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

[Wily D]

On 9/11/07, Monahon, Peter B. <Peter.Monahon at uspto.gov> wrote:
[snipped]
> > Earlier: "... being a democratic
> > community is not our goal ... we
> > sometimes ban people because
> > they do not, will not, or can not
> > contribute positively to the
> > encyclopaedia ..."
>
> Peter Blaise responds:   "We" sometimes ban?  No.  ONE person sometimes
> bans another person ... and they do it because they CAN.  Banning is an
> expression of that one person's impatience, that one person's
> misunderstanding, that one person's whim, that one person's malice, that
> one person's inability to spend the time and energy needed to resolve
> the problem inclusively, with respect for the other person upon whom
> they blame their frustration.
>
> Aside: Help me with the source of the following story, true or false,
> but it illustrates for me the opposite of a "banning admin":
>
> "Two chess champions were struggling in a tournament when one stood up
> mid-game, cleared the board with an angry swipe of their arm, and
> yelled, "I can't believe I'm loosing to such an idiot!""
>
> I other words, the first player didn't know how to beat their opponent,
> whom they considered inferior, but honored that their opponent was going
> to win that game nevertheless, and so decided to let them win by
> default, rather than by the first player actually putting in all the
> work for an entire game, and loosing anyway.  My point here is to
> suggest that admins caught up in a personal snit should bow out
> gracefully and let someone else address their "opponent" next, rather
> than ban their opponent.
>

People are banned by the community of administrators, not any single admin.
Here's a list of everyone I've blocked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=WilyD&page=
Any admin can go in and unblock them.  I *blocked* them on my own, but
we *banned* them as a community.

Your analogy falls apart because people aren't coming to play chess.
We're trying to hold a chess tournament and people are putting
sandwichs on the chess board, they're stealing the chess pieces,
they're gluing chess pieces to the board, they're letting tigers loose
in the audience, they're rewinding the clocks, they're relabelling the
tables and so on.

>
> > Earlier: "... Wikipedia's community
> > is a co-dominate oligarchy with
> > high class mobility ..."
>
> Peter Blaise responds:  I'm beginning to understand that democracy is
> always underneath any other supposed form of governance - democracy is
> the base note underneath any community regardless of it's claim to
> another form.  I find democracy to be the least offensive and lowest
> common denominator of all communities.  I also find that non-democracies
> are essentially inflicted by a few powerful individuals for their own
> convenience, people who value something other than the community.
>
> Also, admins don't ban people because those people ARE bad for the
> community and Wikipedia.  Admins ban people because THEY THINK something
> about the people they ban, and because THEY CAN.  Period.  The tools of
> governance aren't intelligent.  They don't distinguish intention from
> result.  They do not know when they are being used as a weapon for good
> or evil.  A ban is a ban is a ban is a ban, to paraphrase Gertrude
> Stein.
>
> Perhaps we agree on an "end" goal:
> - Anyone unhealthy for the community and encyclopedia should be
> separated from the community until rehabilitated.
>
> Perhaps we disagree on the "means" to that end:
> - Who should decide?  For how long?  What tools / weapons should an
> individual have at hand?  What tools / weapons should the community have
> at hand?
>

The tools should be the ones that work.

>
> > Earlier: "... Bans are not the decision
> > of one person - they are the decision
> > of 1200 people ..."
>
> So, 1,200 agree unanimously?  Or, is it 601 people that must agree
> BEFORE a ban is inflicted?  Do they all have to also agree on the extent
> of the ban?  How does the banned person seek relief or recourse?
>
> Or, is it more likely that any ONE admin, sysop, bureaucrat can do any
> dang banning they please, for any dang reason they please, accurate or
> inaccurate, real or imagined.  Then the poor banned person, if they can
> figure out a way, can try to find someone to appeal to, and you suggest
> there are 1,199 other admins who are ready, willing and able to respond
> to an unban request on demand?
>
> Sounds fair to me.
>
> NOT!
>
> Let me put it this way:
>
> (a) I believe 100% that anyone who is destructive of Wikipedia or any of
> it's members should be separated from Wikipedia articles (if that's
> where their crime took effect) and or from discussion / talk pages (it
> that's where their crime took effect) - essentially BANNED - until they
> have fixed what they have broken and have taken steps to prevent
> themselves from doing it again.  On this I agree wholeheartedly.
>
> (b) I believe 0% in the Wikipedia power distribution and judicial
> system, so I think banning should NOT be permitted as a tool /weapon in
> their hand.
>
> Otherwise, banning is fine by me, just so long as no one has the power
> to ban - that is, no ONE has the power to ban!
>

Fairness is a wonderful attribute, it has nothing to do with building
an encyclopaedia.  No one has the power to ban.  They don't.  If you
cannot accept this, it's unlikely that people will listen to you,
because they can plainly see that what you're saying is wrong.  No one
has the power to ban.

There's a little unblock template.  You can use it if you want a block
reviewed.  WP:AN will review blocks.  Almost no ban that could be even
vaguely contraversial occurs in a vacuum.  People know, and if they
don't approve they can raise a stink.  Sometimes they do, and in very
rare cases bans are reversed.  Try reviewing some bans, see what they
are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=&page=

> ==========
>
> Next problem - how to prevent stealth sabotage and take over by ominous
> powers, like the energies of, say, for instance, the China government.
> I suggest that Wikipedia is a POWER because of it's global influence,
> not the least of it from Google's high-ranking reporting on Wikipedia's
> popularity.  Add to that the power to ban, and it makes any take-over
> absolute, even if it's "just" a corner of Wikipedia's many topic areas,
> even if only for a short period of time - that may be all that's needed
> to produce their desired effect.  This challenge is different than a
> rogue, whimsical admin flexing their ego.  This is, perhaps, a subtle,
> 10-year plan by some covert "secret service", maybe not even so far away
> as China, though on the Internet, everyone is equally close!  No one has
> addressed the challenge to prevent that.
>
> I put it to us all that the features of the wonderful, incredible
> Wikiscanner http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ and it's users, independent of
> Wikipedia, are insufficient to the challenge.
>
> However, removing the banning tool altogether helps level the playing
> field, along with diminishing the powers of the "we ain't no democracy
> (meaning: we have the power)" proponents.
>
> I suppose the Foundation can try to reclaim Wikipedia, or whatever part
> has been co-opted after such an incident - why prevent something we
> don't believe, or even imagine, can happen?
>
> --
>
>
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Removing the banning tool doesn't level the playing field.  It just
lets the trolls, vandals and POV warriors take over.
Realistically, if you don't believe that enough eyeballs make all
errors shallow, Wikipedia isn't the place for you.

WilyD