Fred Bauder wrote: Do we really need temporary bans? We didn't have the need for them before and they would be very damaging to the Wiki principle. Remember: Wikipedia is a Wiki Encyclopedia, not a courtroom. There's no real danger of letting someone off, aside from the chance that they might vandalize a few pages, something which is easily reversible. In the past, we've had a lot of trouble with unilateral bans, and they have always been condemned after the fact by almost everyone. LDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus

I tend to agree with you Little Dan, most of the damage done can be rectified by reverting edits. Sure if someone is really destructive it might be a lot of edits, but then we have a list of all the contributions there only needs to be someone who is willing to revert them all. If you are too quick at banning someone you may not even have enough material to show that the person should not be allowed to contribute. better that they demonstrate their bad behaviour before they undergo the "arbitration" ordeal. There might be a really, really rare case that could be done by the Wikimedia board, you will notice that Art III: sec. 4.4. of the bylaws gives the Board of Trustees the right to suspend member privileges in the cases of misconduct. Someone would have to apply to the Board to get them to suspend the member in that case. I guess you have to convince the Board members or make an application to them: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf Alex756 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren(a)yahoo.com> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:41 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Duck Court

From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" <littledanehren(a)yahoo.com> There are a total of five seats on the Board. One is Jimbo Wales, and there are two other initial trustees: Michael Davis and Tim Shell. It states that at Art. IV sec. 2.2. There are also two elected positions that have to be elected within 90 days of the adoption of the bylaws (no word on when they were adopted). These two positions are "Member Representatives" as it states in sec. 2.1. They should be elected one from "contributing members" and one from "active members" (see pages 3-4 of the pdf.). The two types of members that are entitled to be elected are: (1) Contributing Active Members. These people are entitled to vote in this category if they have paid a membership fee and (2) Volunteer Active Members, who make contributions. I've started a page on this on the Meta-Wiki here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees Jimbo just posted this a few days ago, so it is new to everyone. Alex R.

On Wednesday 21 January 2004 10:17 pm, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: They're Jimbo's shills that ensure a 3/5 majority. ;-) (/ducks and hides) Best, Sascha Noyes -- Please encrypt all email. Public key available from www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc