Fred Bauder wrote Yes it was the general atmosphere, but it's important not to use that as an excuse to be defeatist. Wik featured as a big part of that general atmosphere. Tannin said on his user page: : I got so bloody tired of seeing so much good work destroyed by a tiny : minority of well-known problem users that I quit.[...] : I guess that one of the things that really brought this home : to me was that, quite by chance, I've had to spend a good : deal of time working on some other multi-contributor : cooperative web-based projects lately. Somewhere along the : line I had forgotten what it was like to work with people : who want to work with you toward a common goal, as opposed : to putting up with the disruptions and distortions and : evasions and downright lies that we get so used to here. : (You want examples? Try Wik or Nico or RK. There are others : of course, but those three will do to illustrate my point. : It's easy to tell who they are. Just ask yourself if User X : does more harm to the project, or good for it.) : Maybe one day the Wikipedia community will get its act : together and do something to encourage people who actually : contribute to the encyclopedia instead of pandering to the : trolls and the fanatics and the lunatics. Maybe. The arbitration committee does not have to be like Jimbo; always hesitant to act except in the most egregious cases. The community will squabble amongst itself forever about whether users should be kept on or banned. This bickering damages the community. What I want from the arbitration committee is decisive leadership aimed at the betterment of the encyclopedia project. I don't want a legalistic process or proof beyond reasonable doubt. Of course it's true that you can't really keep anyone out of a wiki if they're determined to circumvent technical measures. The value of leadership is to end the in-fighting, and to avoid the sense of betrayal so many Wikipedians feel when they are attacked for defending the community against a troll. -- Tim Starling

In the Western movies the good sheriff would go after the bad guy and bring him in, throw him into the jail house, and then the court would set up a trial. Of course, if the guy resisted the sheriff's arrest attempts, the sheriff would get rough, puching and kicking and throwing a bar stool or two around. And if the guy resisted the sheriff with a pistol, the sheriff wouls simply take out his own in faster-than-light speed (don't you love the magic of movies?) and put blow him away. What's my point? We don't have enforcers. We just let the robber/vandal/please-mommy-help-me-i-m-innocent-crybaby run amok while we try to get a jury pool together. I say throw him/her in wikiJail: No edit rights, a gag order (no mailing lists), and access to ONE court appointed wikilawyer/mediator, via email only. Then, a court date, a judge, jury, and decision within 24 hours. If the jailed person decides to try to escape the constrains of confinement, then he/she will receive an immediate and automatic X year(s) ban. X determined by the judge. Wikipidia editing is a Privilege, not a Right. ===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

I think this is consistent with my concept of using QuickPolls to temp ban users. I'm uncomfortable with giving individual sysops the power to do this sort of thing, because if we lack any sort of multi-person review of a decision until the week or two it takes the committee to act, we'll have a lot of trouble. But if 80% and at least 8 users say to "arrest" someone, then by golly, it sounds good to me. Additionally, I don't think it's easy to project what the results of quickpolls in such a system would be if we just base it on the quickpolls we've done so far. People's voting incentives change if the vote is for a temp ban that will be reviewed by the arbitration committee. --Jimbo Christopher Mahan wrote:

Jimmy Wales wrote I think finger-pointing is not a good idea in this case. Let's say that he has apologists, who may very well be acting in perfectly good faith and be valued community members in their own right. Not something I'd have any personal problem with - asocial and legalistic defines what a wiki _is not_; and it is hard to deny that is what Wik is, whatever else might be said in his defence. I would find it difficult to take the inevitable triumphalism of some of those who have been in conflict (as I have) with Wik. If Wik is to go, let it be for clearly right reasons, not what anyone thinks of as wrong opinions. Has anyone suggested Wik simply be denied watchlist rights? With the servers groaning, a watchlist of 10000+ pages is surely greedy for resources. Charles

Jimmy Wales wrote: Wik would be great if he were the only person working on Wikipedia. But he seems unable to distinguish between trolling and good-faith editing; if you disagree with him on *anything*, it must be because you're a troll or a moron or both. As you can now see from his user page, if you get rid of everyone that Wik deems a problem user, you'll end up with a much-shrunken list of contributors. Wiki editing requires an atmosphere of basic mutual trust; anybody who insists on poisoning that, either by doing untrustworthy things (trolling, sock puppetry, etc), or by distrusting everybody else indiscriminately (Wik), has to be excluded for the sake of everybody else. Stan

Is there software in place to allow denials such as this?

I first noticed this long watchlist. I take it to be evidence of a certain over-involvement. Certainly keeping 10,000 articles, "straight" doesn't leave much time for conversation with other users about changes and reversions. Fred

---------- From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 08:58:24 -0600 To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wik and a not-quite-proposal for constitutional change Wik is relatively popular and people came forward and defended him. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik/Evidence #Evidence_in_favour_of_Wik [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik/Evidence]] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Wik#Statemen ts_by_others [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik]] The decision in the first Wik case included the following: 3. The above three findings nothwithstanding, we do acknowledge that Wik has been a long-time and prolific contributor to Wikipedia, and that a great many of his edits that did not involve edit wars constitute valuable contributions to the encyclopedia. Accepted 7-2, with one de facto abstention. See: [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Wik]] Certainly Wik's supporters could put their energy into working with Wik instead of supporting him in his quarrels. This is just my prediction and is based on the, hopefully false, assumption that Wik will just keep on with his aggressive behavior and we can look forward to Wik3 and Wik4. Most of the arbitrators do not share my pessimism and are proposing relatively mild sanctions for this round. There seems to be substantial disagreement with this conclusion. I think those who disagree need to come forward with some theory of change that would avoid coming to this pass. I fear the only theory out there now is because he does so much "good" we ought to be willing to live with whatever harm he does. Because of the support someone like Wik has, quickpolls are generally inconclusive. It is a spiderweb that works good on flies but hawks fly through. The actual results at quickpolls are not that good, indeed the process is often abused for use in petty quarrels. see [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls/Archive]] The debate on [[Wikipedia talk:Quickpolls]] may eventually be productive but is quite involved and inconclusive as it stands now. This is a substantial increase in penalty, from a 24 hour ban to an ban which whill stretch on til there is a decision from the arbitrators, who already seem to be stretched a bit.

I observe that Wik's supporters generally haven't had their work erased by him, and cheer him on as a sort of energetic proxy. But I'll bet not a single person will actually quit WP if he is banned; people quit when they've had their hard work undone, not because some person is gone. Stan Fred Bauder wrote: