MeatballWiki

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BanningPolicy

HardBan

A stated goal (still open to debate) is to DevolvePower over HardBans by something like CitizenArrest. HardBanning should be limited to only circumstances where the attacker has no interest in the community as a community, but only as a server on the Internet.

Where excessive means you cannot just revert it by hand.

We also have an ongoing policy to block every AnonymousProxy and OpenProxy.

CommunityExile

It's not actually very good to CommunityExile people who are in emotional conflict, as the act of exile becomes a representation of power that demands attack. It's better to DissuadeInteraction. When the conflict becomes too intense, it's important to make it clear when communication is not being heard through the personal attacks and animosity, and thus further communication will be ignored, unwanted, and pointless. These kinds of conflicts have a chance of self-healing with time.

However, that being said, there are certain kinds of conflicts that we have clear policies about:

  • Criminal acts. For examples, child pornography, stalking, and death threats.
  • Discriminatory attacks, as criminalized universally in HumanRights legislation almost everywhere: age, race, religion (aka creed), sex, sexual orientation, nationality. In general, the AdHominems that go beyond a person's character as experienced on the site down to their basic existence. The point is that you cannot learn or adapt to fix the problem.

Redirection

Some people are just in the wrong place. They need to be redirected to MeatballAlternatives.

Active intervention

For many people, exiling is not a good choice insomuch as DissuadeInteraction.

  • Debaters, not builders. People who have no grounded reason for being here. They have no projects they are actively working on which they are trying to advance through discussion. Rather, they are here for the cheap entertainment of arguing with someone else. This includes trolls, but is not limited to them.
  • People who act in bad faith. People who frequently resort to personal attacks as a tactical move in an argument. Incorrigibles. Trolls. Flamers. Assholes.

The problem is that in a decentralized community, there is often someone who will take the bait. The ideal situation is to have people willing intercede in fights to break them up. Keep doing that and peopel who pick fights for entertainment will leave of their own accord.

CategoryMeatball CategoryMeatballWiki

First stab. The goal is to provide a framework that we can use to a) have moral authority when banning someone, b) DevolvePower over bans to the community, c) avoid banning in all but the most necessary circumstances. -- SunirShah

Banning should not be seen as a moral judgment primarily, but as a way to stop communication that is unbearable or unproductive. This may just as well be a problem of the community as of the banned contributor. In addition I think that "unbearable" is a personal judgement and there can never be an agreement on that, so a single member should be able to ask for a ban (obviously the host can then ban directly). But a agreement of three members taking responsibility for unbanning should be sufficient to remove the ban. This would make banning und unbanning a temporary and shared process without a moral or discriminatory judgement. Of course, one then has to answer what a member is, a question that was always of high interest to me (currently there are only two informal answers: holders of BarnStar-awards; contributors who declare to feel as members and enjoy at least SilentAgreement). -- HelmutLeitner

Having thought about this, I don't think it is possible to claim what we call 'unproductive' will not be viewed as a moral judgment. Some people believe direct competition, no matter how nasty, is still productive. I think a better way to state this is to clearly state the expected BarnRaising behaviour, and then regulate people when they move off it. There should be a wide gradient between divergence from the expected and banning, however. -- SunirShah

If someone believes direct competition is productive, I am not sure they wouldn't also believe it would be different than BarnRaising. -- JasonCorley

Recent examples here contradict that claim. At least two in my memory tried using BarnRaising against us. I think most attackers (intentionally) misunderstand the term. They think that the Barn we are raising is MeatballWiki. Consequently, supression of their voices is disrupting the BarnRaising by preventing them from 'raising' their opinion (barn). Alternatively, they think their "dissent" is a barn that needs raising at the expense of other barns (namely everyone else's), so when we elect to disrupt their 'barn' (aka toxic waste dump), they try to attack us with BarnRaising. But if you take BarnRaising to mean what it means, none of these are legitimate.

Just to quickly summarize the actual intent:

  • Meatball has always limited itself to a collective of project leaders, with a very broad definition of 'leader' (anyone getting things done).
  • BarnRaising means the mutual exchange of help on our projects. We help each other build each other's barns, recognizing a barn is our personal property, not common space.
  • MeatballWiki the forum where we build up Patterns, etc. of advice. It's a structured conversation, not property.

Looking at three of the last four CommunityExiled people, none of them were doing anything related to this BarnRaising MeatballMission. All they were doing was fighting with each other on c2. Certainly they are not project leaders, but the opposites: project disruptors. They consequently aren't welcome.

Meatball has a collection of competing political stances.

  • Founding view. Meatball would solicit only project leaders and be boring to everyone else.
    • Failed. Our popularity attracts AdoringFans or invites problems following those leaders who are coming here for ConflictResolution advice.
  • RadicalInclusiveness. We try very hard to include everyone, even difficult people, without resorting to bans. Wikipedia strives to do this.
    • Failed. I am in the process of acquiring a restraining order as a result of trying this.
  • Just be nice. Include all conversants, no matter if they are doing anything relevant or interesting, until they cause trouble.
    • This is the status quo. I'm finding this karmicly painful. We aren't being upfront about whom we respect. Rather than LimitTemptation, we let people get attached to the community . . . until they do something stupid. Then we have to ban them since they won't modulate their behaviour or leave. I feel like we're playing rope-a-dope. I don't want to keep banning people.
  • Sabotage. Sabotage our popularity, but that is lame, and that would mean I bail as Meatball would cease being useful.

I feel it's better to go back to the Founding View, but address the problems caused by lack of boringness more directly. I also note that excessive inclusiveness actually negatively impacts our ability to attract sane people and project leaders as we dilute our community and attention span with net.kooks. -- SunirShah

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