[WikiEN-l] Re: What we need

[Toby Bartels]

Larry Sanger wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>Larry Sanger wrote:

>>>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"?

>First, I DON'T think there is a unified band of people who *call*
>themselves anarchists with all the same views.  I frankly don't care about
>the word.  The point is that there are now a lot of people about who hate
>one or more part of what, in my opinion and it so happens yours, defines
>Wikipedia, and that they're trying either to eliminate it or to weaken it
>radically (as Cunctator, just for example, would like to do with the
>nonbias policy).  Those are the people I am calling "anarchists."  I
>should probably call them "Wikianarchists" since their political views
>might very well not be in the anarchist camp.

Knowing from a later post that you never meant me anyway,
I now have to say that I don't know anybody of that sort either.
There's some newbies and the people that you think are trolls, of course,
but you listed the anarchists as a powerful block on the list in addition,
and I don't know who they are, if they hate part of what defines Wikipedia.

>Anyway, you want examples: Cunctator (he is now perfectly clear and
>unambiguous about it: see
>http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-October/006575.html ).

You know, that seems like one of The Cunctator's more ambiguous posts to me.
In it, he tries to stay firmly on the fence between
approving and disapproving of banning in situations like 24's.
Did you mean a different one?  (Or are you dropping this claim,
per your later reply to The Cunctator?)

>So I trust that Cunctator disapproves of your recent banning of Lir.  TMC
>is another easy example.  If you put the question explicitly, you'd find a
>number of others, I'm sure.  One person who wrote to me privately
>certainly seems to be of this view.

TMC is part of a bloc on the mailing list?  I didn't think that he'd got
so far already.  Good for him!  But I don't see any hate from him.

>In response to my "In addition to this..." paragraph above, Toby Bartels
>wrote:

>>IOW, let's decide before the discussion that we will change policy,
>>and only leave the discussion open to *how*.
>>I support a discussion about policy for banning what you call "trolls"
>>(not that Helga, much less Lir, is *actually* a troll),
>>but let's not a priori rule out the views of a sizable group.

>So he supports a banning policy himself but thinks that there's "a sizable
>group" that opposes it.

I think that there may have been a misunderstanding here too.
I interpreted your call as for deciding on reasons for which
we, the ordinary Wikipedia administrators, would ban users
such as 24, Helga, and Lir.  I think that many people oppose this,
and in any case, it's hardly clear that there's a consensus for it.
But perhaps you meant deciding on reasons for which
we would ask Jimmy to ban them, as he's banned them before.
This is a different matter, and if that's what you meant,
then I don't believe that it required any gall whatsoever ^_^.


-- Toby