If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
Michel
I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both can be evaded with socks.
Ultimately, though, I think that if somebody returns under a new alias and *avoids* the same sorts of disruptive behavior that led to their initial block, then nobody will even have a reason to check if they might be the same person, and they won't get "caught." If the person is truly reformed, they'll be able to get away with block evasion, because no one will even realize they're a problem user evading a block. Or something like that, anyway. You get the idea.
Just my thoughts on the matter. -Luna
On 11/26/06, M Roget mroget@gmail.com wrote:
If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
Michel _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 11/26/06, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both can be evaded with socks.
Ultimately, though, I think that if somebody returns under a new alias and *avoids* the same sorts of disruptive behavior that led to their initial block, then nobody will even have a reason to check if they might be the same person, and they won't get "caught." If the person is truly reformed, they'll be able to get away with block evasion, because no one will even realize they're a problem user evading a block. Or something like that, anyway. You get the idea.
Just my thoughts on the matter. -Luna
On 11/26/06, M Roget mroget@gmail.com wrote:
If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
Michel
I think that part of the concern is that it's gone from "beyond carefully thought out and argued Arbcom judgement of hope of rehabilitation or compliance" to "beyond the opinions of the next 4-10 AN / ANI readers who bother to engage and respond's hope of rehabilitation or compliance".
I agree that the threshold has gone down; the question of whether that was a bad thing or not is a valid and open one, but so far nobody seems to worried about it.
It would help if the "how many admin(s) does it take to overturn a community indef block" question was more clearly answered. We have seen instances were admins were felt to be wheel-warring over a block/unblock, and the unblocking admin was blocked themselves.
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
On 27/11/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
It would help if the "how many admin(s) does it take to overturn a community indef block" question was more clearly answered. We have seen instances were admins were felt to be wheel-warring over a block/unblock, and the unblocking admin was blocked themselves.
That's incredibly fucked up and the blocking admin could do with being taken out and shot.
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Good thing the RFA process protects against such blithering idiocy.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 27/11/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Good thing the RFA process protects against such blithering idiocy.
For a moment I thought you said "Good thing the RFA blithering idiocy protects against..."
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
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I'm with Luna Santin on this. If the user in question reforms there's no reason to do a checkuser and they won't be found out. Indef blocking should only be used in serious cases. Simple vandalism isn't one of them. And an attempt at reforming the user should be made whenever possible.
Other than that, I see no problems, yet. Blocks can always be undone if misplaced.
Mgm
On 11/27/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
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On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/Proposed_decision#AltUser
Fred
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's what you're saying. Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser before the case against Konstable began. As far as I can tell, Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.
--Ryan
On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/Proposed_decision#AltUser
Fred
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
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On Nov 27, 2006, at 8:04 AM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's what you're saying. Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser before the case against Konstable began. As far as I can tell, Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.
--Ryan
Is Konstable indefinitely banned?
Fred
On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/ Proposed_decision#AltUser
Fred
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
No, but as the controller of two abusive sockpuppets (and somebody who abused his admin privileges to unblock one), he should be.
--Ryan
On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 27, 2006, at 8:04 AM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
I don't see anything controversial about blocking AltUser, if that's what you're saying. Dmcdevit, although an Arbitrator, blocked AltUser before the case against Konstable began. As far as I can tell, Dmcdevit was acting as an admin should.
--Ryan
Is Konstable indefinitely banned?
Fred
On 11/27/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 11:06 PM, Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Konstable/ Proposed_decision#AltUser
Fred
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
Fred
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So what good does an indefinite ban do in such circumstances? A 24-hour ban to forestall immediate damage is warranted, but an indefinite ban means nothing when the person won't come back anyway. Look at the time-frame of his edits. Someone whose 15 edits are all in a very short period is not likely a long range problem. Someone who has done them at one per week for 15 weeks, despite attempts to contact him is a different matter.
Ec
Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
I guess the length of the ban doesn't matter in that situation, and a more complex solution is needed.
--Ryan
On 11/27/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
So what good does an indefinite ban do in such circumstances? A 24-hour ban to forestall immediate damage is warranted, but an indefinite ban means nothing when the person won't come back anyway. Look at the time-frame of his edits. Someone whose 15 edits are all in a very short period is not likely a long range problem. Someone who has done them at one per week for 15 weeks, despite attempts to contact him is a different matter.
Ec
Ryan Wetherell wrote:
Assuming that those 15 edits aren't outright vandalism/trolling?
--Ryan
On 11/26/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:53 PM, George Herbert wrote:
So far the proposed community bans haven't been that controversial, but it's going to happen eventually.
Handing out indefinite bans to people who have made 15 edits is controversial.
