[WikiEN-l] Again I am blocked

Mon Apr 28 00:01:00 UTC 2003

In a message dated 4/27/2003 6:30:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
zoecomnena at yahoo.com writes:

> Not a problem.  I have no interest in performing
> anything other than the minimal creation of brand new
> articles.  Henceforth I will be blocking no one,
> reverting no vandals, editing nobody else's articles.
> 
> There.  All of the people I have ever blocked are now
> unblocked

Since this was in response to my email, I think I should respond. 

Zoe, in no way was my email meant as an attack against you. Rather, it was 
pointing out a fundamental problem with blocking users. I am not against 
blocking users. Michael should be blocked. Ark (remember him?) should have 
been blocked. The problem I have is that occasionally the blocking affects 
other users as well. On two occasions, it has affected me: when Isis blocked 
someone, and when you blocked Michael. As I understood your answer, I would 
have to wait till Michael was unblocked. To me that is not a solution. 
Imagine yourself in a similar situation--being blocked because your happen to 
share an IP address with Lir. 

Of course, I am not blaming you for the problem. I am simply bringing to the 
attention of the list that this problem exists and should be addressed. By 
all means block vandals, but let's try to find a better way to do it, so that 
other users are not blocked too. LittleDan has made a suggestion on how that 
can be done. I am too computer illiterate to understand the ramifications, 
but it seems that there are alternative ways. I hope we can explore them. 

I've been at Wikipedia for a relatively long time--long enough to remember 
many of the characters that have done their damage here. On a more positive 
note, I've even been here long enough to remember new users, including you, 
testing the waters, so to speak, and turning into some of our top 
contributors. In the time I've been here, I've contributed quite a few 
articles myself and I even did all the president tables. I hope to continue 
contributing for a long while to come. If I am blocked, however, I will not 
be able to do so. Maybe that is a major part of the part of the damage that 
vandals do--having other contributors with something to add tossed off the 
project for computer-related problems. 

If my posting to this mailing list offended you, I apologize. It was 
certainly not meant in that way. All I wanted was to find an alternative way 
of blocking vandals, so that real contributors, such as me, are not forced 
out. 

Danny

Wikikarma: [[ney]]
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