Let's not lose sight of the purpose of "banning". It's not to get revenge, and it's not punishment for punishment's sake. It's only a means to an end.
We want to make an accurate, comprehensive and open encyclopedia. We require civility, so it's a nice congenial place to work. We enforce Jimbo & Larry!s NPOV policy, so that we keep bias from creeping in under the guise of "objective fact".
The only reason to pressure or suspend a contributor, is because they sidestep, subvert or openly declare war on our values. If they show willingness to mend their ways, all is (usually) forgiven.
My feelings toward Plautus, Lir, Wik, and Abe (172) are precisely the same: if they will follow our guidelines their help is welcome; if not, we're better off without them. Often after a self-imposed or "mandated" period of time off a user thinks better of rocking the boat and can come on board again.
Don't mistake this is hostility toward people. Think of it as dedication to the mission. We sail the boundless seas together. :-)
Ed Poor Curmudgeonly but softhearted Bureaucrat
I tend to agree in principle, but in practice the devil is in the detail - there is plenty of room for debate over what in fact furthers making an accurate, comprehensive and open encyclopedia. Take, for example, the fork to Internet Encyclopedia. We can disagree over how the job should be done, to the extent of fracturing the GFDL, without doubting that we are all trying to do the same thing. Mark
--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
Let's not lose sight of the purpose of "banning". It's not to get revenge, and it's not punishment for punishment's sake. It's only a means to an end.
We want to make an accurate, comprehensive and open encyclopedia. We require civility, so it's a nice congenial place to work. We enforce Jimbo & Larry!s NPOV policy, so that we keep bias from creeping in under the guise of "objective fact".
The only reason to pressure or suspend a contributor, is because they sidestep, subvert or openly declare war on our values. If they show willingness to mend their ways, all is (usually) forgiven.
My feelings toward Plautus, Lir, Wik, and Abe (172) are precisely the same: if they will follow our guidelines their help is welcome; if not, we're better off without them. Often after a self-imposed or "mandated" period of time off a user thinks better of rocking the boat and can come on board again.
Don't mistake this is hostility toward people. Think of it as dedication to the mission. We sail the boundless seas together. :-)
Ed Poor Curmudgeonly but softhearted Bureaucrat _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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