[WikiEN-l] Abusive editors

Wed Mar 9 15:33:21 UTC 2005

Ed, I am sure you know there is a blocking policy at
[[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]]. Like most Wikipedia policies, it is
weasely, but even so I think you would have to read between the lines
to find the right for administrators to block people for personal
attacks without a community consensus.

 Administrators are supposed to be there for doing custodial tasks
that require somewhat sensitive privileges that can only be given to
people after they have established their trustworthiness.     They are
supposed to be janitors. They are not cops, and they are certainly not
cops and judges rolled into one, even though blocking people for
violation of the 3RR and for vandalism blurs this somewhat.     For
policy enforcement and disciplinary sanctions, there is the RfC/RfAr
process.  Administrators generally should take their fingers off the
banning button, except in the case of obvious vandalism.  Let the
RfC/RfAr mechanism do what it is supposed to do.   That is the
mechanism by which the community expresses its consensus about the
behaviour of members and administrators should think long and hard
before the short-circuit it.

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language).
> 
> But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that:
> * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who
> make personal attacks.
> So once again I hereby "place myself on report".
> I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block
> signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the
> rules - such as:
> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock
> Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the
> 415 admins will reverse the block.
> Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens.
> Uncle Ed
> 
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