If anything, getting involved in arguments like this actually increases my editing output. I find that doing large amounts of repetitive and uncontroversial work, such as categorization, format tidying, reference markup, etc., is a great way to work off the frustration and annoyance. I don't _like_ it, though, so I wouldn't exactly recommend it as a motivator.

Erm, hi, banned user here.

Yeah, and gay people aren't banned from marrying, either. They can marry th opposite sex just like straight people can. It's their choice to only pick marriages that are not allowed; there are plenty of other marriages which are allowed to them.

On 05/08/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: Homosexuals are banned from getting married?

On 8/5/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: marry only True, but how is that relevant? _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Using an analogy to prove a point is like hammering nails into a tree with a frozen salmon. Seems like it might work at first glance, but when you think about it further it makes no sense and has nothing to do with the actual subject at hand.

On 8/5/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: > On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Matthew Brown wrote:

> > > Erm, hi, banned user here.

> > If I'm not misremembering, you are not banned. It's simply that you > > have made the personal choice to only be able to edit through TOR, and > > TOR exit nodes are by policy to be blocked on sight. You are at any > > time free to edit without using TOR.

> Yeah, and gay people aren't banned from marrying, either. They can marry > th opposite sex just like straight people can. It's their choice to only > pick marriages that are not allowed; there are plenty of other marriages > which are allowed to them.

True, but how is that relevant?

True, but how is that relevant?

On 8/7/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: I want a new camera, but I don't have money for it and don't actually want to pay for it anyway. I could just take it, but I'm banned from doing so by the law. This is unjust repression by my government - I have the right to a camera! The present law is tantamount to "you can have a camera, but you can't have it through the only method you want to use". I'm not saying that the argument doesn't have merits, but the fact is, as Edmund Burke said, we must restrict freedom in order to have it. (Actually that's a completely irrelevant quotation, but if we're going to have funny analogies, we might as well go one step further.) I guess I mean, we recognise that some arguments are bogus and some are not - but it all depends on the precise situation. The way your analogies present the situation focuses on a number of variables but ignore others.

Likewise, saying "you aren't banned, you're just banned from the only method you want to use" is equivalent to "you are banned".

Your analysis makes at least two major incorrect assumptions: 1) that current IP address blocks are an effective way to stop determined banned users (the kind that would be using TOR); and 2) that there is no possibility for middleground between adminship and getting an account (in technical terms, it assumes that the "ipblock-exempt" can only be granted along with adminship).

On 04/08/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: I filed three unblock-auto requests. (The first, a simple template on my talk page, asking to be added to the ipblock-exempt group. It failed because apparently there was no such group, separate from adminship. The second, some code to create such a group, which the Wikimedia developers didn't want to commit.) The third (my RfA) was rejected by the community... which makes it a community ban. You may as well say, 'If you were someone other than who you are, then you would be welcome to edit.' The same could be said of any banned user. P.S. It's Tor not TOR. I actually answered that question on the mailing list just recently. In case you missed that, the quick summary is that I have a past which involves being the victim of long term sexual abuse. And please don't judge that reason... as either bad or good. If you did say it was a bad reason, I'd have to overdose on painkillers even more than I am already overdosing, which would hurt my liver. The security concerns are all addressable. The value of IP addresses in identifying people has been going down ever since commercial services, rather than just universities, started offering access to the internet. Biologists could have told you ages ago that there are better ways of telling apart honesty and deception. Judith Donath of MIT Media labs wrote about the topic about a decade ago. The good people of Tor wrote patches for Wikipaedia a couple years ago, but none of them were committed. And even if Wikipaedia really wants to block Tor, the good people of Tor also provided better ways to do that - so you can have less false positives (which are bad for Tor) and less false negatives (which are bad for Wikipaedia). If Wikipaedia doesn't want to use that code, it isn't the fault of the good people of Tor. In any case, I've really given up on all that. I'd just like Wikipaedia to be nice to me... not very nice, just enough to be in compliance with the 'Basic human dignity' principle of the Badlydrawnjeff RfAr, where it states, 'Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.' All of the questions and speculation about why people are using Tor, the continued insistence on asking that question even after myself and others made it clear we didn't want to answer the question has brought a lot of my worst memories to the surface. The criticism of my reasons for using Tor, and of my paranoia, feels like people saying it is my fault I got molested. First I started crying at the drop of a hat. When it all continued even after I withdrew my RfA, I started misusing painkillers - propoxyphene (which is spiked with acetomenophin, which is bad for my liver) and various over-the-counter meds. At some point, I started throwing up at the drop of a hat. When I couldn't fall asleep until after dawn, they gave me zolpidem. Then the phone wouldn't stop ringing - because it's not actually ringing, I'm just hallucinating. During my effort to help SlimVirgin, I've been overdosing on the meds. In any case, the reason I am sending to you privately is that now seems like the absolute worst time to risk making SlimVirgin and Jayjg feel bad about all that. Armed Blowfish

On 8/2/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

In the time it to you to complain that people aren't being productive, I am relaxed, particularly since I assumed with all the flames and smoke and mirrors there wouldn't be an immediate and direct answer but rather side trip responses. If I had been expecting an answer, though, I might not be relaxed. But thanks for caring about my state of physical well-being. And, yes, doing tedium work is a good way to spend a little extra time on Wikipedia. Oh, and in the meantime I found a real conspiracy on Wikipedia this week, also, and had oen of my comments about it oversighted. Rather than feeling the need to scream about the cabal, I find it highly entertaining. KP

I can't claim anything without any basis for understanding, and since there doesn't seem to be any forthcoming that is a civil presentation of just what has been done, I'm not claiming anything. But I don't see how you went from the question I asked to what my claims might or might not be.

I think I made a simple enough request, and muddying it up pretty much just shows that it will never be about damage to the encyclopledia, but always about spreading gossip--it's the equivalent of calling someone a troll, or of discussing a gossip column about an editor as evidence that Wikipedia is damaged. This is not my belief system, but my opinion from watching this.