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.
--------------------------------
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.
I accidentally pressed enter and sent the last message before I could add the contraction in "he's." Embarassing. Moreover, I've noticed that my messages often spill over the margins when I add something to the mailing list. I would appreciate it if someone would copy and paste the contents of what I wrote in a new, readable message within the margins.
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A temporary banning is also a nice compromise between
those who do not accept that situation any more, and
those who think it is acceptable. And imho, temporary
banning is an option that any sysop could "initiate",
that is just to us, all together, to discuss what
temporary means, and how we could use that time-out.
Oh, and I mean by that...not that any sysop can just
wander around and ban the user he has problem with.
I mean that when there is a wide concern over a user
repeated wrong behavior, and that the user just loose
his "temper", then, just as we practice "protecting a
page", we can practice "protecting other editors". A
page protection does not last forever. Once the ones
disagreeing on the talk page find an agreement, the
page is unprotected.
__________________________________
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Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own home page, and then BANNED
me when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
-----
Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own hom page, and then BANNED me
when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
-----
Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own hom page, and then BANNED me
when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
-----
Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own hom page, and then BANNED me
when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
-----
Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own hom page, and then BANNED me
when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
-----
Fuck you sick Nazi bastards.
After Stevertigo was exposed for being a Nazi (and this was
PROVEN, not alleged) you sick Nazi bastards began harassing
me and vandalizing my home page. You lied about him and
his edits, falsely accused me of saying things that SV
wrote, and then attacked me?
Then you accuse ME of being a Nazi?
Then you harassed me on my own hom page, and then BANNED me
when I pointd out that such behaviour is wrong?
Never in my life I have ever seen such a community of
violent Jew haters.
Nor, for that matter, such a bunch of cowardly Jews, who
privately write me that they all agree with me, but
publicly refuse to say their names.
Fine. You win. Nazipedia it is. I am gone. But from now
on the word will *widely* spread about the violent
anti-Semitism that Wikipedia encourages, the way that it
allows Nazis free reign, and the way it bans those who
speak out against hatespeech.
You've just bought yourselves bad publicity, and a well
deserved reputation as a home for lying, leftist
anti-Semites.
Goodbye.
Robert RK
__________________________________
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The vandalizing user talk pages and so on I'll agree
is over the line, but I disagree that it warrants a
temporary ban. Simply revert the changes, like we do
with everyone else. We've had plenty of other users
who've vandalized pages, including EntmootsOfTrolls
and BuddhaInside, among others, who were not
summarily banned through the extraordinary use of
developer powers. I don't see why RK should be
treated differently.
As for a permanent ban, while RK has been somewhat
obnoxious in his complaining about anti-Semitism,
several other people (notably SV) have been equally
obnoxious in their complaining from the other side
(e.g. of the "pro-Israel" bias of adding Israeli
census data). RK has also added quite a bit of
useful content to Wikipedia, much of it entirely
unrelated to Judaism, Israel, or related issues.
-Mark
---------
Contributors on Wikip�dia must be very diverse indeed,
but not only are they valuable when they add useful
content to the encyclopedia, but also when the
cooperate with others ("collaboratively developed" is
the term used).
We just all of us have different appreciations of what
is useful, and what is cooperation. People are not
banned because they are not useful, or because they do
not work with others, they are rejected because they
offer counter productive content, and/or they hurt the
community process. Or at least, are seen as such.
Any banning is a combination of "hurt the encyclopedia
in terms of content", "hurt the group process" and/or
"hurt encyclopedists themselves". We should not
compare one banned person with another banned person.
They are all unique. Just as we should not compare one
who is banned with another who is not, just on *one*
of the arguments used for banning people.
RK is bringing useful content to the encyclopedia, I
don't think anyone would deny this, but some also
think he is preventing useful content to be added to
the articles. RK is not hurting very much the
community spirit (though it might soon happen if we
disagree over how to handle the matter), but to some
people opinion, he has been trying (and very likely,
sometimes succeeded) to hurt some people to a degree
that some don't think acceptable.
