Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Indefinite ban problem - WikiEN-l

30 Sep 2007

      -----Original Message-----
From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan@tobias.name]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 02:55 PM
To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [Wikipedia-l] Indefinite ban problem
On 30 Sep 2007 at 19:59:00 +0100, "Thomas Dalton" 
thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
...
I'm not claiming there is no cabal, that would be nonsense. Of course
there is a cabal. The key thing that people miss is that there is more
than one. The other common name is "groups of friends". There are lots
That's why I generally prefer the term "clique" over "cabal".
...
of groups of friends on Wikipedia. Some of them contain quite powerful
Wikipedians, and work to help their members. However, and most
importantly, they do not all work together, and no one of them is all
powerful. If one group of friends crosses the line, other groups and
individuals will step in to stop them. A good example of this is MONGO

he had a strong group of friends that defended him at every turn,

but once it got too bad, other people stepped in and stopped it. MONGO
was eventually desysopped.
...but he still has his large group (clique) of friends, who still to 
this day sometimes air sour grapes about his desysopping, and act to 
help him suppress any and all further criticism.
-- 
== Dan ==

You don't have it straight. From the beginning it was obvious MONGO was getting too excited (rather like you). We warned him, and he kept on (As we can expect you to do), and had to be desyopped. He remains an editor in good standing though and, for example, in the SevenOfDiamonds matter, his input is respected, at least by me. There is nothing automatic about springing to his defense. However, he has resisted some serious nonsense. His biggest problem is thinking he's the little Dutch boy and has to play hero. The community as a whole can generally be depended on to resist inclusion of unverifiable information.

Fred