User:AttemptToCallNil/Problematic arguments

Sometimes I feel like, or others tell me that, I have problems talking to people, being heard, getting my point across. Every problem is a specific problem that occurs in specific circumstances due to a specific cause. So being an analytic person, I observe. I learn when these problems occur and when they don't. I try to infer a pattern and find out what is the probably cause of every such problem. Sometimes there's something important I'm missing. Sometimes natural languages doesn't let us make a crucial distinction. Sometimes the other party isn't communicating constructively, often just wanting to dictate the truth.

Problems in communication are commonplace. There are many problematic patterns, ways of expression that might prevent us from reaching a conclusion for the "greater good". Wikipedia has a list of fallacies and a list of arguments to avoid in discussions, but I feel like I should show just how these communication patterns harm productive discussion and wiki building.

Making the other party question their actions
Let's say you think someone else is doing something wrong, and you want them to change. You should say what you want, but if the other party can't implement your suggestion, you won't get what you want. If your feedback has a chance to result in improvement, it's called actionable. If your feedback can't result in improvement, it's inactionable.

Of the many kinds of inactionable feedback, I'll talk about two here:
 * 1) when you tell others to question the necessity of their actions, but they can't assess whether their actions are necessary;
 * 2) when you tell others to question the validity of their actions, but they can't assess whether their actions are valid.

Teaching others to question themselves without showing them how to answer the self-questioning creates a void. One that risks to be filled with rather specific truths. In childhood, a lot of us are taught, by parents, school teachers, about how we are wrong. If we're lucky, there's a consistent and understandable pattern of what's "right", a path you can follow with safety. "Skip two grid rows from the top of the page, rounding up." If we're not lucky... "Skip two grid rows from the top of the page." And if there is an extra almost-half of a row at the top? For those who are not lucky, the correct option is not the one they will choose. Round down? Wrong, "it's obvious to any normal person" you should have rounded up. Round up? Wrong, "it's obvious to any normal person" in this specific case you should have rounded down. Ask how to round? "Seriously? Every normal person knows how do to it. I'm not explaining this to you." This teaches people that any ambiguity is interpreted against them, even that they are somehow intrinsically "wrong".

As such, when you tell people to ask questions without teaching them how to answer, the implied "truth" is that these people are just always wrong. The further implied "truth" is that they need to rely on others to perform any evaluation. I shouldn't need to tell anyone how bad-faith actors use this approach as a psychological manipulation of those who depend on them, to ensure these people don't ever become independent. If you ask anyone to feel less confident and don't offer any guidance to let them find a basis for confidence, you risk being understood as a manipulative threat actor.

Now how this all applies to wikis?

It's known complexity in templates and modules is bad. It's known wikitext templates aren't as readable as Lua modules, but modules need an extra skill to understand and change. But there is no guidance on:
 * how to reduce the cognitive complexity of your templates and modules;
 * when to choose wikitext or Lua if both can work for a template.


 * Your wiki is full of overcomplicated templates. Most of them aren't really needed. -- (talk)
 * Could you please point out some templates you think we should replace? --I never  (talk?)
 * the thread never receives another comment

(Priming for the conclusion there is a legal requirement that won't be stated and that non-experts are not qualified to discuss.)
 * Because of [multi-paragraph extensive analysis], I believe there is no legal requirement for Minecraft Wiki editors to use in-game translations for every item, especially since they change frequently, and are often at best laughable and at worst offensive. --Say no to eels in hovercraft! (talk)
 * Don't be so sure there is no legal requirement. --Motion of No Confidence (don't talk)

(Says nothing about how to answer that question.)
 * There's one question you need to ask yourself when you're writing modules or large wikitext templates. The question is, "does the wiki really need this complex thing?" --Never be certain (maybe talk)

(Here the question is hidden. "Are you sure your contribution is flawless?" Also note how this issue relates to demands of perfection.)
 * Only submit changes when you're absolutely sure they don't contain a single mistake. --Perfection is achievable ( talk )


 * You have a lot of modules and complicated templates on your wiki. Have you tried taking a look through them and checking whether you need all of them? For example, this one template is implemented as a module, yet if you removed this one functionality you actually never even use, you would be able to replace the module with just a couple wikitext parser function calls. --Linter (talk)

Not really itself
"Wikitext templates are preferable to modules – after all, most wiki editors aren't programmers". "Why would I write Lua modules instead of wikitext templates? I am not a programmer".

What does it mean for a person to be a "programmer"? Are you automatically a "programmer" when you write something more advanced than "Hello, world!", and it works? Do you need a degree to be a "programmer"?

People are taught to consider experts to be some kind of supreme being, someone with total, absolute expertise so fundamentally above the "common folk" that "commoners" could not even come close in terms of what they know and what they can do. "Commoners" are taught to think of themselves as inherently inferior, lesser beings barely suitable to carrying menial tasks for the gratification of the current throne-sitter – uh, meaning, "for the betterment of all", of course. You should throw out these lies. You can do better than what those people made you think of yourself.

I have revised my thoughts on the term "programmer" several times. The current conclusion is: you're only a "programmer" if you are formally recognized as such in your degree or employment record. And such formal recognition (or lack thereof) should be completely irrelevant for any other use: deciding whether to program for yourself, deciding whether to program for an open-source project like a wiki, or deciding whether you are knowledgeable on a programming-related topic.

This applies to any other person descriptor too. "I am a gamer" → "I like playing video games", "I am a digital artist" → "I make digital comics for fun", "I am a wiki editor" → "I edit wikis in my free time", etc.

Every person who can edit wikis has and shall have the will to start programming for the wiki, no matter their education level or prior experience. Encourage people to overcome any psychological barrier to contributing in non-trivial or unusual ways. Make sure they can do it safely. In fact, this barrier, with a lot of the above, applies not merely to Lua module writing, but to wiki editing at all: people are being conditioned to believe "creators" and "consumers" are two separate masses instead of a spectrum. But it is a spectrum, and one no person shall be impeded in moving themselves, on their own will, "upwards" in. Such as by editing a wiki for the first time

Such an approach is designed to combat an anti-pattern in communication that I don't know a formal name for, so I refer to it as "shadow class". "An X is not really an X if they are Y." "Food is not food if it's unhealthy food." "Programmers are not programmers unless they have a formal degree from an educational institution, think like a programmer, worked as a programmer for no less than 5 years, know C enough to have written a program in C, which is no shorter than 1000 lines of code, not counting comments, empty and whitespace-only lines, standard library header s..." And that's just the things that aren't outright bigotry.

Through ancient misconceptions or politically motivated psychological manipulation, classes are encumbered with conditions to make "things" into "not things", "substandard things", "defective things", or otherwise delegitimize any reference to them as "things". "You are not really a wiki admin if you don't make 50 edits on the wiki every day." "You are not a Minecrafter if you don't hate Terraria, Starbound, and the Buzzy Bees update." "You are subhuman if you're under 18 years old." Good luck talking to people when a large part of your statements is dismissed like that. Oh, and you can expect many others say it's only your fault.

There is also subversion of a concept to refer to a subclass. "Minecraft" is the game, but also one of its editions, so any other edition is ... not really Minecraft? The kind of naming just asks for the conclusion that they're pushing one edition as the "main" one. "PC" as "personal computer" and as "personal computer using Microsoft Windows". So "PC and Mac" wouldn't include Linux, FreeBSD, or other operating systems not associated with huge corporate monopolies.

And imagine if there are many views on how a concept should be subverted. If they're not mutually exclusive, they would target the "lowest common denominator", which is all of the restrictions applied together. Like in a pizza shop (or something like that – not sure I'm picking a good metaphor), if out of 30 ingredients for 20 there are prominent haters, the baseline is just the other 10. Now what if some groups of people hated both the presence and the absence of an ingredient? You'll have to choose a side. Would you rather support the constant self-extermination of large masses for the gratification of the powerful few, just to determine the "proper" color of a square, the "proper" marital status of a kettle, the "proper" way to worship a toilet, or the "proper" breed of cats? Or will you condemn the cycle of violence (even though you know that alone makes you a deviant)?

