David Boothroyd wrote
In February, blocked wrongly for a non-existent 3RR, at 1 AM in the middle of an edit that had taken an hour, I self unblocked. I was a very naughty boy and I was punished by being blocked again, but everyone seemed to think that was closed.
Then, months later a completely unrelated issue in which I was tangentially involved goes to ArbCom and results in this issue being dragged up again.
Yes, you can have forgiving, and you can have transparent, but you may not be able to have both at once.
<snip>
- If ArbCom is the only body that can remove admin status, excluding
self-administered recalls, then how does it cope with low-level but persistent admin misbehaviour? ArbCom is much better at dealing with egregious single incidents.
But that comment is in tension with the previous point.
If there is persistent incivility by someone, and there is a case brought, then everything from the year dot can in principle be brought up. Everyone should bear in mind that the site has an elephant's memory.
I think the Arbs don't like such cases, where some snarkishness from early 2005 can get tagged onto recent misbehaviour. Makes some of us feel uncomfortable, if it can't be more clear cut than that. For myself, I'm all for dealing with the persistent problem users, but a smoking gun is very, very useful if you want to throw the book at people. It makes the defence that things change and people learn from mistakes irrelevant. We do want people to change behaviour, so 'give a dog a bad name' has to be borne in mind, just as much as the leopard and spots.
Charles
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charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
David Boothroyd wrote
In February, blocked wrongly for a non-existent 3RR, at 1 AM in the middle of an edit that had taken an hour, I self unblocked. I was a very naughty boy and I was punished by being blocked again, but everyone seemed to think that was closed.
Then, months later a completely unrelated issue in which I was tangentially involved goes to ArbCom and results in this issue being dragged up again.
Yes, you can have forgiving, and you can have transparent, but you may not be able to have both at once.
Why not?
- If ArbCom is the only body that can remove admin status, excluding
self-administered recalls, then how does it cope with low-level but persistent admin misbehaviour? ArbCom is much better at dealing with egregious single incidents.
But that comment is in tension with the previous point.
If there is persistent incivility by someone, and there is a case brought, then everything from the year dot can in principle be brought up. Everyone should bear in mind that the site has an elephant's memory.
Perhaps that the solution should be to disallow any evidence more than six months old except in some predetermined kinds of cases.
Ec
On 8 Oct 2006, at 05:01, Ray Saintonge wrote:
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
David Boothroyd wrote
In February, blocked wrongly for a non-existent 3RR, at 1 AM in the middle of an edit that had taken an hour, I self unblocked. I was a very naughty boy and I was punished by being blocked again, but everyone seemed to think that was closed.
Then, months later a completely unrelated issue in which I was tangentially involved goes to ArbCom and results in this issue being dragged up again.
Yes, you can have forgiving, and you can have transparent, but you may not be able to have both at once.
Why not?
- If ArbCom is the only body that can remove admin status,
excluding self-administered recalls, then how does it cope with low-level but persistent admin misbehaviour? ArbCom is much better at dealing with egregious single incidents.
But that comment is in tension with the previous point.
If there is persistent incivility by someone, and there is a case brought, then everything from the year dot can in principle be brought up. Everyone should bear in mind that the site has an elephant's memory.
Perhaps that the solution should be to disallow any evidence more than six months old except in some predetermined kinds of cases.
Wouldn't this allow people to never learn? They could just start again every six months.
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 8 Oct 2006, at 05:01, Ray Saintonge wrote:
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But that comment is in tension with the previous point.
If there is persistent incivility by someone, and there is a case brought, then everything from the year dot can in principle be brought up. Everyone should bear in mind that the site has an elephant's memory.
Perhaps that the solution should be to disallow any evidence more than six months old except in some predetermined kinds of cases.
Wouldn't this allow people to never learn? They could just start again every six months.
Sometimes. Remember though that the really bad actors will have enough activity in the last six months so that we won't need to go back any further.
Acting badly, going away for six months, and coming back with the same silliness probably takes more self-discipline than most of the bad ones have.
We all have moments when we lose it and call our opponent a stupid asshole, but not on any regular basis. What should concern us most are the ones who show a regular pattern of abuse.
Ec
On 9 Oct 2006, at 07:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 8 Oct 2006, at 05:01, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Perhaps that the solution should be to disallow any evidence more than six months old except in some predetermined kinds of cases.
Wouldn't this allow people to never learn? They could just start again every six months.
Acting badly, going away for six months, and coming back with the same silliness probably takes more self-discipline than most of the bad ones have.
Good point. The only case it might happen (to conflate two threads) is with a company.