This is long, it's about a long discussion, one that is surprising to me, there is so much clarity, some from unexpected quarters.

Administrator's Noticeboard

Well, it's come up. I see the disingenous arguments of Kww.Notice the non-sequitur, a classic rhetorical technique: you make a series of reasonable statements, then slip in your unreasonable conclusion at the end. Why is "revision deletion" the "next logical step?" The first steps are justified by not only WP:IAR, but also by policy and guidelines in general. "Banned users are banned users" is a tautology, but the tautology is being used to imply something that is actually not stated, because it would not hold up under scrutiny, the idea that if they are banned, we must stop at nothing to prevent them from editing, and to prevent their edits from even being in history.

The policy page on revision deletion is quite explicit that revision deletion is only to be used to remove grossly offensive (or dangerous) material, and that the community accepted RevDel on assurances that it would only be used for that.

Kww refers to Wikipedia Review, the discussions here. He specifically refers to my work, and claims that Revision deletion is the only way to defeat the off-wiki link. But -- what's the harm of the off-wiki link? That someone will look at the edit and decide its worth reverting back in? Doesn't the harm of that depend on the edit? What's wrong with a banned editor making respectful suggestions? Or even non-respectful ones?

Look, I've long sent article suggestions, while banned from a topic, to consenting editors. Sometimes they accept them, sometimes not. The only difference here, with what I've been doing, is that it is open and transparent. So the problem is?

The problem is that Kww believes that "a ban is a ban," and he dares to mention WP:IAR as if it justifies him. The opposite. He is enforcing an imaginary rule to damage the project. There is no rule, for example, that the edits of banned editors must be reverted, let alone revision-deleted. There is no rule against someone restoring them, if the person takes responsibility for them. This admin does not understand basic wiki principles, nor the foundations of Wikipedia policy and guidelines. And it's obvious.

Jayron32 is either hoodwinked, or part of the 'hood.
What I've been doing, for the most part, is logging my actions, particularly with respect to the self-reversions. Jayron32 is mixing up two cases, just like Kww would like him to, i suspect. He's mixing up a banned editor revert warring, and using the existence of the revision in history to make it easier, with off-wiki links to the edits, something that isn't so often done. By the way, "off-wiki" is still in the WMF family, it's on Wikiversity, and if those links are harmful, I could be dinged for it. (And, of course, I could move it all elsewhere if necessary. On Wikiversity, I'm bound by neutrality policy.)

If the edits are revision-deleted, and as soon as a banned editor sees this, the banned editor keeps copies of the wikitext, and it's almost as fast for him, but it dramatically decreases the transparency. If the edits are disruptive, we would normally want them to be visible in history! It keeps the community focused on why the editor is banned!

In other words, these idiots have the depth of a ... a ... damn! Can't think of something appropriate. Anything I think of has more depth.

Ah! Enric Naval commented. Too bad, Enric. You've revealed your position, too bad. (long story, folks, but Enric Naval presented the deceptive evidence that ArbComm swallowed, obviously without careful review, because it was highly deceptive, that resulted in my topic ban in the first place. But he's often been, apparently, cooperative. He shows up here for a reason. He's trying to prevent self-reversion, because he knows that it could shift the balance against his POV. Damn!

But, now, some nice surprises. Apologizing for writing a screed almost as long as one of mine, we have A Stop at Willoughby very well expressing what I'd say there, and I didn't have to write anything, and I don't know who this editor is. And then Risker (Risker!) chimes in with "A Stop at Willoughby is entirely correct in the interpretation of the policy."

Jayron32 proceeds to further reveal his position. He thinks my purpose is to evade the ban. No, my purpose is to smoke him and those like him out, and establish sensible policy about bans and perhaps about self-reversion. It's working, they cannot resist the lure. I didn't expect revision deletion, it went beyond what I thought might happen (range blocks; so far, in fact, the range block response has been relatively mild).

Risker: "Time to stop this cycle, and part of it is not using revision deletion unless it is an edit that would otherwise meet the narrow deletion criteria. Just because sockmasters may game the system doesn't mean we have to play the MMORPG too."

Rd232 refused to allow others to change the topic. The topic certainly wasn't routine reversion of edits of banned users, that is allowed, and content is not an issue; in fact, my position on Wikiversity has been that it's better to routinely revert these "per ban" than any of them as "disruption from banned editor" because it's a content-neutral position, it doesn't prejudice future editing. When I see "per ban" I'll look at the edit and judge it on the content, when I see an admin call the edit "disruptive," I might be intimidated. Well, not me, but others might! That's not the kind of decision that admins should be making, if they can avoid it. "Per ban" is quite enough to justify the reversion, it's not necessary to countersink the nail and attack the banned editor's content.

Unless it is, in which case, RevDel can become appropriate.

And Count Iblis chimes in!!! Applause! (and CI was not exactly my wiki-friend, though there were certainly worse.)
But Enric Naval argues:He really doesn't get it, I'm afraid. This is about rules being paramount, it's the opposite of IAR. And an unenforceable rule, or, in this case, a rule where the enforcement causes more damage than it prevents, is a Bad Idea. Enric has never been an admin. I have. I know both sides of this. Bans are, Enric, to prevent editors from disrupting Wikipedia, the theory is that the community -- or ArbComm -- or sometimes just a single administrator, even one highly biased -- have decided that an editor's contributions are too damaging to be worth the effort of reviewing them. Hence the semi-automatic reversion, hence the blocks. But if the edit is in history only, the balance flips, mostly. History gets a little more complicated, but.... revision deletion vastly complicates the history and demolishes the trust that the general community has for the administrative community, especially when the former finds out that the latter is revision-deleting edits with no justification other than punishment. The deletions punish them, by preventing them from seeing what was deleted.

Kww wrote:
Of course. I confronted the problem in 2009, that's how self-reversion was invented. ScienceApologist was making "harmless edits," but they complicated ban enforcement. The community was actually, majority, I'd say, in favor of ignoring harmless ban violations. Notice "ban evasion." SA was not blocked, it was a topic ban. So the question was whether or not to sanction ban evasion, not block evasion. But a block is really just a site ban, partly enforced by software. Kww is correct, it's a problem, it is not innocuous. Except if the editor self-identifies, it's less of a problem, and if the editor self-reverts, and unless the edits are "grossly inappropriate," requiring RevDel, there is no problem, unless we believe that an editor's POV is to be entirely excluded from the project, which, of course, raises a Huge Neutrality Problem.

My point.

Ah, this was rich:
Enric Naval has always believed that I was attempting to promote a POV. No, I was, from the very beginning, attempting to strengthen Wikipedia neutrality, against a faction of editors pushing a particular POV that is easily considered -- incorrectly -- to be the "mainstream scientific opinion." I was arguing for balance according to the ArbComm Fringe Science decision, which Enric Naval had argued against. My purpose here is, indeed, strengthened and emboldened by the extreme enforcement response. Enric is thinking only of his highly defective model of how I think. I gave up on content re cold fusion, on Wikipedia, long ago, it was too cumbersome and difficult to struggle against that faction, and I certainly don't need a Wikipedia article to be anything. I'm editing real scientific papers now, sometimes, and will be writing some myself. Wikipedia can't hold a candle to this. But I want to finish the job I started, which was, from the beginning, about process, not about content, per se.

"In order to trick people into letting his edits stand?" He seems to have forgotten that self-reverted edits were RevDel'd. He's also forgotten that he reverted my edits back in, several times, because ... he saw the value of the contribution. If nobody looks at the edits, they stand, all right. They stand as reverted. He's crazy.

