Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
Regards,
Erik
I support this; he went a bit insane there.
-- Jake
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
Regards,
Erik
That's good, but I strongly believe that this ban should be temporary. Eventually, RK not want to act like this. Even Lir was unbanned eventually, and RK was, for the most part, a good user. LDan
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Erik Moeller wrote:
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
I disagree with both a temporary and a permanent ban.
The vandalizing user talk pages and so on I'll agree is over the line, but I disagree that it warrants a temporary ban. Simply revert the changes, like we do with everyone else. We've had plenty of other users who've vandalized pages, including EntmootsOfTrolls and BuddhaInside, among others, who were not summarily banned through the extraordinary use of developer powers. I don't see why RK should be treated differently.
As for a permanent ban, while RK has been somewhat obnoxious in his complaining about anti-Semitism, several other people (notably SV) have been equally obnoxious in their complaining from the other side (e.g. of the "pro-Israel" bias of adding Israeli census data). RK has also added quite a bit of useful content to Wikipedia, much of it entirely unrelated to Judaism, Israel, or related issues.
-Mark
Delirium-
The vandalizing user talk pages and so on I'll agree is over the line, but I disagree that it warrants a temporary ban. Simply revert the changes, like we do with everyone else. We've had plenty of other users who've vandalized pages, including EntmootsOfTrolls and BuddhaInside,
BuddhaInside was instantly banned after vandalism. EntmootsOfTrolls is banned now because of threats, I'm not aware of any vandalism by him but I can assure you that I or someone else would have banned him had that happened to a significant extent.
among others, who were not summarily banned through the extraordinary use of developer powers.
No use of developer powers was involved. All sysops can ban signed in users.
Regards,
Erik
At 10:15 AM 10/2/03 +0200, Erik wrote:
Delirium-
The vandalizing user talk pages and so on I'll agree is over the line, but I disagree that it warrants a temporary ban. Simply revert the changes, like we do with everyone else. We've had plenty of other users who've vandalized pages, including EntmootsOfTrolls and BuddhaInside,
BuddhaInside was instantly banned after vandalism. EntmootsOfTrolls is banned now because of threats, I'm not aware of any vandalism by him but I can assure you that I or someone else would have banned him had that happened to a significant extent.
among others, who were not summarily banned through the extraordinary use of developer powers.
No use of developer powers was involved. All sysops can ban signed in users.
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.
Vicki-
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.
It was always allowed for developers to ban signed in users in cases of obvious vandalism. Now that sysops have the same ability, I see no reason why it should remain limited to people such as myself.
Regards,
Erik
"Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote in message news:8v5NnLKSpVB@erik_moeller...
Vicki-
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.
It was always allowed for developers to ban signed in users in cases of obvious vandalism. Now that sysops have the same ability, I see no reason why it should remain limited to people such as myself.
This represents a significant jump in the power wielded by sysops over other users. Deletion, IP blocking and page protection are insignificant compared to the ability to effectively block any non-sysop. I was afraid my software feature might incite a policy change like this, so I made sure my policy statement was carefully worded. In hindsight, I'm not particularly surprised Eloquence chose to ignore it.
Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple vandalism" than I do. RK got angry, he lashed out at a few users. He didn't replace the contents of an article with "poo poo". I hope Jimbo takes this opportunity to clarify the definition of the term.
Repeat vandalism probably could have been prevented by protecting the user pages involved. Instead of merely dealing with the effects of RK's actions, Eloquence was able to take retributive action. I strongly believe that sysops should not be capable of punishing other users in this way. Threats of such actions could greatly increase the perception of a power structure; a pecking order.
-- Tim Starling (still theoretically on holiday)
Tim-
Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple vandalism" than I do. RK got angry, he lashed out at a few users.
He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response he vandalized mine. After he was banned, he called everyone nazi and Wikipedia Nazipedia. I think he should stay away until he gets some treatment for his persecution complex.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Tim-
Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple vandalism" than I do. RK got angry, he lashed out at a few users.
He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response he vandalized mine.
And so you got angry and banned him.
The issue could have brought up on the mailing list. In the past, we have often discussed weeks and weeks before banning long-term Wikipedians. I do not think that this practice should be changed now. There was no imminent danger. RK rudely and unexcusably replaced four people's user pages with angry messages, that's all. Wikipedia was never under attack.
