User:Joe Canuck/ban

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 12:40:58 -0700
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales@bomis.com>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Joe Canuck
To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org

Joe Canuck is banned from wikipedia.  Would someone with the
appropriate powers please take the appropriate steps to make this
technically true.

As always, Joe is invited to write to me to discuss this further,
and/or is invited to the mailing list.

Some have expressed a strong conviction that Joe Canuck is the same
person or persons as DW, etc.  I express no opinion on that matter,
and find that Canuck's actions alone are sufficient for banning.  To
the extent that it is true, of course, then just being the same person
is grounds for a continuation of the ban.

--Jimbo

The above mailing list post is archived here.

Jimmy Wales wikien-l@wikipedia.org 
Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:17:58 -0700

"Wikipedians should generally refrain from witch hunts of users who
may be reincarnations of banned users."

However, grave concerns have been raised, and I have reason to think,
based on what's been going on the past few days, that ChuckM, Joe
Canuck, DW/Black Widow, and perhaps some others may (or may not) be
the same person, posting repeatedly on the same sorts of topics and in
the same sorts of obnoxious ways.

So, after a bit of research by one of the sysops, who will remain
nameless unless he wants to take public credit, we've determined that
there is a relatively small block of ip numbers where this user is
coming from.  At least through the weekend, we're going to block all
of those completely.

Next Monday morning, we'll assess whether it worked, and discuss when
to unblock that range of addresses.  It seems unfortunate in case
people in a certain ip block in Canada happen to want to edit this
weekend, but odds are, they won't.

Additionally, any and all of those names can be banned by names, and I
authorize a witch hunt (but please, practice WikiLove) on new
instances.  :-) Just for the weekend.

My concern is that this might spiral out of control into a
full-fledged attack, and I'd just as soon prevent that and deal with
it next week.

--Jimbo

Above post archived here