[WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting

[Emily Monroe]

> Firstly, that powers to ban indefinitely have been devolved (sort  
> of) from ArbCom to the admins as a group (the qualification being  
> that ArbCom cannot ban anyone indefinitely).
First off, thanks for the history lesson. No, I'm not being sarcastic,  
really, thanks.

> In short, the checks and balances can fail where people are  
> unscrupulous and/or are too vested in getting rid of a particular  
> editor who is not a classic vandal but something else.
Good point. This actually interferes with accessibility to people who  
are disabled (usually cognitively or emotional disabled) or from  
different, perhaps non-English cultures. Both of these can interfere  
with competence required to edit Wikipedia, and also with being  
accepted in Wikipedia.

Emily
On Sep 18, 2009, at 5:02 PM, Charles Matthews wrote:

> Emily Monroe wrote:
>>> The vandal problem hasn't gone away: admins deal with those vandals
>>> we have more harshly in the past (and no one cares).
>>
>> Is that, or is that not a good thing? I honestly, sincerely ask this
>> question not out of spite, but of curiosity.
>>
> It is composed of two things. Firstly, that powers to ban indefinitely
> have been devolved (sort of) from ArbCom to the admins as a group (the
> qualification being that ArbCom cannot ban anyone indefinitely).  
> This is
> fundamentally good. It means that there is no need to review formally
> and at length the evidence on a particular case of vandalism,  
> because by
> now there is no real doubt about the standards to apply. And then  
> there
> is the part that some admins (probably not particularly  
> representative)
> are happy enough to run someone off the site either with little chance
> to show they can reform, or by using more weaselly versions of
> "disruptive" behavior on the same level as vandalism (which is  
> basically
> malicious damage to the site). This is not good, but it is hard to get
> anyone not directly concerned to care about abuse within that part of
> the system. In short, the checks and balances can fail where people  
> are
> unscrupulous and/or are too vested in getting rid of a particular  
> editor
> who is not a classic vandal but something else.
>
> Charles
>
>
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