Board Thread:Wiki management/@comment-7091122-20170207035621/@comment-7091122-20170210040518

Mental Skillness wrote: People

can

have

opinions.

I can't even say "I liek our old system" without Camwood shooting me down. I'm going to report these acts of abuse if this keeps going on. Because it literally doesn't explain a reason to oppose other than "I like the old system." It does not address the proposed system whatsoever.

If there was more to your vote, that had a valid reason for it, didn't argue a reason that was already addressed in the original post, didn't not mention the system being suggested, or didn't even mention anything at all related to the situation, I would be inclined to listen, and I wouldn't disqualify it.

However, over half of the opposes here do just that. Some of the common opposes and their disqualifications:
 * Plurals - Explained away by the core system. Plural instances of plants use the gender-neutral pronouns.
 * Unconfirmed genders - Explained away by the core system. If a plant has no canon gender, use gender-neutral.
 * Inconsistent genders - Explained away by the core system. Use the gender that is used most often.
 * Edit farming - Any major vote will result in a massive amount of edits as there's a rush to get as much as possible after it's passed. That's just the laws of major votes like this.
 * Edit farming by lying about a gender - Punishable by rules for vandalism through incorrect information to farm edits.
 * Three-headed plants could have different genders per head - While there's no evidence to say they couldn't, there's no evidence to say that they could. This is further backed up by Threepeater's PvZ1 entry, which says he is male, despite his three heads.
 * Separation of character and species, other wikis do it, any other reason not directly related to the topic at hand - Is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. This is about giving gendered pronouns to individual instances of a plant, which the game itself even does so itself. The difference between a character and a species shares no relation.
 * Utility of the tiredness of the vote as a reason for opposition - Yes, it's tired, but the way this is being added is completely different. Old reasons don't work here.
 * Utility of old reasons - Again, this is being added in a completely different. Old reasons don't work here.

So, that's why over half the reasons were opposed. They all had at least one of these in common in their reasoning, or worse, had all of them use these in their reasoning.

There are a few, such as Nick Archer, who decided to actually elaborate beyond these. And while he did use the inconsistent argument, he at least did mention that it could cause confusion on part of the user. I can't argue with that, but that's more simply an issue with the reader simply not understanding, and we're the editors; we can't really influence a reader directly. Thusly, I think his vote is valid, in spite of part of it being a bit... well, invalid.

Look, all I ask for here is a little bit of thought before voting. Reading the thread all the way through, recognizing what arguments do and don't work, what is and isn't actually relevant to the situation at hand, and coming up with a reason that makes sense to oppose, or at least some elaboration beyond "other wikis do it", "i like the current system (nothing about the proposed one)", or "you addressed this exact thing in the way you're adding this, but here, i'll oppose because of it anyways". Any elaboration beyond that is good.

It's just not too many people have really done that, and after a topic gets a rule where you can't so much as mention it for 6 months after one guy keeps spamming it, and you have a bright idea to actually make a compromise, you really get worried if the idea is actually getting the fair attention it needs. Especially when an uncanny number of opposes talk about stuff you addressed in your idea, it gets you to really wonder...