[uf-discuss] Re: Unjust banning of Andy Mabbett

[Drew McLellan]

On 10 Mar 2008, at 04:54, Ernest Prabhakar wrote:

> I don't know about "Unjust"  --- I sympathize with the amount of  
> grief the Admins have had to go through because of Andy -- but I do  
> feel that 18 months is a bit severe; especially given that the  
> previous suspension was (if I remember correctly) only a week.

iirc (and I'll hunt back through and confirm) Andy's first ban was for  
7 days. His second ban was for 30 days.

I appreciate how an 18 month ban seems harsh when read out of context.  
When you look at all the rules and regulations we've had to put in  
place, and pretty much the fact that the group of admins exists at all  
(there's very little 'admin' work around microformats by design) all  
because of Andy, it's not so unreasonable.

Take into consideration those who have reported that they've been put  
off contributing because of Andy's behaviour, and I'm sure countless  
others who have just gone away for the same reason without letting us  
know. Take into consideration two separate bans of increasing length  
that resulted in no modification of behaviour.

Andy has made positive contributions over time, but those have vastly  
been outweighed by negative side-effects of his presence. Andy has  
demonstrated that he's not willing or capable of modifying his  
behaviour to reduce the negative impact on the community.  
Unfortunately at that point we've just had to take the bull by the  
horns and ban him for an extended period. We all need to focus energy  
and our limited resources on moving microformats forward, not on  
treading water.

The fact that Andy has also been banned for an extended period from  
Wikipedia is not related, but it is extremely telling.

drew.