[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation's partnership with Kaltuna and loss of freedom

[Ray Saintonge]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 17/01/2008, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> The two are completely unrelated. So long as he behaves himself around
>> here, It doesnt matter what he does elsewhere.
>>     
> Of course it does. We're not in this to dish out justice, we're here
> to generate and distribute free content. Someone who is disruptive
> elsewhere is likely to be disruptive here and hinder us in achieving
> our goals, so we should treat them pretty much the same as we treat
> people who have already been disruptive here. It's important to be
> mindful of the details - in some cases, there might be something more
> going on than simple vandalism (I don't know the details of this
> case), but I see see no problem in using all the information we have
> at our disposal in making decisions.
This view is inconsistent with your other post about a steward taking 
action on Wikibooks for a ban on Wikipedia.  Although I would still 
strongly disagree with that steward's action it remains relatively more 
defensible when two sister projects are involved, than when the supposed 
bad behaviour took place on a completely unrelated site.  We certainly 
have no time to go into detailed analysis of activity on other sites to 
find out if the accusations are justified.  Your presumption that a 
person who is disruptive on another site would be disruptive here has no 
basis in fact.

True as it may be that we're not here to dish out justice, that 
statement confuses ands and means. The free content is about ends, and 
to whatever extent justice is relevant it is about means.  If we are not 
here to dish out justice that applies equally to the head and tail of 
justice.  Debates about whether someone's treatment is just is about the 
head of justice.  Meting out punishments that may have been prescribed 
elsewhere is about dishing out the tail of justice.

Ec