This is Abe Sokov's opinion. I do not agree with it, but he asked for it
to be presented in a "readable" format, so here it is.
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I am going to make strong pleas against any moves to ban RK or
marginalize him. While I’m not arguing that we tolerate his bad behavior
in the short-run, it is crucial that we tolerate having to deal with,
and act against, his bad behavior instance by instance in the long-run.
To sum up my argument, RK’s bad behavior is an indispensable asset for
Wikipedia.
Yes, his tendency to overreact, aggressiveness, and lack of ability to
channel disputes into a more substantive debate, rather than an all-out
personal conflict, is confounding his difficulties with other users,
underlying this conflict is the nature of the articles on which he has
been working. On Wikipedia his fields of interest (Israel, Judaism, and
anti-Semitism) inherently attract a polarized core of contributors,
which pits committed supporters of Israel against pro-Palestinian advocates.
Of course, certain practices and behavior are better at channeling them
toward cooperation. Although I did say that his personality is at the
heart of this whole attempt to ban you, the dynamics of his edit wars
mean that he has to act as he does! While other topics polarize as well,
the ideology of the extremists on both sides, along with their ingrained
prejudices against each other, discourages them from yielding any
concessions to each other. Moreover, it encourages both sides to seek to
prevail at all cost, and escalate the conflict into a zero-sum game.
Since both sides are too fearful of the aims of the other, RK is always
forced not to retreat and make concessions to the other side (that might
be his personality, but the often raving lunacy of his crudades is means
of putting checks and balances on his opponents in the long-run).
Although he can be paranoid irrational at times, and he’s raving and not
strategizing, his aggressiveness is well-suited in that it might be the
only pattern of behavior that will work for him. Moreover, since he is
almost always outnumbered in any dispute, he naturally has to lodge just
as many salvoes, and make just as much noise, as many users put together.
The fair-minded users who favor his banning ignore one the only fact
that matters: the end result of most of his edit wars has been
neutrality. There's a lot of noise, but everything's fine afterwards.
Wikipedia needs his forceful dedication to his side of the issues.
RK and RK alone provides a counterweight to large number of
contributors, and determines whether or not his side is equally powerful
(despite being under-represented in terms of the number of contributors)
in each edit war. Right now, we have a “balance of power” on the
Israeli-Palestinian articles that yields stalemate in edit-war after
edit-war. Thus, Wikipedia gets the quality of writing, accuracy,
balance, and neutrality needed for to emerge as a viable sourcebook.
Thus, even if he did do something that warrants a banning, Wikipedia
needs to accept his actions at all cost in order to maintain balance on
the articles on the Israeli-Palestinian articles.
His absence would mean that conflict would ease considerably over the
Israeli-Palestinian issue, thus meaning that they written at a far
faster rate by the remaining users. But that would be the result of a
terrible development.
This would be at the cost of allowing his antagonists to achieve an
all-out victory, and be able to exercise such a degree of control over
the articles that there would only be a façade of neutrality. While I
did not reach this conclusion when I was subjected to my first RK
experience (disagreeing with him isn’t pleasant), I now realize that his
absence would be a crushing blow to Wikipedia, an unprecedented
experiment whose success is not a foregone conclusion.
The dynamics of the disputes on Wikipedia that arise over the
Israeli-Palestinian issue mean that neutrality is only going to be
attained when both sides are finished terrorizing and brutalizing each
other, after a zero-sum battle has ended in a stalemate. If RK weren’t
here, that would mean that the other side would consistently win.
RK’s role as the lose cannon on the Israel-related articles - always
suspicious, prickly, and aggressive – bolsters the influence of his side
of the issues. You cannot deny that RK has steered dozens of articles
toward an orientation further from that of his antagonists. He often
starts off adding grotesquely POV content, but that’s toned down after a
fierce battle with his ever-observant opponents. Although his opponents
are more subtle in slanting articles, there are more of them, and other
users usually have no sympathy for RK. Whereas RK can inject hysterical
propaganda in a few articles, many other users can inject subtle biase s
in many articles. However, fear of RK’s tyranny is a check on them; and
when RK mobilizes his energies into a hysterical fit, balance results
from the ensuing struggle.
In short, if Wikipedia is to present both sides, it’s contingent on
letting RK be RK. He generates chaos and a lot of ill-will. He’s often
obnoxious (but he can magnanimously admit that he was wrong – I believe
that he took my advice to stop calling a very well-respected user an
anti-Semite). He even alienates his own supporters, and often attacks
potential allies with great bitterness. But due to the nature of users
who are attracted to the Israeli/Palestinian article, the only way to
get balance is stalemate after stalemate after stalemated zero-sum
conflict between equally powerful and committed groups of antagonists.
Among the non-academic partisans who take the time to write about this
dispute, the fanatical camps on both sides make it impossible for the
two sides to put aside their differences and agree on what a neutral
article is. It’s too idealistic to expect them to have the dexterity to
cooperate and quit wasting time by sniping at each other. RK’s intrans
igence, and often flat out bizarre behavior, but it’s an indispensable
part of a confluence of opposing forces required for Israeli-Palestinian
neutrality.