[Foundation-l] Growth vs. maintenance

[Andre Engels]

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 8:33 PM,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 11/7/2009 10:56:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> andreengels at gmail.com writes:
>
>
>> We tried that on nl: (although with 1 week rather than 24 hours
>> minimum). The effect of this is that _each and every block_ will get
>> the whole wiki in flames for a week.>>
>
> I would submit that this tells you something very significant.
> The community likes freedom, and they don't like the suppression of
> freedom.

No, it means that whoever you block there will always be *someone* who
is against it and makes an issue out of it that the block is unfair
etcetera. It does not mean that *the community* is of that opinion.

> The police do not like freedom, and they do like to suppress it.
> When a group of police decide to gang up on a contributor, that contributor
> has no "friend" on their side.  You cannot appeal to the police to stop the
> police.

You can appeal to other sysops, to the arbcom, to the community. What
you are proposing is to have *every* case be appealed to the community
automatically. There are always some people who are of the opinion
that if you have made personal attacks 30 times that is still 20 times
too few to be blocked.

> That's my main point.  However it has to be worked out.  We need a
> contrasting force, that is dedicated to the freedom of the contributor.

No, we don't. We need forces to help the encyclopedia get further. We
don't need a force of people who stop people who are helping creating
it, and we don't need a force of people who support people who are not
helping creating it.


-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com