Wikiversity:Editing disagreements

Practical options when editing material during a disagreement

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When using, researching or creating content on Wikiversity it is inevitable that you will find material that you do not agree with.

while philosophical attitude is very important, we need to understand the possible options for dealing with this. There are 8 and they are listed roughly ordered from least to most aggresive.

  1. Topic:Editing disagreements/Defer Abandon creating material of that topic and discuss a related topic and/or abandon the topic entirely.
  2. Topic:Editing disagreements/Share Place your thoughts on the associated talk page and take action only once the author has agreed to it.
  3. Topic:Editing disagreements/Compromise Create a text which compromises between your different viewpoints. Post in the discussion page and wait for feedback.
  4. Topic:Editing disagreements/Convince Study the Authors ideas and offer a lengthy cited discussion on the talk page to convince him/her
  5. Topic:Editing disagreements/Rewrite Place your own thoughts or draft of the material on the talk page. Either seek to get your own material posted OR try to get the author to revise his material based upon it.
  6. Topic:Editing disagreements/NewForum Create a New forum entirely with your own thoughts. Relatedly, slightly alter the reported purpose or focus to allow for two conflicting accounts of the same topic.
  7. Topic:Editing disagreements/Edit, and alter the project page. Add conflicting information; create disclaimers.
  8. Topic:Editing disagreements/Replace Entirely destroy the authors material, either writing over his thoughts with your own, deleting his material, and removing links to this authors thoughts.

one option is NOT right for all situation and there are several signficant factors.

  1. How abandoned is the work?
  2. Does your material completely conflict or is more of an update or addition to the authors work?
  3. How much consensus do you have the community?
  4. What is your expertise and what is the author's expertise?

Please feel free to discuss each of these points. I would like to achieve some consensus about each of the proposed actions.

a link back to the project is here