Rob Brewer, replying to Ed Poor:

...

Has anyone thought of selective banning?

Refuse anonymous edits from the banned IP, but allow signed-in edits.

We could supply a message like, "Sorry but due to abuse from IP i.j.k.l, you must sign in to contribute."

I think that's what Erik Moeller had in mind with point #2 of his message at 11:47:25 +0100 yesterday, and I think it's a good idea. If vandals want to be persistent we should at least make them go to the trouble of getting a fake hotmail address to sign up with ;-)

Yeah, but we MIGHT have to grant sysops the power to suspend or curtail editing privileges of signed-in contributors, if they engage in: * deleting the entire text of a page for no reason * inserting random graffiti like "I like chicken" into an article * nonsense like "Shakespeare was born in Marion, Illinois in 1968" * the goatse image (?)

This change in policy would require agreement from our ever-benevolent and freedom-loving sponsor, Jimbo Wales.

Assuming any of the 41 sysops can "undo" a block initiated by another sysop, I don't think there will be a problem with abuse of this power. 40 to 1 is a lot of veto power.

Ed Poor