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"The man whose authority is recent is always stern." -- attributed to Aeschylus

"... because boys and girls grow up in what are essentially different cultures ... talk between women and men is cross-cultural communication ..." Deborah Tannen

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Earlier: ... can you give us one example of a successful online community where nobody has the power to ban a user? ...

Peter Blaise responds:

Of course. I speak from experience. Nothing prior corresponds exactly to the wiki experience, especially the Wikipedia experience. Most prior Internet collections of otherwise unassociated people worldwide were about products and activities - such as hikers, photographers, car enthusiasts, and such. Wikis, and Wikipedia especially, are full-spectrum democracies, and with no significant alternative (a monopoly?). As such, I believe that wikis, and especially Wikipedia, need to be overtly diligent to prevent denial of access to anyone, and to always be open for everyone. As an effective monopoly, wikis, and Wikipedia especially, need to bend over backwards, so to speak, to provide totally-inclusive customer service.

My personal experience is twofold:

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1 - On http://www.yahoogroups.com/ (was "alt", then mailing list, then onegroup / egroups / yahoo clubs, then yahoo groups - evolution over 10 years or more, now splintering into other arena, including Google Groups "alt" once again), new groups sprang up because of banning in prior groups, and so, the promise of the new groups was, as I mentioned:

- free and open to all - multiple co-moderators - no banning

You might ask, how do we deal with the inevitable party crashers?

- spammers - vandals - flamers - extended off-topic posters

Simple.

Delete spam and vandalism, don't waste time banning spammers and vandals since they move on from an email address or IP rather quickly. On wikis, having blocks for such that expire in hours is appropriate. The important thing is that the blocks are brief, and expire automatically.

Flamers and extended off-topic posters get moderated, where their posts / contributions get held back for review by the multiple co-moderators. No one co-moderator decides on their own, and especially, no single co-moderator who ever got involved in a dispute with anyone else was allowed to resolve their dispute by expressing co-moderator powers! That might work on the wiki lists. I'm not sure how to moderate on the wikis themselves. Any ideas? Is an extension needed to provide an dialogical alternative to banning?

Eventually one of three things happens:

- a co-moderator volunteers to correspond with the "offender" off-line, and over time, they resolve the problem, usually a discovering a misunderstanding,

- the "offender" reconsiders, soothes themselves, and starts offering appropriate contributions on their own,

- the "offender" goes quiet,

Results? No banning, no ongoing fighting, no overwhelming distraction from the main purpose of the group, everyone continues to feel welcome and invited to participate without fear that they might get irretrievably, irrevocably banned for offending other members or a whimsical, all-powerful moderator.

Meta-messages, that is, messages-about-the-messages, like this one, of course, are part and parcel of any community, and are unrelated to the "offences" as listed above. Meta-messages are never considered off topic.

Co-moderators also participate, never flaunt their admin / moderator status, and set examples:

- co-moderators NEVER threaten to use powers, especially never threatening to stop an argument in which they have participated!

- co-moderators MODERATE other people's arguments, cooling down the participants, asking expansive questions, injecting lighter attitudes, sometimes even defusing with humor (never ridicule).

Is it a lot of work? Yes and no. Actually, with no "banning" work to do and maintain, there's loads more time to actually participate and moderate! It's more fun for the moderators, and less scary for the members, especially members who want to raise challenging, even constitutional issues, who can do so without fear of being severed from their own community.

What we usually find when resolving problems is:

- someone has taken something personally,

- someone misunderstands another's post, and then they're both arguing against ghosts that don't really exist,

By keeping such "offenders" inside the community, we keep the community whole, and everyone grows because of that effort. I know, as a co-moderator, that I have had to call on previously untapped personal resources for patience, tolerance, acceptance, and equivalent consideration. When dialoging off-line with "offenders", I have generally found that the real problem was someone's inarticulateness (yes, even my own - it could happen!), or inaccurate translation across languages. Surprisingly easily resolved. I treasure my relationships with these people across the globe, sometimes more intensely earned than my always-friendly relationships with other members of the community!

