[Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian

Wed Oct 20 02:47:14 UTC 2010

________________________________
From: Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, October 19, 2010 12:35:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> If it pleases the moderators, might we know on what basis Greg was
> banned and Peter indefinitely muzzled?

Greg Kohs was banned for the same reason that he's been on moderation
for the better part of the past year—namely, that he was completely
unable to keep his contributions civil, and caused more flamewars than
constructive discussion.

Peter Damian is only on moderation, and we'll follow our usual policy
of letting through anything that could be considered even marginally
acceptable.  We really are very liberal about this—otherwise you
wouldn't have heard from Mr. Kohs at all in the past six months.

I'm sure that my saying this won't convince anyone who's currently
defending him, but nothing about the decision to ban Greg Kohs was
retaliatory.  I'll also (not for the first time) remind everyone that
neither the Wikimedia Foundation Board, nor its staff, nor any chapter
or other organizational body has any say in the administration of this
list.

I hope that clears up all of the questions asked in this thread so far.

It is not about defending anyone but about the fact that the "I know bannable 
when I see it"  theory of moderation is unconstructive and leads to dramafests.  
The next ban is the one that will likely cause a real flame war.  

I suspect *more* people would be on moderation if any sort of objective criteria 
were being used.  The lack of explanation over this bothers me so much because I 
suspect that you *can't* explain it.  It seems to be the sort of gut-shot that 
hasn't been thought through.  Moderate more people based on real criteria, 
rather than how you feel about them.

Birgitte SB