Absolutely horrible example:
 * Should I rewrite this template in Lua? Right now it basically does the same thing 18 times, had to be expanded 4 times in the last 3 months, and the "manual looping", which can be automated more robustly in Lua, caused 13 errors over the template's history. --Bröther, can I have some lööps? (tälk)
 * Absolutely not. Do you have a CS degree? No? Then you should stay away from programming and just go play Fortnite or something. As an actual programmer, unlike you, with 25 years of experience you will never have, I can say this template is perfectly fine. --The Only Real Person (talk)

Really bad example:
 * Am I a good admin if I try to listen to people before blocking, and don't usually block for just one bad edit? --Just Another Person (talk)
 * You're not an admin at all and need to be removed. Any real admin knows hard-blocking anyone on first disruption is a survival necessity of any online project. --Empathy is deviance (beg for forgiveness)

Bad example:
 * Any job half done is not done at all. --ROUND_HALF_DOWN (talk)

Not that a bad example (refers to access, which is determinate and formalizable):
 * When will the admins of this wiki stop being so negligent in filtering garbage? Just this week random nobodies made 12 edits adding vulgar terms to articles! Think of the children – how many of them are harmed by improper language? Demote everyone! --Warrior of Light (talk)
 * You're not an admin and you cannot know that the filters we have are quite extensive and stopped 240 even worse edits during the same period. Out of the 12 edits, one resulted in a filter change and won't happen again, the other 11 can't be fixed because it's impossible to filter them and not block perfectly fine edits. At worst, one of these edits has an unfixable false positive that will filter out a third of the entire Items category unless we spam asterisks to an absurd degree. In addition to that, any claims of profanity causing harm to children are at best not supported by evidence, and cannot be distinguished from just another excuse to justify systemic child abuse. If you believe an admin is not fit for their role, you can start a discussion to demote them, but honestly I consider your chances to succeed in getting anyone demoted with your points are very low. --I spent half an hour responding to an idiot and all I got was this username (talk)

Justifying significant difficulty by that some difficulty is unavoidable
Yes, change needs to be adjusted to. Yes, adjusting to change can be difficult. No, difficult change is still something to avoid.

When someone says they find the change too hard, they may mean they think it would have been better to avoid the change at all, or perform it in another, less difficult way. Correct, some change needs to happen, and is inevitably very difficult. Just referring to a general principle isn't helpful.

Future and imminent change is even worse when it is known to be massive, yet its specifics are unknown. Here's a slightly modified quote of a message I posted on the Fandom/Gamepedia Discord some time ago:

Change is less scary when you know you can adapt to it and use it to make your life better. However, if you suspect that some change may make you less necessary or not necessary at all, it is not just scary. It goes well beyond that.

It is the difference between evolution of a job that makes it a more pleasant experience, and evolution of a job that replaces a part of workers with machines. If that job was one of the most major parts of your life, and you are in a situation where there will be nothing to replace it, you, as the entire person, become an acceptable sacrifice to this merciless implementation of progress.

And from the perspective of so many people, there is nothing wrong with that.

Using "change is hard" to justify any hardship is similar to an even worse issue. It happens often that "you can't have both". That doesn't mean such sacrifices are anything other than bad. That doesn't remotely justify demanding another party to choose something they will be artificially denied because "they can't have both".

Problematic examples: A thought-terminating non-answer. So many people seem incapable of anything more.
 * Why did you have to make this new rule? Now hundreds of users will have to rewrite their user pages to conform to the new structure. --Struct By Lightning (talk)
 * What did you expect? Change is hard. --BrownianMotion (talk)

Purely artificial choice of what to sacrifice. It is absolutely possible both to keep a permissive signature policy and enforce some accessibility standards for the more reader-facing parts of the wiki.
 * Well, you can't have both: either we force everyone to use standard signatures with no changes, enforced by progressive blocks on each use, or we repeal the accessibility standards for articles and templates. --There Are Two Chairs (talk)

Less problematic example:
 * Why did you have to make this new rule? Now hundreds of users will have to rewrite their user pages to conform to the new structure. --Struct By Lightning (talk)
 * The only real change this new rule actually introduced is a ban on highly controversial statements on user pages. Almost all currently existing user pages are already compliant. --TakeItElsewhere (talk)

We're (not) like Wikipedia
Minecraft Wiki is a wiki based on a rather modern version of the MediaWiki engine and maintained by a community of editors with the goal of creating a maximally complete and accurate information repository on some topic. In these ways, it's like Wikipedia.

