Bryan Derksen wrote:
I wouldn't exactly say I'm mad as hell, but I'm certainly nonplussed over how the Wikipedia system bends so far over backwards to be "nice" to incorrigibly disruptive people like this. Surely at some point the "cost" in driving away other contributors who can't stand working with them must be outweighing the "benefit" of making sure we don't accidentally ban participants who could potentially be valuable contributors some time down the road? Not to mention the sheer amount of work some of these users create in cleaning up after them.
Well, there is a bit more to it than that, but your point is a very valid one.
The main thing that I would add is the perhaps ironic issue that there are unintended consequences to things like bans that may actually generate *more* strife. The peace we seek could be illusory if we change the culture away from co-operation and love towards crime and punishment.
Some people are just mentally unbalanced. Effectively dealing with them will always be challenging. Keep them around, well, that's not really a live option, they're lunatics. Ban them, well, that's not really always going to work either, since they just create new accounts, different ips, come in through proxies. We'll never have a state of perfect peace.
So the question becomes finding the right balance to minimize harm.
--Jimbo