Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of banned users

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. Consensus is unlikely to be reached at this time. El_C 14:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:List of banned users

I can't think of any good reasons to keep this page around. For one, many of the people on this list were banned years ago, and it's really irrelevant. Plus, a lot of them came here under Wikipedia-specific names, so this list is very meaningless. Of course, it's hard to keep this thing up-to-date (or, rather, I would say it's not worth it), and so the selection effect of who does make it on here gives some people false kudos, as in, "I was such a bad vandal they put me on the permanently banned list!" Per WP:DENY this page really needs to go. Also, the last straw is this recent vandal who is saying they will only stop vandalizing once they are put in this list ... in other words, this is encouraging vandalism by offering immortality, of sorts. Cyde Weys 22:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, per WP:DENY. Naconkantari 22:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per Cyde Weys, banned users probably see it as a reward to be on their own special page. Also, if they're inactive, it shouldn't be of interest to many people. --Majorly (Talk) 22:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Question - I completely understand your point per WP:DENY and WP:RBI, but is the collection of links sometimes helpful to arbitrators, checkusers, etc.? Newyorkbrad 22:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Who is that question to? --Majorly (Talk) 22:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

To anyone who knows the answer. I assume that Cyde might have some insight. Newyorkbrad 22:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I agree with the nominator that the page fails WP:DENY as well as adds an incentive for users to start vandalising Wikipedia. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 22:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep WP:DENY is a good thing, but so is WP:Don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Arbitration and Jimbo bans are relatively easy to track down but community bans are new, and questions do come up regarding where or why someone was banned. Some of the checkusers in particular don't like to run checks for socks of banned users unless there is confirmation of the ban. It's also part of the official WP:BAN policy that community bans must be logged here. Properly formatted, this list should have diffs or links to the relevant AN discussion. Maybe it should be moved to Wikipedia:Banning policy/Log of community bans, and trimmed of the Jimbo and arb cases per DENY, but this is an important resource and needs to be kept in some form. Thatcher131 22:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I know I'll be told it would be a horrible precedent, but is there any way of establishing admins-only access to a page like this? Newyorkbrad 22:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It will always be viewable, but could be protected. --Majorly (Talk) 22:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply, but that's not what I meant. I was wondering if there was a way to set things so that people who need the information (checkusers, arbitrators, admins discussing community bans, etc.) could access it but the vandals looking for glory couldn't. But I guess the answer is probably not, at least not without setting up a whole new procedure, which wouldn't be worth doing. Newyorkbrad 23:00, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah right. You'd probably have to set up a "banned log" alongside the block log, which only certain users could access – probably not going to happen at the moment. --Majorly (Talk) 23:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

(ECx2) I've never heard of a page like that, plus folks who want to file checkuser requests and sockpuppet investigations aren't always admins. And there is the issue of the "cabal" supposedly doing things in secret. If there is a reason to keep at least the community ban section, it should be open to all. Thatcher131 23:08, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

