On Dec 24, 2007 3:36 PM, Oldak Quill
<oldakquill(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 24/12/2007, George Herbert
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Earlier, Oldak Quill wrote:
>
>> "[P]aedophiles are banned from editing Wikipedia" is quite
>> meaningless. Surely something like "those advertising
>> themselves as
>> paedophiles are banned from editing Wikipedia" is more
>> actionable?
>> We can't ban thought, only action.
>>
> The implied semantics of "...who we haven't caught yet" applies to
> any number of miscreant categories, from pedophiles (in thought or
> action) to banned trolls.
>
> We don't have to say so explicitly. Nobody's going to laugh at us
> because we state something we can't strictly enforce without
> reading
> minds. A policy which rather clearly says "no" in no uncertain
> terms with no wiggle room is a lot easier to state and enforce
> than
> one which acknowledges the grey area.
>
Introducing a ban on thought would be a new precedent for us (and
largely unenforceable) and it is frankly not our business. If we
ban
paedophiles, it becomes our responsibility to ensure none of the
editors are paedophiles (an impossible). If we make it our
responsibility to ensure paedophiles do not edit, it will be our
fault if the media discovers that some of our editors are.
IMO, our policies should be limited to what we can control - no
paedophilia-related userboxes, advertising and that kind of thing.
Anything beyond that (policy governing the thought processes of our
editors) strikes me as a knee-jerk, emotive reaction (à la the
tabloid press).
Hypothetical:
Banned user X reappears on Wikipedia with spanking new account, does
not identify themselves at all, proceeds to edit in a completely
appropriate manner and not troll and not identify themselves by edit
patterns etc.
Q: Are they still banned?
A: Yes. If we find out, we block them and reset block lengths due
to
block evasion.
Their behavior with the new account can be spotlessly positive and
otherwise policy compliant, and they're still banned. We just may
not
have caught them (yet, or ever).
Sounds like a policy to have rules trump common
sense. If the new
account continues to behave sensibly there should be absolutely no
need
to impose further punitive actions. If we have succeeded in getting
someone to play nice the original disciplinary action has
accomplished
its aims. Further blocking without genuine cause is only for
admins who
like to play power games.
Ec