At 10:15 AM 10/2/03 +0200, Erik wrote:
Delirium-
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,
BuddhaInside was instantly banned after vandalism. EntmootsOfTrolls is banned now because of threats, I'm not aware of any vandalism by him but I can assure you that I or someone else would have banned him had that happened to a significant extent.
among others, who were not summarily banned through the extraordinary use of developer powers.
No use of developer powers was involved. All sysops can ban signed in users.
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.