[WikiEN-l] Bans and online/offline reputation (was Re: Follow-up on my Ban from Wikipedia (part 3))

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 9/9/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Wikipedia namespace should be indexed, so you can search for terms
> like "neutral point of view". It also contains pointers to tools.
> MediaWiki should probably be indexed.
> User talk is probably the only strong candidate for non indexing. The
> other talks are probably ok...there are times when you want to search
> them.
> User is probably ok.

It's been proposed that we no-index user and user talk.. It would
solve a number of problems.  But our search sucks, so some things
would be inconvenienced by this change so people are generally opposed
to it.

It's too bad... the fact that some people abuse us for free webhosting
and we can't be sure if a particular person isn't is creating tension
in our community... and many community members are discouraged from
using their real names because they don't want their Wikipedia user
page showing up on google when someone searches for their name... and
then there is the stress  of trying to spam patrol pages which we
don't normally execute much editorial oversight over.... and then
there is the issue of "this user is blocked" showing up on google.  :(