And there can be people with Checkuser, who aren't admins - chiefly ex-admins. Perverse though it seems, this would work for everything else: Delete the page, and establish a note to the effect that the page should be modified by undeleting, editing and redeleting). Note: whether a given user is banned should be in his block log, which is accessible. Septentrionalis 23:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep This list may be helpful in order to reveal reincarnations (sockpuppets) of banned users, especially if there is some comment concerning their misbehavior on that page. It is also helpful to have a look at the editing interests of banned users. Onefortyone 23:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Not sure I agree with the WP:DENY reasoning in this case, beyond maybe a good reason to chop the page down to just tose bans which are important to log (i.e. not your every day troll and vandal stuff). A good block reason should be enough to cover community bans generally so not much need for a separate log. Ultimately though I don't care if the page stays or goes. --pgk 23:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as log of community bans. If the page is deleted, we should either stop using community bans or create a page that logs community bans so it is possible to find out about them without reading 150 AN and ANI archive pages. Bans need a log for accountability reasons. I don't really thinkn WP:DENY applies here, actually. Kusma (討論) 23:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Per WP:DENY, remove all obvious vandals or trolls who'll be blocked on sight anyway, like Willy or Mr Treason. Kusma (討論) 11:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep WP:DENY does not really apply in this case; users on this list do not appear to be vandals, but are banned for a variety of reasons, e.g. legal threats, misuse of admin powers etc. It is part of the official WP:BAN policy, so deleting it would be a bad idea. This page doesn't seem to glorify the vandals, it just says it in a plain manner, saying why they were banned, and sometimes when. This page saves having to trawl through WP:ANI archives etc. --SunStar Net 23:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Kusma's reasoning explains it all. --SunStar Net 23:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep BUT... remove ALL details about why people were blocked. Leave links to ArbCom cases, but get rid of the entire "Banned by the Wikipedia community" and "Legal threats" sections and replace them with a simple list of names. I feel this is a genuinely important list, regardless of WP:DENY, but these sections are unnecessary. It's one thing to simply place banned users on a list- I don't think simply seeing one's name gives a vandal any extra motivation to vandalize, but airing out all of the details of how and why they vandalized might. -- Kicking222 00:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think it's useful to explain what led to a community ban. It's not always as cut and dried as Jimbo and ArbCom-derived bans, especially if the user has a history as a nominally good-faith editor (Karmafist comes to mind). szyslak (t, c, e) 03:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, useful. It's not an issue that many of the users haven't been around in a while; people like 142 and DW could still return. In addition, it makes life easier for those dealing with the banned users, and as a clearinghouse for logging community bans. I think any WP:DENY issues could be mitigated by removing vandals such as WoW and Communism. szyslak (t, c, e) 03:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, reduce to a simple list. By maintaining a centralized list we can refer people to, it makes the banning process more transparent and open. --tjstrf talk 04:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Unless someone has an unhealthy obsession with the policing side of Wikipedia administration, there is no way anyone can remember the reasons behinds someone's banning. ("OK, so this dude is banned... what should I be looking for, if he is creating evasive socks?") This page is useful for those of us who actually try to edit articles for a while. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - the category makes it easier to maintain. While details & circumstances that led to the ban could go to the user's/talk page, you can never be sure that this clogged page is up-to-date. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 05:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Move to Wikipedia:Banning policy/Log of community bans per Thatcher. Khoikhoi 05:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The name of the page is OK; I don't see any reason to rename it. As for WP:DENY, it's not policy, it's an essay. --SunStar Net 10:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep useful for tracking down past vandal patterns. Bearly541 13:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, useful list and per above. - Mailer Diablo 18:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. It's a good list. I've run across it while browsing Wikipedia policy and learning about our history and I found it interesting. I see no real reason to delete it. —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 00:07, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. It is a great list because it can track down notorious vandals who are using sockpuppets to damage Wikipedia and provides a great history.--PrestonH 05:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. List is helpful because when it makes it much easier to deal with banned users if we have links to the discussion regarding them, whether this is an arbitration request or posts on the admin's noticeboard. Also when we see a user who behaves oddly but not by itself egregiously just yet blocked as a "sockpuppet of banned user X", it is useful to have a place to find out why someone was banned. Another useful function is the distinguishment between "banned by the community", "banned by Jimbo" and "banned by ArbCom", so that if we get a request to unblock them, we know where to forward the appeal. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, useful list, and helps a lot with the list of banned users, doesn't violate WP:DENY. --Terence Ong _{(C | R)} 09:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:DENY; keep such records on the CVU website if there is a need to. Kimchi.sg 09:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You're gonna have to run that by Essjay. MER-C 10:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

My point is, keep them anywhere but here. Kimchi.sg 10:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

What does this list have to do with the CVU? Most banned users are not banned for vandalism. Kusma (討論) 11:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

CUV is not a wikimedia site, it is Essjay's private project, and he is very careful to keep the two separated. CVU offers a service to wikipedia, it is not part of wikipedia. I doubt he would have any part in this suggestion. Thatcher131 22:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep per above. MER-C 10:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep If a user is banned, and the banned list is eliminated, what stops an innocent newbie from selecting the banned name and being disparaged as the banned user come back from Wikihell? Or what stops the banned user himself from reusing the banned name? Perhaps there is a secret bad list which prevents the banned name from being reused, but that was not made clear in the discussion heretofore. In any event it seems kind of 1984 to rewrite and erase history. Edison 15:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep both because it is a record of users who have been banned, which in and of itself is valuable, particularly if they try to come back under other names later, and because it could help to prevent honest newcomers from mistakenly taking a name which might seem to others to be a sockpuppet of an already banned user. Badbilltucker 20:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: This page has little or nothing to do with "dealing with vandalism". Per Kusma, most of the users on the list are not vandals. It's important to remember that not every problem user should be described as a "vandal". WP:VANDAL states that "apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia". This is a very important distinction to make and maintain. In fact, some banned users can't even be defined as "trolls". Rather, they are inveterate POV pushers, extreme ideologues and those with severe behavioral problems, which make them unsuitable for work on a collaborative encyclopedia project. Vandalism, trolling and simple bad behavior are completely different things, and should be dealt with in different ways. szyslak (t, c, e) 21:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:Don't shoot ourselves in the foot -- Agathoclea 23:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• I don't see how this list will be maintainable; the list of community bans is currently not maintained very well, and Wikipedia is just becoming more ever more popular with ever more users. Relevant information searchable by user name can be put on the user page of the banned user. It's not really valuable. —Centrx→talk • 01:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and possibly expand with more detail following the Brian G. Crawford snafu. Chances are that if this page was better known by many of us, we wouldn't be in such a rush to grant amnesty. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. As per Edison and the fact that bans are hard to track down if the need arises to know when or why someone was banned. Also, WP:DENY is not really a good reason for deletion on its own. ><Richard0612 ^{UW 17:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)}
• Keep. So some random troll says "Yay, I'm on the list!", so what? Remove that troll from the list, but don't delete the whole page because you want to dissatisfy a troll. To me as a user, the list is useful. To me as an administrator, the list is useful. That's what counts. --Conti|✉ 23:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
• Keep theres WP:DENY ... then theres WP:DENYWEHAVEBRAINS. You just dont delete shit like this as fast as we have admin turnover, those around now who know about the bans will be gone probably before the next wave learns who the hell the people on this list are! hell some of them NOW dont even know who these people are.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 04:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.