[WikiEN-l] Missed Opportunities to have avoided the Durova Case

[Bryan Derksen]

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:04:44 -0700, Bryan Derksen
> <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> A major line is crossed when that "private letting-off of steam" results
>> in administrators blocking users and then refusing to reveal why they
>> did it, though. This wasn't just some private venting session that leaked.
>> If an administrator were to block someone with the explanation "I ran
>> this by some people on an IRC channel and they okayed it, but I can't
>> tell you who or where or why", that would quite rightly result in a
>> furore. "Some people on an IRC channel" don't have any authority to okay
>> anything.
> 
> I completely agree.  I think I've even said as much.  The point here
> is that this would not mean it was IRC that was to blame for the
> cock-up, it would be the admin's fault.

I would also want to know who "some people" were, and whether they
really thought they had the authority to okay this or if the admin was
just blowing smoke about having their support.

If Durova "simply screwed up", fine, her bad. But if there's a group of
like-minded editors who were colluding on this and she just happens to
have had the bad luck to take the fall, I don't want the rest to meekly
and secretively creep back to whatever they were doing behind closed
doors that resulted in this happening. I want to make sure this attitude
and this bad process is rooted out.

> It's not clear to me what mechanism other than a private discussion
> could possibly satisfy the purpose of victims discussing harassment.
> If this had carried on with cc lists instead of a mailing list there
> would be no effective difference.

I'm not saying private discussions should be forbidden. That would be
silly and unenforceable. I do want it made very clear that one can't use
private discussions as a foundation for actual live public on-Wikipedia
sanctions. Unless it's something really extreme like an OFFICE action,
the evidence needs to come out before action can be taken based on it.

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