[WikiEN-l] Ban policy

Sat Jun 5 18:56:31 UTC 2004

--- John Robinson <john at freeq.com> wrote:
> >in the last 6 months the AC has issued more user bans than Jimbo did two
> years
> >before that
> 
> Indeed. Most of them for a symbolic 24 hours. 

Wrong again: 

Decided on 11th Februry 2004 that Mr-Natural-Health would be banned from
editing for 30 days (i.e., until 12 Mar 2004). 

Decided on 11th March 2004 that Plautus satire is to be banned for one year, up
to and including March 11, 2005. 

Decided on 15th March 2004 that Wik would have a three month probation during
which he may be temp-banned in certain circumstances.

Decided on 31st March 2004 that Irismeister would be banned from editing all
pages for ten days, and banned from editing Iridology indefinitely. 

Decided on 25th April 2004 to instruct Anthony with regards to his VfD edits,
and refer other issues to mediation. 

/Paul Vogel - Decided on 10 May 2004 to ban Vogel for one year. 

Decided at /Wik2/Decided on 21 May 2004 that Wik shall be banned for one week
and be subject to a month ban after he returns if he fails to abide by the AC's
conduct rulings. Cantus and Nico shall be banned for one day for using
sockpuppets.  

Maybe you are using some oddball form of math to reach your "most cases"
statement, but I see only two users who received anything that could be called
"symbolic 24 hour" bans. 

> This is fine for regular contributors who occasionally go off the deep end,
> but that's not what most of the cases have involved. 

You obviously have either not read those cases, and/or are confusing the AC
with the quickpoll process. Again, do your homework before you criticize. 

> Wik's ban is over now, the only reason he's still
> gone is because he left on his own. 

And as soon as he comes back the AC will decide whether or not his breaking of
the terms of his week ban is enough to warrent the imposition of the month ban
we already provided for in the enforcement section. I for one will vote to
impose the month ban. 

It is fairly obvious to me that you have not even read the ruling. 

> Meanwhile Gohde and "Irismeister" are still up to their old tricks, exactly
> as before arbitration.

I do think that the AC made a mistake in not placing MrNH and Irismeister on
long term probations. But those were two early cases. 

> >Are you volunteering to be a member of the AC?
> 
> No, I am saying that the concept of an AC has been tried, and does not work.

That is because you are mistakingly thinking of the AC as a police force. We
are not and do not have the ability to control the immediate actions of others
- we can only provide punishments for past actions and also say what to do if
users break the terms of their probations. 

Cases against users take time to develop and take time to decide. Granted some
cases are taking too long, but we need more committee members (one of our
members has never voted in a single case and another left).

> I don't consider this to be the fault of the AC or any of the members of it,
> rather a problem with overall structure, confusion with regard to the amount
> of authority it holds, etc.

Our current situation is this: We have judges but no policeman. The judicial
process is supposed to be a bit slow, while police can use probable cause to
arrest people on the spot. While we have the former, we do not have the latter
(except in cases of obvious vandalism). So the system is only half built and
should not be expected to work right yet. 

> >3 non-AC member admins to do such a block
> 
> This is a good idea, we've had five already in Trollkien's case, for example.
> As with all good ideas, though, it never seems to get implemented (didn't we
> first see this proposal months ago?).

I believe either one of the developers (Tim maybe?) or I proposed it a while
ago. IIRC some experimental code was created for it but the idea didn't seem to
resonate and was dropped. If you think that idea is a good one, then support
it. Hopefully others will also think it is a good idea and also support it. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 