I think there is a genuine fear of factions or parties and the host of actions which might follow. This was highlighted by what seemed to be attempts to organize a Catholic faction. Part of the problem is potential escalation. First there is point of view editing, then tag team reverting, alerts to other members of the faction. Then imagine an arbitration case and we, looking at these folks, make some kind of remedy. Then all the usual kicking and screaming and politicing which follows what is perceived as an unfair decision follows. Whether an administrator enforces the remedy becomes an issue of whether there is anti-catholic bias and so on. Arbitrators are googled to see if they ever engaged in Catholic or Protestant activity, etc.
Substitute communist or anti-communist for Catholic and take a look at the Nobs case for a real life example.
The problem is real, but it is in the context that we not only don't want to exclude people with strong points of view but welcome them for what they can add to articles which relate to their point of view. So I think the problem is not preventing factions but insisting that those who share a point of view act responsibly within the policies and purpose of Wikipedia.
Actually any Wikipedia project serves as an organizing vehicle for factions. We certainly would not want to hamper Wikipedia projects.
Fred
On Jan 9, 2006, at 10:31 PM, Fastfission wrote:
Should user categories be allowed in general? I don't personally have a strong opinion on this (I don't see the problem, personally -- if people are going to bloc vote, assuming that is the issue, they have no problem doing that as it is. All one has to do to find sympathetic editors to a given POV is to look at the edit histories of contentious articles.) but surely a decision can be reached.