On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:04:44 -0700, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It is not an "anti-wiki" idea, any more than OTRS or IRC are anti-wiki ideas. Sometimes you need to allow people to let off steam or release hurt or explore a thought in some kind of privacy.
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.
And to be absolutely clear here, if I were to block someone on the basis of information I could not easily share it would only be *after* running it by the arbitrators. I already emailed details of at least one block to arbcom-l. That still does not make it anyone's call but my own.
We should not neglect here the obvious interpretation: that Durova simply screwed up. Some of us have been somewhat taken aback, and may have learned something from it. But ultimately it was Durova's call and she has taken a real beating for it. The same has happened with blocks resulting from misjudgment of conversations on IRC, I seem to recall. I used to be very anti-IRC until I tried it.
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.
Guy (JzG)