[WikiEN-l] banned vandalism reverting

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Skyring <skyring at gmail.com>:

> On Dec 4, 2007 12:13 PM, <joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu> wrote:
>
>> Quoting private musings <thepmaccount at gmail.com>:
>>
>> > And one to file in the 'it's unlikely anyone will read this far' box -
>> does
>> > anyone think that banned users should be able to !vote in things like
>> the
>> > Arb elections?
>>
>> No, The vast majority of banned users are headaches enough without
>> letting them
>> vote in ArbCom elections. We already see people voting oppose to
>> arbitrators
>> who were involved in proposals against non-banned people. We don't need to
>> further encourage that sort of thing. I find that unfortunate because I
>> suspect
>> that your votes would be interesting in this election (and more selfishly
>> I
>> suspect you might vote for me) but exceptions cannot be made for this sort
>> of
>> thing.
>>
> So much for Wikipedia as even a faint shadow of democracy.

We've been over this before. Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy.
Wikipedia is an attempt to build a user-editable free encyclopedia.
Furthermore,  many democracies do not let felons vote, and even more do 
not let
prisoners vote. So not letting banned users vote isn't exactly the most
undemocratic thing anyways.

> Let's cut the
> crap about voting and just have Jimbo appoint anybody he likes. Who cares if
> banned users vote? They aren't damaging the encyclopaedia by participating
> in votes. And if their views are extreme, then may I suggest that they will
> also be very much in the minority.

Really? Do you realize how many users have been banned? The signal to noise
ratio if banned users were allowed to vote would be even worse than it is now.
As to Jimbo thing- we are trying to run things by consensus, that's a
fundamental part of how we attempt to do things, and simply put, banned users
aren't part of the consensus-forming community (just as the prisoners and
felons are not part of the democratic constituency). Furthermore, Jimbo 
is very
busy and has other things to do. But yes, at some level the ArbCom 
elections are
the community advising Jimbo who we want on ArbCom. He tinkers with those
results occasionally, but he would face an uproar if he ignored them. Think of
it as closer to how the US President is supposed to make appointees with the
"advice and consent of the Senate" (only with the President paying a lot more
attention to the advice part).

> If a banned user reverts vandalism, that's a positive. Undoing the revert is
> just stupid.
>
> Let's get a grip on reality, please.

Do you want Amorrow to be undoing vandalism? Be realistic here. The vast
majority of banned users will not be nearly as productive or helpful in this
regard as PM would be (and indeed, that's a reason I really am not convinced
that his ban makes sense) but extreme cases aren't useful test cases. Banned
users as a group are people who we have decided having around does more harm
than good as editors. That doesn't mean they can't contribute if they see
something helpful, they just need to do so more indirectly. I've worked with
banned users in the past (especially ones who are notable people who have
concerns about their articles or organizations they are associated with) and
will continue to do so. They have many avenues to help the project. 
Personally,
I find continuing to help in a general sense (as PM wants to) a bit odd. If I
were banned, I doubt I'd have the altruism or loyalty to wish to continue
contributing to a project after that. But apparently many banned users feel
differently.