On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I would agree with this completely. I fully support that we should ask people, kindly (of course!), if their priorities are straight in coming to the website. And that we should exert careful social pressure on people who are being problematic.
This doesn't mean yelling at them or shaming them, since those are the techniques of Usenet, appropriate (perhaps) to that medium, but less than helpful in a medium of collaboration.
Yelling, certainly, doesn't help. Shaming, in an atmosphere where there is strong general support for certain principles that are *egregiously* violated, *can* help and *has* helped upon occasion.
It is *precisely* in a medium of collaboration where shaming can help!
I'm not going to stop doing it, myself, and I continue to advocate its tasteful, usually tongue-in-cheek, winking, use. Treating others with respect is important as well; but I wouldn't attempt to shame someone that I didn't have at least enough respect to think that they'd react appropriately.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, of course. I expect that, if I do something egregiously wrong, I'll be shamed; and lord knows that on this list, people do their level best to do just that (albeit with uneven success).
Now, don't get me wrong. I really do wish we all were a *lot* nicer to each other than we have been. I *don't* actually relish taking people to task for their violations of protocol. If I can do it in a gentle way, I'll can. But where gentleness is met with no result, shaming can help.
Sometimes, violations are *so* egregious, *so* outrageous, and *consciously so* (rubbing our nose in it as it were), that shaming the violators is the polite way of saying, "You've really gone over the line this time, buddy."
If someone is actually shamed *for shaming* someone in such a situation, that's an indication that the community doesn't take its "lines" seriously enough. In such situations, again, shaming can be useful, and should at the very least be tolerated.
I wish I knew an easy answer to these questions. But I think there is none. We can only be thoughtful and tolerant for awhile, and apply pressure for awhile, and then eventually and *with the feeling that we've failed*, we should ban as a last resort. And even then, the door to redemption should almost always remain open.
I agree with this personally, but I'd like us to discuss it in a little more depth and with a little more precision if we can. Maybe not *right now*, but eventually.
I believe that: 1) It should not be necessary to tell people to leave. The community expectation should be so great that we are here to build an encyclopedia that trolls and vandals are immediately and thoroughly discouraged. 2)I'd rather not feel compelled to tell people to leave because they're interfering. Most people realize it, and so most people don't dabble where they don't belong. 3) If someone proves a stubborn & insistent impediment, we should tell him or her to leave. 4) When we do tell someone to leave, we should be able to enforce it if necessary.
I think that's all basically correct.
So do I, well said.
Larry