[Wikipedia-l] Re: Ban warning to GrahamN

[Tom Parmenter]

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|Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 13:48:04 -0700
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|> I've been thinking about this all day, and now I fear
|> that I may have caused more trouble than I bargained for.
|> The cure is worse than the disease.
|
|I don't think that's related to your actions specifically,
|just to the fact that you brought the issue to the attention
|of more people, and more of us told the hotheads to cool off
|for a while.  I don't think that's a bad result at all.
|The article pages on which they were fighting (e.g., "Anti-
|semitism") are actually pretty good articles at the moment,
|so there's no immediate need for revision.  And I've noticed
|Graham at least making useful edits to non-controversial
|pages in the last day or two. I think that's a fine result.
|
|I'm also sympathetic to the possibility that maybe one way to
|attract and keep more experts is to be less tolerant of nonsense
|and more liberal with blocks and other "official" sanctions.
|

I have moderated two mailing lists and it is very common for quiet to
descend following even the mildest reproofs from the moderator.  Both
my lists were kind of sensitive, one was for addicts and alcoholics,
of which I was not either, and the other was for my company where I
had to let free speech reign without letting the list get too
offensive.  That is, in both cases I had to censor, but with the
lightest possible hand.  I usually let things run their course until
actual insults, cussing, accusations appeared, but whenever I finally
stepped in to a dispute or flying insults it worked and no one ever
accused me of being a fascist.  And it was always quiet for a couple
of weeks.

It's easy to tell when pages are getting out of hand from watching
recent changes, so if no one likes my idea of freezing pages (I guess
not, no response anyway), then some of you folks with authority ought
to be prepared to do what Ed did (with a slightly lighter hand) and
sort of jump in quietly and  tell everyone to cool it a bit.  

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88