Enric also may not have noticed that I have not asked to be unbanned, since starting the program of self-reversion. I don't need to be unbanned, that was part of my point. I'm in communication with ArbComm and I was explicit that I'm not asking for unban, because, I know, that would be too difficult a decision, it would require raking up the past. I am, in fact, suggesting that consideration be given to the principle that self-reverted edits don't violate bans, on principle, which is worthy of consideration. It's not proposed as a rigid rule, and it has nothing to do with my particular case, this was proposed well before it had anything to do with me, and it's worked with others. Yes, it can result in re-integration, if. I doubt I'd even try. It's not my purpose, which has always been about enabling others to be more effective in improving the project. (And improving the community as to how it treats editors, which is awful, and that includes those that, today, think they are in charge. The community will, for many of them, and soon enough, chew them up and spit them out, the way things stand.

If Kww does stick with what seems to be his determination to use RevDel, I just might draw him into making swiss cheese of some important pages. It might be more difficult than I'd care to do, the basic problem that what I'm doing requires that all the edits be reasonably constructive. I rather doubt, though, that the community will let him do this. He's arguing against an arbitrator, and not the most radical of the arbitrators. I'll be fascinated to see what Iridescent has to say, if she volunteers her considerable gravitas.

T. Canens chimes in, connecting GRAWP to the discussion. I.e., a situation where RevDel may be appropriate -- maybe -- is conflated with ones where there isn't just a cause. GRAWP's edits can fall under existing RevDel policy, but Kww and T. Canens are taking it way beyond what policy allows, into what my reading of policy, at least, forbids.

DGG chimes in pointing out that this may go to ArbComm if Kww continues to defy policy. Thanks, DGG!

Rd232 then proposes revision to RevDel policy. The proposed change would allow Kww do Do What He Pleases. This should be fun.

For the moment, Kww has promised not to use RevDel as he has.

I commented.

Timotheus Canens reverted, edit summary: m (→RFC: m)

Lovely.

He's really trying to deny me "attention," since he imagines that's my goal. Not exactly. It's not to gain attention to me, but to bring attention to him and those like him. It's jujitsu.

When an admin gets personally involved in trying to enforce a block, they miss the point of RBI.

Was there a point to that lengthy wall of text? It looked like a half-baked doctoral thesis or dissertation.

Evidently you haven't gotten "it" either. You keep expecting them to follow "the rules", and they won't.

There's nothing and nobody forcing them to adhere to the rules, because Wikipedia is a sick subculture.
You keep expecting them to be "reasonable". It won't happen.

Eric, what makes you think I expect them to follow the rules? Where have I expected them to be "reasonable"?

They are human beings, which means that they are somewhat predictable and somewhat not. I was surprised by RevDel because it was so blatantly against policy. Come to find out, the admins involved have been using RevDel for some time, and it was beginning to grate. I think I popped the boil, perhaps. We'll see.

Right now it's looking like the RfC will come down that to use RevDel just because an editor is banned will take a special finding that the edits are, in themselves, disruptive, and not merely that they are block or ban-evading. That's a step toward what I'm looking to facilitate, a big one, given that they were using RevDel.

Self-reversion, my goal (i.e, that self-identified self-reversion would, by explicit guideline, set aside only for clear reason, immunize a banned editor from further sanction for edits under ban), would, of course, be defeated in purpose by revision deletion, and I was gratified to see that precise argument being made, i.e., that it's considered fine for editors to bring back in edits by banned editors, if they take personal responsibility for them, but RevDel makes it impossible for the editors to review the edits to even consider that.

The opposing camp is A Ban is A Ban, which is new-school, in fact, What I said, The Rules are Paramount.

Kww was invoking IAR to allow him to use RevDel to hide my edits. Ah, the irony! IAR is about ignoring rules if necessary to improve content. That's what I've been doing, and is the opposite of what he's been doing. In the name of enforcing My Will, he's setting aside Wikipedia Rule Number One.

I love it. Admin admits that he ignored a policy. Now, what value justified that, exactly? He might get asked by ArbComm if he tries it again.

Or not. That's the Wikipedia Problem, it's not reliable. But it could be fixed, in fact. Won't be me to do it, except maybe for a little piece here and there. Like Self-reversion, which could become obsolete with better software.



No, there is no point. It's a discussion of a discussion. Read it if it interests you, don't if it doesn't.

Doctoral thesis, eh? Thanks for the complement, apparently all I need to do is to bake it some more. At what temperature?

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm beginning to think that what Abd is doing here could potentially be boiled down in such a way as to make for an interesting, consumable Examiner article for the popular audience. It really does showcase how idiotic most of the "Wikipedia community" is.

Short version: Abd is a banned user adding good content to Wikipedia articles. Kww is an admin who is not only removing that good content but using a tool to hide all traces of that good content. Although this would seem to be contrary to normal practice, Kww is using a loophole in the rules which is intended to cut unnecessary bureaucracy in the aid of improving content. Removing and hiding good content is not improving content.

It would seem that some contingent of WP is more interested in "good editors" than in "good content". I find the definitions for both to be very, uh, flexible, depending on who you ask and where they stand on the ethical/political/ethnic/sexual/etc issue in play.

Well, I'd disagree, in a way. It's not "most of the Wikipedia community," but rather a certain crust in the administrative core (with certain allied non-admins). The wiki problem in general is that wikis are vulnerable to corruption by active factions, who believe that their own views are "consensus," and they see plenty of confirmation of this. From their friends.

Then, when broader attention reverses their decisions, they believe that the wiki is being corrupted by those who don't understand.

My purpose in this escapade has been to demonstrate the effects of self-reversion, because while other kinds of ban enforcement are also often excessive, it issue is normally complicated by some level of reasonable debate over the possible harm of the contributions. Self-reversion teases that out, because self-reversion makes ban enforcement easier, not more difficult. Self-reversion also leads to cooperation, for if it does not, the self-reverting editor will give it up and either go away, or start to sock. If self-reversion is respected, and considered to not violate bans, then the editor is encouraged to continue to try to cooperate and to suggest good content.

I proposed this years ago, and it was originally considered a reasonable suggestion, but the opinion turned the other way when I used it. That response was almost purely political, and the admin who blocked me for my only self-reverted edit, back then, later lost his tools over his use of them while involved.

I do intend to write a study, based on the data collected in this sequence. The last two days have brought a pile of juicy pieces of evidence, too much for me to even record, I'll need to go back and put it together.

The whole RevDel discussion has led to an excellent policy proposal, by FT2, approved by Rd232, which would be exactly what I'd write. I think that my activity led to this, even though most of the discussion turned to other examples of RevDel usage by Kww.

(By this proposal, the usage by Kww and Timotheous Canens of RevDel, for my edits, would have been clearly prohibited for a number of reasons, among them being that I'm not site-banned, and the single edit to Talk:Cold fusion that Kww RevDel'd would not have been a candidate for RevDel, even though I am under a topic ban.)

I'm User:Abd, and I approve of this summary.

Thanks. Kww (and Timotheus Canens) apparently believe that banning editors, punishing them, doing anything and everything to Keep Them Out, is a paramount goal. They have completely lost IAR, they cited IAR as justification for violating RevDel policy, forgetting that WP:IAR suggests ignoring rules that prevent the improvement of content, not ignoring rules that prevent an admin from Winning a game of Whack-a-Mole.

Consider this: suppose that Scibaby had known about self-reversion, and had used it when blocked, identifying himself and self-reverting "per block." Would his more than 500 socks have been created? Would vast swaths of the internet have been range-blocked by Raul654, to stop him? Let's say that, if so, Wikipedia might have been rid of Raul654 much sooner! (He's still there, but not so active.)

Or suppose that he hadn't been blocked, but a bot had been set, based on a topic ban discussion, that reverted his edits within a certain category, allowing any editor to review them and bring them back -- or comment on them. Again, would that vast sock farm have been necessary for him? (Scibaby was never banned, to my knowledge, by a ban discussion, he was a block evader, evading blocks by the Climate Change clique, particularly Raul654. Raul654 created the puppet master and pushed him into his behavior.)

Okay, Okay!!

Milton raises his hand!!!

Something that arbcom might do in difficult cases of problematic editors, but ones who are NOT those kind of clear vandals who delete pages and write "POOPY". Here it is: put them under some kind of a "topic ban."

