[WikiEN-l] Blocking for article pages only?

[K P]

On 7/31/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> cohesion wrote:
> > I agree though, if they can't behave themselves why not block them
> > completely? It sounds like you're talking about maybe PR people, or
> > people that are exclusive POV pushers outside the normal wikipedia
> > culture. If that's the case I think it would be very confusing for
> > them and probably lead to resentment, creating a type of second class
> > editor.
>
> I agree it creates a second class of editor -- at least for the duration
> of the block -- but I hope that it would create less resentment rather
> than more. I imagine that happening in two ways.
>
> First, some people blocked for COI or POV issues really do have
> something useful to say. Take the time we blocked some of the US
> Congress IPs because a handful of staffers misbehaved. Although the
> block may have kept out more puffery, and it was certainly useful in
> sending a signal, we kept a lot of people from even commenting on
> articles, articles where they had expert knowledge. That has to be
> frustrating.
>
> Second, people often just want to have their say. Blocking people to
> prevent harm to articles is already frustrating to people. But I think
> they'll put up with that better if we indicate that we're still willing
> to listen to them, at least as long as they play nice.
>
>
> My hope is that this will decrease tension on both sides. I think it's
> relatively easy to put up with some yutz on a talk page. The real strife
> comes when they start messing with articles. A mainspace-only ban would
> let us stop the main harm while still letting people participate in the
> community.
>
> William
>
> --
> William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri
>
You do make a reasonable case for doing this, although I still think
there will be few reasonable people put in this position of main space
blocks.

KP