[WikiEN-l] Re: A neo-Nazi wikipedia

[Jimmy Wales]

Rob wrote:
> The advantage to banning him now is that it prevents
> subtle skewing of articles or skewing of articles on
> obscure topics, both which may go unnoticed and
> uncorrected. 

First a confession and then a response.

I visited his userpage yesterday with the intention of blocking him
myself so as to save everyone else the trouble of having to worry about
it.  But he was already blocked.  And like Theresa, I don't really find
myself with enough energy to care one way or the other whether we should
judge blatant insults and racism on another site as grounds for being
banned from Wikipedia.

But my response to this particular argument is that *at least in this
particular case*, the odds of him doing anything which is 'unnoticed and
uncorrected' is close to zero *in this account*.  But the odds of him
doing it under his next sockpuppet account is quite high.

So, in this sense, and in this sense only, it is probably better to let
him edit under this account, because in this way people can monitor it.

Now, your other point:
> It also saves a lot of stress and sweat
> for those editors who have to deal with him until he
> inevitably gets banned for something.  

This is 100% valid and I agree completely.  This is why I was going to
ban him yesterday myself.

But we have to think carefully here.  Trolls work by baiting us.  We
should be very careful about taking that bait.  Wouldn't it amuse them
greatly for us to waste a huge amount of effort in blocking and fighting
them.  It's the war that they want to have, whereas for us it is just
*sigh* tedious and stupid.

What we should aim to do, then, is rob them of the fun they expect to
have.  I'm not 100% sure how to do that.

--Jimbo