And in this case, the topic ban could be a "bad content" ban. These bad editors would be banned from adding anything but GOOD content, and from deleting any good content, also. It would a horrible restriction and many of them would just leave. But a few could live with it.

"Kohser, you are hereby restricted from adding anything to WP except good content, for one year."

Kohs: NOOOOOOS!!!

"Abd, the same goes for you. And, you must be succinct."

Abd: "DOUBLE NOOOOS!" "Detailed letter follows!!!"

More than you might think. This is the effect that Self-reversion has. Basically, if you add garbage, that it's reverted back in will be rare. Unless you revert it back in with a sock. Which would be like waving a big flag that says Kick Me![u] Checkuser me! Any new user is likely to be suspected of being a sock, and checkusered, there was already a case here where the editor to revert back in a very positive contribution of mine -- fixing an RfAr/A archiving error -- was very likely promptly checkusered and blocked, not because of the reversion (I thought it might be at first) but because of other sock edits, he apparently used three new accounts in succession.

Self-reversion sets up conditions which highly encourage good edits, and which cause bad edits to be wasted time for the banned editor. "Good" is not an absolute standard, it means "what will be accepted by other editors." In other words, it means "cooperative edits, inspiring cooperation in return."
Funny you should mention Thekohser. It wasn't a year, by any means, it was about eleven days, during which period the self-reverted edits were tolerated. They were taking place, to be sure, under administrative supervision (mine). And when an another admin finally said "this experiment is over, and blocked the IP, there was then a basis for asking for the block/ban to be lifted. It was asked, and the community, after some time, came up with 3:1 for unblocking, which took, for Thekohser, 'crat action, since his account was globally locked. That would never have happened, my opinion, without the evidentiary basis from self-reversion, proving that Thekohser could, indeed, create good content and cooperate with a ban without being uncivil.

If self-reversion were allowed, the suggested "restriction" would be naturally incentivized, and if the editor makes mistakes, but self-reverts them, the harm is? Only if the "mistakes" are egregious, would that be a problem. I can say from experience, self-reversion works, there is now significant evidence for that.

The way that it doesn't work is only where the community ignores self-reversion, and treats self-reverted, self-identified edits as if they had not been self-reverted and self-identified, i.e., by definition, more disruptive than the reality. It's offering a quid pro quo, if a community adopts a policy tolerating self-reverted edits, as long as they don't require revision deletion. But it seems that some -- many? -- admins prefer to treat banned editors as Bad People, Keep Them Out of Here. Go Away! A Ban is a Ban! Can't You Understand That?

Sure I can understand that. But .... I could send material to any editor, asking that the editor put it in. Self-reversion simply does the same thing, openly and far more efficiently. I could also sock, and do it myself, and to identify me and stop this, the community would have to waste far, far more time. Self-reversion actually turns block or ban enforcement into positive edits, as soon as admins drop the "Stop It At All Costs" mindset. If you are looking for edits by a banned editor, and you see a harmless spelling correction, self-reverted, what do you do? I know what I'd do, and, in fact, I did exactly that with a ban enforcement reversion of a banned editor, that's how I came to think of self-reversion.
No, Milton, you should take a look at what happened, see the log. They banned me for not being succinct (at meta! with a blacklist removal request that would have been denied if I hadn't added a lot more explanation), but self-reversion requires that the edit be actually reviewed. If it's too long, it won't be reviewed. Natural consequences. Only those motivated to read the edits of a banned editor who self-reverts need read them. They might read them to look for Bad Stuff, to ask for revision deletion, or they might read them because they think there might be something good there, but it's clearly voluntary, because the primary problem has been avoided by self-reversion and self-identification. My edits were succinct, all of them. So if you think I'd react in horror, well, you can continue to think that, but the evidence is contrary to it.

I was previously explaining stuff. I stopped with the block, and that's one reason why it was much easier for me. What an effing relief!

To put not too fine a point on it, I was trying to explain stuff to idiots, who didn't care. (Or to sensible people who didn't have the time or inclination to read it.) Some of these people, presented with a sourced edit, would evaluate it. And some did. Other edits were ignored, some by nature would be likely to be ignored, and developing that evidence was part of the trial.

So far, none of the edits have been shown to be actually disruptive, except for "evasion." I think that there was a RevDel that asserted "purely disruptive," but that edit has been documented, I think above, or on my log page if not. Basically, the admin lied to support his action. It was a helpful edit, intended to prevent collateral damage from the enforcement actions. And the admin actually did change the edit filter as a result, I think. I'd have to check the timing again, but, regardless, the intention was to help!

Actually, that's pretty much what I've been doing for the past year. So, instead of "NOOOOOOS!!!", it's more like "KA-CHINGGGG!!!"

Now, if you really wanted to make me cry, it would be more like:

"Kohser, you are hereby restricted from adding anything to WP except voluntarily-written, non-paid good content, for one year."

Right. You will ignore what serves your purposes and they cannot actually control. Basic rule of life: do not demand what you cannot control. If you do that, you make yourself a victim when the other person doesn't comply.

For your purposes, you must create good content, or your clients will end up cheated, when the avalanche comes that you, yourself, cannot control, you can only build a solid foundation with verifiable, reliable sources and well-crafted text.

If you use abusive techniques, like revert warring sock puppets, it will bring down the very attention that would prove fatal to your efforts, because good articles can easily be deleted if the idiots decide to pile in. Or, even worse, the article could turn into a hit piece against your client.

My guess is that you will advise your clients against puffery in their articles, peacock language, all that. Assuming that you aren't cheating them, but actually serving them, which is, in fact, what I assume.

Tell me, what's worse: work coming out of being paid, or work coming out of having a fixed POV?

Because there are a whole lot of "established editors," and administrators, who do the latter.

Wikipedia went down a Really Stupid road in attempting to prohibit paid editing, rather, it would have been far better to regulate it, to make sure that paid-for articles were well-reviewed by a fair process.

To do that, though, of course, they'd first have to have established fair process.

A couple thousand more degrees and it might actually start to make sense.



No one cares about the damn Examiner. It's generally a low-quality "news" source.

No one? That's weird, then, how my Examiner articles since last June have received over 27,000 page views.

Other Examiners may be generating low-quality "news", but my articles are an exception to that, if I may say so. Also, my page-view traffic is about 3.5 times greater than the mean of the national Examiners' article corpus.

Just curious, "melloden", do you produce anything of note that you can point to?

Plus, there's the payoff of knowing that statements like this give Jimbo and his Frei Kultur Kinder conniptions.

Some people can only understand dead things.
Spoken by a true Wikipedian, hiding behind his anonymity.

Anonymous Wikipedia editors are a low-quality source for anything except trash talk and occasional plagiarism of real information.

Well, maybe you know something I don't. I very much doubt that Jimbo loses any sleep over this. Why should he? It serves his purposes of attracting as much free content as Wikipedia can grab, and this particular content should be fine. What, exactly, is the problem?

Jimbo came down on vociferous critics of Wikipedia and of Wikipedia editors and himself, perhaps, as far as what I've seen. Big surprise. He also got his fingers burnt doing it. He's still alive, i.e., my guess, he still learns, which is good news for his coming child. I wish them many happy years.

Paid editing would be a minor concern, possibly an excuse for attacking a certain critic, but has to be low on his priorities, in reality.

Jimbo is not the cause of Wikipedia's problems, he has merely not been the solution.

The AN Revision Delete discussion, archived.

The RfC on RevDel policy.

My comment to the RfC, self-reverted
(Permanent link to the RfC section)

On February 19, the Guardian said:



If the mother was late in her pregnancy in mid-February and it's now mid-May, how do you figure the child is described as "coming" yet?

We haven't heard a peep from anyone about the identity of the child, so either something horrible happened to it, or either Jimbo or Kate or both are hell-bent on keeping this one a big secret from the general public. We should set up a betting pool on the date we predict Jimbo splashes the child, a la Blanket Jackson over the Berlin hotel balcony railing, into the limelight.

Easily. I remember what I last read, and didn't remember the dates.
I was a midwife, Greg, and I simply hope that the child was delivered safely, and is doing well, and it's basically, beyond good wishes, none of our business.

Meanwhile, for you, I wish a profitable career parleying your knowledge and skill as a Wikipedia editor into fabulous wealth, or at least comfortable compensation for you and whoever works with you.

Oh, no you are wrong. Since Jimbo is a public figure, the details of his babymaking, wherever verifiable from reliable public sources, are indeed our business, and these details need to go at the top of the most widely read website in the world, whenever you search on "Jimbo Wales" with Google. This includes photos that paparazzi take of Jimbo and family whenever he shows his face in public in any way. Go outside, and baby photos should be on the web immediately. With Twitter. And thence, into Wikipedia BLP.

That's the deal Jimbo Wales himself made with the world, by constructing WP to ignore privacy issues. Who am I to tell him he goofed?

It's your privilege to think that way, and mine to disagree. I'm thinking of the child. You are thinking of?

Two wrongs don't make a right, unless there is actual balancing involved. There isn't here.

Your position is a bit like Wikipedia common practice, which punishes innocent users in order to make a point with blocked or banned editors who evade, as well as similarly with the spam blacklist and sometimes the edit filter. If you gotta do it, you gotta do it, but when you don' gotta?

You're clearly not getting it, so I'll point out the obvious for ya: Jimbo has made the conscious decision to take on the mantle of celebrity, and anyone who does so makes their family and friends fair game for the chattering class. He pretty much makes his living these days being a celebrity, and if he really was all that upset about his loved ones being dragged through the mud, he'd simply fade away.

If the laws of physics were a bit different and you became a celebrity for inventing a cold fusion powerpack that fit under the kitchen sink, you'd be faced with the same choice.

I hope you realize that "Wikipedia common practice" is pretty much useless for comparison to anything that's actually reality-based.

Your concept of "fair" isn't the same as mine.

He this, he that, you say. What about the kid? Was the comparison with Jackson fair, even as to Jimbo?

I'm not making a fixed and rigid argument here, and your vision of what I get and don't get is pretty limited. That's not a surprise to me, it's not like we've never had any discussions....
Your understanding of the laws of physics and of what I think about cold fusion is similarly limited. I'm not going to become famous for that, I expect, because I'm not looking for it, my interest has been purely in the experimental science, with palladium deuteride. At this point, it's looking like someone else has done it, by the way, but with nickel hydride. The Energy Catalyzer is looking quite solid, at this point, from expert analysis, it would take an extraordinarily difficult fraud for this to be bogus. Easily, 12 kW under your kitchen sink. If they can throttle it down and make it fully safe, this could heat the water right there, like a flash heater.

We should know by the end of the year. It's being claimed that units are already being sold to certain trusted customers. In the other direction, there are lots of reasons to smell a rat. But it's not impossible by the laws of physics, merely unexpected. As with all forms of cold fusion.

It used to be that if you were a banned editor, learned your lesson and spent some time off wikipedia before quietly coming back under another guise (ie a "sock") and edited constructively most admins would look the other way as long as you didn't make it too obvious that you were a particular previously banned editor - it would only be the crazy, vindictive or absolutist who would out a constructive editor for no other reason than s/he was under an old ban. Now, it seems, the crazy, vindictive or absolutist types outnumber (or outmuscle) the sensible types who care more about content and outcome than personalities, power and control. I guess it's the difference between caring more about product or caring more about your ego.

Yes, you could say it that way. The tendency was always there, the sensibility didn't always prevail, but I noticed a marked change sometime around 2009. Previously, the community had been divided on certain issues, there were always those who were content-focused, and thoughtful, and those who were rule-focused, and not inclined to understand something deeper.

There still are such who understand the original wiki vision. But ... they aren't so common any more. Punitive response has become common.

