[WikiEN-l] I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more

Mon Feb 23 02:14:14 UTC 2004

Allan-
>> I've said it before and I'll say it again. Jimbo needs to
>> officially sanction our revert policy and sysops should be allowed
>> to ban users for 24 hours if they violate it.

> After all I've laid out - you want to ban him for a mere 24 hours?

I want to ban him for 24 hours every time he gets into an edit war.  
Hopefully, that way he will learn that he has to use the discussion page  
instead of trying to bully people into preferring his version.

As for a permanent ban, I think a quick route to the arbitration committee  
should exist. But keep in mind that for a ban to be effective, the other  
person needs to be at least somewhat sane. There are cases like Michael or  
142.177, mentally diseased individuals who will not be deterred by a ban  
and operate under such a wide range of IP addresses that a complete IP ban  
would affect many legitimate users. There are good reasons to believe that  
we keep dealing with the same people under different names. It may be more  
effective to integrate them into a community in some way.

The other thing we need is a clearly defined decision making process. I'm  
thinking about a [[Wikipedia:]] page which defines recommended discussion  
periods for minor and major issues. After the discussion period any user  
would be allowed to call for a binding vote. I want to get Jimbo out of  
the loop for most binding decision, not because I don't trust him but  
because he simply can't keep up with making critical decisions in a 500K  
article 50 language project.

I hope you will reconsider your decision to leave the project and work  
with me in establishing these required norms and policies.

All best,

Erik