[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Durova]

> Quoting "Daniel R. Tobias" <dan at tobias.name>:
>> And it's a good thing the real-life authorities (not the Wikipedia
>> authorities) got involved, since they actually have the ability to
>> stop real-life stalking (like by jailing the stalker), something that
>> Wikipedia is completely powerless to do.  Banning him from the site,
>> while justified based on his actions, is pretty much useless for
>> stopping his off-wiki activity.
>
> I don't understand what point you are attempting to make. Are you
> attempting to argue that we should not have banned Amorrow?

Banning is one thing, and in the case of willfully persistent
vandals and trolls, I have no problem with it.  But we tend to
tie ourselves up in knots trying to do more than that.  After
we ban someone, they may keep harassing us from external sites.
They may try to "out" our editors.  They may say some really truly
not-nice things about us.  And there's *nothing we can do about it*.
But that drives us INSANE, because what they're doing is *WRONG*,
and we desperately want to *MAKE* *THEM* *STOP*!!!  So we try to
ban links to their sites, and suppress any on-wiki discussion of
anything about them or what they're saying, and block anyone who
dares to try.
It's not clear that any of that extra drama works.  It might
be the case that, after banning them, we should do our best to
utterly ignore them.  If they do something utterly unignorable,
like stalking or harassing one of our editors in real life,
we should turn the problem over to the real-world authorities,
because unlike us and our website thingy, they *can* do something
about it.

******
I'm a firm believer in the principle that ethical decisions where good
people disagree belong to the individuals who live with the consequences.
If another editor is harassed in real life, I respect that editor's
confidentiality and choices.  My responsibility as an editor and an
administrator includes seeing to it that Wikipedia does not continue to be a
platform for harassment in that situation.  Hence, I follow up on banning
the sockpuppets and closing whatever loopholes the harasser and his or her
confederates attempt to exploit.  Most of the time, quiet and efficient
deflection is sufficient to end the problem.

-Durova