[WikiEN-l] Helga's back?

[Jimmy Wales]

martin at myreddice.freeserve.co.uk wrote:
> Further, Helga has respected the terms of her ban from wikipedia for
> three months. I feel that it would be appropriate to allow Helga
> back, on probation, to demonstrate that we Wikipedians don't bear
> grudges for months no end, and to offer an appropriate exit strategy
> for users such as Lir. Forgiveness would seem an important part of
> WikiLove, at least to me. (insert similar platitudes here).

I agree more or less with all of this, but it's key that she's
supposed to write to me to chat about things first.

Some of the things that we should insist on are matters of principle
for making long-term management easy.  Bans are a serious and sad
thing to happen, always regrettable.  Allowing them to vaguely melt
away after time will lead to inconsistent enforcement and will
encourage people to "test" us.

Better to be formal about it.  After a ban, the right thing to do is
write to me, and chat about it privately.  After that, a discussion on
the list will usually be warranted.

Since we really *aren't* vindictive ideologues, and really *are* just
a bunch of cheerful geeks trying to do something neat and fun, all a
person really has to do to get everyone back on board is be nice and
agree not to do whatever it was that was so upsetting the first time
around.

--Jimbo