[WikiEN-l] (no subject)

[Durova]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Daniel R. Tobias" <dan at tobias.name>
To: wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:43:12 -0400
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Cla68 blocked for asking question
On 20 Oct 2007 at 20:48:48 -0700, "Steven Walling"
<steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jimbo, at first glance my Portland liberal brain knee-jerk reacted to your
> comment about bringing back the WikiLove by thinking, "How? By simply
> blocking or banning anyone who can't agree with our vision and play nice?
> Seems rather in contrast to wiki values."
>
> But then I thought about it, and that's exactly right. For a long time,
> civility and WikiLove have been rhetoric without any force behind them, or
> at least the force of a block. Perhaps it's time for admins to step up to
> the plate more when it comes to trolls who dance around the letter of the
> law to stick around.

Your first impression makes more sense to me.  Love isn't something
you can gain by force or threat of it.  Fear, yes, and maybe
compliance, but not love.  Are you looking for a fake civility and
feigned love that comes from everybody being afraid to openly show
any other feelings for fear of sanctions?  That would be like on the
Twilight Zone episode where the mutant kid reads everybody's mind and
makes people vanish or transform into things if he doesn't like what
they're thinking, so everybody has to constantly think pleasant
thoughts even though they really hate the kid's guts.

******
I don't hate the particular editor I blocked.  Nothing personal.  And in
situations like this it's rather farfetched to ask for love.  I can ask for
civility and adherence to site standards, and when someone drives wedges
into that I can use the tools.  They may not construct love, but they do
construct a space in which certain things don't happen - where Wikipedia is
not a battleground, or a soapbox, or a lot of other things people would like
to make of open edit capabilities.  Wikipedia isnt anarchy either.  We're an
encyclopedia, and people who stray too far from that get a short block to
think about it.  If they're basically reasonable people they see that we
mean it and adjust.

-Durova