[WikiEN-l] Anonymouse's Response to Phil

Tue May 31 20:59:16 UTC 2005

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>Message: 2
>Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 06:30:01 +0100
>From: "A Nony Mouse" <tempforcomments at hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on
>To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>Message-ID: <BAY18-F21419B701F9DFC9A665781B8040 at phx.gbl>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>Whether he is "barely" deserving of a fair treatment or otherwise, nobody
>here has given him a fair treatment by any stretch of the imagination.

>That won't do.

I wouldn't know. I'm not acquainted with the banned user.

>I also have Phil's "circle the wagons" rant up above. He thinks expansion
>kills online communities. I think he's right.

>Expansion kills online communities because of people like Phil who won't
>admit that they need to let go and they need to deal with the new people
>coming in fairly. People like Phil who think that "shoot them all unless
>they are exactly like us and make no noise whatsoever" is the way to go
>about dealing with newbies.

Heck, expansion kills other communities, too, when people happen to be
bigots about either the newcomers or the old-timers. Phil, not all
newcomers are like you. Some newcomers like to have fun, but they aren't
necessarily out to be trolls. Anony,  people like Phil are all over the
place, not just on Wikipedia. There are probably numerous open-minded
chaps on Wikipedia nonetheless. (Phil, if you want to be viewed as
open-minded, well, open up your mind, I guess unless, of course, you ARE
open-minded, in which case, try not to rush to conclusions on every Newbie
that comes within your reach.

>Now you know why I went anonymous. If I didn't Phil would be leading a
>charge to have me removed right now for saying that.

If Phil did that, that would be unnecessary and POV censorship.

>David and SlimVirgin's behaviour in this matter has been sub-par. So has
the
>behaviour of the rest of you on this list.

Anony: What behavior? I didn't act before because I was busy and because I
didn't know very much about the issue. Therefore, I shouldn't be accused
of sub-par behavior, for I hadn't performed ANY behavior at the time of
your letter. No doubt there are others. Here's a case of POV on
Anonymous's part.

>This doesn't just affect that one
>user. It affects everyone they tell about Wikipedia. It affects everyone
who
>agreed with them on one topic or another at Wikipedia. I've only looked
at
>the Enviroknot profile for any length of time but based on its list of
>contributions there was potential for a good editor. Solid edits were
made
>and backed up on talk pages, edit summaries and wikipedia policies were
>properly referenced.

If that's the case, then Enviroknot shouldn't have been banned right away;
he should've been WARNED beforehand, at least once or twice, or given a
time-out period.

>The only offense I can see in the Enviroknot profile is a pair of 3RR
>violations. The one SlimVirgin put in tonight is totally unjustified. The
>one earlier when people were claiming Enviroknot was also another IP
address
>is pushing your luck.

I wouldn't know about those offenses. Don't ask me - I'm no admin.

>Meanwhile, editors and administrators alike have been hounding that
profile
>looking for any excuse to attack it. None of you bothered to set aside
your
>feelings long enough to look at the situation.

If that is true, then it's stupid.

>That isn't right. The behaviour of all of you in this scenario is making
me
>sick to my stomach. I thought you were better than this. If that's really
>Phil's attitude, then there's no way he should be given power at
Wikipedia.
>If the rest of you share that attitude, then Wikipedia is doomed.

>A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.

WIKIPEDIA IS NOT DOOMED, OK? I fail to see how being a bit trigger-happy
necessarily dooms Wikipedia, although I recognize it as being somewhat bad
policy if it can be avoided.