[WikiEN-l] Re: Zero0000 has blocked Lance6Wins....apparentlycontray to Block

Mon Sep 27 16:19:26 UTC 2004

>From: Matthew Larsen <mat.larsen at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Matthew Larsen <mat.larsen at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia 
><wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Zero0000 has blocked 
>Lance6Wins....apparentlycontray to Blocking policy
>Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:44:50 +0100
>
>Anyone can make a harmless mistake, and Zero has clearly blown this
>issue out of all proportians. Is it really worth making all this fuss
>over something as silly as 'where did this quote come from'

I think there is a more important issue here, and that it is not just Zero 
who has "blown the issue out of all proportions."  The tolerance for editors 
who willfully damage Wikipedia is astounding; known repeat offenders are 
agonized over, sometimes for weeks at a time, before action is taken, and 
even then actions are watered down in the hopes that one day, perhaps, with 
the right tutoring, the editor might make some valuable edit or 
contribution.  Even people who have been permanently banned for outrageous 
behaviour are allowed back in on special "parole" conditions in the hopes 
that enough Wikilove and supervision will turn them into productive 
citizens.  The RfC, mediation, and Abitration processes work so slowly and 
intermittently that many admins describe them as broken and essentially 
useless (see, for example, [[User:Ambi/Thoughts_on_Dispute_Resolution]] .  
And yet, when an admin who has made extremely valuable contributions to the 
project appears to step over the line in a fairly mild way, the immediate 
response *from the top* is that this person should be de-sysopped.

Now it's true no action has yet been taken, and given the glacial pace of 
the various abuse "remedies" on Wikipedia, it's likely none ever will be 
taken.  And I understand and support the need for holding an admin to a 
significantly higher standard than a regular editor.  However, I still see a 
big imbalance here between the way valuable contributors are treated and how 
known trolls are coddled.  A number of extremely knowledgeable editors have 
privately (and even publicly) stated that they would no longer edit articles 
*in their areas of expertise* because the abuse and harassment they receive 
from POV warriors and ad hominem abusers is so great that it is simply not 
worth it for them to bother, particularly as there is no remedy for this 
problem - or rather, there are remedies, but Wikpedia cannot or will not use 
them.

I admit that some of the frustration I'm expressing here is based on two 
solid weeks of daily personal attacks on me by 3 Wikipedia editors, and in 
particular my feeling that there is little, if any, point in attempting to 
use the various Wikipedia remedies to try to fix this situation.  And 
perhaps it is character building for me to simply ignore the "slings and 
arrows of outrageous fortune" rather than "take arms against a sea of 
troubles, and by opposing end them," particularly when I think the arms in 
question are ineffective.  Nevertheless, the underlying question is general 
and remains; how many of Wikipedia's most valuable resources will be forced 
to take lengthy or permanent self-imposed Wikibreaks as a result of this, 
before the issue is not only taken seriously, but actually addressed?

Jay.

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