Minecraft Wiki has a couple hundred active editors as opposed to Wikipedia's over 100,000 active editors. Minecraft Wiki has a few thousand articles and not a few million articles. Minecraft Wiki is hosted by a much smaller, for-profit company. Minecraft Wiki's topic is Minecraft and not real life. In these ways, it's not like Wikipedia.

With a large number of similarities and differences, just because something is used on Wikipedia (see note below) doesn't mean it will work great on Minecraft Wiki. Nor does it mean it will work poorly. A deeper inspection of the subject is warranted.

Problematic example: (That may go at length without addressing the actual issue...)
 * Let's make an arbitration committee, like on Wikipedia! --I <3 WP (talk)
 * Oppose, we're not Wikipedia. --I >:( WP (talk)

Non-problematic example:
 * Let's make an arbitration committee, like on Wikipedia! --I <3 WP (talk)
 * Oppose. We're a much smaller wiki, perhaps a hundred to a thousand times smaller. We do not need a dedicated structure to conflict resolution, as this is effectively our (much smaller) administration team. In addition, there is the wiki manager who is rather involved with wiki matters. --I <3 MCW (talk)

Extra note: there are things that Wikipedia does that aren't optimal for their own purpose. In particular, some technical solutions employed by the Wikipedia community have been said to be worse than those available (and regularly used) on Fandom.

"It just works"
There are many differences in frameworks for determining truth and appropriate course of action. Some frameworks could hardly be called determination at all: they are based on predetermination of what's true and what to do. You'll be told not to try to derive new solutions, you'll be required to treat those who came before you as if they knew everything. You'll be told to do as those "above" you tell you. Of course, they always "act in your best interests".

I already seek not to dismiss another point of view unless I have some (more or less) reasoned objection. You might not need to make your point at all if you told me I should buy apples in Shop A instead of Shop B, especially if I don't have much experience with either. It's a low-significance, non-extraordinary suggestion I have nothing against. Going to tell me I should stop using the computer for a month at all? High-significance, I'll need a justification. Going to tell me it's necessary to ban video games to save our species from extinction? Extraordinary, good luck justifying that. Going to tell me I should press Delete to enter the setup on my computer right after the logo shows? Objection: I know very well I need to wait for the three indicators on my keyboard to blink, then immediately press Delete, because if I press the key before the indicators blink, the key press is ignored, and the computer boots normally.

"It just works" is not an appropriate response to counter a reasoned objection. I have too much knowledge of people who didn't know what they were doing and thought themselves just about omniscient. Do something they ask, it fails, and you take the blame for their incompetence. Lots of those people especially when you're not yet an adult and have to rely on others to protect yourself (which, in practice, means you have no protection at all). I don't believe there is ever a good reason to look like such a person if you are not one.

"It just works" might mean it serves your interests and harms mine. There might be a better solution we could find if we tried to understand precisely how it works. Or perhaps it only gives an illusion that it works, and actually either does nothing, or causes the harm it is claimed to prevent.

There is no such thing as a time when you no longer need to review what you're doing. The moment you stop trying to understand opposition, to keep on improving and learning, to be open to ideas and feelings, is when you stop being helpful. Of course, monopolization of a specific point of view against all opposition is a bad-faith tactic too.

Problematic example:
 * What are you all arguing about? It's obvious Solution X is what you all really want, any experienced person knows that it works! --I am very experienced (talk)

Non-problematic example:
 * I think Solution X works for both of you: it solves Problem A by [explanation], and it bypasses Problem B entirely through [explanation]. --One who catches both hares (talk)

"That's just the way it is"
When some party imposes its will on another, no matter who or what these parties are, they are humans or human constructs. They are not forces of nature, they are not deities (all of which are most likely human fabrication anyway). The party in control has its own interests, at best orthogonal and at worst diametrically opposed to those of the parties they control. The party in control, like any finite system, is fallible, and will not use optimal strategies to reach its own interests.

There are many phrases that don't have a proper structure and are only used to interfere with constructive discussion and suppress unwanted opposing opinions. Such phrases are known as thought-terminating clichés. They carry no meaning beyond telling others "Stop thinking in ways we don't want you to!" - while making this statement indirect and therefore deniable. Because of this, there will be only a few people who can see that the one saying it is acting in bad faith. The majority won't recognize the issue, and because of that they will be used by the totalitarian entity to crush dissent.

