Blowfish -
The question here is not "less trust => banned". It's "not yet earned more trust or other criteria needed for an exception". There is a huge difference.
A neurological/psychological problem such as OCD, which some people cannot escape, is not the same as a preference for editing through a given medium. The example doesn't have much direct relevance.
The logic of your comment below is closer to this scenario: - as if you felt "banned" because the community declined to allow you adminship and you stated that you so much needed the ability to block or protect, to edit, that without them you would feel obligated to leave. If you demanded that exception on threat of not editing if not granted, you would expect a similar response. Being declined an exception, is not a rejection from the community or a "ban", it's simply that (in this case) for whatever reason, whatever additional requirement over and above being a regular user that might be needed to warrant the exception, for whatever reason it wasn't felt applicable when you asked. That's immensely far from a "ban".
A response to the effect that "If you can't give me that additional permission, I will feel obligated not to edit so you have in effect banned me" doesn't really hold water. That's a false responsibility and coercion issue. You have the power to edit or not to edit; and that choice remains as it always was, with you. If the community felt okay about an exception it would clearly allow one, but they obviously don't feel it is appropriate, and that's their permissible view.
What you are doing with that view is similar to saying "I am not prepared to accept alternatives, and therefore not giving me an exception is a ban because of *my own self-imposed limit* -- so you have a moral duty to make an exception, otherwise my self-imposed limit will hurt me."
(That structure is why it sounds like a kind of coercion.)
Perhaps this explanation may be useful.
FT2.
-----Original Message----- On Behalf Of Armed Blowfish Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 6:53 PM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hardblocking usernames
On 11/08/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
From: "Armed Blowfish" diodontida.armata@googlemail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hardblocking usernames Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:02:55 -0500
On 11/08/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/08/07, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
Also, as a banned user, I must ask you to not imply that banned/blocked users 'deserve' to be banned/blocked.
You are not a banned user - you are a user who chooses not to use access methods other than ones that are blocked with strong reasons. That TOR is blocked is unfortunate and a pain in the arse, but that doesn't make you a banned user, because you simply aren't.
- d.
Technically, only users who do not have ipblock-exempt are blocked from editing via Tor.
I asked to be given ipblock-exempt... the community said no... I am still not seeing how that is not a ban.
Armed Blowfish
Because we are not prepared to break the rules for you, because we believe in playing fair. It is not a ban because you are able to edit the minute
you
drop the open proxies. If you look at our other "banned" users, none of
them
has such an easy (well, I don't know that) way back to editing. Ergo, you are not banned.
Now, for the love of God, please stop going about this. It's fricking tiresome. We're just going round in circles here, and we're not going to
get
out of the circles, seeing as you're blatantly in denial.
C More schi
Another analogy: A guy has obsessive compulsive disorder, which he is open about. (He does not, however, state the reason for his obsessive compulsive disorder, which is that he was beaten many times as a child.) Being obsessive compulsive, he keeps changing British spelling to American. No revert warring, never on the same article, but he does this many times. He can't help it - he's obsessive compulsive. Aside from that, he does good work - he's written some good articles and helps other editors as part of the Editor assistance program. One day, he is indefinitely blocked for his continual changing of British spelling to American. He appeals several times, eventually up to RfC, but the community will not unblock him unless he agrees to stop changing British spelling to American. He closes the RfC early, being very depressed about it. He feels hurt that, in spite of all the work he's put into article writing and Editor assistance, all some people care about are his mostly harmless spelling changes.
That's okay though, he'll get over it. Except people keep yelling at him even after he is gone. They want to know why he is obsessive compulsive, they say obsessive compulsiveness is bad. A lot of his memories of getting beaten up are brought to the surface, and he can't handle reliving those memories. Additionally, it feels to him as though people are saying it is his fault he got beaten up. And for some reason, because of his prior work in Editor assistance, people keep asking him for help, even though he is banned. He is confused about how it is possible to be a community mother and a banned user at the same time, but he does his best to help them anyway. When he thinks things have finally died down a bit, he asks for some page blankings, but some people give him hell over one of said blankings, and he feels like Wikipaedia will never leave him alone. Subsequently, his head goes BOOM!
Would you say that he is not banned merely because he could get unblocked if he merely agrees to stop changing spellings? Would you say it is his 'choice', because he could stop changing spellings, as though obsessive compulsiveness is something that can be turned off at the flip of a switch? Or how is this situation significantly different?
Armed Blowfish