User talk:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/Guantanamo captive's habeas corpus cases/Parallel/ZaidVBush

explanation

Why a parallel version?

1. Someone placed a {{prod}} on Zaid v. Bush.
2. This first individual then noticed the article was included in Category:Global War on Terror captives' habeas corpus petitions, which concerned them. But rather than initiate a discussion with me, or on Talk:Zaid v. Bush, they left notes on two administrator's talk pages: [1], [2].
3. That first contributor [ started a subsection] on WP:ANI.
4. One of those administrators suggested {{merge}}.
5. The other administrator, claiming authority under WP:BOLD, performed a redirect, without making any attempt to merge the material in the redirected article to the target of the redirection.
6. The first administrator did copy and paste most of the material from Zaid v. Bush into the article on Walid Said Bin Said Zaid.

That first administrator's efforts, to paste in the material from Zaid v. Bush, were clearly made in good faith. I have some specific concerns with them nevertheless.

Concerns about categories

The two categories Category:Global War on Terror captives' habeas corpus petitions and Category:Guantanamo Bay captives appeals under the Detainee Treatment Act were added to Walid Said Bin Said Zaid. All the other articles in these categories are articles about habeas appeals, or DTA appeals. Should an article about an individual captive be included in a category devoted to legal procedures?

I don't think so.

Of course the categories could be repurposed. But, in that case, there should be prior discussion.

The whole merger should have been the subject of a prior discussion.

Ownership issues -- mine, and others

I don't own the material I contribute, once I contributed it. What happens to it, whether it is massaged, redirected, deleted, is up to the community. It doesn't matter if I spent one hundred hours, or a couple of hundred hours, on this material. The community decides.

But, it seems to me that the challengers' actions here may illustrate an ownership problem on their part.

My efforts on this area may be completely, or partially, a mistake. I have an obligation to graciously accept feedback like that -- so long as its expression complies with the wikipedia's civility policies. It doesn't matter if I spent an hour, one hundred hours, or ten thousand hours, if my efforts really do not comply with policy, or a community consensus is arrived at that it doesn't fit I have an obligation to graciously accept that.

On the other hand, if someone has spent some time thinking about how to cover some topics, I think challengers have an obligation to discuss their changes with that individual, first, prior to making changes which could waste a lot of effort. They may think the other person's approach was flawed. But, without a discussion, there could be important aspects they are unaware of, or overlooked. Consequently, it disappoints me when those with a concern don't discuss their concern first. I think even when the contributor who has a concern is positive there is zero value to the original contributor's approach, it still makes sense to try to start a civil discussion first, because:

1. The failure to do so gives the appearance of both a lapse from WP:AGF, and gives the appearance of concrete bad faith.
2. The failure to do so erodes the culture of civility and collegiality the wikipedia aims for. It makes everyone more grumpy, aggressive and disrespectful.
3. No matter how certain you are the other person is mistaken occasions arise when human fallibility bites one in the ass, and the person one slighted had good points after all. It is much better if one makes the effort to treat their efforts as if they might have value in case one is mistaken, and their efforts really did have value after all.
4. Acting as if one was so brilliant that one can destroy other's efforts without any prior discussion, with impunity, gives the appearance that the bold actor has ownership problems.

redirection issues

The overly aggressive unilateral redirection resulted in fifteen dangling double redirects. Eventually a bot will fix them. But, when the article is split, as I believe it should be, those redirections will have to be unscrambled.