[WikiEN-l] Featured editors?

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:49:34 -0500, "Daniel R. Tobias"
<dan at tobias.name> wrote:

>I have a fundamental philosophical problem with extending the "banned 
>is banned" concept to the extent that anything originating with a 
>banned user must be suppressed from being linked, quoted, or 
>mentioned anywhere, even by an editor in good standing.  Are we 
>really like the party of Orwell's 1984 that made disfavored people 
>into "Unpersons", or like the Church of Scientology which has the 
>concept of "Suppressive Persons"?  Such concepts fit better with 
>authoritarian regimes and mind-control cults than with communities 
>devoted to gathering and sharing information.

And I have a fundamental philosophical problem with the idea that
banning is "suppression", and indeed with your continued use of such
loaded language to describe many attempts to create and maintain a
safe environment for those editors who are, unlike banned users,
prepared to work within our policy and community mores. 

When we ban people it's because they have shown a complete inability
to contribute neutrally.  Taking their opinions offsite does not fix
that problem.  If they consider they have fixed the problem and have
neutral input to make on a subject then they are more than welcome
to appeal the ban.  Luke 15:7 and all that.

We don't make them unpersons, we simply tell them, regretfully but
firmly, that their input is no longer welcome.  I completely fail to
see why taking this input to a place where we have absolutely no
control over it whatsoever would materially affect that judgment. If
a view is significant and mainstream then we will usually have many
unbanned users prepared to advocate it in a way that satisfies
policy.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG