[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re : banning (Tim)

Fri Oct 24 01:17:56 UTC 2003

Anthere wrote:
> I thank you for this Tim :-)
> I do not question the utility of the loggued in ban
> option to fight worst cases of vandals. Thank you for
> doing it and saving people time.
> 
> I note what Jimbo said. I think, just to take a bit of
> perspective, it is interesting to read it again, with
> awareness of the recent cases discussed.
> 
> 
>>I think we need to revisit having the ability for
 >>sysops to ban logged in users.  Maybe the wiki way
 >>of doing this is to put the ability intothe software,
 >>but all sysops must agree to use it *only* to ban
 >>*certain* variants on a known banned troll.
>>
>>In the current case, it seems clear to me that
>>banning Zog, Anti-Zog, Baboon Mouth, JamesERay, 
 >>and so on, should be done virtuallyinstantly,
 >>so as to discourage the behavior.
> 
> 
> *only* to ban *certain* variants on a known banned
> troll.

And that was basically my policy statement on [[Wikipedia:Bans and 
blocks]]. So you can see why I'm pessimistic about the power of 
statements of policy, unless they're backed up by threat of punishment 
or technical measures.

>>This has to be an emergency situation to ban someone
>>who is doing something really egregious right now, or
>>to ban someone who you are *certain* is one of our
>>usual suspects.
> 
> 
> Emergency.
> Usual suspects.
> 
> Egregious is unfortunaly not in my dictionnary, but I
> can guess.

Out of the ordinary or exceptional. Apparently once upon a time it used 
to be used positively but now it means "very bad".

http://www.bennetyee.org//http_webster.cgi?isindex=egregious

-- Tim Starling.