Wikipedia talk:Two wrongs don't make a right

Another consideration

See WP:POV railroad - it's real and it takes different forms, usually quite subtle, and it typically starts with or because of an editor whose arguments are effective, and the opposition has no smoking gun to rid themselves of what they consider a pain in the caboose. When you're an involved editor and know the history, you'll be able to hear the sound of the train clickity clack down the railroad track. It may even rear its ugly head as a boomerang. Atsme 💬 📧 23:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Is there a specific way that it involves a "2 wrongs make a right" ploy? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

MastCell's remarks and general thoughts

While MastCell's comments were likely wise (I have no familiarity with the editor in that case), I don't think they are actually relevant to this essay. The problem is that "victim-blaming" assumes the community/legal-system has firmly established who is a victim and who is the perpetrator. In the case MastCell was commenting on, we have a user who was community banned and we have people who are known to have been harmed by their previous behaviour. This essay is about "if you find yourself accused of having done something wrong on Wikipedia" and about judging behaviour of parties at the point where a dispute is brought before the community/authorities. At this point it could end up either way and the frequency of boomerangs suggests in fact that the accuser is often at fault or most to blame for the situation, but frequently also, both parties were being assholes or need to learn some lessons. I think adding MastCell's comments will just encourage the assholes to play the victim card.

It may help if the essay makes its mind up whether its audience is an accused editor (first two paragraphs of the body) or the community at AN/I trying to work out who the asshole is. Wrt the first audience, I'm not convinced many assholes read self-help essays, so you may be wasting your time there. Secondly, it is too binary. One either "did something wrong" or one is "innocent". We don't get many saints at AN/I and it is a pretty common tactic to test the patience of good editors and then turn up at AN/I when they break. Perhaps some advice for when you are accused of a misdemeanour by an editor whose behaviour likely deserves a block or topic ban or admonishment. In that circumstance, an editor prostrating themselves and asking for forgiveness might be viewed, by editors who know fine well what is going on, of gross naivety or of taking the piss. There is a third option too. If the accusations really are vexatious and frivolous, one could try simply ignoring it. -- Colin°^Talk 11:47, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

this edit is worse. We already have WP:NOTTHEM as guide to appealing a block. It is generally best not to illustrate essays with individual and personal examples drawn from ongoing disputes. If examples are used, they should be historical ones that the community aggress are notable. After all, if the comments are widely applicable, they should be easily recognised by readers, and plenty safer examples available if required.

A further problem is that the essay it titled and fundamentally linked to "Two wrongs don't make a right" and yet that fallacy includes a lot more behavioural possibilities than is being discussed here. For example, an editor adding lots of unsourced crap to an article might say "it was full of unsourced crap already". That is a "two wrongs don't make a right" but there's nothing there attacking or discrediting the accuser. Another example would be if an editor took revenge, such as if your newly created article got sent to AfD for unjustified (IYO) reasons then you send the other guy's article to AfD for no good reason either. The list is endless really, and is certainly not limited to "Don't accuse your accuser of doing wrong things".

I think what is being described here, when it talks about "deflecting attention away from their own conduct" and "discrediting tactic" is actually Whataboutism. The essay tries to link it to the fallacy that two wrongs make a right when it says "claiming innocence because of someone else's bad behavior" (my bold of the essay text) but that itself is not actually deflection or discrediting accusers, which the article is mostly about.

The essay's advice rather assumes that those who receive that friendly talk page notification that they've been mentioned at AN/I are at that point in time both sufficiently self-aware to know they should fess up and sufficiently malicious that their natural first move is to discredit the other party. But you can't teach people not to be shits. If instead the audience focuses on the community at AN/I (and similar) then it might be more useful. But then it really does need to avoid using language that prejudges one character to be the entirely innocent victim and the other the evil perp. That's not helpful at this point in dispute resolution. -- Colin°^Talk 21:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)