Anythingyouwant

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Removing a topic ban

I'll write more about your proposed addition to Be Bold on that talk page. Here, I'm wondering about your inability to get out from under the topic ban. Wikipedia:Topic ban essay#Rehabilitation says "In the case of indefinite topic bans, conditions should be given by which the user can demonstrate rehabilitation." Did you receive conditions? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:21, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

User:Butwhatdoiknow, basically, they said that as long as I continued to question them about whether the original ban was proper in the first place, then it would remain. Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:21, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

► Or perhaps they said the ban would remain until you demonstrate that you understand why the original ban was placed? (Whether or not you agree is is proper.) If so, I encourage you to consider that the ban is not simply for the edit you made to consensus. Rather, it is for a sequence of events that included the edit, to wit:

1. You ran into an editing roadblock,

2. you edited consensus in an effort to remove that roadblock, and

3. then (after time had passed) you tried to use the edited text to get past the roadblock.

I can see why you thought this would work. After all, the passage of time created a silent consensus on the consensus page that your edit was okay.

► But I'm wondering whether the fundamental problem isn't about the consensus edit but the about the roadblocked edit. You believed it was a non-substantive edit and, evidently, another editor - or other editors - disagreed. Then, rather accepting that you have lost the battle, you tried to do an end run.

Look, I understand the frustration when you believe you are 100% right and others are unreasonable for not agreeing with you or, in some cases, even failing to engage in good faith discussions about the dispute. But at some point you have to accept The Wrong Version and move on. See Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass.

► In this case, I suggest you stop trying to get the topic ban removed by arguing that it was improper in the first place. Instead, say that, (a) while you did not intend to game the system, upon reflection you understand that that is what you did and (b) you will be on guard to avoid that in the future. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

User:Butwhatdoiknow, thanks for the advice, but I am not currently trying to get the topic-ban removed. I am trying to improve policy to help well-intentioned editors in the future. I believe that, going forward, Wikipedia policy should explicitly say that boldly editing policy in any way that does not change the policy’s meaning cannot possibly be gaming the system. That policy edit would not be retroactive, so it would have no effect whatsoever on my topic ban 15 years ago. There are sound reasons for making a policy’s implications explicit, one of those reasons being so that malicious editors cannot so easily try to twist that meaning. This is obvious. Incidentally: your understanding of what happened to me ages ago is wrong. You wrote: “You believed it was a non-substantive edit and, evidently, another editor - or other editors - disagreed. Then, rather accepting that you have lost the battle, you tried to do an end run.” When I mentioned the policy at article talk, weeks after I had boldly edited the policy, no one had objected to my policy edit, quite the opposite. So there was no “end run.” I don’t understand where you got that idea. The only objections to my policy edit happened after I mentioned the revised policy weeks later at article talk. Hell will freeze over before I confess to having “gamed the system,” which I did not do. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)