Rule Revision Regarding Banned Users and Proxies.

[Planck69]

Put me in the Agree section. Same reasoning as Qawd.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Bambu kinda falls into the same camp as Grath I feel, agreeing with a ban on direct proxying but doesn't really vibe with either option. He said he wants it to be clearly defined what is allowed (discussing with banned users off-site) and what isn't (direct proxying), though if I got something wrong he can let me know ofc

This is correct. Even if we end up allowing proxying outright, we need to pay down what specifically our stances are. Every time we implement a rule, I tend to find the phrasing leads to fringe cases.

My vote is that direct proxying should not be allowed, but you can't ban people from discussing with banned individuals or having their opinions influenced by those discussions. If it is decided that proxying directly is permitted, then I suggest heavier punishments than usual for proxying and pushing things like insults from banned users onto the wiki.

As I mentioned to you on dc, I'm overall neutral. I do not like being able to "bypass a ban", but on the other hand, I do see merit on letting accurate information come through, regardless of who it comes from. Though thinking more about it, wouldn't giving these users the opportunity to give their thoughts also serve as a way to gauge whether they have reformed? Part of our rules and why bans are temporal in the first place is to encourage users to change their behavior enough so that when they do comeback to the wiki they don't fall back to the behavior they exhibited before.

I do also think this is a novel idea, one I find agreeable. Proxying can be a gauge of how a banned user has improved: we process ban appeals fairly frequently, this may give us greater insight into that. It doesn't shift my opinion, but I think it is worth considering.