The vandalizing user page is just a final straw, which
is very useful indeed, as it is a point on which there
might be a *rule*, or a more or less said agreement,
user page are personal (I do not agree with that
statement btw, imho, user pages are not our pages,
they are pages about us). The agreement says blanking
another user page is bad, putting bad words on them is
worse. At the opposite, there are no rules over using
offending terminology, calling people vandals or nazi.
Because, the offense is just personal perception.
But, thinking that people support a temporary ban just
*because* of these blanking would be a great
misappreciation of the situation.
I sure hope that the temporary banning will not be
considered just over this blanking argument, and as
such very likely lifted. Because that would show a
huge misconsideration for many wikipedians. That would
be just stating officially word abuse (word abuse as
*no one* in real life would *ever* tolerate to be
submitted to) is just okay, as long as the offender
offers good contributions. Comparison with other users
and other conflicts seeds would be just evading the
issue.
Till now, basically, there has been no gradation in
punishment. It is either, "you are good, you can
edit", or "you are bad, go away". Just an occasional
little tap on the hand for those getting out of the
way.
I think we should try to use in-between reactions.
Temporary banning is mostly a way to say to someone
"we would like you to stay with us, but you really
have to work on your behavior". It is a time-break, to
allow thoughts.
Not a time-break to receive further insults and appeal
to force intended to soften people who fear him never
coming again.
A temporary banning is also a nice compromise between
those who do not accept that situation any more, and
those who think it is acceptable. And imho, temporary
banning is an option that any sysop could "initiate",
that is just to us, all together, to discuss what
temporary means, and how we could use that time-out.
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>
> Goodbye.
>
> Robert RK
Could you stamp about and slam the door a little more loudly on your way
out? A few of my neighbours didn't quite hear you.
Graham (Quercus robur)
---
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Ok, I see how you are all behaving.
Now Martin and Angela are cooperating in vandalizing my
home page, despite my repeated pleas to stop harassing me.
And no one on the Wiki-En list seems to have a problem with
their harassment and vandalism.
So this is how it is going to work: If Wikipedia policy
allows them to vandalize my home page, then it should also
allow me to do the same to theirs.
If it is wrong for me to do this to them, then it is also
wrong for them to do the same to me.
It is your choice what kind of community we have. Martin
and Angela, despite my repeated desperate pleas, have made
it clear what kind of behaviour they find acceptable to do
unto others. And many of you have made it clear that you
don't have a problem with this.
Personally, I find your choices incomprehensible. I think
this way leads to insanity, and the destruction of any
semblance of Wiki-community.
The only choice is to follow my original proposal: When
someone begs and pleads for a person to stop shoving
harassment onto their home page, then that person should
stop doing so. Your way - i.e. allowing this behaviour -
is simply insane.
But it is up to you. All I know is that I refuse to follow
the current Wikipedia policy, which is to forbid me alone
from changing other people's home pages, but allowing
others to harass me.
Robert (RK)
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Robert wrote:
>Never in my life I have ever seen such a community
>of violent Jew haters.
Dude! You have any idea how paranoid that sounds? Just because people disagree
with you and you happen to be a Jew doesn't mean that that are anti-Semites!
Oh, and anybody who disagrees with me is a homophobic bastard! ;-)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to
examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious
behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and
talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being
vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on
it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't
read through his lengthy diatribes which will
inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this
temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a
month or so.
Regards,
Erik
Perhaps temporary is best first. I am sure it will
make him realize that he can't do anything he wants
to, with no punishment ever.
I strongly support a graduation in punishment, just as
I indicate yesterday in Martin good work talk page
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk%3ABans_and_blocks
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Robert (RK) wrote:
> This harassment is totally out of control. Martin
> (MyRedDice) is till [sic] vandalizing my talk page.
I see you've finally worked out the difference between a user page and a talk
page. Congratulations!
In the second lesson, we'll be covering the difference between "vandalism" and
"conversation". Remember: just because they've both got more than two
syllables, doesn't mean they're the same thing!
In other news, I vote "out of control" to be the new mailing list cliche! In former
days we were all alternately "shocked" and "appalled", but the march of progress
is ever onwards!
-MyRedDice