Gareth Owen wrote:
Caroline Ford caroline@secretlondon.me.uk writes:
It's far too open to abuse. There is an element of popularity contest about it. No-one seems to object to banning unpopular users.
The question is *why* are those people unpopular.
You have opinions which are undoubtedly unpopular with many wikipedians, but I've not seen calls for your banning because you express those within the confines of norms of Wikipedia behaviour.
No-one called for RK to be banned, until he started hurling abuse at people, even though he was in in frequent disagreement with people from the other side of the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
The present set of people are being banned *not* because they have unpopular opinions, but because they behave in an antisocial manner, and refuse to cooperate with others.
Well, what's "abuse" versus "unpopular political opinions" seems to vary depending on the particular dispute. In the Germany/Poland and Israel/Palestine disputes, for example, there've been more than a few calls for various people to be banned primarily because they were seen as an "anti-Polish activist" or "right-wing Israeli apologist" or whatnot, rather than because of any particular abuse (though sometimes abuse is also alleged, but it usually seems to not be the primary issue). Three examples that come to mind are Nico for his pro-German-names advocacy, Srpska for his pro-Serbian-nationalist advocacy, and OneVoice for his pro-Israeli-right advocacy (none of whom I personally feel should be banned, temporarily or otherwise, but all of whom at least one person has asked to be banned).
-Mark