I think this should be of considerable interest to readers of Wikipedia-l. It appeared on Wikien-l.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 03:57:08 -0800 From: Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What we need

O.k., I hereby proclaim the following:

• We will not tolerate biased content. The neutral point of view is not

open to vote; it's decided. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

• There are certain other policies as well that basically define us as a

community. We have arrived at them by broad consensus, and they should be respected. Wikipedians working in good faith should feel empowered to enforce those policies. They shouldn't have to apologize for doing so!

• We will not stop banning vandals. We should seek out the best ways we

know how to make sure that non-vandals are not lumped in with the vandals, but please stop talking as if we'll just stop banning them, because it ain't gonna happen.

• We try to help newcomers who want to contribute but don't quite

understand the body of good habits (and rules) we've built up. But we should not and *will* not tolerate forever people who are essentially attempting to undermine the system. See below.

• To whatever extent we are or are not, or should be, a democracy, the

following is also true. We are a benevolent monarchy ruled by a "constitution" or, anyway, a developing body of common law that is not open to interpretation, but not vote. This has been the case from the beginning, and we aren't going to change that.

None of this is new.

In addition to this, it would help a LOT for you to solicit draft statements of policy regarding clear circumstances in which people can be banned for being really egregiously difficult. There has to be a *reasonably* clear line drawn that distinguishes difficult but on-the-whole useful contributors, on the one hand, from contributors so egregiously difficult that the project suffers from their continued presence. The policy should codify, for example, the reasons why we did ban 24 and Helga, and the reasons why we might ban Lir. Let's have a discussion about this, bearing in mind that one option that is *not* on the table is that we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish behavior at all. We definitely will, so let's make the policy clearer. You could start the discussion and make it clear that at some point soon, we *will* determine a policy.

I don't mean to put words in your mouth of course. I'm just saying that, IMO, Wikipedia is really suffering, and even losing people. You're in a position to help embolden the most productive members of the project, who it seems to me are, in at least some cases, getting very discouraged.

I agree with all of this, except with your diagnosis of the current situation. Can you show me examples of "anarchists" who are arguing that we "we might decide *not* to ban people for their trollish behavior at all"?

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l