[WikiEN-l] A Proposal Concerning Banning

[Geoff Burling]

Just a thought I had yesterday, & it still seems attractive to me
today, but I don't know if this solves the problems we currently
have with Wikipedia -- or any problems. (And if it seems acceptible,
I would want it adopted only after it passed a poll, made known to
all Wikipedians.)

We allow sysops to ban users with accounts for 24 hours, subject
to the following procedure:

1. Immediately following the banning, notice of the ban is entered
on a page, say, [[Persons Banned for 24 hours]].

2. Within the next 48 hours a certain number of other sysops (say
3 or 5), must add their votes approving this ban.

Failure of both of these acts (or one sysop voting _against_ the
ban) then forces this act to be immediately reviewed by a committee
(say the Arbitration Committee), who may then remove sysop powers
from the person making the ban, reprimand her/him, or decline to
act.

The point of this procedure is to allow sysops to ban people they
believe are disruptive to Wikipedia _if the sysop is willing to
risk her/his reputation_. Hopefully, this will allow sysops to deal
with contributors who are disruptive or causing trouble, while
checking abuse with the possibility of a severe penalty.

Any thoughts? I'll assume if no one comments that this proposal
doesn't answer any pressing need on Wikipedia.

Geoff