[WikiEN-l] The more I think about my ban from Wikipedia, the more I realize how wrong it was.

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 5 Sep 2007 at 15:52:42 -0700 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> 
wrote:

> If Vee knows not to take this too far that shouldn't be necessary.  
> After our long thread about moderation you should know that many of us 
> like to give members some leeway instead of crying for blood on the 
> least minor offence.

Unfortunately, the way Wikipedia culture has evolved these days, 
there seems to be a large tendency to "cry for blood" all the time, 
and to conduct "troll hunts".  There's an extremely vindictive, 
punitive attitude all around, and a belief that it's more important 
to protect the fragile egos of long-time Wikipedians than to try to 
be fair to newbies who may just be inept or frustrated rather than 
being the evil trolls they're often labeled as when they rub somebody 
the wrong way.  Once somebody with some status on Wikipedia claims to 
be attacked, harrassed, stalked, or otherwise bothered by somebody 
with lesser status, it's all over for them... everybody else circles 
their wagons and has no interest in hearing the other side of the 
dispute (and there are *always* at least two sides to any dispute).

This list is perhaps a bit more of a tolerant zone than Wikipedia 
itself these days, but still sometimes sees similar behavior, though 
the ability to make somebody an "unperson" by deleting their posts 
before anybody can read them at least doesn't exist.

-- 
== Dan ==
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