On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 1:29 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Indef does not mean "forever" and it does not mean "one second". It merely means "unspecified".
The specified condition being that the user forbear from mentioning Durova's real name in-wiki again.
Yes, agreed.
The long history probably has more to do with Eleemosynary's intransigence in the face of a long bitter conflict, then it does with FT2's action to block indef. But all of that aside, the forward goal should be to diffuse the situation and bring Elee back into the project, imho.
Eleemosynary, while in this particular conflict being perhaps prinkly, is, in general, a very useful part of the project.
I agree with that goal and focus. But given our sensitivity to identity, privacy, and related stalking problems that our experienced users and admins have seen, even longtime contributors have to be aware that issues like this have low tolerance for abuse.
Trying to get support for a policy exception for not identifying people who don't want to be identified, just because somewhere out there in the world is info (that they put out there or not) that connects the dots, *just* for this one case to avoid an indef on a problematic if positive contributor, is a mistake.
That's not the policy to be poking holes in willy-nilly.
Working with Elee offline to impress upon them the reasons for the policy and get them to agree to abide by it, even if they disagree or feel they were unfairly treated, is the appropriate way forwards.