At 04:28 PM 11/8/2004 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
"Bryan Derksen" wrote
Kicking off 0.1% of Wikipedia's users isn't going to significantly reduce the pool of editors, and would reduce the stress for a significant portion of the 99.9% who remain. I don't see what these 1-in-1000 antisocials are contributing to Wikipedia that is worth it to endure the bad atmosphere they generate for everyone else.
Well, I think that's the debate really. If it was uncontroversial who they were, and that a surgical removal was possible without splitting the community, they would be banned quite quickly.
But there doesn't seem to actually _be_ a way to get a quick resolution of even an obvious case. I'm not necessarily talking about bans here, I'd be quite satisfied with an official "what you're doing here on this article is unacceptable, quit it." If arbitration worked quickly then I suspect "weak" rulings wouldn't be a problem because an incorrigible offender would rapidly accumulate a lot of them and the need for stronger measures would then become obvious too.
Basically, my personal complaint with the system is not what decisions it reaches - so far all the ArbCom decisions I've happened to hear about have seemed like reasonable ones. It's the speed with which the system comes to them.