[WikiEN-l] Danger to the community

Wed Oct 15 18:00:26 UTC 2003

The Mediator role account is a danger to the community

I worry intensely about how this "role account" got started, and where
it's heading. Although the concept of mediation sounds very nice, please
note that the person who conceived of it was banned for extremely
anti-social on-line behavior: User:EntmootOfTrolls (or "EofT"). This
user scares me more than any other user; I came close to putting an
emergency 'block' on his account when he seemed to be physically
threatening user:RK (the 'sharia law' remark sounded like a real threat,
not at all akin to Rampton's obvious jest). 

It is this contradiction between the "nice" sound of the concept and the
"nasty" character of its proponent that worries me so much. Given that
EofT has caused so much heartache and fear in the past, I worry that
this scheme could be some sort of trick to cause similar trouble in the
future. I'm especially suspicious of the aspect of anonymity; at a
minimum, I'd want the developers to keep an IP log of who's using the
account at any time; but I worry that this won't be enough. I would feel
somewhat better if I myself knew who the 'Mediator' was at all times,
but that raises other issues and does not settle all my current
concerns. 

Why can't people who want to mediate, simply do so under their own
names? Or just create a dummy account and mediate under that (each with
his own dummy account)? I worry that there's some trickery or treachery
brewing: EofT is very smart, and he scares me. I don't like or trust
what's happening now.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed