Someone's feeling bold, And actually opening a discussion on CSD#G5 Options

[that one guy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vil...P:G5_Discussion

How long before this gets swarmed by people opposing a change like the WP:V one?

[Ottava]

The G5 people have a logical point - if the community bans someone, why would we allow them any ability to continue furthering themselves. By allowing their edits to continue without anyone verifying them, or taking the responsibility upon themselves, what you are effectively saying is "oh, go ahead and sock as much as you want."

This is the equivalent of kicking a guy out of a football team for unnecessary roughness but allowing his "brother" who is the same guy with only a drawn on mustache to play.

If you are going to have any kind of ban, then you really need something like this. Otherwise, the ban becomes useless. Now, you can just toss out the bans, but yeah. It is all about consistency. G5 is consistent.

[thekohser]

...what you are effectively saying is "oh, go ahead and sock as much as you want."

Yes, in practice, that is exactly what Wikipedia says to every user, banned or unbanned. Wikipedia's cabal essentially says, "We are so gullible in believing that people will willingly identify themselves by one account, so that we may abuse them and subject them to contradictory and unenforceable rules, we refuse to establish any system of public identification of editors, so go ahead and sock as much as you want."

Raul654 has jumped on it now

Have you ever gotten a good look at the real Raul654? He's not capable of jumping on anything.

[Abd]

Raul654 has jumped on it now

Have you ever gotten a good look at the real Raul654? He's not capable of jumping on anything.

Well, he sort of rolls over on it, and it's finished, crushed. Mashed. Totalled. And checkusered from now until eternity.

Raul654 took a relatively harmless global warming critic and smashed him to smithereens, and each shard regenerated, creating the largest sock farm ever, such that Raul was blocking large swathes of the internet to prevent this guy from making characteristic edits about cow farts, easily reverted.

[Abd]

Raul654 took a relatively harmless global warming critic and smashed him to smithereens, and each shard regenerated, creating the largest sock farm ever, such that Raul was blocking large swathes of the internet to prevent this guy from making characteristic edits about cow farts, easily reverted.

Now, what Raul654 et al did ''not'' do.

They did not educate users like Scibaby as to how to effectively advocate for fair coverage of their point of view, seeking consensus, following policies and guidelines, and they did not do that because they were not, themselves, neutral, so they seized on whatever errors the new editor made in order to ban them, and, later, identified everyone who made edits resembling those of the banned editor as being a sock, or, best argument of all, "meat puppet."

The effect: a ban of POV, or, at least, heavy administrative review of any editor expressing similar POV, resulting in participation bias. When an admin protected Global warming because of revert warring, William M. Connoley unprotected it, saying that it was being watched by multiple administrators. It sure was. The cabal. And they tag-team reverted any interlopers. I actually support their point of view on global warming, personally, and I attempted to edit that article for a time, and I found that, consistently, edits backed by reliable source, hewing closer to the sources than what was being permitted by the cabal, were reverted, with whatever excuse could be found, and sometimes no excuse. The talk FAQ was controlled by these editors, instead of what should really be the opposite: minority factions should have full access to the FAQ, to explain to newcomers why the article doesn't necessarily reflect their POV, explaining how to proceed in a way consistent with policies and guidelines. Instead the FAQ basically said to newcomers: Tough. Go away if you don't support our position, we are in charge.

ArbComm, with Cold fusion, suggested refactoring the Talk pages to explain, clearly and concisely, why the article was the way it was. There was only one editor interested in that task. They banned him because he talked too much about the article and the topic. It made them uncomfortable, and their comfort is far more important to them than neutrality.