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.
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com