(As a warning to others, wikien-l(a)nupedia.com goes into a black hole. The
old lists work at both @nupedia.com and @wikipedia.org. Jason, can you
fix this?)
Ultimately, I would say that it is perfectly o.k. to ban people if,
after a reasonable period of time, they appear to be unwilling or
unable to work together with others in a collegial spirit of mutual
respect.
Wikipedia is not Usenet. It is not the right place for people to
attempt to put forward particular ideological positions. It is
important for all ideological positions to be put forward in a fair
manner, and it is therefore valid for people with a particular
ideology to work on Wikipedia to ensure that their viewpoint is fairly
represented. But the essential here is that people from all
viewpoints should be working towards NPOV. To fail to do so is to
fail to work together with others in a collegial spirit of mutual
respect.
Wikipedia is not a joke book. User names like Throbbing Monster Cock
are inappropriate. TMC's contributions have been perfectly o.k., as
far as I know, but his name is clearly chosen in an attempt to be
funny or (likely) to deliberately annoy people. TMC has argued that
changing his name is tantamount to the use of force against him. This
argument is stupid, because he has no property interest in his
username, but if he wishes to press it, he should write to me
personally about it, as this was my decision.
We should take great care to ensure a diversity of contributors. We
should take great care that people are not banned for making policy
proposals that are annoying to us. We should take great care that
people are not banned too soon, even for breaking the rules.
For ip addresses, anonymous contributions, we should continue our
policy of banning them for simple vandalism at the slightest
provocation.
For usernames, we should be more forgiving, but only because the fact
that someone has taken the effort to login suggests that there is some
hope of sincerity. Even so, simple vandlism is ample grounds for a
ban.
The more difficult cases are cases like Lir, or TMC. TMC has
committed only one violation -- the selection of a deliberately
annoying username. His contributions are, apparently and to date, not
bad. Lir, on the other hand, has been uncollegial and rude to others
on multiple occassions, and has received ample warning.
--Jimbo