Hi all,
Having looked at a selection of the edits from 66.47.62.78, they look fine. The problem with Helga was apparently due to her "unique" POV on history, and her refusal to work with others. To date, 66.47.62.78 doesn't appear to have done either of these things. There was a somewhat dubious sentence added to [[Nazi Germany]], ("No allied Soviets were ever put on trial for their crimes against humanity") - factually true but probably not central to this particular article (better at [[Nuremberg Trials]], and swiftly reverted. There were also plenty of completely inoffensive edits.
Further, Helga has respected the terms of her ban from wikipedia for three months. I feel that it would be appropriate to allow Helga back, on probation, to demonstrate that we Wikipedians don't bear grudges for months no end, and to offer an appropriate exit strategy for users such as Lir. Forgiveness would seem an important part of WikiLove, at least to me. (insert similar platitudes here).
Of course, if she starts falling into bad habits again, by all means let us swiftly soft ban her and follow that up with a hard ban as appropriate. Apparently it took around a year to decide to ban Helga - we need not take so long the second time, should that turn out to be necessary.
-Martin "MyRedDice" Harper
On Sun, May 25, 2003 at 07:03:07PM +0100, martin@myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
Hi all,
Having looked at a selection of the edits from 66.47.62.78, they look fine. The problem with Helga was apparently due to her "unique" POV on history, and her refusal to work with others. To date, 66.47.62.78 doesn't appear to have done either of these things. There was a somewhat dubious sentence added to [[Nazi Germany]], ("No allied Soviets were ever put on trial for their crimes against humanity") - factually true but probably not central to this particular article (better at [[Nuremberg Trials]], and swiftly reverted. There were also plenty of completely inoffensive edits.
Read http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Malbork&diff=956630&oldi... That's the basic pattern: "The cities are German, and therefor she names them by their German name. The Poles just stole them." She adds this subtle POV to all articles.
Or read http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Bydgoszcz&diff=956642&ol... This are some completely useless facts she added. They prove that this is German land, of course. There is a map with two cities. But what's the link to Bydgoszcz?
No, she did not change.
Further, Helga has respected the terms of her ban from wikipedia for three months. I feel that it would be appropriate to allow Helga back, on probation, to demonstrate that we Wikipedians don't bear grudges for months no end, and to offer an appropriate exit strategy for users such as Lir. Forgiveness would seem an important part of WikiLove, at least to me. (insert similar platitudes here).
The rules are: Ask Jimbo first. Helga knows this. She apparently doesn't care. That doesn't show that she accepts the rules.
Of course, if she starts falling into bad habits again, by all means let us swiftly soft ban her and follow that up with a hard ban as appropriate. Apparently it took around a year to decide to ban Helga - we need not take so long the second time, should that turn out to be necessary.
It's not the second time. She has been banned at least two times, if not three (she was unbanned by accident, if I remember correctly).
JeLuF
Jens Frank wrote:
The rules are: Ask Jimbo first. Helga knows this. She apparently doesn't care. That doesn't show that she accepts the rules.
Exactly right.
If she is concerned that I might not act fairly, then she can take her request public here on the list. The point is not to come begging back to me, hat in hand, hoping for mercy. The point is to write an encyclopedia.
--Jimbo
martin@myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
Further, Helga has respected the terms of her ban from wikipedia for three months. I feel that it would be appropriate to allow Helga back, on probation, to demonstrate that we Wikipedians don't bear grudges for months no end, and to offer an appropriate exit strategy for users such as Lir. Forgiveness would seem an important part of WikiLove, at least to me. (insert similar platitudes here).
I agree more or less with all of this, but it's key that she's supposed to write to me to chat about things first.
Some of the things that we should insist on are matters of principle for making long-term management easy. Bans are a serious and sad thing to happen, always regrettable. Allowing them to vaguely melt away after time will lead to inconsistent enforcement and will encourage people to "test" us.
Better to be formal about it. After a ban, the right thing to do is write to me, and chat about it privately. After that, a discussion on the list will usually be warranted.
Since we really *aren't* vindictive ideologues, and really *are* just a bunch of cheerful geeks trying to do something neat and fun, all a person really has to do to get everyone back on board is be nice and agree not to do whatever it was that was so upsetting the first time around.
--Jimbo