Axel
Axel-
He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response he vandalized mine.
And so you got angry and banned him.
Wrong. I warned him, he continued his vandalism spree, I banned him. I would have banned him if he had vandalized any other user page. I and other developers have long had the authority to ban signed in users in cases of vandalism. I did not even use developer privileges -- any other sysop could have, and should have done the same. You should be more worried about users who call all other Wikipedians nazis and refer to the whole project as "Nazipedia" than accusing those who try to maintain some semblance of sanity of abusing power. Nonsensical accusations like that are poisoning the atmosphere of this project, and I would very much appreciate it if you would keep them to yourself.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Axel-
He did so by vandalizing their user pages. I told him to stop. In response he vandalized mine.
And so you got angry and banned him.
Wrong. I warned him, he continued his vandalism spree, I banned him.
After he had vandalized your user page he was banned by you immediately and did not have time to continue his "spree" (consisting of four edits).
I did not even use developer privileges -- any other sysop could have, and should have done the same.
I disagree. There was no urgency. RK throws irrational fits about people editing his user talk, so people try to talk to him on his talk page. Why not switch off the computer and take a walk instead? Solves lots of problems like that.
Nonsensical accusations like that are poisoning the atmosphere of this project, and I would very much appreciate it if you would keep them to yourself.
I am certain of that, but you won't be that lucky.
Axel
Axel-
Wrong. I warned him, he continued his vandalism spree, I banned him.
After he had vandalized your user page he was banned by you immediately and did not have time to continue his "spree" (consisting of four edits).
As Martin has pointed out, it were more than four edits; and yes, I banned him before he could continue his spree.
Why not switch off the computer and take a walk instead? Solves lots of problems like that.
I encouraged RK to do just that. I myself was not angry or excited at all -- I wasn't involved in the flamewar so I considered myself a reasonably independent third party to make a sysop decision. And I still consider this decision to be correct.
Regards,
Erik
Tim Starling wrote:
Eloquence obviously has a different idea of "simple vandalism" than I do. RK got angry, he lashed out at a few users. He didn't replace the contents of an article with "poo poo". I hope Jimbo takes this opportunity to clarify the definition of the term.
Yes, I will, but I won't be criticizing Erik for this, even if we all end up agreeing that this wasn't the right thing to do in this case.
We, the most active participants, surely need to stay on the same page in terms of mutual respect and cutting each other some slack, even if we went up disagreeing with particular actions.
It's a test case, and an interesting one at that.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@joey.bomis.com wrote:
Yes, I will, but I won't be criticizing Erik for this, even if we all end up agreeing that this wasn't the right thing to do in this case.
So you agree that, in some cases but not necessarilly, longtime logged-in contributors can be banned without discussion?
We, the most active participants, surely need to stay on the same page in terms of mutual respect and cutting each other some slack, even if we went up disagreeing with particular actions.
It's a test case, and an interesting one at that.
--Jimbo
RK was also a very active participant. Why don't you cut him some slack? LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Yes, I will, but I won't be criticizing Erik for this, even if we all end up agreeing that this wasn't the right thing to do in this case.
So you agree that, in some cases but not necessarilly, longtime logged-in contributors can be banned without discussion?
Temporarily, sure! For example, if someone starts going through and putting pornographic pictures on articles about Mother Theresa or things of that nature, the sort of stuff we have always called "simple vandalism".
Now, "simple vandalism" has never been clearly defined, it's sort of an "I know it when I see it" sort of thing.
USUALLY in cases like that, we should assume the best of the person involved. Maybe they were drunk. Maybe someone stole or guessed their password. I mean, if you started doing stuff like that, I'd want your account banned temporarily, but I'd also want everyone to forgive you if it turned out to be totally not your fault later on.
RK was also a very active participant. Why don't you cut him some slack?
I think it's a bit early to use the past tense in speaking of him, isn't it? If he really doesn't want to work on wikipedia ever again, I think that'd be a shame.
Sure, I think that's right. I like RK. I'm one of his biggest defenders, I guess. I think he's a pain in the neck, but I also think that his edits are good, and that *sometimes* when he feels persecuted, it's because he *is* being persecuted. And he's way way way over the top sometimes.
