Apologies for the formatting - the machine stripped the breaks that would
have made my post readable. Grrrr (I'm a workman blaming the tools ...) It
should have looked like this:
I’d like to agree with Daniel that “purgative rituals” should be added to
the repertoire of ways to deal with these very
difficult problems. In modern
times, the label for this is behaviourally-based change or [[behaviour
modification]] and it works better than exclusion or punitive strikes. As
Daniel said, these methods remind people what the point of things is (things
like other people and the society we all have to work in) and they provide a
way forward. Exclusion, excommunication, imprisonment, whatever you call it
in the real world, is like banning – it not only loses any contribution they
can make but more importantly, gives time and space for anger and resentment
to build and then burst out when the opportunity arises (in this case when
the block expires).
Dealing with graffiti is an examples of this in
operation – punishing and
ranting at them gives them the fame they seek, so what works best is
painting it over quickly. In WP terms this is reverting but it doesn’t work
for this level of incivility, I suggest this is because the motivation is
power, not fame (or possibly power as well as fame). That brings us back to
the “collaborative goal setting” that Daniel suggests.
Perhaps some options chosen by the individual could
be added to Daniel’s
idea of editing – it could be any quantifiable, self-chosen contribution,
including editing some other favourite topic or being a wikignome or
wikifairy etc. Or, the person could work one-on-one with someone from an
opposing point of view to reach consensus on another sort of article. These
are productive responses, the goal of which should be to keep the person
productively engaged and have them experience their work as valued.
Other organisations have to deal with anti-social
behaviour and perhaps we
could learn from them. The excuse that they are “making such good
contributions”, for example, has also confronted other industries/
organisations. Some groups use the money they pay for a service as an excuse
for appalling behaviour. Examples include drunken football teams being destructive
in aeroplanes (the airlines have had to ban some teams) or rock stars in
hotels (making the behaviour public helps get pressure for change in these
cases).
It is very similar to customer complaints that every organisation has to
deal with. When I worked on this for a big organisation, I found that the
customer complaints process ranged across and touched on everything from the
trivial to the criminal and the process needed to take account of that
range. So adding this tool (i.e. working on the encyclopaedia in some other
way before being banned) to the box should help.
In intractable cases, banning will be the only
solution, but for the middle
range of people who once enjoyed contributing productively, being given a
“cooling off” period in which they can return to that for a while might
work.
I am assuming that ArbCom is the most appropriate
place for these kinds of
resolutions to be handled because it is not likely to be feasible for every
admin to hand out such injunctions, nor would they be enforceable. Does
ArbCom consider that behavioural disputes are as worthy of arbitration as
content disputes? If not, is there a reason? If they do consider such
intractable (and apparently easily identifiable) cases as within their
scope, can these approaches be introduced to their repertoire of sanctions?
Thankfully, I have never had to deal with these types
of people on WP, but
if I did, it would chase me away. While I think the issue is broader than
the gender one, they are inextricably related.
Gillian
User: Whiteghost.ink