On Thu, 22 May 2003, steven l. rubenstein wrote: Oh, sure; indeed I have made bans where it seemed appropriate. A visit to [[Special:Ipblocks]] will show that. But repeatedly "banning" the same person over and over, when proven ineffective with that person, is rather pointless. The social effects of the ban haven't discouraged the person (indeed, perhaps encouraged them), and they've found a way around the very simple technical effects of the ban. Obviously a change in strategy is required if we want to do anything other than re-ban Lir and Michael all day long. To continue to use the same strategy that we *know* is ineffective is neurotic. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion Vibber wrote: I hear what you're saying, and look forward to some fresh ideas. :-) --Jimbo

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: Well, although we obsess over difficulties on the mailing list, the reality is that soft security works remarkably well for us across a broad spectrum of possible and actual problems. Hard security (bans) works well for passing vandals, but has a decidedly mixed record on some others. Despite all our (necessary and important) kvetching on the list, we should remember that at any given time, you can check recent changes and 99%+ of the edits are delightful WikiMagic. Just now, I see User:Sned and User:Evercat working together on an article on [[BCC]]. User:Frecklefoot is continuing his excellent article on [[Sundog Frozen Legacy]]. These quiet folks never come to our attention on the list, but they are the heart and soul of what we're here for. --Jimbo

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote: I think most passing vandals only do something once, see if it actually goes on it, then leave. They deserve soft security, and only the worse people deserve hard bans. --LittleDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com

Brion- First: Lee has banned No-Fx, so this will only be applicable to the next incarnation, should there be any. Neither option is very appealing. Michael seems to be a person with mental problems, and I doubt he much cares about the existence of other users on Wikipedia at all. He considers it his playground, or maybe an information storage system. Those who try to talk to him are insulted. Furthermore, it is not easy to determine which of the information he inserts is actual junk. For example, a couple of days ago I noticed that he had changed one on the articles on my watchlist and modified the release date of an album. I checked the date from multiple sources, and the old one was correct. I do not know where he gets his information from, but much of it is quite obviously incorrect. Add to this the personal insult to people like Zoe, on whose user page he put the text "I like oral sex" and pasted the whole oral sex article. Just reverting everything he writes may be an acceptable solution for the time being, but it's also considerable work, and needlessly spams the server. Every couple of days some newbie will ask why we do it because his edits seem to be acceptable. I would really like to see these matters resolved more quickly and concentrate on writing an encyclopedia. Otherwise I fear at some point we might have 10 or 20 users like him at our hands in the future. There may be the option of threatening legal action, but if Michael is as stubborn as I think, that will also not really deter him. True, but signing up for a new account takes time -- all these email account providers ask plenty of questions. He may go through it a couple of times, but unless he is a script kiddie, he'll probably get tired of it soon enough. Regards, Erik