RevDel is quite an interesting case! We saw two admins who clearly don't get it, why there would be a problem with RevDel for "normal" contributions of a banned or blocked editor. They were violating policy, there isn't any doubt about that. What led them to do that?

And when an admin violates policy, what happens?

Usually, nothing. Something only happens if they directly come into conflict with another admin or one of very few very popular non-admins.

I've been giving some credit to FT2 for likely clarifications of RevDel policy. however, with this comment he shows what a Kool-Aid drinker he is:
First of all, there is a confusion here between banned and blocked editors. Except for the confusion, the difference is largely academic, a block is a site ban, issued by a single administrator (with or without discussion), and "block evasion" is treated similarly to "ban evasion."

"Bans" are not necessarily site bans. And they are not necessarily given after exhausting all other alternatives, sometimes I've seen them given short-sightedly and rapidly, and based on, again, a close by a single admin -- or even in one case I recently reviewed -- even a non-admin, and it was an involved close.

Because some bans do represent a consensus that "it's been enough," FT2 extends this to all bans, as if community process were perfect. It is far from perfect, and lots of mistakes are made.

While it's tempting to try to enforce bans to "prevent more time-wasting," the reality is that sometimes enforcing a ban can waste far more time than letting it go. And egos get involved. "We just want to forcibly disengage" implies that the entire community wants to disengage, and this is common among the core clique: they think of themselves as the entire community.

In any case, RevDel was used with my edits, which triggered this entire discussion, and few of the edits violated any ban. I'm not site-banned, just indef blocked. There was no site-ban discussion, and the original block that I evaded (with self-reverted edits) was declared based on old edits, not any current necessity, by a highly involved administrator. And then the rest of the community lines up to enforce it, because that is standard practice among certain administrators, who will enforce any block on principle, believing that due process can handle errors.

(I have made three edits which violate a topic ban, and that ban was certainly not declared based upon a total giving up of a possibility of good edits. There is another "MYOB ban" which was not stated with a time limit, and it was, again, not based on evidence of disruption, but was a compromise attempt to deal with a "problem" that wasn't ever clearly defined, hence it was wikilawyered to death, and enforcement became so capricious that I simply gave up on Wikipedia, for the most part. FT2, though, is talking about site bans. Were banning process more careful and thorough, he might be right, though there would still be a problem.)

They believe a myth, a convenient one. They are unlikely to recognize this until the bell tolls for them, which isn't uncommon. Even then, they may fail to understand how they are just experiencing what they, themselves, did to others. They will blame it on the degeneration of the community, ArbComm stupidity, etc.

Forcibly disengage them is how conflict in the real world is inflamed and perpetuated. Yeah, sometimes it's needed, hence restraining orders. However, in most situations, refusing to communicate is a formula for continued problems. What fuels FT2 is an imagination of control, that he and his friends can "forcibly disengage" someone.

I hope I am never faced with the situation of having to forcibly disengage FT2 from my beagle.

This is the current proposed text as it relates to the initial issue, the revision deletion of edits because of the editor being banned. It's not as safe as I'd thought at first.
I have no doubt that there would be "exceptional cases" which where revision deletion is appropriate. But I have no confidence in the community or ArbComm, as to their ability to ban users without adequate cause.

If community process were sane, the provisions would be fine. The problem is that revision deletion is used by individual administrators, and the judgment required ends up being applied by the worst, least cautious administrators, who can then use this policy as cover. The original draft had:
The discussion required by this was more difficult for an admin to gain. In my case, I've not even been banned, so the proposed policies would be an improvement. However, the formality of ban is something they might easily obtain, unless it's noticed by the real defenders of the wiki.

The "usernames from banned users" is almost precisely designed to attack a mode of operation of "self-reversion per ban of XXX", edits, though those edits will then simply not include the user name.... What are they trying to prevent here? In the current revision deletion spree (well, a few deletions by Kww and Timotheous Canens), none of the edits were disruptive at all -- except for the fact of the block -- so the criterion would not apply. However, in at least one case, the deleting admin did claim disruption.

The basic problem is unreliable process that does not seek and does not find true, informed community consensus.