On Sat, 5 Feb 2005, steven l. rubenstein wrote:
[snipping details concerning a known problem contributor]
As Rhobite points out, it will be very difficult if not impossible to block
CheeseDreams.
I know there has been much discussion of ways to get around the
difficulties in blocking someone whose IP address is shared, or who can
easily move from one IP address to another. I happen to know next to
nothing about computers, so all I can say is I trust the people working on
this problem and wish them luck.
But I do have another proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations:
give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."
There may come a time when we need to start declaring users outlaws, but
in this situation, invovling CheeseDreams, I'm convinced that it won't
work.
CD's behavior has always been aggressive. She marked a number of Bible-related
articles as NPOV without explaining why. When questioned, she responds
aggressively -- if not with hostility -- as if out of reflex. When
approached in a way that could be seen in any possible way as hostile,
she responds with escalated hostility. (She seems to spend more effort
into her aggression than into the logical strength of her convictions.
Which is sad, because many of the POVs she advocates do have some
support amongst authorities; she make a lot more positive contributions
to Wikipedia were she to engage in reasoned exchanges instead of stirring
up trouble.) And she's well aware that behavior antagonizes people --
witness the comment on her User page: "I edit controversial articles. They
are more controversial after I'm finished with them."
In short, CD *wants* to stir up trouble & get people angry at her. (I have
an idea why, but it's not directly relevant to my point.) And if we
declare her an "Outlaw", it will just encourage her to more extreme
displays of aggression & rule-breaking. Right now, she's under a ban from
Wikipedia, which I fully expect her to keep breaking & thus restart the
ban again. If need be, I'm sure a petition to the ArbCom about her abuse
of sock puppets would result in getting her banned for a year -- which
would result in the same penalties as being declared an "Outlaw".
And unless I'm mistaken, by being banned, any changes she makes to WP --
whether under her own name, thru a proxy, or from an IP -- are subject to
immediate rollback, regardles of the quality of the material. It's
what happened to Michael & Lir, & should be aplied to her until her ban
has been expired.
And if this is not enough, perhaps we should bring her behavior to the
notice of BT. Wikipedia has enough credibility & stature now in the "Real
World" that leads me to assume contact with an ISP would result with her
internet account being terminated, & likely those of her friends. There
would be no need to threaten an embargo against BT; after a few of her
friends lost their 'Net accounts because of their involvement with her,
she'd be forced to use public kiosks like libraries or Internet Cafes --
& I doubt she'd be much of a threat if limited to hour-long sessions
online.
In other words, let's try this series of options before we start resorting
to new ones. Hmm. IIRC, some of the steps I listed above have never been
attempted, although they have been discussed on this mailing list. But then,
CD has managed to achieve a new low that prior problem users failed to
reach. :-(
We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who
is an outlaw, but for
one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards
for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.
There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an
outlaw, to ensure due process.
The consequence of being an outlaw is this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or
not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if
doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day,
their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished).
My thinking is this: in the case of CD right now, blocking is not effective
so all we really can do is revert her work. Right now this is being done
primarily by sysops, and however large the list of admins are, in the case
of someone as reckless as CD this still becomes a big job. My idea is that
there are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says
"you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the
entire community to take action.
Okay, I know that this sounds off the wall. Please just think about it,