Let's talk about this--if not here, then somewhere, because it's an issue now and will only become more of an issue if bannings are being applie arbitrarily or unfairly.
1) When is it appropriate to ban someone from wikipedia? 2) Who should be able to ban? 3) When should people hesitate or refuse to ban people? 4) How long should people be banned for?
I'm not saying we need another policy or "rule to consider"--God knows everyone seems to stop at "rules", forgetting "to consider." But honestly, I think the issue needs some thought.
Personally, my feelings are that 1) when defacing articles or when adding profanities or ridiculous statements (In 1496, Columbus flew to Pluto with his friend from K-Pax) and doing that not just once but several times.
2) Fewer people should be able to ban than are able to now. It was a burden for Larry, and he was criticized severely for it, but one person is not a cabal; and several people making debatable decisions quickly turns into de facto policy.
3) We should not ban a contributor when involved with the situation personally or emotionally.
4) People should not be banned for long at all. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Several people on wikipedia, and on this list, started out dubbed "trolls" or something else; and we could just as easily argue that Lir was simply a highly accomplished troll, and that trolling therefore is vandalism. Is it? No, I don't think so.
How long do we intend to keep people banned? There are people on the list from August.
Anyway, I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm putting on my asbestos suit now.
kq
On Tue, Oct 22, 2002 at 10:39:27AM -0700, koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com wrote:
Let's talk about this--if not here, then somewhere, because it's an issue now and will only become more of an issue if bannings are being applie arbitrarily or unfairly.
- When is it appropriate to ban someone from wikipedia?
- Who should be able to ban?
- When should people hesitate or refuse to ban people?
- How long should people be banned for?
I'm not saying we need another policy or "rule to consider"--God knows everyone seems to stop at "rules", forgetting "to consider." But honestly, I think the issue needs some thought.
I agree.
The traditional wiki way to handle people making a mess is to clear it up, rather than ban. There are two points worth making:
- if you're keeping an eye on recent changes, it's easy to feel you're the only one cleaning up, or one of only a few. From here it's easy to believe that you _have_ to do this work or else the wiki will go to the dogs. In fact, it's likely that others will pick up the slack.
- reverting changes is relatively quick; it's explaining and arguing that really takes up time. So one option short of banning is to decide that everything has been explained to a particular individual already, and come to a consensus that any problematic changes they make should be silently reverted, unless a genuinely new issue comes up.
Personally, my feelings are that 1) when defacing articles or when adding profanities or ridiculous statements (In 1496, Columbus flew to Pluto with his friend from K-Pax) and doing that not just once but several times.
- Fewer people should be able to ban than are able to now. It was
a burden for Larry, and he was criticized severely for it, but one person is not a cabal; and several people making debatable decisions quickly turns into de facto policy.
- We should not ban a contributor when involved with the situation
personally or emotionally.
- People should not be banned for long at all. Give people the
benefit of the doubt. Several people on wikipedia, and on this list, started out dubbed "trolls" or something else; and we could just as easily argue that Lir was simply a highly accomplished troll, and that trolling therefore is vandalism. Is it? No, I don't think so.
I agree with kq here.
-M-
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org