On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, The Cunctator wrote:
On 10/25/02 11:02 AM, "Larry Sanger"
<lsanger(a)nupedia.com> wrote:
I see a lot of good points being made here, and I
frankly don't know what
to think about some of the issues raised. But I'd like to offer this
perspective.
On wasting time on recalcitrants: I (obviously) totally sympathize with
those who say they don't want to waste their time dealing with
recalcitrant users.
Wikipedia contributors can be difficult in a variety of ways. Not all of
them require banning, and the most common types can't:
<snip laundry list of "difficult" contributors>
It is a detrimental approach to come up with categories of problem
contributors. Every contributor is individual, emotional, biased, and a bit
kooky. Noone is perfectly normal--that's just the average. Rather, we should
try to avoid CommunityExile (see MeatballWiki) if possible.
(1) The list you refer to is not of difficult contributors, Cunc; it is a
list of *behaviors*. Read it again. And as long as we are going to ban
some people for some *behaviors*, we sure as heck *better* clearly define
those behaviors.
(2) I don't read MeatballWiki and I don't think they define Wikipedia's
values for Wikipedia. We define our own values. I don't know if that's
what "avoiding CommunityExile" means, and I don't care. Are you saying we
should never ban anyone? That surely isn't your view, though; you thought
we should ban 24.
This is a bit
off the topic, but it came up and I can't let it pass. KQ
said recently that Cunctator is the project's *conscience*. Perhaps KQ
was just trying to be nice, but I think that is actually unfair to the
rest of us, who like to think we have a principled approach to the project
as well. It also accords Cunc respect as somehow *the* representative of
a *particularly* moral point of view, to whom the rest of us ought to pay
special heed--I disagree with that and I enjoin you not to accord *any*
one person such special respect. (I'm not sure KQ meant to imply all this
by "conscience of the project," and I also doubt, in his reasonableness
and modesty, that Cunc would reject the description when cashed out as I
have done, but I just want this to be clear.)
I suppose all this faint praise will make me a better devil's advocate...
I wasn't aware of even faintly praising you, but if you want to claim to
be faintly praised, go right ahead. ;-)
Done with Wikipedia for today,
Larry