[Wikipedia-l] I'm seeing a trend here or How to keepdrivingaway good contributors

[Imran Ghory]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2002 koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

> Ed begged:  :-)
> >Wikipedia is the world's largest wiki, isn't it? When it's 10 times or 100 times the size, with 1,000 to 3,000 logged-in, daily contributors -- how will we manage then? My plea is for some way beyond the personal judgment of an elite, to maintain order, lest a self-perpetuating cabal develop that freezes out the very type of capable and devoted contributor it formed to protect.
> >
> ...
> >
> >Help me out, here, man.
> 
> Well--what's so bad about setting up a page outlining an expected code of conduct?  Really that's what we've banned people based on--violation of an expected code of conduct--so let's at least outline what we expect.  It's just not fair to ban people based on rules that aren't explicitly and undeniably clear.
> 
> I propose e.g.  1) no name-calling; save it for Jerry Springer.  2) don't change other peoples' comments.  3) don't question whether other people are actually people.


A more formalish proposal:

Banning should mean the suspension of all write access to the wikipedia
with the exception of the users own "User:" space page.

A first time ban for any purpose should be lifted if the user apologises
(either on their own "User:" page, on the mailing list, or on the
"Talk:" page of the relevant article) and agrees not to repeat the
offence.


-----------------------------------
===Vandalism===

Repeated vandalism is a 6-month bannable offence.

Vandalism defined as:

> Deleting significant parts of an article without reasonable cause
> Inserting unnecessary profanity into an article.
> Inserting nonsensical text into an article.
> Purposefully changing an article in order to mislead readers.
> Modifying the comments of other users in Talk: or Wikipedia: namespace.

A single purposeful vandalism from an anonymous user is a 1-week ban.

A single vandalism from a logged in user results in a 24-hour ban, not to
be enforced until at least 1 hour after the change to allow the user to
apologises or removes their vandalism.

A minor vandalism of an otherwise empty page should only result at most in
a 24-hour ban.

===Copyright===

Repeated copyright violation is a 6-month bannable offence.

A single copyright violation by an anonymous user should result in a
48-hour banning.

A single copyright violation from a logged in user should result in a 48
hour ban, not to be enforced until at least 24 hours after the users talk
page has been updated to inform the user about the copyright violation, to
allow the user to apologises or remove the copyright material.

===Libellous material===

Any libellous material (including accusing someone of being racist,
fascist, or similar without evidence) should result in an immediate ban
until the user either provides evidence or retracts the statement and
apologises.

===Non-NPOV or factual dubious material===

If after non-NPOV or factually dubious material have been removed the
original user repeatedly reinstates it without explanation it should
results in a two week ban from the main wikipedia namespace, but not the
talk space.

If a user repeatedly adds substantially biased text into a number of
different articles after being warned then the user should again be banned
from the wikipedia namespace but not that of talk. 
-----------------------------------

Imran
-- 
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran