On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 23:37:37 -0600, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:
Blocking is just that, a possibly ineffective remedy
should he use a wide
range of dynamic addresses. Following dispute resolution you can certainly
see him banned and blocked as much as possible, indeed under our personal
attacks policy he can be blocked immediately. I gather you don't want to do
it yourself, but a new administrator will be elected and all that can be
done on that front will probably be done.
I have sometimes done it myself a few times, and the other admin has
also done it a few times. But we seem to be in shortage of human time
if he continues.
One other question would be "is the personal attacks policy limited to
the English Wikipedia?"
Blocking does not address the underlying issue that he
can in the policially
and religiously charged athmoshere in Iran potentially make good on his
threats. This is an issue that needs to be handled through institutions such
as the Persian Academy (if indeed you belong to such an organization).
Absurd denunciations need to be recognized as such, not taken seriously by
those in authority. This attitude takes a while to develop and requires
exposure of this sort of thing in public forums.
I don't think he can do much with the Academy, but his threats simply
hurt me and possibly also others, they have just resulted in one good
contributor saying bye-bye because of "the dirty atmosphere".
(BTW, I'm not a "member" of the Persian Academy. That requires one to
be a real expert in the language, which I'm not, but I'm a member of
the its Language and Computers council.)
If indeed you have made edits and expressed opinions
which are vulnerable to
successful attack by political and religious authorities themselves
outsiders such as ourselves can do some good by publicizing the matter and
exposing it. This can be small comfort in practical terms.
Nothing like this has ever been raised, since I usually stick to facts
and try to follow NPOV, but even the writing also about other side's
POV is sometimes very offensive to some of the people living or born
in this part of the world. On Wikipedia, I've been called a Persian
Chauvinist by Pan-Turkists, Anti-Islamic Republic and Anti-Khomeini by
a carpet dealer who possibly did business with the Iranian government,
pro-Khomeini by a person insisting of inserting some sexual rulings
that Ayatollah Khomeini shares with other Shia clerics into the
Khomeini article, and finally pro-Islamic Republic, anti-Persian,
pro-Turkic, and pro-Arab by this late guy. It seems that they oppose
neutrality. That may also be because I work openly on Wikipedia, and
don't hide my identity, so they can have a real face to attack.
Anyway, on the English Wikipedia, I would really appreciate if more
people can get active on Iran-related articles like [[Persian Gulf]],
[[South Azerbaijan]], and [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], so I can take a
little rest from being blamed.
roozbeh