[Wikipedia-l] Re: Ban warning to GrahamN

Sat Sep 7 02:30:11 UTC 2002

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|From: Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at ualberta.ca>
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|Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2002 20:12:25 -0600
|
|At 05:42 PM 06/09/02 -0400, The Cunctator wrote:
|>On Fri, 2002-09-06 at 17:35, Bryan Derksen wrote:
|>
|> > Banning someone for being disruptive is not necessarily the top of a
|> > "slippery slope" towards censorship, as long as we're careful about doing
|> > it and keep a watchful eye on ourselves. On the other hand, letting
|> > disruptive yahoos get away with everything will eventually mean that only
|> > the disruptive yahoos stick around.
|>
|>This would be a valid argument if the only way to prevent
|>"disruptive yahoos" from "get[ting] away with everything" is to ban
|>them.
|
|Odd bit of logic there, not sure if I can untangle it. Of course banning 
|people isn't the _only_ way to stop disruptive people from disrupting, 
|there are other gentler strategies to try beforehand. But what I'm 
|objecting to is a reluctance to use banning _after_ those other strategies 
|have failed, which means that disruptive people who are immune to those 
|other strategies (the merciless editing and ignoring you mention below) 
|_do_ "get away with everything" because there's nothing else we can do to 
|stop them.
|
|>But it isn't. Rather, merciless editing and ignoring personality has
|>worked every time so far.
|
|It's also resulted in the loss of a number of excellent contributors. I 
|believe that relying on merciless editing and ignoring doesn't work _well_, 
|and that being more willing to ban disruptive people will result in a 
|higher quality of Wikipedia overall.
|
|Maybe we should try it and see.
|

Why isn't freezing the topic and the talk page worth discussing?
Banning is personal.  Freezing the discussion for a day, week, or
month is impersonal.  

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan 88