[WikiEN-l] Assume bad faith, for banned users.

[Monahon, Peter B.]

''It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree.  For if, by ill
luck, people understood each other, they would never agree''.  --
Charles Baudelaire
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1299.html 

> Earlier: "... If a banned user considers 
> they are ready now to contribute in a 
> way that is not going to cause friction, 
> they can appeal the ban ..."

Peter Blaise responds:  Although we may be right in identifying
"friction" as the perceived problem, I do not see "friction" as against
the rules, Wikipedia wise.  

Also, I do not necessarily see "friction" as only the banned user's
fault or responsibility.  Rather, it may also be the fault or
responsibility of the one who feels fricted (to coin a term).  I
generally find that friction is caused not by the first person, but by
the second person on the scene - the confused, misinterpreting admin,
ready to pounce, looking for trouble, wielding the banning hammer!
"Where's a nail?  Where's a nail?  There's gotta be a nail here
somewhere!  THERE'S a nail.  WHAM!!!"  One more newbie editor bites the
dust.  Next?

Anyone trying to accurately and appropriately contribute to Wikipedia
might be experienced as frictitious (hey, who else is exploring possible
new forms of the root word "friction"?) by someone else who has a
lesser, immature, perhaps inaccurate understanding of what Wikipedia is
all about (by it's own definitions), perhaps an overly personal
ownership of what they perceive as their part of Wikipedia.  Resolving
the friction by one person (an admin?) banning another (poor
unsuspecting volunteer newbie editor) is merely a power play, and that
is what I am trying to convince us all to STOP.  If we cannot stand the
heat, then get out of the friction!  If we cannot make something
positive out of that heat, then there are other ways to avoid friction
that do not involve banning:

 - move OURSELVES away from the scene (why are admins so afraid to walk
away after an initial contact, and let someone else try a different tack
later?) - do not intersect.

 - lubricate, that is, communicate openly (with patience, tolerance,
acceptance, and equivalent consideration, of course) so we slide
gracefully along the intersection of our differently chosen paths -
learn and grow.

 - lock step so there is no slippage, that is, we give in, and agree
with the other so there is no more friction!  (OMG, when was the last
time an admin actually admitted to learning something new from a newbie
or an editor during a dispute?!?  Is this a statistical improbability
that admins are ALWAYS pre-right, and have nothing left to learn, have
no new insights to bring to Wikipedia?  If we've stopped growing as
admins, then it's time to retire, and time to go bury ourselves
somewhere ELSE!)

==========

TONE:  I imagine that some of us think that we SPEAK nicely and
politely, and so we then think our WORDS themselves are nice and polite,
when it is really our SPEAKING STYLE that is solicitous.  However, when
we WRITE those same words to a stranger who is not in the room hearing
our cool, calm, polite TONE, we get so surprised when other people react
to our WORDS themselves, when we know our TONE was nice.  Here's a
sample of an admin's words that I find inappropriate from anyone, let
alone an admin, even though I can imagine them speaking these "nicely",
calmly, slowly and politely in person: 

"... I find your tone incredibly insulting, and largely off the point
(which is not uncommon for your page-long responses).  Your response
seemed to be directed at my comment, not to [...]'s, and even if it had
been it was not relevant or useful to the discussion at hand, so it was
rightfully deleted.  Please try and be less inflammatory, and please try
and stick to the point when engaging other people in discussion, rather
than attempting to turn every conversation into a Blaising argument...
--[[User:[...]]] 17:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)..."

Note this admin took no responsibility for deleting anything, using the
passive form "was deleted", uses conclusory assessment without specifics
(calling some unknown part of my previous writing "inflammatory"), and
note this admin also ridiculed my name, turning Blaise into "Blaising".

Anyway, read that quote a few times, and I can get it to sound so sweet
and unctuous, as from a breathy grammar school teacher trying to be
over-the-top-calm or some such imagination.  Regardless, all we have is
the words, not the writer's original tone they had in their head when
writing.

I do not advocate banning that admin or others like them.  If I don't
want to be banned for my words, for my inarticulate expression, for my
learning curve, then I do not want others to be banned for their words,
for their inarticulate expressions, for their learning curve, either!
In fact, I advocate the opposite of banning - taking the banning powers
away from everyone!  If it ain't spam, ain't vandalism, ain't off-topic,
banning is inappropriate.  I advocate, instead, dialogical discussion.

OMG, we might say, THAT could go on forever!  Versus the endless
discussions over banning in the first place?  Look, if we're gonna have
an endless discussion anyway, let's move the chat away from "banning"
(by stopping banning) and steer the chat back toward "Wikipedia
construction".

We have found the problem, and it is us.