QUOTE(that one guy @ Fri 4th November 2011, 3:04pm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vil...P:G5_DiscussionHow long before this gets swarmed by people opposing a change like the WP:V one?
This is a true factional dispute. The founders of Wikipedia mostly understood the hazard of punishing users by deleting content. They understood that punishment was dangerous to the unity of the community, that prevention of harm was what was needed. They also understood that it was nearly impossible to actually exclude people from editing Wikipedia, it would require resources that are not available.
It was long understood that contributions of blocked editors (not just banned, though in some discussions, "banned" is asserted as different from blocked, over precisely this issue) could be reverted by any user, but that this was not a requirement. With ordinary edits, what I've seen in practice is that a banned user makes an edit. Someone reverts it because they are banned, without review of the content.
I did that, once, reverting Fredrick day. However Fday was pretty clever. The edit was of a porn star article. The content removed was content that was actually verifiable, but that might be libelous if stated about an ordinary individual. I had an Arb showing up on my talk page telling me never to do that again. I really didn't care enough to pursue it, and researching articles on porn stars has its own hazards. Tough job, I'm sure, but I suppose someone has to do it.
What I realized when the banned editor was ScienceApologist, who was making harmless spelling corrections, was that there was a way for banned editors to contribute that was non-disruptive. Self-reversion "per ban." Makes enforcement easy, since the editor self-enforces. I floated the idea to an arb, who thought it fine, and then proposed it to SA, who angrily rejected it. Why should he revert a perfectly good edit? While I had some sympathy for the point, his purpose was actually to poke and embarrass any admin brave enough to enforce the ban. When this became obvious, he was site banned for a while.
General sentiment at that time, however, when it was one of their friends who was the editor, was that self-reversion would not be ban violation and that harmless edits were okay as well. When the situation was turned and I was the banned editor, that radically changed. That's when "a ban is a ban is a ban" was trotted out. Raul654 was prominent in that. This is the admin who effectively created more socks than from anyone before, totally needlessly, by an involved block and then involved enforcement, including as a checkuser. Scibaby.
The problem with G5 is that the contributed content cannot be reviewed by other editors for consideration. This would be a good use for
WP:PWD, where contributions by banned editors would be blanked, with a category being added. Any editor in good standing could then review the page, check sources, etc. If the page was created by a banned user who had a record of good contributions, there is high likelihood of this review being useful.
Perhaps the blanked page category would be by month, to limit the time the page is available. I don't see why there should be any hurry, though.
But the faction involved here is not actually interested in maximizing quality of content. They are interested in their own power. I'll agree that there are issues with banned users, but there are alternative ways to address them, and bans, strictly enforced without regard for effect on the project, are definitely not optimal.
An independent way around this would be another wiki where banned editors may contribute content, ready to go for Wikipedia. Any user in good standing could then move this to Wikipedia. There are a few examples of successful use of this. Wikiversity is a possibility, and if anyone wants to use it for that, I'd suggest letting me know on my WV talk page (user Abd). Those pages should generally not be placed in WV mainspace, they will likely be out of scope. There would almost always be a way to do this consistently with the educational mission of Wikiversity. I can also transwiki pages from WP into Wikiversity, but I can't do that with deleted pages. And I can't transfer back to Wikipedia because of my ban there. I've also avoided doing waiting transfers to Wikiversity, requested through a template on WP, because I can't notify Wikipedia, openly, that the transfer has been done, and I'm not willing to email individual users there to place the notice. Too damned much work, basically.
This could all be handled easily in a sane system. One approach that was never tried with me: voluntary restrictions, with a mentor adjusting the boundaries. At one point, an Arb was offering to mentor me, because he understood what I was doing, and the value, but was told -- by ArbComm -- that this was impossible. Rather, what was done was to create, maintain, and tighten a vague "MYOB ban." Which was then enforced by involved admins, or, just as much of a problem, clueless ones. For example, an interaction ban was declared for me and William M. Connolley. Later, there was an MfD on a page he had originally created, it had been deleted, then it was restored independently by another user and was proposed for deletion. I voted to support keeping the page. Even though WMC had not commented, there, and even though I was supporting (as far as I could tell) his position, this was considered an "interaction," and, without warning, I was blocked. The *purpose* o9f the ban, to avoid argument between us, was completely forgotten. There were many such unexpected and creative interpretations of the bans..... I eventually closed that cycle with what could technically be called "Fuck you, Wikipedia." I felt much better. I recommend it. I then got to have some real fun playing Whack-a-Mole. Much more fun than trying to cooperate with a community that doesn't really value cooperation, only abject submission.
In a trial of self-reversion on Wikiversity, Thekohser created a new page, and blanked it with a note. It was then possible to revert that blanking. I can think of ways to do it on Wikipedia that could work. Consenting user, for example, best if an admin but not necessarily so, who allows a specific banned user to create pages in the consenting user's user space for consideration. If the banned user abuses this, the permission could easily be revoked, and then such creations would, indeed, be tantamount to harassment. Deleted on sight without regard to content.
One way to conceptualize bans as not involving exclusion of content, per se, is to consider that when someone is banned, it is like excluding them from a meeting, under standard democratic process. Such exclusion does not prevent any other member of the meeting from introducing motions originating with the excluded member. Self-reversion was designed to, essentially, require a "second" for content to remain visible. But it's obvious: the dominant faction on Wikipedia wants total exclusion, and, historically, they attacked restoration of contributions by banned editors as "meat puppetry."
Someone's feeling bold, And actually opening a discussion on CSD#G5
that one guy Someone's feeling bold 
