[WikiEN-l] Brandt unblocked by Jimbo - community support?

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 19 Apr 2007 at 14:40, "Slim Virgin" <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem with it, Erik, is that it sends a message that users may
> harass and stalk other users, post libel about them, out them, contact
> their employers, contact their boyfriends, and generally try to make
> life miserable for them, so long as they do it off-wiki.

But if it's done off-wiki, then their on-wiki account being banned or 
blocked has no effect whatsoever on their ability to continue to do 
it.  In general, the tradition on Wikipedia has been to treat bans, 
blocks, and other such sanctions as mechanisms to help protect the 
site, not as attempts at punishment of "bad people".  Thus, the issue 
of whether Brandt is good or evil is irrelevant; the valid issue is 
to decide whether it will help or harm Wikipedia for him to have an 
account, and contrariwise, whether it will help or harm Wikipedia for 
him to *not* have one.  The answer, so far, seems to be that it's 
pretty much neutral; he hasn't done anything harmful with his account 
since it's been unblocked (admittedly, only a few hours so far).  He 
hasn't done anything helpful either, so it would seem that neither 
blocking nor unblocking him is an action anybody ought to waste a lot 
of time contemplating, performing, undoing, debating, etc.  (This 
would change, of course, if he were to start doing something active 
with his account for good or ill.)  The best thing to do now would 
seem to be to just leave him alone, while keeping an eye on his 
account to see if the situation has changed.


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