[WikiEN-l] Over the weekend...

[Jimmy Wales]

"Wikipedians should generally refrain from witch hunts of users who
may be reincarnations of banned users."

However, grave concerns have been raised, and I have reason to think,
based on what's been going on the past few days, that ChuckM, Joe
Canuck, DW/Black Widow, and perhaps some others may (or may not) be
the same person, posting repeatedly on the same sorts of topics and in
the same sorts of obnoxious ways.

So, after a bit of research by one of the sysops, who will remain
nameless unless he wants to take public credit, we've determined that
there is a relatively small block of ip numbers where this user is
coming from.  At least through the weekend, we're going to block all
of those completely.

Next Monday morning, we'll assess whether it worked, and discuss when
to unblock that range of addresses.  It seems unfortunate in case
people in a certain ip block in Canada happen to want to edit this
weekend, but odds are, they won't.

Additionally, any and all of those names can be banned by names, and I
authorize a witch hunt (but please, practice WikiLove) on new
instances.  :-) Just for the weekend.

My concern is that this might spiral out of control into a
full-fledged attack, and I'd just as soon prevent that and deal with
it next week.

--Jimbo