---Jimbo
Erik Moeller wrote:
Vicki-
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.
It was always allowed for developers to ban signed in users in cases of obvious vandalism. Now that sysops have the same ability, I see no reason why it should remain limited to people such as myself.
I agree with Vicki on this. Anything more than a short term "emergency" ban needs to be a community decision. In the case of enforcing an already-existing ban that community decision has already been made. Vicki's stability concerns are very real. RK has been a sysop. It is certainly conceivable that he would apply the same interpersonal skills to that role as he has to his discussions of anti-semitism.
Ec
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
That power is supposed to be used only to enforce an already-existing ban: it was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases and can reasonably be used in any similar situation. It doesn't mean that any sysop--of whom, as you note, there are many--can exclude someone from Wikipedia. That way lies instability at best.
I share your concerns, but did want to add that the power is also legitimate for sysops to use in cases of 'pure vandalism'. It was created to deal with Michael's endless aliases, but remember also the infamous "MIT Vandal" who wasted an entire Saturday morning of several people's time by logging in over and over with different usernames.
RK is different from *either* of those cases, of course, in that he's a "made guy," in the parlance of the mob. We know him, he's a Wikipedian, he's one of us, not just some random ip number going berserk.
Whatever RK may have done, it's *probably* a safe bet that he wasn't about to go ripping through the wikipedia putting penis pictures and profanity on various pages.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I share your concerns, but did want to add that the power is also legitimate for sysops to use in cases of 'pure vandalism'.
Yes, I'm surprised that I quoted your post saying just this, back when the power for all admins to ban named users began, less than a week ago; yet nobody seemed to remember it.
If Erik, was wrong, then it was because RK's actions weren't vandalism (in the pure sense of the term, a sense ironically ignored by RK himself). A few people addressed this, but more (it seemed) accused Erik of overstepping his bounds merely because RK's ban wasn't discussed. That was never a precondition in the case of pure vandalism.
In fact, both Erik and Axel did the right things, at the times that they did them, in my personal opinion. Erik performed an emergency block for bona fide vandalism, but reported it to the mailing list since RK was a longtime user and the vandalism in question was unusual behavrour for him; then Axel unblocked RK when the emergency was past. One may argue /whether/ they interpreted the emergency correctly, but my personal opinion is that they both did well.
As for whether we should have a permanent ban on RK, I would suggest that we only discuss this if he returns. There is little to gain from inflaming passions now, and I know that people are keeping track of what he did, so it won't be lost and forgotten when he comes back.
-- Toby
Erik Moeller wrote:
BuddhaInside was instantly banned after vandalism. EntmootsOfTrolls is banned now because of threats, I'm not aware of any vandalism by him but I can assure you that I or someone else would have banned him had that happened to a significant extent.
Since wikipedia isn't really accessible at the moment (sigh, new parts arriving tomorrow or Monday, though!), and also just for the historical record of the mailing list, can you give the mailing list some details of what RK was doing?
This might be an ideal case study for 'line drawing' in the case of temporary bans for vandalism.
BuddhaInside botched the homepage and so a temporary ban was certainly warranted for simple defense. Since we don't "know" BuddhaInside in the same way that we "know" RK, who knows what he might have done.
But RK is a different sort of case. He's a controversial user, and I trust your judgment (not having seen what happened) that he wasn't doing a good thing, but at the same time, he's a known quantity who has been around for a long time and done an enormous amount of good work.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
can you give the mailing list some details of what RK
was doing?
One example was that he blanked my user page and replaced it with:
"Angela believes that it is Ok to vandalize RK's user
page. If that is true, then it is also Ok to vandalize her page.
Or is it Ok for her to vandalize a Jew's page, but
not for the fucking Jew to respond? I guess so!"
He did similar things on the user pages of Martin (twice), Eloquence and Louis Kyu Won Ryu.
Angela.
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he's a known quantity who has been around for a long time and done an enormous amount of good work.
