On 10/20/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote:
On 20 Oct 2007 at 20:48:48 -0700, "Steven Walling"
<steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Jimbo, at first glance my Portland liberal brain
knee-jerk reacted to
your
comment about bringing back the WikiLove by
thinking, "How? By simply
blocking or banning anyone who can't agree with our vision and play
nice?
Seems rather in contrast to wiki values."
But then I thought about it, and that's exactly right. For a long time,
civility and WikiLove have been rhetoric without any force behind them,
or
at least the force of a block. Perhaps it's
time for admins to step up
to
the plate more when it comes to trolls who dance
around the letter of
the
law to stick around.
Your first impression makes more sense to me. Love isn't something
you can gain by force or threat of it. Fear, yes, and maybe
compliance, but not love. Are you looking for a fake civility and
feigned love that comes from everybody being afraid to openly show
any other feelings for fear of sanctions? That would be like on the
Twilight Zone episode where the mutant kid reads everybody's mind and
makes people vanish or transform into things if he doesn't like what
they're thinking, so everybody has to constantly think pleasant
thoughts even though they really hate the kid's guts.
There's some truth to this; we don't want to create a new atmosphere of fear
by doing stuff percieved by the community as arbitrary abuse of editors.
But there's also some truth to the fact that some people aren't here to be
constructive to the project, build an encyclopedia, and work constructively
with other people to do so.
We have always had to balance tolerance and an acknowledgement that some are
too distruptive or malign.
It's reasonable to posit that where the line was drawn was in the wrong
place; a lot of current incivility would go away if we picked a few
offenders and zapped them.
The problem is, who picks them?
I currently believe there's a legitimate problem with some people who are
here to be constructive being viewed in bad faith just because they're
irritating. I don't want to encourage those who feel irritated to start
pulling the trigger on disruption too much more easily.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com