"That is what it is" is one such thought-terminating cliché. Those willing to use it are some of the most destructive people around - and unfortunately, it's likely some of them are well-meaning, but beyond the line of Gray's law.

Problematic examples: (Note that the second part of the CM's statement introduces a false dilemma.)
 * This article loads so long on my internet connection because of all those ads and five megabytes of tracking cookies! --Sincerely, a concerned citizen (talk)
 * I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. Would you prefer we removed all these ads and tracking, only to become unable to pay our bills in a couple months? --Wallace Breen [Community Manager] (talk)

(1. See also . 2. The admin's username also violates the 3-digit rule; this is an intentional part of the example.)
 * Why would your rules tell people they're not allowed to use more than 3 digits in their usernames? That harms nothing, as you can see by that I've been a successful admin on the Russian Terraria Wiki for over 6 years. --Fahrenheit0451 (talk)
 * The rules are what they are. If you don't agree with them, stop using the wiki. --Best Admin of 2017 (talk)

Thought-terminating clichés are often accompanied by other problematic statements.

Legal, therefore not an issue
When reading this section, you should keep in mind that I use the term "expectation" to refer to a sort of informal obligation.

Imagine a society where using obscene slang in public places is illegal. In this society, people have an obligation not to use such words in public places. Now imagine a society where there is no legal prohibition for obscene slang in public places, but it is still considered very rude by most people. In this other society, people no longer have an obligation not to use strong language, but from another perspective, people have an expectation that, when they're in a public place, other people: 1) will not use obscene slang; 2) expect other people to have expectations [1] and [2]. In this second society, using strong language on a street and dismissing a person who complains with "the law doesn't say I am not allowed to say this" would be considered very inappropriate.

Yes, there are many things you have no contractual, legal, or other formal obligation to do (or not do). However, in many cases, other people still expect that you do something are not required to. Using lack of a formal requirement as a first-resort response to a person stating their expectations is very disrespectful and doesn't contribute to community health.

Problematic examples:
 * Hey, could you please help me with [thing]? --I Need Help (talk)
 * I have no obligation to help you. --Give me freedom... or else (talk)


 * Hey, could you please explain your revert on [this page]? You left your summary empty. --I am undone (talk)
 * While I understand your confusion, ultimately I am not required to explain my actions to you. --Mysterious Stranger (talk)

Less problematic example: (note: I would have written it, not necessarily in these exact words, like "staff have their own lives and cannot be expected to perform noncritical tasks on weekends")
 * Any staff around? I need help with [thing] ASAP! --Now or Never! (talk)
 * You should realize it's Sunday, and staff have no obligation to respond to non-critical issues today. Yours can wait until their working hours. --Staff are people too (talk)

"This is subjective"
Why should there not be a system for appealing blocks by local admins? Because "bad block" and "bad admin" are subjective. Why is it better to just have admins determine every aspect of the wiki with little to no community input? Because wikis are not democracies, and community well-being is subjective.

Some people would have you think in these terms and none other. Though would these same people still voice their objections when staff stated they will revise the policies on appealing blocks by community admins?

If "bad block" and "bad admin" are subjective, then so are "good block" and "good admin". The hidden statement is the presumption that an admin's action against an ordinary community member is acceptable. To the point that some people say it is unacceptable to have a system that may override this presumption by checking admin actions and potentially judging some admin actions to be inappropriate.

Would the people who use this presumption also oppose tools that staff impose on admins to control or restrict their actions? There is no evidence to suggest they will. And if so, then the real problem become visible.

It's that so many people believe wrong can only be done by a person "below" to a person "above", much less (if at all) the inverse. On a related note, know what I think is a major reason older generations complain of declining morality? I think one major reason is that they liked to hold others "below" them accountable and punish them as they will, while not being held accountable themselves. And the fact they can now face severe penalties for wronging those "below" them – by their own standard of what's "wrong" – is not something they consider acceptable. In other words, elimination of a double standard is very much not favored by the party that liked the double standard and enforced it.

A poor approach to the problem of subjectivity is instruction creep. Yes, "excessive text color use" is subjective. Requiring people not to have more than exactly 100 colored characters in an article is not any better as the boundary is arbitrary. And there's very likely to happen a new and unforeseen use for text color overrides that needs more than 100 characters in an article without being excessive.

We need rules, so we need THESE rules
I am a strong proponent of the "Ignore all rules" principle. No, I am also a very strong opponent of ignoring rules randomly. When you do something that may breach, or will breach, policy, there most definitely should be an extensive explanation as to why the breach actually helps serve the greater purpose behind the rules.

Of course, a perfect policy never needs to be broken to make an improvement. But perfect things most likely do not exist. Though it doesn't mean we should just say "meh, it won't be perfect, so why bother improving?" Rather the inverse, when we can make it clearer for everyone that some improvement is welcome, we should.

But it is not possible to think of a better version of a rule without some goal more fundamental than that rule. When someone tries to avoid setting such a more fundamental goal, we may end up with the kind of argument that is the reason why I wrote this section.

When a point of policy is being questioned, it is not meaningful to use that same point of policy to dismiss the concern.

Really bad example: This looks like a deliberate attempt to erase the concept of a non-harmful policy violation. Note also that the manner of harm allegedly caused is unspecified, and even though it can be inferred to be some form of "public order", it is highly questionable that any breach of [some interpretation of] "public order" is automatically harmful to a determinable party. Such statements also look like intended to undermine any attempts to scrutinize any aspect of policy for merit.
 * Every violation of policy, no matter how in any subjective or objective way insignificant or harmless, by the very fact of being a policy violation causes such incommensurable harm that absolutely no benefit derived from it, or any loss prevented by it, can be justified. --Conformity or Sovngarde! (talk)

Problematic examples: (Also potentially cyclic reasoning, if not reiteration, if upon inspection it turns out the meanings of "not allowed to do Q" and "should not do Q", as used in the second user's response, are identical.)
 * Rule N states we aren't allowed to do X, Y, and Z. But actually, what's the problem with Z? I've seen it done a couple of times in the last month, and from the looks of it, no one really thinks these actions weren't appropriate. --Descriptivist (talk)
 * Oppose: Rule N states we aren't allowed to do Z, therefore we shouldn't do Z. --Prescriptivist (talk)

(Just asking for this follow-up: "And it is prohibited because?.." Though people willing to make such an argument are unlikely to constructively address concerns about policy; they would rather suppress the questioning person with threats if not outright admin action.)
 * Rule N states we aren't allowed to do X. But what's the harm in doing X? It helps us avoid this problem: [description]. --Problem avoider (talk)
 * X is harmful because it is prohibited. --Order-Chaos binarist (talk)

(A variant that implicitly makes the improper statement "we need some rules, therefore we need these rules".)
 * Do we even need to have Rule N? The problem it's intended to minimize seems to be no longer relevant. --Modernist (talk)
 * Oppose, we need rules. --Ordnung muss sein (talk)

This thing is important! (So that one isn't.)
Often making one thing better makes another worse. Sometimes the improvement is significant, and the loss is small; other times it's the inverse. When someone proposes a change, they most likely believe it's an improvement. If there's a valid point not in favor of the improvement, the proponent may know of it and deem it insignificant, or not know of it.

An improvement remains an improvement at least in part even if it has negative side effects. At times people criticize proposals without even addressing the validity of the proponent's points. You should make sure that your criticism reads like you're adding new information to the discussion, and not throwing other information away without even mentioning it.

Problematic example:
 * Should we let our admins assign the "autopatrol" group to editors? We have only one bureaucrat, and he's not very active; we tend to make one to three editors autopatrolled each month, so it isn't that an infrequent task. --‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ (talk)
 * Never. Other wikis don't do this, and consistency across the network is important. --

Less problematic example: Note that the original factor is acknowledged (so performance isn't just "important", but "also important"). Also note that the significance of the factors for this specific case is evaluated.
 * I think we should rewrite this 12-line function with these three lines of code. It's much shorter and therefore more readable. --Longcat (talk)
 * They are, but I just tested, and your code performs 20 times slower. This module is one of the most commonly used ones on the wiki, and we can't afford slowing it down this much. Readability is important, but so is performance. --Small improvement, much damage (talk)