--Jimbo
He certainly is a known quantity and has done an enormous amount of harm, but because you seldom edit you don't know. Essentially it has generally been his way or the highway. He probably should have been banned long ago for reasons that have nothing to do with the current anti-semitic accusations. He has a long-standing pattern of tenditious advocacy of an ideocentric point of view, a sort of scientism, that simply will not admit any alternative. I first ran into it on the chiropractic article. He simply would not admit a postitive point of view into the article. Now if I see he is editing actively on an article I just abandon it.
Fred
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Since wikipedia isn't really accessible at the moment (sigh, new parts arriving tomorrow or Monday, though!), and also just for the historical record of the mailing list, can you give the mailing list some details of what RK was doing?
At first, there were issues of him misreading the sources of some edits on controversial articles. He then started frothing about "vandalism" of his "home page" when people posted comments on his talk page. When other comments were made on there, and no one agreed with him that this was vandalism, he declared that everyone was ganging up on him. He added lines like 'It's okay to vandalise the Jew's pages, so he can write on yours!' (not quite an exact quote) on the user pages of those messaging him (Martin, Angela, others). He was told to stop on his talk page... and he replied by posting similar messages on those users' pages, which is when Erik blocked him. RK responded to this with the 'Nazipedia' rant to the mailing list.
That's how I recall it.
-- Jake
Jimmy-
Since wikipedia isn't really accessible at the moment (sigh, new parts arriving tomorrow or Monday, though!), and also just for the historical record of the mailing list, can you give the mailing list some details of what RK was doing?
After one of his many flamewars (I sent you an email when I noticed I had another inbox full of RK flames), he started accusing people - respected Wikipedians including Angela and Martin - of "vandalizing" his *user* page. What they did is post comments on his *talk* page. Both Angela and Martin are exemplary, reasonable Wikipedians, and their comments were not hateful in any way. (In fact I deeply admire Martin for his patience with RK, if he had treated me like that I would have called for consequences long ago.)
He then accused these people of hating Jews and replaced their user pages with disparaging comments. If I remember correctly, he also blanked a regular talk page. I put a comment on his talk page to the effect that 1) there is a distinction between user and talk pages, and everyone was free to leave comments on RK's talk page; 2) vandalism is absolutely unacceptable, that if he continued blanking Martin's user page, that page would be protected, and that he would be banned if he continued vandalizing other pages. This, to me, seemed like a reasonable safety measure to prevent this nonsense from escalating further. In response, he inserted a disparaging comment on my user page. At that point I decided to ban him.
This might be an ideal case study for 'line drawing' in the case of temporary bans for vandalism.
In my opinion, this is a clear cut case of vandalism by a user who has obvious psychological problems, and an enforced cooldown period was very much within the "arsenal" of sysop powers that we should acknowledge.
It is correct that RK has made good edits in the past. He is very knowledgeable about Jewish culture and has a healthy pro-scientific attitude. But whenever he has a conflict of opinion, his usual course of action is to revert -- completely. I spent weeks trying to find compromises over a single article with an anonymous user, responding to each of his arguments in detail. RK, on the other hand, will just write something like "reverting anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish nonsense" in his edit summary. When the other person doesn't back down or is a regular, he will send a rambling post to the mailing list about evil persecution. Because most of his "victims" are anons, they usually don't defend themselves much -- but it creates a very negative impression of our project.
Not that there weren't real anti-Semitic edits. But there's a difference between anti-Semitism and criticizing Israel's current and past politics. In fact, even if you accuse Ariel Sharon of being a murderer or a terrorist, that has not necessarily anything to do with anti-Semitism. I think we can agree on that. Yet, that has always been RK's accusation against anyone. I was accused of being anti-Semitic by him months ago because I oppose circumcision.
He lost it completely this time, and most people who are familiar with the matter consider the response adequate. Whether he returns is his decision, but I personally am of the opinion that he should apologize for this recent episode before being allowed to edit again, not the least because he insulted everyone working on this project and it would be a further insult to just pretend that nothing happened. I for one don't like being called a nazi, in rage or not, and I don't like to work with people who do so.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
I for one don't like being called a nazi, in rage or not, and I don't like to work with people who do so.
Yes, and I think that's the crux of the matter.
Well, please let his unbanning stand for now, and I'll chat with him. It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of thing in the future.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of thing in the future.
