[WikiEN-l] The issue has been resolved

[Jimmy Wales]

Sascha Noyes wrote:
> It has been resolved rather amically, although I'm left with a
> rather bad aftertaste about nobody but myself (and Tarquin a bit)
> making a principled stand against users deleting other users signed
> comments.

It's very bad form for users to delete other users signed comments in
the heat of a debate.  Eventually, it does make sense to refactor some
talk pages in an NPOV fashion, simply summarizing old arguments.  Not
many people ever do this on wikipedia, but it wouldn't be an offensive
thing to happen in some cases.  

(Of course, there's generally little harm to just making archival talk
pages and leaving them there forever, and I personally wouldn't want
to step into the hornets nest of refactoring old talk pages.)

> When I first joined I got the impression that certain users were
> even banned for this behaviour, and thought that such principles (in
> order to be principles) would have to be applied accross the
> board. This has not been the case, and I'm not happy.

For ip numbers, we're more willing to ban than for signed in users,
based on the simple principle that ip numbers tend to be "pure
vandals" more often than signed in users.

In cases other than "pure vandals" (i.e. simply replacing text with
curse words, or making obvious 'joke' edits to the detriment of a
serious page, things like that), there are difficult judgments to be
made, weighing a number of different factors.  It's not unprincipled,
but it is complex.

--Jimbo