QUOTE(mbz1 @ Tue 7th February 2012, 4:11pm)
But the thing is that in this case the block becomes punitive,and it should not be punitive.
So, IMO this block is unusual and so far I was not able to understand the purpose of it, but I love it.
Okay, you have asked for an explanation, so I'll attempt one.
First of all, there is no "should," because there are no standards, there is no rule of law on Wikipedia, no way to predict outcomes other than making guesses based on community psychology, and that's also unreliable because you don't know who the actor will be.
However, there is something I've called "wiki common law." Guidelines and policies are often based on it. However, the delusion that we easily fall into is that the guidelines and policies will be enforced consistently. They are not. And, in fact, if you read the collection of guidelines and policies, you'll see that they are, explicitly, not to be enforced as if they were law, that "actual community practice" trumps them.
In media coverage of Wikipedia, it will often be reported that Wikipedia does this or that, based on what Wikipedia itself says it does, i.e., what is in the guidelines and policies. Actual practice can be very, very different. But it's also impossible to conform the policies and guidelines to actual practice, because that would involve getting very clear about what actually happens, and there are way too many privileged users who don't want that to happen.
Now, there is indeed wiki common law that punishment is not allowed. Rather, all that is allowed that might otherwise be considered punishment is protection of the wiki. Hence, you are correct. Because you were not editing Wikipedia, because you showed no inclination to edit Wikipedia, because you were already blocked anyway, the change of the block to something that you might in the future request to be lifted, to an indef block by an arbitrator with a request not to unblock without consultation of ArbComm, was obviously punitive, unless there is something we don't know here, such as active socking by you on Wikipedia. That is, there *might* be some justification that the blocking arbitrator might have felt necessary not to disclose.
But I'm assuming that the reason given was the actual reason. Punitive. Now, Mila, so what?
Why did the arbitrator do this? Because she wanted to avenge harassment of her friend, that's the most likely reason. Or maybe it wasn't personal, but was to revenge harassment of administrators in general, say.
It's highly unlikely that anything will be done about this, because there is nothing in it for the project. It's not like you were an active user, making positive contributions to Wikipedia.
So it shows that the arbitrator is vengeful. Are you surprised by this? Did you think that Wikipedia arbitrators were specially professional, that they would never do anything like this?
Some of us here actually used to think this, there was a period of time where ArbComm managed to present an appearance of professionalism and fairness. That was an illusion, carefully preserved by control of what was allowed to be public, and the arbitrators held their real conversations on a private mailing list.
Instead of using the proposed decision pages to make and review proposals, they would decide privately what to have proposed, and then pile in to support it, presenting an image of cooperation and unity, considered important for the protection of Wikipedia.
Real cooperation and real unity, showing how arbitrators overcame their sincere differences, would have been more impressive, in fact, but these are not necessarily sophisticated users. Some have been, and some have left in disgust, outnumbered and frustrated.
The election method for arbitrators is defective. It does not produce a Committee that is representative of the users, but the process selects for popularity. It's obvious. If there were a large faction that voted consistently for its favorite candidates, they would all be elected, and other factions would be out of luck unless they similarly voted, and then the largest faction would win, every seat. That's the method called "Approval at large." Approval voting for a single-winner election is great. It's a lousy multiwinner method. In fact, one might say that administrators are selected by the same method, it's just that it's done one at a time. So the community is not represented. It's like clockwork.
There are far better methods, but don't hold your breath. The oligarchs do not want fair representation, they know full well that the "community" does not hold power in Wikipedia, except in a very diffuse way; rather the community is carefully kept disempowered, every structure that might allow the community to communicate in ways that would form large-scale consensus with efficiency has been crushed. Many examples can be shown.
And supermajority election of administrators seemed like a good idea at the time, eh? It seemed that it would be best if administrators "had the trust of the community," and, indeed, it would be. But it would be *continued trust* that would be important, not trust under conditions of "I've behaved really well for a year, now can I have the keys to the car?" And then the keys can only be taken back by filing a federal case, and even then it's difficult.
It's well-known that many or most administrators would not do well in a confirmation election, and there are some decent excuses given for this. But the excuses demonstrate that there is no confidence in community process, no trust that it will truly represent the community.
Because it doesn't, except by accident, almost.
By the way, the system also oppresses the olligarchs. It eventually breaks them or spits them out, most of them. It's an error to think that Wikipedia problems are due to the Bad People running it. The problems are structural. Mila, the problem is not this or that administrator, and getting rid of this or that administrator will have hardly any effect at all. Most of these people, who behave in ways that create abuse in the existing structure, would do far better with better structure. So don't take it personally.
Just what is Meta for, anyways?
Tarc Just what is Meta for, anyways? 
