Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
I think everyone gets 'battle fatigue' occasionally. I stepped back for 3 weeks because I was getting steamingly mad over the way we argue things round and round in circles to the detriment of doing the real work.
Same here. The inability of the list to come to consensus is more wearying than edit wars.
The thing is, like it or not, the sysops ARE a defacto police force. It doesn't matter that we have the ability to make these changes because we asked for it. We care about the pedia enough to take action when necessary. And yes, I think that should include the temporary banning of people who repeatedly violate the code of conduct for the wikipedia. I agree with KQ about this - atm the code of conduct is unwritten,
well, no, it's not. we have plenty of pages about the nature of the project, the etiquette & so forth. Granted, many need a spring clean. We've cleaned up the FAQ pages, so maybe these will come next.
We shouldn't worry too much about Meatball's Life cycle page -- Wikipedia is unlike any other wiki. It is much larger, has much more traffic, and has different goals.
I like the idea of pointing offenders to policy pages. -- I suggested a "shoulder-tap" a while back, which would give the "offender" (loaded terminology, sorry) a clear message above *every edit box they saw* until they responded in some way. This wouldn't prevent them from editing, but one would hope that a *rational* and *intelligent* user would investigate, read up, and change their behaviour.
I am all for giving people benefit of the doubt, and assuming good faith. But if, after attempts at communication, people still persist in their behaviour, we should be quick to ban.