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2 - On http://www.mediwiki.org/ where (presumably an English-as-a-second-language) co-moderator / admin admitted that they misunderstood an entry on a discussion / talk page, yet they still whimsically decided to ban AND delete, even removing a contributor's contact name, address and telephone number, and the user's prior notes on their own discussion / talk page, as if that information itself were suddenly spam or vandalism?!? The ban is infinite. The member has no way to even contact anyone to appeal. Other members who objected to the co-moderator's behavior were quashed into silence out of fear of being banned, also. (Note - my previous references here SHOULD have been only to MediaWiki.org the software, not WikiMedia.org the foundation site - my typo, their confusing trademarks.) "If banned, appeal to ... " ... no can do! Once banned, there's no way to contact anyone at the site. Contact the Foundation site, and they forward the request back to the software site, and so the request for review simply disappears. As said, so much for the Wikimedia Foundation's belief in their own wiki democracy tool!

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Hey, I have nothing against banning - where the name of the enterprise is the name of the one doing the banning. Rename it to Joe'sWiki, or Joe'sList, and then ban away. But if it's a wiki, Wikipedia, or wiki list, then NO BANNING.

Banning = moderator and friends' blog, rename it as such.

Wiki = come one, come all, and let's figure out how to get along.

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Earlier: ... this strikes me as arguing that newspaper editors should not have the right to tear up any letters that come in from one particular person....

Peter Blaise responds: You know this is not a newspaper, which is by definition an expression of the publisher and editors. A wiki, and a wiki support list, is the expression of anyone who visits. The visitors are the publishers and editors. One visitor should never have banning powers over other visitors.

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Earlier: ... This is the English Wikipedia mailing list, and the mods should be able to prohibit or curtail discussion that does not relate in any way to the English Wikipedia ...

Peter Blaise responds: We agree ... somewhat. We're here to discuss English Wikipedia. Great. Do that. But, as mentioned, I put it to you that banning is an inappropriate tool for the MODERATING you desire. As an alternative to banning, I suggest actually MODERATING! And, I have found that having multiple co-moderators helps, especially when one co-moderator feels overwhelmed or personally involved in a conflict. Alternative co-moderators are then much better suited to resolve the situation without themselves catching on fire.

And, as mentioned, without banning powers, there's way less incentive for people with hidden agendas to become admins / moderators. THAT is my penultimate target here - to raise awareness that banning powers may seem innocent and useful at first blush, but corrupt anyone who holds them, and draws people with contrary goals.

I suggest that on all wikis and wiki lists that we ban the banning power and that whole problem will go away, and then co-moderators can actually develop themselves, and the WHOLE community, by developing their moderating prowess, instead of lazily solving all problems by pulling the banning trigger whenever they feel bothered or inconvenienced.

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Earlier: Re: [WikiEN-l] What en:wp would look like printed out ... A pox on all the deletionists who want to reduce this variety ...

Peter Blaise responds: My point EXACTLY about banning. Those who would ban are deletionists in another incarnation.

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Earlier: Re: [WikiEN-l] Misogyny is the perfect troll ... It's no wonder there are so few women in the upper echelons on Wikipedia, imo, in a culture that is so damn accepting and ignorant of how it makes women outsiders ...

Peter Blaise responds: ... maybe because, historically, women tend to be community builders, and are not so quick to grab the banning stick? As Deborah Tannen deduced in her book, "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation", women tend to build "rapport" with another person; men tend to seek out the content of the "report" and discard the other person. We need both - wikis, and especially the Wikipedia, needs both content and community. Banning powers are interruptive and destructive of first one, then the other.

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Thanks for hanging in here, and reading all this, those few who are interested or have nothing else to do. Again, I'm sorry if I speak past my close, and if I made this way too long, not having taken the time to revisit and edit and cull this down to essentials, or just letting previous posts speak for themselves without redundant reiteration.

-- Peter Blaise