[WikiEN-l] Missed Opportunities to have avoided the Durova Case

[Relata Refero]

On Nov 27, 2007 9:34 PM, Wily D <wilydoppelganger at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/27/07, joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu <joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu> wrote:
> > Quoting Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com>:
> >
>
> >
> > Now as I see it. A bad block was made. Admins make bad blocks all the
> time.
> > There was a private list involved but that was incidental. The block was
> > overturned and then there was way too much drama over the matter. We
> have an
> > encyclopedia to edit. Can we go back to that now? Please?
>
> One could hope, but a lot of us are genuinely afraid that trying to
> write an encyclopaedia is going to get us banned for various reasons,
> and would like to feel safe that we're not going to wake up banned as
> a sockpuppet of Wikipedia Review member X or whatnot.  Secret evidence
> on secret mailing lists leading to blocks where the reasoning won't be
> discussed?  Am I popular enough that if I got the block instead of !!
> that I'd get the necessary outrage to get me unblocked?  I have my
> doubts ... and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
>
> Cheers
> WilyD
>

Exactly. All of us are. Which is why we are currently begging people to turn
down the paranoia a bit. Yes, perhaps a banned editor is grooming an account
for adminship. Those of us willing to think rationally can tell that the
chances of the banned user in question not being recognised in the normal
course of business combined with the ease of emergency desysopping an admin
gone rogue mean that this is simply not something that we should be unduly
terrified of; we certainly should not cause people who write articles to
reconsider their  level of involvement because of it. Instead, we are
subject to this climate of paranoia. Nobody is comfortable when this kind of
siege mentality develops. The outside opinion at the RfC that I quoted
earlier demonstrates it. But I am yet to see a single acknowledgment that
this stuff has gone too far.

RR
RR