Although I do think that at the end of the day, it might be better for the community of editors to keep this kind of disruptive people blocked, I would like to counter some of the arguments I have heard in this discussion.
"danger to our children" - come on.. If he (I assume it is a he?) wants to get in touch with children, there are many more, much more effective fora which provide less obvious evidence in case anything would happen. There are way too many eye balls around to watch if you do anything.
"According to US law..." someone compared this situation to US law, and assumed this would be the same all over the world. I don't think this is the case. In general, I have the feeling this discussion is getting somewhat US-centric. US law is here only relevant when it has an impact through the WMF. Where I come from, a person can not even be forbidden easily to get back to his old home once he sat out his sentence. Again this is similar to the principle of innocent till proven/convicted discussion I guess.
"no matter what their opinion..." Andre Engels suggested that because of NPOV it is important to admit this kind of people. I don't think that this would or should be the case. Wikipedia does not have to be all inclusive, because if one specific person scares away more people, that would be a valid reason to consider banning that person. The collateral damage would be too large. I think that argument flies in this discussion. However, in an ideal world I do agree with you.
"appeal" - someone said something that highly surprised me. Apparently, the AC of enwiki 'endorsed' the blockade, but still you consider an appeal realistic? I'm sorry, but I would find the chance of honest ruling very low, nearing zero, in case if that same group of judges first endorsed the fact they have to judge... Personally, I feel that AC should never "endorse" stuff without it being a case submitted to them. But that might be more a side discussion.
"There is no slippery slope" - I don't have the feeling there really is no slippery slope here. Of course there is. As soon as you start excluding one group of people for what they are, you will start excluding others, too. So this is more of a high level discussion: should we exclude people who cause significant disturbance and make other people less active in our current community? Pedophiles are just one example, and not even such an extreme one. A convicted nazi, a well known mass murderer, a high profile satanist, the pope, all do they have a profile that could hold for similar arguments (yes, there are people who wouldn't let their children near the pope). So yes, there is a slippery slope. This is no disaster, as long as we are fair enough to recognize it, and beware very carefully not to go down more then we actually want to.
Lodewijk
2009/11/29, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com:
I wrote:
Obviously, not all of us are certain that this was "the right thing."
Anthony replied:
Fortunately, that's not my problem.
It is, however, the subject of a discussion in which you've opted to participate.
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