I will attempt to respond briefly to all the concerns that apparently have taken flight this weekend, should anyone care what I think.
1. Don't desysop Morwen, but do run ANTICAPITALIST off for a while. We need good anti-corporation dialogue to keep articles honest, but if we shone sunlight on this fellow, he'd turn to stone (Tolkien reference).
2. Frankly, I don't understand the "secrecy" hullabaloo over the arbitration committee. I know and trust half the people on there, and if they're willing to serve with the people I don't really know (who comprise the other half) then I don't care if they choose to go by a pseudonym. If the issue is secret deliberation, I wonder if anyone has considered what public deliberation would look like on a wiki? Forgive my stodgy conservatism, but I'm most happy with a committee that can talk things over in private. Without a reasonably sensible method of dealing with the troubles we have, Wikipedia will crumble. I would go so far as to say I'd prefer this current system even if it banned me: at least I'd understand that a group of editors with the trust of a large percentage of the people here had come to a considered agreement. If we don't like the makeup of the committee.....well, that's what the annual changing of the guard will alter. The committee's individual members will come and go, and hopefully their common desire to make Wikipedia a better place will be sufficient guide. I trust it more, I feel compelled to say, than whatever the hell we've been doing since January. Anthere, I am sure the AC misspoke, as we have no right to ban anyone on fr.wikipedia.org. Certainly we at "en" take too little notice of or concern with the other languages, and this needs to change (in fact, I believe it is changing). I hope the AC will apologize, and I hope you will forgive them. I think there are bigger fish frying, but then that's my opinion.
3. If someone wants to go to the trouble of anonymizing proxies to mess with us, I say we've been big enough to stop them before, and I'd gladly suffer dozens of such miscreants to offer free speech to one oppressed voice from the darker corners of this world. If we go about blocking anonymous proxies wholesale, I will thrash about loudly, and doubt I will be alone.
4. As a more general plea, I would like to say that working on this encyclopedia is a lovely thing (thank you, Jimmy, by the way -- I've never said so to you directly before), and meeting all of you (even those with whom I have had horrible disagreements) has been a remarkably life-enriching, mind-expanding gift to me, and I wish the squabblers wouldn't break this thing when I've just really settled down to enjoying it. It is a most selfish reason, I admit. But I am desperate to remind those who need reminding that at the core of this place is a working, breathing encyclopedia whose immense worth and whose vast amount of good information has lifted it out of the reach of a few vandals or cranks seeking to destroy. Even at their absolute worst, Wik and Anthony left a thin trail through a Recent Changes page filled with the contributions of logged-in and anonymous users from around the world who are possessed of the crazy and reckless notion that knowledge ought to be free, and it is a gift thoroughly worth giving the human race to add one's own limited experience to this place. All I really want to say in my ramble and bluster is that I don't care terribly much who decides who's banned and how we structure HTML tables or whatever it is we are arguing about this week as long as we don't lose sight of what this place is and is becoming. As noted above, if this community thought banning me would make Wikipedia a better place, I would accept it -- there is something happening here more important than one person's ability to edit. I would be personally mortified, and probably quite upset, but in the long run I would not cease to admire this work, or recommend it to others. I consider myself lucky to have been given the opportunity to contribute as much as I have: words I wrote are adding to the knowledge of others daily in small ways, which makes me feel quite proud and humble all at once. Perhaps my motivations aren't so selfish after all. You may decide, and I promise not to be offended if you think me puffed with conceit.
Apologies for this lengthy post. I'd avoided the mailing list for months because I was sure it would lead me to.....well, to do exactly what I'm doing now. I recognize that there is likely not one good practical idea here for resolving the issues of the present day, and admit that I said it all primarily because I felt someone ought to. I promise to be quiet a good long while now. Peace to you, and please don't forget this marvelous thing that has brought us together,
James Rosenzweig (Jwrosenzweig)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html