[WikiEN-l] Request for a ban

[Geoff Burling]

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> On Saturday 17 January 2004 10:19 pm, Geoff Burling wrote:
> > On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> > > Hi. I'm not happy that it had to come to this. Mr-Natural-health has
> > > repeatedly been warned numerous times about not making personal attacks
> > > on other wikipedians. I am requesting a ban for this user on the grounds
> > > that he is not abating with said attacks.
> > >
> > > I have documented clear violations of basic wikipedia policies by this
> > > user on http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Snoyes/sandbox
> >
[snip]
> >
> > > (...) At another time he has made
> > > an implicit threat to RK on his talk page by stating "The German Nazi
> > > from New York. I am proud of my German heritage, how about you?".
> >
> > I'm not clear how identifying one's home location is a threat. And having
> > read quite a few emails on this mailling list from RK where he accuses
> > people of being a Nazi for disagreeing with him, I read this as a sardonic
> > description.
>
> I agree with you that RK has at times behaved extremely badly on wikipedia,
> but that is not at issue here. I have stated that I believe that MNH's
> statement that he is a german Nazi from NY who is extremely proud of his
> heritage is indeed an implicit threat to RK:
>
> RK is a jew who lives in NY. MNH stating that he is a Nazi from NY implies
> firstly that he is ideologically motivated to kill RK, and secondly that he
> lives close to RK.

I think you are making a logical fallicy here. You assume that because MNH
calls himself a Nazi, therefore he wants to kill RK. As I argued, one can
describe oneself -- or another person -- a Nazi for many reasons. In my
last email, I suggested it was in response to RK's habit of calling anyone
he disagrees with "a Nazi"; another possible meaning would be the "Soup Nazi"
from the Seinberg sitcom, who is not clearly anti-semitic, merely despotic
in how he runs his restaurant.

IIRC my high school years, I had one or two teachers describe themselves
semi-humorously as "a Nazi", meaning they tolerated no dissent.

One other point I shuld have mentioned was that when I looked at for the
quote in question, I could not find it. Did someone delete it? If so, was
it MNH? And if it was him, did he do it because he regretted his choice
of words -- or because he wanted to hide his indiscression?
>
> It might be assumed that MNH did not know that RK lived in NY, but:
>
> 1.Why mention that on his talk page then?
> 2.With that same post, MNH said something to the effect that "people wanted
> you [RK] banned many months ago"
>
> This means that he is not as new as his November 2003 signup date would
> suggest, and that he obviously knows a bit about the whole RK situation, and
> therefor also perhaps that RK lives in NY.
>
Or it could be that MNH has either been reading the archive of the maillist,
or lurking here. If so he, would not be the only one. I find it surprising
that about the same time there was a thread here whether or not the September
11 attacks should be labelled "terrorist" or not, Wik arbitrarily decided to
remove that word from all of relevant articles.

This matter is far less obvious than you think, Sascha. And I would hope
that the principle of Wikilove means that any request for banning requires
at least a preponderance of evidence.

Geoff