in those discussions, and with the attitude of some towards other people's creative works or Wikipedia's educational mission. "I'd just delete them all so that he learns the lesson." for a start. Or calling people "troll"s. Diliff spent more of his free time creating those images (and sharing his techniques with others) than most participating there could imagine. The benefit to Wikipedia and elsewhere from those freely licenced images is enormous. Maybe there's a bit of jealousy involved?

I thought Commons was a place where there was an international appreciation. Not least that the whole world does not speak English. If I'm being generous, about 4000 of the above 23,415 images across hundreds of Wikimedia projects are on English speaking projects. So that's five-sixth of all the vandalised images (19,415) will say "Please keep this attribution intact to avoid legal action" in the wrong language. And there's nothing editors on those projects can do to fix those vandalised pixels in those JPGs that except fork the images and remove the damage. It is monumentally stupid. -- Colin (talk) 22:31, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, the reference to my kiddo was about taking offense at the word "stupid". I think we're both fluent enough that if we really wanted to cut someone to pieces, we would probably be more multisyllabic.

Take the advice or leave it. I don't think your approach is being effective or winning you any allies. GMG^talk 22:50, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Have a re-read of your sentences. I can't see how they can be interpreted the way you say you intended. But if "behaving like an immature child" was addressing the other guy, I'll take that as a point we can at least both agree on. Different people have different approaches. What makes you think it isn't being effective. Have 2,760 of Diliff's works been vandalised, as the proposer and supporters wanted? -- Colin (talk) 09:10, 20 April 2025 (UTC)