[WikiEN-l] It is a sign.

Thu Apr 28 00:57:41 UTC 2005

On 4/27/05, John Bradley <john at ontobus.co.uk> wrote:
> I haven't seen anything saying "we the mail list admins are blocking you
> break policy 4.13"

Hello, John. I must say I am not surprised you have been banned from
Wikipedia. Your extremely antagonistic attitude in my dealings with
you were a good indication.

You are right in that there is no specific policy relating to banning
users from the mailing list. I, for one, have never done it before and
needed help even finding the feature in the software. In lieu of
actually having clear policy, it is up to the mailing list
administrators to use their discretion. They (we?) weren't made
administrators of the mailing list for nothing, you know.

In an effort to pre-empt situations like this, I inserted the followin
text on the Mailing List information page
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l):

"There are no formal rules for the mailing list. However, users are
generally expected to follow good practice similar to Wikiquette. That
is, users should assume good faith and be polite and constructive.
Users who are extremely disruptive or uncivil may be banned from the
mailing list by the administrators."

For more about Wikiquette, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette.

I know it's probably a bad thing making up policy like this, but as
I'm sure you'll agree, John, it's better to have some policy rather
than none at all, as you had been complaining. Since I unilaterally
made up this guideline, I welcome input from the mailing list and
other administrators to help shape it into a practical policy that is
acceptable to everyone.

~Mark Ryan