[WikiEN-l] Re: Exercises in social engineering

Thu Sep 1 20:54:36 UTC 2005

> While personally I'm quick to recognize the attempted humor and shake off
> almost all alleged threats, I'd like to point out that threats far vaguer
> than this resulted in the permanent block of another user recently that
> was also thoroughly discussed on this mailing list.
>
> Call me a killjoy if you must, but this is simply inappropriate.

I agree with you, Michael. Death threats, even when they are meant as
jokes, are in poor taste and not appropriate for Wikipedia. I'm not saying
the person making the above comment should be banned, of course. (In fact
I suspect that Michael and I would be among the first people to protest
such an idea.) But it's probably a good idea to take care that jokes can
not be misread. The person making completely inappropriate comments on
Jimbo's family may well have considered himself to be "making a joke" (I
don't know enough of the specifics of that case to be sure).

Here's another example that I came across recently. The following is a
post containing a short list of people the poster considers to be
acting in bad faith and to have a revolting agenda (i.e. trolling?):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy&diff=21951866&oldid=21945176

And here is a message by the same poster, made the same morning,
expressing the idea that an [[AK-74]] assault rifle with the safety off is
a useful tool to deal with trolls:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SlimVirgin&diff=21944327&oldid=21943812

If one were so inclined one could take those posts together (or the second
one alone) to constitute a death threat. I am not so inclined. Like
Michael I attempt to be "quick to recognize the attempted humor". The
AK-74 post is no doubt meant as an innocent way to compliment Sarah for
her valor in resisting vandals and trolls. I would, however, have
preferred another metaphor.

Regards,
Haukur