Ban faster? :-)
Seriously, I don't see how you can avoid dealing with problematic persons, and I don't see how the persons attacked by RK should have acted any differently, and I still think that a temporary ban was the best action in this case. There are some people who believe that I am somehow working on a grand strategy to usurp power on Wikipedia, which is kind of funny, because the first thing I would do it if I had it is democratize everything ;-).
We should avoid developing too much of a behavioral double standard. RK was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good material has not been contributed because of his well documented behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations could be reported and decisions would be made by voting. By making it proprietary (totally unwiki, but so is reporting directly to you) we can avoid having the lists and talk pages cluttered up with these complaints and can make sure that users will not have to fear repercussions for reporting Wikiquette violations.
Implementation wise, this could be a mailing list with non-member posting rights (perhaps with a web-based submission interface to avoid spam -- this could actually be done inside Wikipedia by creating a fake user with that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal with insults and personal attacks. I would love to be able to say in 5-10 years that the discussion climate on Wikipedia is the best anywhere on the Internet.
Regards,
Erik
The idea of a "wikietiquette" committee is a good one, in my opinion. It would probably make it easier to for the at-large community to deal with problem users (eg. Heine), rather then relying on developers. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 4:08 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RK temp-banned
Jimmy-
It seems likely that he's angry enough to never come back anyway, in which case we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of thing in the future.
Ban faster? :-)
Seriously, I don't see how you can avoid dealing with problematic persons, and I don't see how the persons attacked by RK should have acted any differently, and I still think that a temporary ban was the best action in this case. There are some people who believe that I am somehow working on a grand strategy to usurp power on Wikipedia, which is kind of funny, because the first thing I would do it if I had it is democratize everything ;-).
We should avoid developing too much of a behavioral double standard. RK was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good material has not been contributed because of his well documented behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette "committee" where violations could be reported and decisions would be made by voting. By making it proprietary (totally unwiki, but so is reporting directly to you) we can avoid having the lists and talk pages cluttered up with these complaints and can make sure that users will not have to fear repercussions for reporting Wikiquette violations.
Implementation wise, this could be a mailing list with non-member posting rights (perhaps with a web-based submission interface to avoid spam -- this could actually be done inside Wikipedia by creating a fake user with that email address and using the "Email this user" feature, how about [[User:Mediator]]?). Right now, it's really difficult for users to deal with insults and personal attacks. I would love to be able to say in 5-10 years that the discussion climate on Wikipedia is the best anywhere on the Internet.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Note:Forgive me if this is a little out of date-- just catching up.
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@joey.bomis.com wrote:
...we can all just talk about how to best avoid this sort of thing in the future.
Well for starters, how about if you, Jimbo. and you, Ed, don't pamper and coddle people "like" him. If there is anything practical to learning about "this sort of thing." I would someday when the breezes permit, like an explanation as to why you let it get this far. Perhaps you think as Abe does-- that 'extremist points of view are necessary to Wikipedia,' even if they are held by people who think of a comment on their talk page as "vandalism."
Jim, you've put your foot down before-- why is it that you merely tapped your foot with RK? At least this is my perception of it. As I recall there have been around 3 users banned in connection with fights with RK. This raised to me the issue of an "imbalance," and as I suggested to you in private-- this is perhaps more an issue of your *confusion over the "ethnic issues", or lack of time for detail, rather than anything overtly POV (as others here have suggested.
Ed: I told you on your talk page that I would support you in a role where you could act as a formal moderator. I am still somewhat suspect of you, given your current cotton-glove defensism for RK. This suspicion comes from your previous statement (perhaps in haste) that your opinion on matters Israel, are not your own but rather in deference to the opinions of your religious leadership. I think perhaps you've had time to reflect on this since I first asked, and perhaps you have formed an opinion of your own. With that said-- I think of you as a uniquely soothing presence, one which was invaluable the other night in diffusing the situation with RK.
