The advantage to banning him now is that it prevents subtle skewing of articles or skewing of articles on obscure topics, both which may go unnoticed and uncorrected. It also saves a lot of stress and sweat for those editors who have to deal with him until he inevitably gets banned for something. Neither of these will be that detrimental to the project as a whole in the long run, but they are not negligible effects.
Gamaliel
Theresa Knott theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Aug 23 01:57:07 UTC 2005
We could ban him then. Is there any particular hurry? Why don't we wait until he does something wrong and then ban him?
(Note that I'm playing devils advocate here. I'm not concerned enough to go and unblock him)
Theresa
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On 8/23/05, Rob gamaliel8@yahoo.com wrote:
The advantage to banning him now is that it prevents subtle skewing of articles or skewing of articles on obscure topics, both which may go unnoticed and uncorrected.
Hardly. We are all watching him. If he's blocked what's to stop him not logging in and editing or creating a whole host of socks and then editing?
It also saves a lot of stress and sweat for those editors who have to deal with him until he inevitably gets banned for something.
Partially agree. But if he doesn't actually do anything wrong then why is it stressfull to deal with him?
Neither of these will be that detrimental to the project as a whole in the long run, but they are not negligible effects.
What really concerns me is this sort of thing
"I have no interest whatsoever in getting involved in Eustace Mullins. Mullins is a repulsive, demented antisemite. The article on him is not balanced and nothing like NPOV, but I'm not going into bat for him."
This is Grace Note talking on Amalekite's talk page. Having nonNPOV articles is very much to the detriment of Wikipedia. Having some neonazis to bat for neonazi related articles is probably the only way of achieving NPOV on those articles, as regular wikipedians may well (Like Grace Note) be reluctant to.
Theresa
Gamaliel
Theresa Knott theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Aug 23 01:57:07 UTC 2005
We could ban him then. Is there any particular hurry? Why don't we wait until he does something wrong and then ban him?
(Note that I'm playing devils advocate here. I'm not concerned enough to go and unblock him)
Theresa
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
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From: Theresa Knott theresaknott@gmail.com
What really concerns me is this sort of thing
"I have no interest whatsoever in getting involved in Eustace Mullins. Mullins is a repulsive, demented antisemite. The article on him is not balanced and nothing like NPOV, but I'm not going into bat for him."
This is Grace Note talking on Amalekite's talk page. Having nonNPOV articles is very much to the detriment of Wikipedia. Having some neonazis to bat for neonazi related articles is probably the only way of achieving NPOV on those articles, as regular wikipedians may well (Like Grace Note) be reluctant to.
I wouldn't particularly worry in this case, as Grace Note is not a good judge of NPOV.
Jay.
On 8/23/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't particularly worry in this case, as Grace Note is not a good judge of NPOV.
Jay.
I would like to mention that I think this is the kind of mild personal attack that arbitrators should take greater care to avoid. Arbitrators should hold themselves to the highest standards in pursuit of the ideals of Wikipedia, and when a comment like this is made, they should apologize.
You've recently taken on greater responsibility and greater visibility in the project; you should take greater care to temper your words, taking special care to avoid those that boldly proclaim judgement of others, especially when unsolicited.
From: Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com
I would like to mention that I think this is the kind of mild personal attack that arbitrators should take greater care to avoid. Arbitrators should hold themselves to the highest standards in pursuit of the ideals of Wikipedia, and when a comment like this is made, they should apologize.
You're right; I apologize for making the comment, which was made in haste. What I intended to say was that the fact that one editor *claims* that a page violates NPOV does not actually mean that it *does* violate NPOV.
Jay.
He will not help build an encyclopedia, therefore he should be blocked, regardless of his crimes on the wiki itself. There are no absolute laws on wikipedia, and I think this is a valid use of WP:IAR
--gkhan
Actually IAR is not a policy at all, it's just an absurd joke, and the root of more foolishness than is worth discussing, not some sort of trump card. We DO have absolute laws on wikipedia, and they described at :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues
A few that apply to this situation are: "Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering", "NPOV as the guiding editorial principle", and "Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter (this is changing; see Arbitration Committee, Board)".
This situation was NOT covered by blocking policy, and was a wrongful block by an admin. The proper procedure would have been a discussion on Amelekites talk page, and then perhaps a RfC or RfM.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 8/23/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
He will not help build an encyclopedia, therefore he should be blocked, regardless of his crimes on the wiki itself. There are no absolute laws on wikipedia, and I think this is a valid use of WP:IAR
--gkhan
Actually IAR is not a policy at all, it's just an absurd joke, and the root of more foolishness than is worth discussing, not some sort of trump card. We DO have absolute laws on wikipedia, and they described at :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues
A few that apply to this situation are: "Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering", "NPOV as the guiding editorial principle", and "Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter (this is changing; see Arbitration Committee, Board)".
This situation was NOT covered by blocking policy, and was a wrongful block by an admin. The proper procedure would have been a discussion on Amelekites talk page, and then perhaps a RfC or RfM.
Jack (Sam Spade)
A few of the five pillars ([[Wikipedia:Five pillars]]) that applies to the situation: 1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia 2. Wikipedia uses the neutral point of view 5. Wikipedia doesn't have firm rules
As for not being an experiment in democracy, see http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-January/018735.html
--gkhan
Rob stated for the record:
The advantage to banning him now is that it prevents subtle skewing of articles or skewing of articles on obscure topics, both which may go unnoticed and uncorrected. It also saves a lot of stress and sweat for those editors who have to deal with him until he inevitably gets banned for something. Neither of these will be that detrimental to the project as a whole in the long run, but they are not negligible effects.
Yeah, there's no need to wait for him to do anything wrong. He should be banned because he might do something wrong at some indefinite point in the future. After all, we don't choose who can work on this project based on anything trivial like their behaviors, we choose them based on what we think they believe.
And just to put a juicy sweet cherry on top of this sundae of summary justice, our precognition is infallible, so we're sure that he will "inevitably get banned for something."
With all that righteousness on our side, who could possibly want to waste time on archaic betises like formal charges, due process, the right to confront one's accuser, and similar nonsense?
After all, giving the accused his "day in court" would distinguish us from various disgusting people, like, oh, say, the Nazis.
Rob wrote:
The advantage to banning him now is that it prevents subtle skewing of articles or skewing of articles on obscure topics, both which may go unnoticed and uncorrected.
First a confession and then a response.
I visited his userpage yesterday with the intention of blocking him myself so as to save everyone else the trouble of having to worry about it. But he was already blocked. And like Theresa, I don't really find myself with enough energy to care one way or the other whether we should judge blatant insults and racism on another site as grounds for being banned from Wikipedia.
But my response to this particular argument is that *at least in this particular case*, the odds of him doing anything which is 'unnoticed and uncorrected' is close to zero *in this account*. But the odds of him doing it under his next sockpuppet account is quite high.
So, in this sense, and in this sense only, it is probably better to let him edit under this account, because in this way people can monitor it.
Now, your other point:
It also saves a lot of stress and sweat for those editors who have to deal with him until he inevitably gets banned for something.
This is 100% valid and I agree completely. This is why I was going to ban him yesterday myself.
But we have to think carefully here. Trolls work by baiting us. We should be very careful about taking that bait. Wouldn't it amuse them greatly for us to waste a huge amount of effort in blocking and fighting them. It's the war that they want to have, whereas for us it is just *sigh* tedious and stupid.
What we should aim to do, then, is rob them of the fun they expect to have. I'm not 100% sure how to do that.
--Jimbo