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On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:23:39 -0800, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both can be evaded with socks.
Indefinite <> permanent. The former can be lifted if there is credible evidence of intent to reform, the latter comes I think only from ArbCom or Foundation. A community ban is defined for practical purposes as a ban which no admin is prepared to lift; the real problem here is RFA, which tends to ensure that the "cabal" remains a cabal and is not diluted by "dangerous" inclusionists.
Ultimately, though, I think that if somebody returns under a new alias and *avoids* the same sorts of disruptive behavior that led to their initial block, then nobody will even have a reason to check if they might be the same person, and they won't get "caught." If the person is truly reformed, they'll be able to get away with block evasion, because no one will even realize they're a problem user evading a block. Or something like that, anyway. You get the idea.
Sure. And a new account which causes no problem *is* no problem, so why would we care if it is the same individual. All we want here is to keep out those who are intent on abusing the project for their own ends; clueless aggressive newbies who realise what the problem is too late to save the account (or want a fresh start) are not, to my mind anyway, a pressing problem.
The profile of Wikipedia is now such that we have a significant number of aggressively tendentious editors. These go well beyond the occasional "characters" like SPUI and cause massive wasted time and effort.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
The profile of Wikipedia is now such that we have a significant number of aggressively tendentious editors. These go well beyond the occasional "characters" like SPUI and cause massive wasted time and effort.
Having them is just an indicator of the scope of Wikipedia; if you look back at all the prior Internet interactive projects of note, they have all attracted malcontents of various sorts over time. Success attracts them.
The question is what is done about it. The best solution I saw was benign dictatorships where someone in power just booted troublemakers, and was trusted by the rest to not boot good guys, and where social pressure functioned and kept good guys having really bad days from becoming troublemakers requiring the boot.
I don't think WP can do that; we have a form of that, but the scope is so large that it's not a benign dictator; it's a benign oligarchy, with its own internal politics and dynamics within the group and between the group and elements of the group and the "normal editors" outside the group. And it's not just a benign oligarchy of uninvolved people; the admins largely but by no means completely overlap the really active editors, which means that active editor admin / active editor non-admin conflicts happen all the time. The successful benign dictators I have seen stayed out of the day to day fray. We can't possibly do that here.
I don't suggest replacing the current mechanism; I lack any good concepts for a better approach. It's just a hard problem, by the nature of the project. It's probably going to continue to be a hard problem, eventually driving good people to frustration and exit from the project at a moderate rate. Avoiding admin burnout is going to be important over time.
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:56:35 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Having them is just an indicator of the scope of Wikipedia; if you look back at all the prior Internet interactive projects of note, they have all attracted malcontents of various sorts over time. Success attracts them.
For sure, yes.
The question is what is done about it. The best solution I saw was benign dictatorships where someone in power just booted troublemakers, and was trusted by the rest to not boot good guys, and where social pressure functioned and kept good guys having really bad days from becoming troublemakers requiring the boot.
Sadly that does not scale, We now have a thousand of these individuals, and hence the thread :-)
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:23:39 -0800, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
I think the idea with community bans is that the person in question is believed to be *beyond* any significant hope of rehabilitation or compliance. In practice, though, is there really much difference between one-year and indefinite blocks? Few accounts return from either, and both can be evaded with socks.
Indefinite <> permanent. The former can be lifted if there is credible evidence of intent to reform, the latter comes I think only from ArbCom or Foundation. A community ban is defined for practical purposes as a ban which no admin is prepared to lift; the real problem here is RFA, which tends to ensure that the "cabal" remains a cabal and is not diluted by "dangerous" inclusionists.
RFA as a cabalist institution is a failure; the presence of inclusionists and clueless twits in the ranks of adminship is proof of this.
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:50:25 +1030, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
RFA as a cabalist institution is a failure; the presence of inclusionists and clueless twits in the ranks of adminship is proof of this.
Ah, but the clueless twits are not the inclusionists :-)
Guy (JzG)
Thanks for clearing that one up. :)
--Ryan
On 11/29/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 16:50:25 +1030, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
RFA as a cabalist institution is a failure; the presence of inclusionists and clueless twits in the ranks of adminship is proof of this.
Ah, but the clueless twits are not the inclusionists :-)
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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On Nov 26, 2006, at 6:12 PM, M Roget wrote:
If the benchmark for a community ban is being lowered then the ban should not be indefinite but no more than a year. If there's a desire to make the ban permanent the community should ask the ArbComm to extend it.
Indefinite bans are like sentencing a criminal to life imprionment without parole - it encouraged ban evasion and bad behaviour and does nothing to rehabilitate or encourage compliance.
Michel
The Arbitration Committee limits bans to one year.
Fred