[Foundation-l] Wiktionary blocking policy

[Dmcdevit]

I'm not sure the problem is as dire as you make it sound (or that there 
even is a single practice by Wiktionary admins), but I'll assume it is 
for the sake of argument:

Brian McNeil wrote:
>
> Block with no warning is - in most cases - unacceptable

This is not a universal rule. It's a simple point to make, but you seem 
to be taking the opposite to be true as an assumption.
> I'm sure some might argue this should have been raised on the wiktionary
> mailing list, but I believe if a project has - as in this case - earned a
> reputation for capriciously wielding the banhammer it needs the wider
> Wikimedia community to say this is unacceptable.
>   

I don't think it does. A foundation-l thread started by a community 
outsider nicely misses all the shared community norms and consensus that 
have developed over the years, as well as familiarity with the actual 
circumstances of the project (like having what I would say is one of the 
highest article-to-recent-changes-patrollers ratios to be found). The 
problem here isn't just that none of the English Wiktionary admins has 
been informed that "the wider Wikimedia community" views their practices 
as unacceptable, but that it is a fact for any community, whether it's 
Wiktionary, Wikipedia or Wikinews that you have no chance of change 
unless you are actually making your arguments to the people you disagree 
with. I recommend you actually engage in discussion with Wiktionary 
editors and, say, present *reasons* for why you disagree with their 
practices. After all, I'm sure that Wiktionarians have their own reasons 
for doing what they do. :-)

Dominic