Bcorr: Your journalistic spirit is yet unmatched on Wikipedia. Thank you for your work in vindicating me-- where previously RK's accusations saw no meaninful resistance, and no specific retort could be more damning than your proof that RK himself tampered with the text to include a term I would never use. http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-October/006792.html "Shameful", to quote RK. He here violated God's 9th commandment -- "thou shalt bear no false witness..." I consider it entirely forgivable-- as is Edward's lame attempt to cover it up: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-October/006794.html
On this whole list thread: Considering the various forms of coddling: Attacks on Erik's "strange precedent"; Abe's silly notion that extreme POV is necessary for NPOV (thank you Angela); and Jimbo and Ed's (still, or until just hours ago) seem to want to make gold out of pyrite.
It's was never a problem with his Jewishness--it was his *low-self esteem, and persecution complex* that were the real problems all along. I'm glad you all now can see it for what it was. Robert will be in a prayer or two (like it or not)-- in the hope that he comes away from this stronger, and finds some peace of mind. I hope he can someday soon rediscover his *faith-- one which perhaps he knew only of its dogmas and traditions until now. Faith is much more than what many think it is. Faith is sustaining, and the *true path to "it" is not found in any book, or on any computer screen.
On his ban-- I think *I* ( whether I have any "authority" or not, Jimbo ) must take a harder line. I would like to see "RK" permanently banned from Wikipedia. (No, I dont agree with Martin that he simply "wont be back.") That said, if "Robert Kaiser", after getting down from his self-appointed fictitional role as 'defender of all things Jewish,' wishes to return as "Robert," I would only be encouraging.
Let "RK" be no more. But if *Robert finally wants to introduce himself, I for one would like to meet him. Jim and Ed, Abe, et al. I dont mean to be rude--I simply dont have time here to beat around the burning bush.
If I may choose this as a final word: 'Shalom,' ~S~
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Erik Moeller wrote:
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
Who made the decision to enact a temporary ban? If it was you, I ask you again to refrain from taking decisions that nobody has given you authority to take. In the past, you have repeatedly tried to usurp powers based on your developer status.
If it was Jimbo, then I would like to see his reasoning.
Axel
Axel Boldt wrote:
Who made the decision to enact a temporary ban? If it was you, I ask you again to refrain from taking decisions that nobody has given you authority to take. In the past, you have repeatedly tried to usurp powers based on your developer status.
If it was Jimbo, then I would like to see his reasoning.
Although I don't agree with Erik about enforcing a permanent ban, I think the temporary ban for a day was welcome. I'm not sure if you were following the discussion yesterday, things were rapidly escalating, and the one person who was generously pouring gas on the fire was RK. If you haven't been following things "live", as I suppose you didn't, it's hard to imagine in retrospect how fast things were going down the drain. RK obviously lost it, he was calling everybody names, he didn't accept even the most mildly tempered comments (and I'm not talking about me here, some people actually tried talking to him as if they were sipping coffee together) and he started vandalizing user pages because people were placing comments on his talk page, as I'm sure you already read ten times by now. So I agree with Erik, and I don't think he was "usurping" anything -- he just did what he had to in order to chill everybody down. But then again, I don't think a month's ban would solve anything. RK should either be banned for good (which I don't support), or receive chill-down kicks (IRC sense), which I fully support.
Gutza
Axel Boldt wrote:
If it was Jimbo, then I would like to see his reasoning.
No, Erik did this on his own. I support it in a limited sense, i.e. I give my moral support to Erik's good will and legitimate concerns, but don't want it to set a precedent and do think that it's a good case for us to discuss the limits on sysop powers. I won't be criticizing Erik for it.
I think it's actually a very interesting thing that, so far, the consensus *of existing sysops* seems to be running against expanded sysop powers. So at least we're not power hungry maniacs. Oh, except for me, of course. ;-)
--Jimbo
Obviously, I'm studying the situation carefully. I support what Erik did here, although I do want to caution against our going down a precedent-setting road regarding the extent of the right of admins to ban logged in users. It's just that there's a slippery slope we want to be careful about.
Erik Moeller wrote:
Shortly after I sent a mail to Jimbo asking him to examine whether RK should be banned for his obnoxious behavior, RK started vandalizing several user and talk pages because he felt *his* talk page was being vandalized. The vandalism: People placed comments on it. I have temporarily banned him (and no, I won't read through his lengthy diatribes which will inevitably follow). I strongly suggest turning this temporary ban into a permanent one, at least for a month or so.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l