I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk

Wed Mar 16 21:09:04 UTC 2005

> 
> Andrew Lih said:
> > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it
> >> get another consensus
> >
> > Text that was voted on says:
> > "If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to
> > 24 hours."
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement
> >
> > The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or
> > guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is
> > also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins.

Tony Sidaway said:

> I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less*
> drastic than blocking a user.  If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit
> it.  If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to
> a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be
> holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good
> thing.

No, a block is much different from protection, assuming that the admin protecting is cognizant of the rules--blocks as short as possible, and except in the case of a really steaming revert war, should be applied if one of the active editors on the topic asks. The protecting admin should stand ready to discuss and mediate if need be.

3RR is simply being used too freely and selectively and in a very lazy fashion. As I pointed out elsewhere, it stacks the deck toward editors who may have taken an ownership interest in an article, and provides no means of determining whether this is the case or not.

Blocking has tradititionally been considered a severe punishment on Wikiepedia. Protection of appropriate length, at worst, forces the participants into dialog and also gives the protecting admin an opportunity to examine the issue. The 3RR is a punishment and an insult to the non-vandal user. It is does not engage him/her in any but an accusatory way, and it drives away people who often contribute valuable material to Wikipedia.  --C
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