Earlier: "... I joined Wikipedia to write an encyclopedia, not to have

a damn soap opera every time I say something ..."

Hi fellow Wikipedians and MediaWiki users,

... and you have every right, just as everyone else has, to participate unfettered, even if, especially if, someone else feels uncomfortable when they read your contribution.

The whole point is that they were able to read your contribution. I want to be able to read it, too, without it being erased by someone before me who thinks I can't do my own editing for myself, thank you very much!

The whole point is that we all are expanded by each other's contributions - positive and negative, agree or disagree -- and I hate the thought that someone, anyone, is being denied participation in our greater community by some self-righteous admin who thinks they have a better idea of what a community is, and so starts culling people out of the community.

A community without all it's members intact is a failure.

When I go to court, the first thing the judge asks is, "Did you try to resolve this yourselves?"

If someone thinks your writing is inappropriate for the community, they should say so in private to you just to verify if they understand you right, and offer you a chance to resend if you concur that your intention has not been fulfilled by your original send. First person contact.

Then, it makes sense to raise the issue in public in the same place where your writing is, and try to build a consensus and understanding between the two of you, to verify their suspicion and confirm your intention. Second person contact.

If they still feel uncomfortable after all that, they should then present their discomfort to a third person, a non-partisan party, an uninvolved body, for moderation, arbitration, and resolution.

Right now, a lazy, misunderstanding admin can skip steps 1, 2 and 3, and jump right to what should be an unavailable step 4, ban you - all on their own, without a second thought, without a 1st, 2nd or 3rd thought, as above! Then we all suffer the loss of yet another precious community member, and the challenge of yet another arduous battle to reconnect and repair the shattered community.

See what I mean by instituting a "no banning" policy?

We are not here to have a clean experience. If we want to have clean, well-protected experiences, then we should all turn off our computers, televisions, and phones, and stop reading newspapers, magazines, and books!

We are here to grow (or die), and no to kill anything. We are here to grow ourselves and others, and that's messy. Gardens are full of mud and manure -- and flowers and vegetables!

Imagine if I banned myself from communicating with myself every time I experienced myself as uncomfortable to myself! I'd never grow, develop discipline, skills, and make the most of my talents, I'd never recover and learn from a mistake, and I'd never risk fulfilling my dreams, let alone have any dreams in the first place. The same goes for our wiki community - we are one, let's keep it that way!

Banning is bad for the person who bans!

Banning is bad for the person who has someone else do their pre-editing, censoring, and banning for them.

Banning is bad for the person who witnesses the ban and does nothing.

Banning is bad for the person who never gets to witness the ban, who never gets to experience the person who was banned.

Banning is bad for the person who receives the ban.

Banning is bad for the community - in part, and in whole.

Rather than think we save time (as if that's the wiki's goal) by allowing unchaperoned banning and then cleaning up goofs afterwards, which take way more time anyway, I suggest that we put in the extra effort up front to resolve anyone's discomfort without having the banning tool so readily at hand.

A wiki, by definition, builds a community.

Banning, by definition, destroys a community.

How many more strikes against the current banning policy do we need before we abandon it altogether, and actually put in the real work required to just get along with each other as the community the wiki-idea was supposed to build and support in the first place?

To reiterate:

-- Free and open to all -- (no proxy filter blocks)

-- Multiple co-moderators -- (no admin is all-powerful or is permitted to use admin powers to resolve their own discomfort)

-- No banning -- (temporary block spammers and vandals only, all others get an open discussion page, and have at it!)

- Peter Blaise

"If we can't resolve our discomfort with each other using words, I shudder to think of the alternative methods." -- unattributed paraphrasal

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