So, finally, finally over.
Ok, I have mixed feelings about this case. First, about the presumed issue; the naming:
A few weeks ago I met, well, lets say; "an European acquaintance of mine, with a very good knowledge about European mass-media, but with little knowledge about Wikipedia". Mentioning WP, I told him that the "high priests" of WP were now considering to allow the names Judea/Samaria as a substitute for the "West Bank".
He went absolutely speechless. (A rather rare occurence!) In the European media, Judea/Samaria is never used, except as to explain that this is the language of the "extreme right-wing Israeli settler-movement". Meteormaker documented it in excruciating detail.
Good Lord. Next: some new gang bands up on WP, and we will have an arb.com about whether the Pope is Catholic?
And about the "verdicts": it has been a development against edit-warring for some time. It started really with the 100% rule against wheel warring, now it has "spread" to normal editing. This has not been a rule set in stone (earlier). The claim that people are being punished by a retroactive law has some credence.
Lastly, I feel, what is the point of this? I see arb.com as a dozen big elephants, strong, but mostly a bit slow moving. In the end they moved a few...matches.
Why? Because they do not want to set down
principles, they only punish individuals, who are...
anonymous! Oh, the irony! Does anyone think NoCal or CanadianMonkey were their first accounts? And does anyone really think that they will not come back, indeed, are not back already?
These "13 to the dozen" ignorant "mob"-accounts are not punished at all by arb.com. The fact that
Tundrabuggy has been allowed to run around harassing/disrupting the project for a year, only underscores this. (And s/he was *only* caught because of an email to Slim). Those who
are punished by topic-bans are the "unique" voices, like
G-Dett, or
Nishidani. If they tried to "do a Tundrabuggy" they would be recognized long before anyone managed to type "verbal chandeliers".
Ok, ok: arb.com did move one significant piece of lumber; Jayjg. Now; the interesting thing is: will he come back socking? If so; he is far too experienced to do a silly Tundrabuggy-mistake. I think he possibly could come back, unnoticed. His "voice" is so close to the "13 to the dozen" accounts, just with more persistence that most. (IMG:
smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif)