There has been a proposal to ban Steve Ostrowski(public page) SteveOstrowski(user page).

This isn't the first time the wiki community has considered banning a user.

He can be reached on AIM at empirestv12

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Seriously, Steve doesn't play by the rules and has shown us he doesn't intend to. He should have been banned months ago. —WilliamLewis

I've always been of the opinion that the wiki should be less tolerant of this sort of thing, but we've only banned one real person, ever. Most disputes have been settled on the wiki, and in some cases, over the phone. I'm not willing to have a heart to heart with Ostrowski, and frankly, I doubt he'd listen to me. Someone more neutral than myself should have a talk with Steven. If Steven truly understands what's going on here and is just trying to make this community miserable, then yes, he should be banned.

When interviewing ASUCD Senate candidates, Rob and I asked each candidate at the end of the interview "What do you think of Steven Ostrowski?" Everyone had good things to say about him, but everyone also said that he was misguided. I think that Steven genuinely cares about ASUCD, but is trying to push his own agenda in the wrong ways. His actions on and off the wiki are unacceptable. ASUCD was willing to give him a chance, and he screwed it up. Wiki needs to set firm boundaries and say "this is not ok, play by the rules." I think that Steven can play by the rules and can be a productive member of this community. —ArlenAbraham

2006-12-14 12:56:08   What should be done about people who disregard normal rules/ettiquette, and do so purposefully? I'm talking about SteveOstrowski. He continually reverts and refuses to use talk pages, and he's definitely an established user, doing this for months on several pages. He's even said on his own page when asked about it for a specific page, and even mentioned it on his own blog, that he'd continue to do so to get what he wants. That's whack. —ES (23:18:05:)I think my annoyance is compounded by annoying edits or lack of clear contribution. I really feel this guy is just trying to use the wiki to promote his own agenda, from the start. He always edits things to be the most vague and meaningless way ever, argue about *whether a fact is true or not (like # of members), loves to say everything is secret (ACT rankings, CDP strategy, CDP agenda isn't for public [actually, a lot of CDP stuff lost in the millions of edits to those pages]), and just make a general muck. Try to deny involvement of this or that, claim no one knows! I know when he was new to the wiki he was talking about how chaos is a good thing, and said stuff like "if you only knew it would blah blah WHOA". But I think it's kinda just annoying and all self-serving. I was fine with that, other people edit and noticed, but when you start throwing on intentional revert wars and intentional disregarding of normal rules/ettiquette, as well as pseudo-lying/deception..bah. Just throwing it out there as a general feeling.

  • If someone deliberately and continually refuses to play by the rules, they should not be allowed to play at all. —WilliamLewis

2006-12-14 23:26:08   Well said. —GrahamFreeman

Yeah, but if we ban him, he'll just his own wiki. — ArlenAbraham

2006-12-15 17:06:57   The issue at hand is whether Steve should be permitted to reduce the value of Davis Wiki for everyone else in the process of abusing it to further his own personal goals. Whether or not he actually achieves his personal goals is irrelevant. —GrahamFreeman

I don't read or care about the page's Steve contributes to, so I'm ignorant of why people want to ban him. That said, 9% (122/1377) of his contributions are reverts, suggesting either he or his detractors need to grow up, and learn how to converse without using the digital "shut the f* up" button. —CraigBrozinsky

  • This is stupid, I am in the top 20 editors on this Wiki. And I have made plenty of talk pages about stuff when they come up. Point being is that when you have an entire slate getting on the Wiki and messing with you, you get all the reverts. —SteveOstrowski
  • Steve, the vast majority of your edits on this Wiki have been low-quality. I would argue that most of them actually detracted from the value and usefulness of the Davis Wiki. So, the fact that you've made a large number of such undesirable edits doesn't work in your favour. —GrahamFreeman
  • He does have a bit of point... DW has quite a large amount of LEAD folk that are very vocal and tend to dictate "facts" toward their benefit. Though Steve, most of your edits have been involving you and stuff about you. I don't think you've written about Town Life, California or School History. Correct me I'm wrong though. - CarlosOverstreet
    • Carlos, personally I don't really care if someone is more focused on their opinion rather than facts - this site is not intended to be an encyclopedia, but rather a community resource. A respectful dialogue and respectful behaviour is critical to any community effort, and in my opinion Steve's behaviour has been consistently disrespectful. My main beef is his constant reverts, which are mostly without any explanation of substance, and almost always without any good reason. —GrahamFreeman
    • I would agree, he's been in more revert wars than perhaps the rest of us combined and squared. - CarlosOverstreet

MatthewKeys almost begged to be banned and even he didn't try this. —WilliamLewis

What would be the point. I am sure you all realize that if you ban someone that there is not much preventing them from coming back, e-mail addresses are not hard to get, new ips are as easy as reseting a connection, he will just be a childish jackass and come back screw things up, and then repeat every once in a while. Furthermore, out of concern for Steve, who seems rather to realize that most people dislike him, what will this do but be another group he has been kicked out of, I have a much better solution to all this. As part of the wiki settings, I think you can set user groups and disable people from accessing/editing certain pages, perhaps as we dislike him editing his own personal page, we should just limit his access to those pages, then again this would logically cause a childish backlash so there really is not much point, provided he creates sufficient annoyance, that people are required to acknowledge his existence by the obstacle and hardship he causes others, he will remain, he seems to feed off such things, whatever, you are all smart folks, you can figure out what to do. ~D

"Brent, what justifies deleting his own personal user page. That is his own space... and this little thingy? {"i hate you, please go away"} Come on now..." - CarlosOverstreet

  • I'm sorry, I'm just a little upset with him. But no big deal. It's just that no matter when I imagine a world without Ostrowski, I can't imagine anything that would be worse — everything gets better. God? Why have you put people like him here on Earth? —BrentLaabs
    • Dear Lord - save me from your followers! :) I agree that many of Steve's edits are focused on himself, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of my edits center around things I'm interested in - in part because that's what I know about. (Bees, food, etc) My major gripe with his editing style is the fact that he deletes or reverts pages (like this one, even) rather than coming to the table and discussing things with other editors. Half of his edits seem to be his constant re-wording of his pet pages (himself, enforcer, CDP) every other day. However, I think we need to keep in mind that the guy has just had a major shit-storm hit him with his questionable emails over court cases, unfavorable aggie coverage, and getting fired from ASUCD. I don't know if anyone else has noticed that his really destructive wiki behavior coincides with these events. I imagine that a couple weeks to a month from now when the frustrations get more distant he'll be back to his normal blah-editing-self and could probably be let back in to the wiki. If his behavior doesn't change, I would suggest a temporary ban so he could find a better hobby. -KarlMogel

Just to rehash the comment I made back in December, check out the info on CDP from version 338 on. SO "Revert to version 336 (You need five officers to register a SPAC group, don't be irritating )." I edit the page: " please list the 5 officers used to register. make an informative edit :)". I edit a couple other things, Max fills something in, and rather than edit or fix, he "Revert to version 338 (If you don't know, don't edit. ).". It's not just his personal page that ["Steve Ostrowski/Talk" maybe he should be kept away from], it seems to be pretty much any page in which he has ties to. Why not fill in the Officers? Why remove the info of 5 officers were needed to register with spac on the page if it's what he himself put into the changelog? It's like a fundamental aversion to positive edits and a huge attraction to secrecy, deceptions, and vagueness on everything associated with him. So revert happy! (As Craig pointed out above). I made that comment above back in December, it's two months later, and nothing seems to have changed. It may have gotten worse, as even dedicated wikignomes like JasonAller get involved in such drama and suggested some sort of action. -ES

Ok, so earlier today I made edits to the Christian Democratic Party page to reflect the fact that they are not actually an ASUCD slate and that they are a SPAC recognized group with low membership. I also updated other info on the page and deleted a few frivolous statements. Steven disagreed with the membership count (since he counts facebook members as official members of his SPAC group), but instead of changing the one particular sentence about membership, he reverted my entire edit. -PaulHarms

William Lewis requested that I add an excel file to Spencer Higgins' page for clarification of my comments. The spreadsheet was damaging to Ostrowski's political cause, so he deleted it within a minute. Somebody please ban him. — PaulHarms

He's a Drama_whore. Vote to ban. — BrentLaabs

I just want to say that I find it highly amusing how much you piss each other off. Neither one of you will let the other accomplish anything without a fight, no matter what it is, and to someone who isn't affiliated with any party, it is honestly hilarious and a great way to waste my free time.. watching all the action. —Kirsten O'Nell

  • See, that's funny — I have actually accomplished quite a bit on the wiki tonight. And I'm not affiliated with any slate — other than FUCK and SOSSS, and those are long gone. —BrentLaabs
    • You are part of the LEAD team, it's obvious to everyone on the Third floor. —SteveOstrowski

    • When I say party I mean that I am neither Ostrowski nor one of the people who are so vehemently opposed to him, like yourself Mr Laabs.

      I also find him terribly amusing. If only I had some popcorn..... Though in all seriousness, steve is discovering what happens when you act like a dick to everybody. What makes it even funnier is how he is convinced everything is part of some grand conspiracy against him. ~MS

      • To his credit, this page does exist. —Kirsten O'Nell
        • The first thing he did when he saw it was delete it. -WilliamLewis
        • Actually if you look above, one of the first people speaking out about it (back in December) was GrahamFreeman, who lives in Oakland, and didn't even attend UCD as a student I believe. (AKA< nothing to do with a conspiracy) And there's a separate page, ["Steve Ostrowski/Talk"] where JabberWokky and JasonAller (dedicated wiki gnomes who are in no way students. affiliated, or likely care about ASUCD) brought up the idea of locking him from his own page. Maybe there's an on-campus conspiracy and he's not nuts (lol), but he managed to annoy a lot of people on the Wiki who are most assuredly not part of the conspiracy, and it's due to his editing style and habits. -ES

I second that....in a few days I will have this page deleted. —SteveOstrowski

  • What the hell are you seconding? Also, you're psychotic. —TravisGrathwell

This is not a case of banning someone because of what they say or feel, but how they act. Ostrowski's behavior on the wiki constantly violates common wiki rules and norms, I feel nerdy saying that, but its true. I am apprehensive about banning him simply because I think he has something wrong in his head, seriously. I believe he is stuck in a video game-esque world that is black and white, good versus evil where he constantly fights an identity crisis about what side he is. I am not joking. In reality, he has burned bridges with those that would agree with him (DCR, Newman Center Molnar) and has constantly antagonized those he opposes, LEAD, by demonizing them. I believe 99% of the people in ASUCD have good intentions. What those intentions are of course of up for debate, however Steve vilifies those whose intentions differ from his. Its hard not to vilify him him back in retaliation. In his fantasy world is he fighting some big power struggle through "wars" online and in ASUCD and he is positioning himself to take power. Anyways, we really should just ignore him as he has proven time and time again his inability to leave his fantasy world long enough to have lucid moments where he can actually accomplish political goals. —JamesSchwab

So far I think I count 7 heads who would approve a ban on Steve. Should we take an official vote? — CarlosOverstreet

  • Because that would be so productive, with unlimited amounts of profile names. —SteveOstrowski
    • Well steve, it was a communal effort in Banning Matthew Keys. And while I think many things you do are inherently noble, your edits pertain primarily to your pages, and the consistency at which you update is so meticulous it reminds me of a decorator crab always moving a piece of seaweed or sea anemone to change its appearance in some triflely annoying manner. — CarlosOverstreet
  • History has shown that democracy doesn't really fly on the wiki. Just about the only way you can get banned is by repeatedly posting gay porn. —TravisGrathwell

I won't miss the ASUCDrama, and I won't miss the updates Steve so thoughtfully provides. However I will miss looking at long strings of reverts and edit wars over things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. —StevenDaubert I think JW was right in saying a couple months back that there seems to be a backlash against Ostrowski, but you reap what you sow...

  • As much as I enjoy this little debate I feel the need to add my motivations in these cases. If a person of the LEAD persuasion or someone who just doesn't like me starts deleting my pages which exists on UC Davis or in the City of Davis then I will probably revert war until the page is back to way it was before. This is no different than if someone decided to delete a place of business of the Davis Wiki simply because someone didn't like the food or service or the owner for that matter. The reasons for these deletions is not about the Davis Wiki but personal gratification of messing with me. There is rarely anything that can be talked about. It is firmly within their philosophy or "needs" to have these pages deleted. Also the Davis Wiki is dominated heavily by LEAD or anti Student Focus people who enjoy settle changes on the Wiki to make Student Focus look bad. When almost all editors oppose Spencer Higgins you will get a biased page. Sorting fact from fiction, incredible bias from what is actually real is an important deal to me. Anyone can make budget calculations, say it is true, and then put it on a Davis Wiki page with the purpose of defaming someone. The point being is that Student Focus is not all that interested in Davis Wiki except for a few instances where is LEAD officials will use ASUCD computers and ASUCD time to make all sorts of edits. As such I am the only on the Wiki to bring balance to some Student Focus pages as well as my own personal pages. I of course will not give out names, but some Student Focus people enjoy what I do on the Wiki because they believe I provide a way to balance out. They see a great many of the edits on these pages filled with half truths and filled with bias. When you have a half dozen LEAD editors messing with my pages and those of others you will get conflict. For those not attached to LEAD but like to make similar edits you should know that the LEAD editors are not interested in the whole truth or creating any type of balance on the Wiki. You could ban me, but in the end I am doing what I have been asked to do, I am doing what I believe is necessary, which is to bring a sort of balance to ASUCD pages so that LEAD doesn't do whatever they want. Maybe balance is not your thing, but it becomes an issue when people post their blogs or their own bias and then name it as fact. Oh, and by writing this I am not conceding at all that I need to explain myself. —SteveOstrowski
  • Strangely none of my top four votes were for LEAD, this is not all about campus politics Steve, I as well have tried to be unpolitical regarding the campus elections, the only person I have a bias to is Spencer Higgins, namely I just don't like the guy and he never sent me a copy of that glorious paintball bill. This page is to discuss if you being here is good for the community on the wiki, it is not about politics, given your recent updates on non political matters, I think that this issue will probably blow over with the election. Brent deleting your pages is not because of some political bias, and not associated with LEAD in anyway, he just has an extreme dislike of you and will vent sometimes in deleting your existence on the wiki, it is relatively silly and pointless, but after some reverts it is all back to normal and life goes on, right? But this is all aside the point, if you use this system as a personal soap box, in order to create a greater glory for yourself, people will probably be annoyed and think rightfully that you are not contributing much to the community and only adding drama and incredulity to the wiki, as such, help the community more, be more gnomish, find some stubs to expand, a wanted page to create, a photo request to fill (if you can beat Jason), or just update some old pages and the like. Anyway have a nice day and good luck with the elections.
  • I just think that people such as GrahamFreeman, JabberWokky, and JasonAller getting involved speaks to that it's not just some sort of ASUCD thing. I had no idea who LEAD or Student Focus was until I started using the wiki. I still maintain ASUCD is stupid and I wish I didn't have to give money to it for mostly useless things. I even originally thought the Christian Slate was a prank by the Orwellians. And the reverts aren't just people deleting your page, though Brent has been doing that too much, for a while you reverted almost any change on your pet pages. Or you started randomly deleting pages like Cults citing "anti-religion", and going through and safe editing others. Someone else said it, the majority of your edits have been vanity edits on your own stuff. But it really does intrigue and slightly frighten me that you really think it's all about LEAD or whatever, I told you a year ago I thought it was a game to you when you im'd me randomly, and I think I now agree with James comment above. -ES

What concerns me is that the hardcore gnomes think that you are detracting from the wiki, being aDavisites and one who has always been leery of any form of student govt (from Jr high to College) I could care less about ASUCD, yet it's your apparently your whole world on the wiki. We should foster a sense of community but many people seem to have just grown tired of how you try and convey your message. I'm amazed that you've managed to piss of brent to the extent he makes pointless edits / deletions that he know will just be reverted.

I, George Andrews, endorse a ban. He is an embarrassment to the conservative cause and has made a mockery of the years of good will that DCR built with the ASUCD/UC Davis community in mending fences. Granted I don't think my endorsement will go far because ive been out of college for a while now. But its worth what its worth - George Andrews

You are not on the ground at all, I recruited someone to run for Senate who later got the DCR endorsement, I am writing what many consider a Republican newspaper, I continue to support conservative asucd candidates. And as for good will, the amount of interaction between DCR and ASUCD has been very little so I don't know what you are talking about. And again conservative stuff like the Pledge of Allegiance is being addressed frequently and will be passed before I graduate. And again I am working with a seperate conservative organization and I am not any kind of representative of DCR. And lastly your opinion of my outside activities has no bearing on whether someone should be banned or not. —SteveOstrowski

  • Steven, don't kid yourself. It's conservatives like you that make me ashamed to be a Republican sometimes. I don't care who you recruit for ASUCD Senate or what your newspaper talks about, everything you do is for political gain. Especially your use of the wiki. This is why you're up to be banned! You don't care about the wiki community just like you don't care about the moral values of individual responsibility that the Republican Party stands for. Everything's just a game for you. -Paul Harms
  • No, you just want to silence the only person on the Davis Wiki that tries to keep Student Focus pages from becomming attack ads. —SteveOstrowski
  • Ok Steven, hear me out here instead of using some self-righteous spin. (It’s what I deal with for a living so I can see right though 99% of whatever is in the public). I’m sure you work hard and believe in the conservative cause as much as anyone on the UC Davis campus. I think most of my friends know that im a pretty light hearted guy that likes to have fun. Im all for making jokes and having fun. But when I figured out you were actually serious about all this crazy stuff you have been spewing out over the past year….it scares the living daylights out of me. I think you seriously need to re-evaluate your tactics. When you go out and promote “conservative” issues, you have to keep in mind that you are the ONLY conservative representation most people see on this campus.You can’t act like a complete psychotic lunatic. Your first group, the Christian Slate, played into every horrible stereotype of a conservative Christian. It was soooo insane that I thought it was a parody put on by my Orwellian Friend Rev. Chad Van Schoelandt. I take great personal offense to people who make conservative Christians look like “Looney toons” in public. Have some dignity if you want to be a leader instead of getting in these insane wiki edit fights. My main worry is that the people you interact with will get a bad taste of what a conservative Christian is….and will hold that negative opinion throughout their adult life. I guess what im saying is….be conscious of your actions and the cause you want to represent and fight for. In terms of the wiki discussion, it dosent take a lawyer that you are abusing wiki Etiquette... - GeorgeAndrews
  • While I absolutely 100% agree with you George (200%), to be fair that isn't really a reason to ban from Davis Wiki. But his actions on the wiki inregards to these things (and some that aren't related), such as constant deleting of talk pages, persistance in reverts an dignoring said talk pages, deleting entire pages multiple times (citing 'anti-religion' even), and hawkish protectiveness of any edits against anything he is a part of would be relevant reasons. I don't think Steven has contributed anything that does not concern his political views and/or ASUCD. The one edit he did do that JabberWokky congratulated him on, was about adding a paragraph to a former ASUCD president who said she disagreed with something KrisFricke said or did, and that was likely personal motivated as Kris is/was? the top dog for the court that Steven submitted a lot of cases to and dealt with, so I think even that edit was personally/"politically" motivated. -ES
  • I agree that one's views aren't particularly relevant, except when it results in someone trying to turn the wiki into their own personal sandbox made in their own image. Which is what Steve has been doing. Myself, personally, I find many Steve's stated goals and views repugnant, but banning over that never crossed my mind. Whatever he does in ASUCD is also irrelevant to the wiki. His dishonesty in pushing for the Pledge of Allegiance while lying and blackmailing his way there also don't matter. Bigoted statements about atheists can be easily edited out of the wiki as well.
  • Bigoted statements of atheists? You write essays bashing Christians all the time. —SteveOstrowski
    • I will criticize any attempt to undermine rational inquiry and the pursuit of what is true. In contrast, you spent a whole summer in an intolerant campaign to get atheists banned from MySpace, and you were proud of it. The first is argumentation, the second is bigotry. -KJM

No, what really matters here is whether or not Steve is damaging a resource that thousands of hours of volunteer time have gone into producing. I check the stats every now and then to see how much people are contributing, and I watched Steve's count skyrocket past mine, yet, I can't name any pages or sections where Steve put in a lot of time and research and image editing, page formatting, etc, that would reflect someone who is really helping out as much as the numbers seem to indicate.

There is, however, one thing that I think Steve has done that is positive. As George alluded to the creation of the Christian Slate, George and I found ourselves agreeing that it was a dumb idea. Indeed, we see the uniting of many different people on this wiki against what he's trying to push, both politically and in the wiki. If the "Anti-Steve" conspiracy is true, then he has succeeded in uniting Student Focus, LEAD, Independents, etc, who can now collectively see that despite differences of political opinion, it could be worse. Steve (and people like him) could have actual, real power.

We could vote, but I have an interesting idea, is there anyone here who is willing to defend Steve and suggest that he not be banned? (No Wiki Gnomes, so Steve can't defend himself.) I think it's pretty universally recognized that his editing has in general, not been productive. - KarlMogel

I don't have time to fix LEAD attacks on my pages, fix Student Focus pages, research what is missing in the Davis, and so on all at the same time. As you may have observed the wiki editor count for Student Focus officials is a tiny percentage compared to that of anti-Student Focus. I don't particularly care about the edit count, change the measurement system if you want. —SteveOstrowski

  • Do you understand that this is the Davis Wiki, not the ASUCD Wiki? And you really are fanatical about that.

Actually I tend to not allow people to come to my aid in these sorts of things. —SteveOstrowski

I just want to make sure I have all of this straight: You want to ban him for reverting/deleting pages that would take away the negative 'spin' he believes is put there maliciously? Instead of deleting/reverting he should add in a paragraph underneath it saying how he believes how biased it all is. Deleting things from the wiki that other people have put time into on the basis of bias is a problem but if you are going to ban him for that what about anyone else he is in these edit wars with? It seems to me that it is the same people that continually get in edit wars with him. Granted they do nothing as extreme as Ostrowski but it is along the same lines. From what I have seen over the past few days, there have been a few specific people who have put up a number of hostile pages/comments against Ostrowski. I'm not suggesting we ban anyone but isn't it somewhat of a double standard? I also think it a bit strange to ban someone on the basis of an unfair edit count. A wiki is a wiki because anyone can edit it, what does it matter the count? Of course I am no expert on the wiki community — I don't know what is important to the prominent players of the wiki community and should therefore have no say in what is going to happen. But if anyone or anything is causing a major disturbance in the wiki, something that is affecting improvements or progress, then it should go. —Kirsten O'Nell

  • "KO", you have just as much a say in this as anyone else does. Some folks have earned more respect than others, but we all have a voice. —Graham Freeman
    • My point in putting that was to illustrate how bizarre it looks that there is a discussion to ban someone for basically over editing. And in all honesty, are you going to listen and follow something that I, someone who is just starting to get into the wiki, over someone who is constantly on here and is now a wikignome? I could go either way on this particular issue, frankly I don't really care since Ostrowski could just get a new screen name. — KirstenOnell

Why can't we simply remove the stuff we don't like? If we always think "let's ban this guy we don't like" then the natural power of the edit becomes diminished and banning people becomes recourse for edits we don't like? Editing is something that we as a community can easily correct. If an edit war breaks out then we can just temporarily lock the page until things cool.

  • If we do this, an edit war ensues. We've had far too many of those with him.
  • I've tried it. He just reverts it. Repeatedly. -ph
  • I'd just like to restate this was originally brought up in December, over 2 months ago. Since then, more people have commented and brought up the idea of at the least excluding him from self public page edits. And it's not something he can be asked about, imo. Constantly trying to delete the cult page cause it was anti-religion. Deleting talk pages made about any of his edits. No comment, just deleted. Reverting without reasons. Like I said, ignore Brents stuff, and look back at his stuff over the last four months, it's virtually all deletes and reverts. And he still failed to make a useful, non ASUCD contribution. And even his own contributions were pretty lame. If I remember, even you said the initial page he made for his paper was crappy because it was so vague and misleading on purpose. He tried to make pages for Freshman to run on his slate, then people said wait for them to be users...he fake signed up as a user and tried to make a page. There was the mysterious edits by RonaldPayne (not RonPayne) from the same ip minutes after one of his. Ignore the stuff with Brent, but think/look pack into the past too. Like the constant revert war with the Kirk Cowgill page...he specifically said he'd keep doing it on purpose, both on the wiki indirectly on the ocmments log (which Jabberwokky asked to verify if he was specifically refusing to compromise and use the talk page), and on his blog because he said something akin to they can't stop me, I'll do it cause it needs to be done til the elections ever. too bad. He seems to take that attitude with everything on the wiki, well he'll just click and too bad for anyone else. And like I said to someone else, I think it becomes more of an issue than a "guy we don't like" when the dedicated wikignomes even bring up talk about excluding him from ediitng certain pages. If anyone deserves to be banned, it's this guy in my opinion. And I don't believe *anyone else* has ever been nominated for a ban on the wiki except for Matthew Keys who started purposefully vandalizing it and trying to get banned, so I don't think it really diminishes the wiki or sets up banning as a precedent. I don't know if the idea of compromising would work, as he's been on the wiki for well over half a year (8, 9 months?) and it doesn't seem to, even over the last few months for all the reasons above and probably more. -ES
    • I think Edwin put it very well. Steven's edits and behavior on the wiki in general have almost always been done in a childish manner. The point has been brought up about not wanting to make banning something that we perform often. I believe this is a good point, however something should be done to Steve to show him that this behavior is unacceptable. It has really been getting worse and worse. Before the reverts were only with a few people but recently he has been getting in revert wars with 5-6 people across multiple pages. Sometimes he isn't as active and so people forget about him but all one has to do is wait and he will cause more of a ruckus with revert wars that fill up the recent changes page. I'm strongly in favor of some form of reprimand to get the point across that this kind of behavior is unacceptable on the wiki. ~MS

It has been a couple of months since this discussion started. There does not appear to be any discussion of better behavior in Mr. Ostrowski's contributions. Is this enough discussion to ban him? or is it possible for him to play by the rules and no one has commented? rocksanddirt

  • I have been holding back to see if there is consensus and to let the community decision be dictated by cold rational thought, not hot outrage due to his rather antisocial behavior in recent days. I'll kick this out a second time before a formal vote to ban: does any member of the Wiki Community wish to speak on Steve's behalf regarding his actions on the Wiki (and only his actions on the Wiki)? Steve, this includes you. —JabberWokky
    • Polls can create the impression that one must choose sides and can create an environment where someone is uncomfortable to oppose the norm.
  • Last night I had a pleasant conversation with Steve about music and bad movies. I know the guy is passionate and concerned, but I never really gave him a fair shake. I think he just sees himself as a filling a necessary role. While I disagree with him on most political issues, I know that it is impossible to ban him, because just as he did with facebook, he will just get a new user name and keep contributing his brand of contributions. There is no official wiki code of conduct. If Steve behaves in a way that you dislike then you’ll most likely simply not respect his edits. But, I think even Steve knows that eventually some sort of compromise must be made because edit wars cannot go on forever – they detract from the power of the wiki. And Steve understands power. —RobRoy
  • You guys have a few days to consider, I am going to be out of town for a few days. —SteveOstrowski

If Steve isn't hit with the ban stick, maybe a reprimand or ["Steve Ostrowski/Talk" something] is in order... —StevenDaubert

Let's focus our discussion not on the beliefs of the editor but rather what exactly it is we think he is doing wrong. Once it's clear what he is doing wrong we can ask him to stop.

Well, it would be nice to just limit him from making any edits or reverts to his usual pages. However, that would be relatively unfair given that is what he is primarily concerned about, though I would like to see his offering me a bribe to not edit the IAC page come back to get him it is really not a big deal. I think that his obsession with student government is seriously damaging the quality of his life, and as such I vote for such a ban as to make his life easier, that he cannot edit any ASUCD page, thus perhaps he will become more of a better user, offering his views upon other issues such as music or movies, he should still have the ability to show he has changed etc. Maybe a ban on him viewing said pages would also be good to put his mind at ease? (this is a silly and pointless suggestion I know, I expect to be wholly ignored). In any case, that is the last of my cents, I rather see a peaceful end to conflict where everyone walks away with at least something good? eh whatever, I need sleep. ~Dave

  • In a converstation with Steve, he was pleasant and sharp. However he told me that he does 95 percent of his wiki work on ASUCD. Dave's suggestion would force Steve to branch out. Maybe he will relax a bit after taking realizing that this isn't the ASUCDavisWiki.
    • As I said before, I think a temporary ban would be better than a permanant ban. His destructive edits are directly linked to his obsession with ASUCD, recently fueled by his negative publicity. I have suggested to him that he take a break from ASUCD, as if that would happen. But if we banned him for a month, he might cool off and stop trying to abuse the wiki, and come back to do more productive edits (I realize that is a relative concept). If he continues the same edits after the ban is released, then we can consider a permanant ban. How about we each weigh in with "permanant" "temporary" or "no ban"? My vote is "temporary." -KarlMogel
      • I vote temporary as well (People change, permanant is a bit mean I suppose), but it may be a moot point, it could become voluntary once he sees the election results, and there's no election/ASUCD stuff for a long while. -ES
        • I'd just like to concur with this point, because while the next big issues are the budget hearings, they aren't for quite a while in Spring Quarter. However, we must remember that Steve has proven that he can and will engineer controversy where there was none before. Hell, he started the Christian Slate page here at the start of last spring quarter, as a simple example. Also, because of the work and experiences outside of the wiki that I've had involving Steve (Including being featured in the video), I have been holding my tongue on this thread, so as to keep it on the topic of Wiki. —MaxMikalonis

If there were more people offering a Student Focus, or simply non-partisan ASUCD viewpoint on the wiki, I doubt that Steve would feel the desire to do anywhere near as many ASUCD edits. Alternately, if there were more restrictions on reverts, ya'll would probably end up less annoyed at each others. —JosephBleckman

  • scapegoating in my opinion. It started long before any of that, I feel that's a cop out. He reverted practically any change to the Christian Slate page for a while, as an example. And I don't see how deleting pages citing "anti-religion" or "bias" has anything to do with ASUCD, especially when he also deleted the talk pages people tried to make. —ES
  • Ban him until his presence is missed. - GregWebb
  • Haha, that's harsh. I thought we weren't talking about a permanent ban anymore! -ph
  • Just because Steve thinks the wiki is biased against SF doesn't mean that it's true. Two of my top six senate picks were SF and I'm someone he fights with frequently. —WilliamLewis

The Davis Wiki is currently having a pointless debate over my account. They will give me terms to which I may or may not agree with, and then I will go ahead and post what I believe to be factual information anyway. —SteveOstrowski (from his eljay)

  • I think the problem is that you don't really post factual information. Or at least the fact/vague rumor ratio is much less than 1. Oh, and that you're an asshat and deserve to die. —BrentLaabs
  • I don't think I'd take it that far, but making vague pages like this and then publically saying stuff like that shows me this isn't something that's going to stop, Steve is "reducing the value of Davis Wiki for everyone else in the process of abusing it to further his own personal goals" (quote from someone else up above). It seems like there's always going to be something else, (a new underdeveloped vague page) and it seems like it's always going to be personal goals. He has yet to make any useful edits that didn't have to do him/asucd (over months), even when asked to (too busy planning cell phone stuff maybe). Anyway, I think there's more than enough consensus on this page, a lot of people weighed in and it's been open for a while. So... -ES

2007-02-25 23:47:19   I'm against a ban. However, I am definitely in favour of enforcing our community guidelines and wiki ethics, both of which Steve has repeatedly violated. Preventive actions can and should involve select wiki editor(s) having an honest, forthright discussion with Steve, escalating to some formal mediation (perhaps via UCD), or failing that, enforcement can take the form of the Davis Wiki Board of Directors filing formal complaints with Steve's ISP(s). —GrahamFreeman

  • Any editor can have a discussion with him. Rob Roy did earlier. It would be a good idea. As for the Board, I brought up the issue of Cease and Desist letters and formal criminal computer trespass charges with a couple members of the Board this weekend (not necessarily regarding Steve, but certainly prompted by this discussion). The general feeling appears to be to simply do what is necessary as need arises (disclaimer: I'm not speaking for the Board). Banning an individual is a pretty specific and easy thing to do with many potential ramifications down the line. I just got finished with a lawsuit wherein my company banned a real estate company from our website. Pretty straightforward, and the court system understands harassment and notification of expulsion from a web site, pretty much the same as a physical place. This is one of those things where being a formally organized non-profit helps quite a bit. I'm in no way saying that it would come to anything like that... the question of a ban hasn't even been settled. The core point I'm trying to make is that the community does not have to worry about the practicality of a ban; it could be enforced if need be. Preferably not, which is why the ideal situation is always to work things through. The interesting thing is that most admins and members of the board are not students, and some have no affiliation with UC Davis at all. He could in no way blame it on some sort of LEAD or Focus conspiracy or whoever he's claimed in his rants. That's also why it's important that people confine their discussion to things Steve has done on the Wiki itself. I don't care if he's been tearing down fliers or filing ASUCD lawsuits. The sole reason to ban somebody should be knowing and continued abuse of the content or fellow members of the Wiki. Revoking or suspending membership is a decision not to be taken lightly, and it should only be the last resort after all else has been tried. Rob Roy spent time actually talking to the man and came away with a different take on the situation. In the end, a ban means that the wiki community has failed in being able to allow a voice in Davis to cooexist with theirs. It will eventually occur; there are people who are simply too abusive to their fellow human beings. The question that has been posed, stripped of the pleasant innocuous simplicity of the word 'ban', is a simple one: is Steve now, and will he continue to be, so maliciously abusive that he truly cannot be tolerated? —JabberWokky
  • No not really. He is mostly harmless, oddly Brent Laabs is being far more maliciously abusive than Steve. I think that by increased communication with Steve via talk pages, AIM or in person, things could probably work out well, he is a reasonable person most of the time and I have gotten a few edit/revert conflicts resolved by simply talking to him, so ban, drop the issue, I leave that to the wiser Davis wiki peoples. ~DavidPoole

2007-02-26 10:36:16   I'm not nominating myself for this task, as I am not as personally familiar with the specifics of Steve's abuse of Wiki ethics as more experienced veterans, but I would recommend a one-on-one conversation with Steve. Throwing insults, even constructive criticism, back and forth online, can't be as effective as a personal conversation, in which one can not hide behind a plastic display or resort to edit wars. Or, perhaps a conference can be arranged, open to all registered Wiki users, featuring a debate over this issue and, ultimately, a democratic vote on this and other such matters. —LeonardMarque

  • Sure? that sounds like a good idea. ~DavidPoole
  • AIM is empirestv, instant message me....if you dare. —SteveOstrowski
  • I gotta ask, "if you dare"? what do you intend by that Steve, you should really include some emoticons, with that to make it friendlier, else it sounds kinda unfriendly, but I am supposing it is to be silly.. I hope. ~Dave
  • Sometimes those that instant message me are so overwhelmed by the experience that it stuns them for a few hours. And your hope is in vain. —SteveOstrowski
    • Oddly, this does go to help your case that you are just really bad at communicating, and pretty arrogant or something like that.. je ne sais quoi. ~Dave

For your consideration (from Church of the Divide):

As the Minister of Supression of Information on the Davis Wiki I must say that however amusing this debate is, content and comments should relate to the subject at hand and not necessarily a theological debate. As for the Truth only I know the Truth. —SteveOstrowski

  • *rolls eyes* —BrentLaabs
  • Its called Sarcasm and Irony. —MM
  • Just so you know, that title isn't new. —SteveOstrowski

    • There's a lot of people editing pages having to do with that Church group, and a lot of editors tried nicely to compromise info, find sources, talk to people to let them know how things are done, even polite comments about their type of edits being inappropriate (ex: the "get the popcorn" and such comment changes). His comment was obviously sarcasm and irony, but it looks lame, sounds dumb, and makes the wiki look like a joke to said people from out of town and out of state.

      Look at it kind of seriously. It's not just SO fooling around, people obviously found the Davis Wiki somehow. They didn't read about it in the paper or just find the issue while checking recent changes. People involved with these issues, either personally (or who read about it in newspapers) likely googled more info and then found some on the Wiki. This seems to be the case for the Preacher with Signs page a few weeks ago, and again now with Freddie Oakley, her church, and this protesting group as this was also recent news. These weren't sockpuppet accounts, they were actual people who most likely never heard of Davis Wiki, which I think is a good thing: we want info about Davis out there, it's nice people come here about it. We may disagree with their edits, but it gets worked out and people try to help others learn how the wiki ideally works. So yeah, don't brush off what Brent said above, his 'evidence', because I think it really does show that it undermines what the other people were trying to accomplish.

      Also, it's been another several days, and I don't really see any opposing consensus now or ever (despite *Several* calls to support him, most people get 3 strikes, not 50) -ES

2007-02-28 23:49:49   Ok, I'll vote for not banning him. I don't want to be misunderstood as endorsing the totality of his behavior; some of which is rather poor form. Within the time frame of those who associate with him through ASUCD he is not going to change, but banning is not the solution in this case. I went to college with Steve's double years ago.. I've been through this is the days of usenet. I won't spoil the story to tell you how Steve's double turned out. Steve's presence does bring with it some value. Many of you weight this against the amount of work you've had to do to provide some balance to the wiki and feel that his contribution comes up short compared to that amount of work. I don't disagree that having him around means more work for a LOT of other people, but to leave out his contribution would detract from accurately reflecting the community that this wiki is trying to serve. Now on the other hand... his edits that serve only to hint at secrets, or remove facts should be corrected by the rest of us. I'll try to be a little more diligent about that, but I notice that many of the revert wars take place during hours in which I do not edit. —JasonAller

2007-02-28 23:58:23   I also vote "no" on the ban. —GrahamFreeman

2007-03-01 00:02:20   3rd "no" vote here. —ArlenAbraham

2007-03-01 00:03:28   "No" vote from me... —DavidGrundler

I vote no as well, though my opinion doesn't count I at least wish to counteract Brent who is voting to still ban, but that is aside the point. ~DavidPoole

2007-03-01 00:22:21   Can we use choice voting? My number #1 Choice is No. #2 Choice is Yes. #3 Choice is Hilary Clinton. —JamesSchwab

I vote no for banning Steve, however as a friend of his, I have pleed to him, on all of ya'lls behalf, to revert less, and to follow my precident in using backoff editing more. I also vote no in regards to banning Hillary Clinton. —JosephBleckman

2007-03-01 23:39:01   I vote no... —CarlosOverstreet

  • Your vote is irrelevant. —SteveOstrowski
    • WTF - Joseph Bleckman just mentioned that he pleaded with Steve to revert less, and Steve tries to delete the page again... -KJM
    • To be fair a deletion is not a revert. —SteveOstrowski
      • Uh oh, I can be the ultimate hair-splitter. A revert is when you change the page back to its condition at an earlier state. A deletion removes the page. However, removing a page also brings it back to an earlier state - its nonexistence. So a deletion is in essence a particular kind of revert. Voila. -KJM
      • I think they are two entirely different things when you look up google searches, one is there, the other is not. —SteveOstrowski
        • And that comparison falls apart completely because of the cached versoins you can find on google, and then othersites which let you find now deleted sites. -MM
          • Okay, I will be sure to consider that the next time I want to revert. —SteveOstrowski
        • And let's not forget that the WayBack Machine archives websites according to specific times - and can save different versions of a page as it evolves over time. So the distinction doesn't exist. The point is, both deletions and mindless reverts are unproductive, annoying, and malicious. - KJM

2007-03-02 15:41:37   If you can't get on with it and ban him, at least rename him RevertMonkey —GrumpyoldGeek

2007-03-02 15:57:16   I second that nomination. :) —KarlMogel

2007-03-16 12:11:29   Just to add to the list in case it comes up again, he still tries to do annonymous sock puppeting. After all the fuss he made about JoeLevy account being a "LEAD agent" and whatnot, he went and made a JoeLevy. (note the period) to edit his page and confuse other people? Weak. —EdWins

  • The account Joe Levy was used for the purpose of attacking Student Focus and made edits using ASUCD computers. If the account is not going to be destroyed after it has been used for misinformation purposes than it must be "allowed," as common and acceptable Davis Wiki practices. —SteveOstrowski
    • Just because someone doesn't get banned for something or an account doesn't get turned off doesn't mean it constitutes "acceptable" or "common" practices. Community consensus has been that "sockpuppet" accounts — fake accounts used to flame or otherwise cause mischief — are not cool. See Wiki Ethics, where there is a bullet point devoted to that topic.

2007-08-10 00:31:33   He keeps editing his public page in non-minor ways, which is against wiki policy. Aren't there enough reasons to ban him yet? —BrentLaabs

2007-08-10 01:08:02   Brent, I agree with your concern over the quality of the wiki and respect for community consensus, but I don't think it's time to ban Steve. Banning someone is a big deal. Steve's not doing anything especially destructive; he's just behaving in a childish way. It's a reason to think less of him, but not a reason to ban him. Maybe everyone involved should spend more time AFK (maybe even see some daylight?) to calm down and gain perspective. —Graham.Freeman

2007-08-10 01:12:50   Hey Graham: we're back to disagreeing with each other! I'm actually really calm right now. Really, what I'm asking, is why don't we enforce the "don't edit a public page" rule at all? —BrentLaabs

It's not really a rule, although I really wish it were. It's so stupid. He has his own page he can vandalize to his heart's content. Why bother us when someone posts a lulzy link? -wl

I'm just saying, that if it was a rule, or at least somewhat socially enforced, people wouldn't have to go to other wikis to write the truth about him. —BrentLaabs

2007-08-10 01:15:15   i don't even understand why people have such a big problem with him. it seems like people just want to pick on him. or maybe i'm just not seeing what edits are causing such a commotion. —JessicaRockwell

2007-08-14 22:01:11   Most of his edits lately have been his public page. —KarlMogel

  • Really! That tends to happen in a bogus revert war. Fact of the matter is that I make helpful edits here and there and as long as people don't try to attack me I will peacefully add more interesting things to the wiki. —SteveOstrowski
    • Bogus revert wars don't happen over your public page if you voice your concerns in the talk page like you're supposed to. No matter what stupid thing someone puts on your public page. - KJM
      • something tells me Ostrowski just got owned —StevenDaubert
        • One hardly needs to try. -KJM
      • Owned? You two are uninformed and frankly irrelevant. —SteveOstrowski

2007-08-15 17:22:42   Daviswiki is far too sympathetic. We need to be like Kotaku and have "Ban Mondays". Nip these douchebags in the bud on day one before they fester like so many termites in a cedar house. —JesseSingh

I think some wiki editors need to take a chill pill with regard to Steve-O, and try not to provoke him on his public page. Try to involve him on the talk page for his public page, and make conservative edits. With regard to editing one's own public page, I think one-day restrictions from editing would be a good idea, regardless of who it is. Ever tried to edit a page about your own projects on wikipedia? That's a real pain in the butt, which it shouldn't be here, but there should be more done to keep people from editing where there is a clear conflict of interest. - KJM

2007-08-16 20:13:05   Well said. —StevenDaubert

2007-09-05 20:58:38   Bump. So, how many strikes does someone get? Gabe edited a page saying that Steve self-proclaimed himself the president, and in reality has nothing to do with the group officially, etc. What was the response? An instant revert. No comment left. Classic! JasonAller fixed that with his own revert: "(No, No, No. That isn't how things are done.)" So, by now, after alllll this time...shouldn't he know that's how things shouldn't be done? Hasn't this conversation about reverts come up multiple times? Just because he occasionally makes an edit that has nothing to do with ASUCD and gets a pat on the back for it, what's changed? Anytime a revert war comes up he flat out says he doesn't care and won't step reverting. Anytime people edit his pet pages in ways he doesn't like, it's a kneejerk revert. And the thing with this group...it's just another example of him promoting himself on the wiki. When JasonAller stopped him from deleting Gabes information, SO ended up responding with how it's trivial and that the page accurately describes 'the second group.' He neglected to mention any of this information in the entry. Graham left a comment on this ban page in December of last year, The issue at hand is whether Steve should be permitted to reduce the value of Davis Wiki for everyone else in the process of abusing it to further his own personal goals. Topics have come up multiple times, I believe this page has been commented on by 24 or 25 editors (a rough count). Once again, I'll ask "how many strikes?". I agree with Jesse, Daviswiki is far too sympathetic. —EdWins

  • If the information that GabeKoulikov has provided is true, then Steve Ostrowski has willfully inserted false information into the Davis Wiki. It's not my wiki anymore, but I put some time into it like everyone else and I simply can't stand this continual destruction. This has to be the last straw. Time for a Bannination.

http://daviswiki.org/Wiki/April_Fool%27s_Day%2C_2007?sendfile=true&file=bannination.png Cross-posted at Students for Life at UCD: There is one glaring continuity here, and that is the misuse of the Davis Wiki for personal ego-stroking, and the posting of false information, along with the purposeful with-holding of factual information. Add that to Steve's attempt to delete the information once it was put up and you've got a perfect storm of wiki trollery. There should be no reason why someone who has declared war on reality should be allowed to continue to deface the Davis Wiki like this.

-KarlMogel

2007-09-05 23:15:50   I say we ban Ostrowski from Davis Wiki, but make ASUCDaviswiki, where he can live happily ever after —StevenDaubert

2007-09-05 23:18:44   Why don't we just let Steve have his own wiki: SteveEmpireWiki - where he can make up whatever he wants, his own personal crybaby sandbox. —KarlMogel

2007-09-05 23:58:14   Anybody want to defend him? Anybody? —JabberWokky

2007-09-06 00:00:06   defend him (yet again). —EdWins

2007-09-06 00:18:12   I went back in time and voted for Hitler. —BradBenedict

  • That's a harsh deal. —SteveOstrowski
    • Don't cry, Hitler loves you. —BradBenedict
      • The wiki is run by Neville Chamberlains. Ban his goofy ass and let's move onto more pressing issues. I hear there was a hair in a Dos Coyotes plate!!! —JesseSingh

2007-09-06 00:29:06   I'd prefer not to ban anyone, but Steve is really trying to get me to change my mind. I'd prefer a limit for him on the use of the revert button to a ban if that is possible as it seems that he is incapable of limiting his own use of it. —JasonAller

2007-09-06 01:33:22   His latest "Students for Life" antics annoy me to no end. He doesn't care about the truth, just looking good on his pet pages. He makes it impossible to make a page accurately reflect anything he's involved with. What does someone have to do to get banned around here? I swear, it's impossible unless you ask for it. :( —WilliamLewis

2007-09-06 01:49:03   Keep in mind everyone the entirety of events/reasons, don't just skim over the pages of reading above. It included many, many revert wars, talk page deleting, refusal to compromise, several outright lies/misleading editing, a refusal to add information to his own pet pages and deny others, and sockpuppet accounts - including impersonation (made an account pretending to be a freshman girl he wanted to run under his group). And despite so many of you trying so hard to 'outreach', he repeatedly has said he'll just have others come edit it the way he wants, or continue regardless. Call his bluff? Full ban, imo. Removing the revert button won't stop it, JA. I think that removing the revert button may have been viable as an option - 6 months ago or more. I think after all this time it's painfully obvious that hasn't changed. (Of course, reverting insults/userpage deletion is totally valid. No one is including those). —EdWins

  • Steve has recently decided to reignite his sockpuppet account as well. You probably couldn't get much worse. - KJM

2007-09-06 09:21:34   ban his ass. really annoys me to have to keep checking to see when he deleted my comments about his show or SFL. totally lame. —PxlAted

While I don't think it'll change your opinion of him for the better, it was I who deleted your comments on SFL as I felt that they were about abortion, not the organization. -wl

2007-09-06 10:44:08   For a while I thought he was a pretty shitty (but still lulzy) lulcow, but now people are getting TOO angry. He doesn't seem to understand that this is a _community_ thing. He's trying to be the sole source of information for anything he's involved in. And he seems to have more than enough time to do it. It's understandable that he doesn't like the insults about him, but he could limit those by being reasonable. As stupid as I think he is, I don't think he should be permabanned yet. Maybe just 6 months or so. That'd give some time to for the Ostrowski hate to die down and show him that not having complete control over his pages isn't the end of the world. —BradBenedict

  • I was also against banning him, when this first came up 6 months ago and a few months before that. He's had many chances to mellow out....I'm now leaning towards a ban. -JamesSchwab
  • I was at first in favor of a temporary ban, but my inclination is now permaban. -KJM

2007-09-06 12:10:10   Please note Wiki Community Proposal 1: Steven Ostrowski —JabberWokky

2007-09-11 22:15:20   i havent been on davis wiki in a while...but i got a call this weekend to go on davis wiki and vote for a ban. I forgot who called me. I guess im too late to vote. But here are my thoughts....

Being a buffoon may be an addiction for the poor kid. its not worth helping him at the expense of a wonderful resource like Davis Wiki. He obviously thrives off the attention. Lets not give him any and boot him to Siberia. It's one of the few bipartisan things we can agree on in Davis. I think the kind hearted Wiki moderators have been cutting this guy too much slack. It may be the inner-hippie in them…im not sure.

i vote for a ban....which has already been enacted

good job

—GeorgejAndrews

Discussion of Ending the Banishment of Steven Ostrowski

2008-11-17 18:58:21   Hey, how about unbanning Steve if he asks nicely? —JasonAller

2008-11-17 19:43:17   Considering he hasn't followed this ban, no. —JamesSchwab

  • Just to ask, can we get some examples, perhaps on this page to note where he has circumvented the ban? I remember he did long ago, but not at all recently. ~DavidPoole

2008-11-17 21:12:01   Vote no. Reread this page. And consider how ASUCD-drama free the wiki has been the last few election cycles... —EdWins

2008-11-17 22:02:17   I vote in favor of unbanning him. One of the darkest days for the wiki came when his perspective was shut out by the majority. —JoseBleckman

  • Disclosure needed here with this comment. —JasonAller
  • Selective memory, Joseph. Nobody wanted to shut out his perspective. Steve's behavior here was the motivation. His delibrate posting of demonstratively false information to advance a political agenda sealed his fate. Besides, you were a near mirror of him ideologically and you're still here. —WilliamLewis
  • Go reread arch-conservative George Andrews' comment above. It's not about politics, it's about him being a buffoon. —BrentLaabs
  • I speak not nessecarily of there being an intention to explicitly shut his views out by all, but more so of what effect banning him had. Others with his perspectives on ASUCD remain (such as myself) but we never were anywhere near as active as he. As Steve once said, "I love to see what people think and I find every page of the Davis Wiki filled with human feeling and emotion. Sometimes I sense humor, anger, curiosity, joy, and hatred in many of the Davis Wiki pages. With LEAD they have collectively used the Davis Wiki as an advertisement sign and are tilting it towards their side. Why is this important? The Davis Wiki is not in my view supposed to be a collection of half truths, feelings, and lies. It is to be the truth as determined by those who know. Not every Davis Wiki editor is equal. I have knowledge of a subject that others do not. Other editors have knowledge that I do not. Every editor in a way is specialized due to their proximity to the subject they are editing or their connection with the subject." This sentiment of his was probably more timely a year ago when there were still multiple active parties in ASUCD, but I would imagine that if his perspective is no longer of use in regards to better offering a complete view of the community's views, than it would be unlikely for his views to cause any trouble. —JoseBleckman
    • There is far more to Davis than ASUCD and LEAD. That was part of the problem: his edits virtually always were regarding UC Davis politics, or his personal groups (his newsletter, his 'telecommunications' company, etc). And as said, it wasn't about perspective of those edits: it was almost always the methodology. Months and months of JabberWokky and JasonAller, probably our best wiki role models (and other people, of course) attempting to reason with him regarding his editing, his reverting, etc, etc. Lots and lots of people who don't care about ASUCD at all (such as JW again, not even a student) had issues with it. It wasn't a few isolated events, it was a constant factor. And of course, his unwillingness to relent, responding about how he'll simply continue and if you ban him, he'll simply get his edits done through other people. -ES
  • Do his actions deserve a "life" sentence? What about a probationary reinstatement? —DavidGrundler
    • I figure, why risk it? The wiki has been so much more peaceful and productive without him. -wl
      • Could you not use that same argument for people in jail? —DavidGrundler
        • Sure, and then you can use a similar argument for something else! Irrelevant hypothetical rarely help a specific issue, they just derail it. If you look through the multiple pages about Steve, or specifically the edit histories, you can figure out more than the simple history. Months of abuse, months of people *trying* to find a solution. IIRC, he was temp banned a few times too. Eventually, he always relapsed, or else he refused to try to compromise, as mentioned above. I guess you could consider it like people in jail after all - 46 strikes and you're out! Nonetheless, as virtually all his edits (as I mentioned above) were either UCD politics or his personal pet pages, the effect of productivity on the wiki probably went up after his banning. Less time spent trying to pacify those situations. Joseph is right in that his political perspective is now missing from ASUCD political pages, but there is far more to Davis than ASUCD and LEAD. -ES
          • Not trying to derail it at all, I am just pointing out that I do not believe the punishment fits the crime. The comment is not irrelevant just because you believe it to be. I was pointing out that the attitude taken against Steve is out of line , IMHO, with societal norms. He deserves another chance. What is the harm with letting him back on a trial basis with a very low or zero tolerance for past actions? So you might have to revert a couple of pages and ban him again. Not that big of a deal. Wouldn't take but a few minutes. I think the wiki is missing quite a bit without his political perspective on ASUCD politics. While I don't agree with him on most issues, I found his point of view interesting. Kudos on the 46 strikes comment (although strikes only count for felonies). —DavidGrundler
  • I wasn't there when the ban was originally enacted, but I am still in favor of it, based on the edits he did, the circumventions, and the way that he runs the Redding wiki.—JoePomidor
    • I'm in favor of allowing Steve back. On a probationary period of course... —Carlosoverstreet

2008-11-18 00:08:19   given the excitement over Steve's endorsement and his recent return, I think the wiki secretly misses Steve

I vote for his return but if he has revert wars again.... —GregWebb

  • Great Wiki Administrators, do you have the power to strip his account of the revert function? I'm not a fan of reverts in general, and if it would help make his critics have less reason to be critical of him, it sounds like a good idea. —JoseBleckman
    • No, the ability to revert cannot be removed from the account, it is part of basic editing. ~DavidPoole

2008-11-18 09:01:27   I'm confused. Did I miss a step? Why is unbanning Mr. Ostrowski even on the table for discussion? Has he submitted a request to someone? Has he shown signs of rehabilitation?

If the answer is, no, and nothing has changed, I propose waiting until something new happens and then evaluate whether Mr. Ostrowski should be unbanned from the Wiki. —CurlyGirl26

  • I tossed the idea out in the edit comment when I reverted his latest edit because it didn't have his prior "the wiki belongs to only me" posture. —jw
  • Fair enough. His cadence didn't drive me nuts here so it's worth considering.—CurlyGirl26
    • Ah, that's what prompted it? I tend to ignore ASUCD pages, I thought Jason was just asking a general question. Well, then that most likely is Steve indeed. See the userinfo. 8 edits with 0 edit comments, and 5 reverts (2 of 5 have edit comments). And the first revert was a lovely comment response to JasonAller acting on Steve's behalf: "(__I__ )". -ES
      • I feel steve has been somewhat humbled by his various misfortunes over the last year. His administration of the Redding Wiki has been comendable. I tried to add some content, but as I am not familiar with Redding, I hoped Steve would advertise it on various Redding Venues. I posted the link in several forums, we shall see. Anyway, I'm still support allowing Steve back. —CarlosOverstreet

  * Commendable?! Commendable!?!?! I don't think two months between edits is commendable. Not that I'm doing better, but still. Maybe if he unbans me and my friends from redding, we'll talk about considering him a human being. —BrentLaabs The only commendation Steve-O deserves.

  • Also noting, he banned his most prolific editors and contributors to that project, also deleted many pages regarding cultural aspects of Redding for reasons of personal disagreement. I do not believe that he has put any serious effort in the project other than a childish stunt in response to the conflicts he experienced. ~DavidPoole

2008-11-18 12:57:15   other people speak for me nicely

I am still in favor of it, based on the edits he did, the circumventions, and the way that he runs the Redding wiki. if you look through the multiple pages about Steve, or specifically the edit histories, you can figure out more than the simple history. Months of abuse, months of people *trying* to find a solution. IIRC, he was temp banned a few times too. Eventually, he always relapsed, or else he refused to try to compromise, as mentioned above. there is far more to Davis than ASUCD. Why is unbanning Mr. Ostrowski even on the table for discussion? Has he submitted a request to someone? Has he shown signs of rehabilitation? If the answer is, no, and nothing has changed, I propose waiting until something new happens and then evaluate whether Mr. Ostrowski should be unbanned from the Wiki. —StevenDaubert

2008-11-18 23:15:54   I wasn't around for the original banning, and have no stake in this (other than seeing the wiki not have its intestines twisted in a revision warp). But how about the following:

-Steve would be asked to post a statement. The statement would indicate, to the satisfaction of the general wiki community, that Steve understands why he was banned in the first place, promises not to do it again, indicates what he will do to ensure that he does not cause a problem in the future, and indicates that he understands that if he does cause a problem again, that he will be banned once again (this time without possibility of parole.)

Thoughts? —IDoNotExist

We could extend him an access to this page for instance, if some admin out there were to grant it.

Here is a counterargument though. That he understands, does not necessitate that he agrees, if he doesn't agree then he would be bound to repeat the actions for which he is banned because that would be his true course. We could bind him to a promise upon pain of being banished that he does not act in a way that he believes we would have a problem with, he believes he is right and therefore we ought not have a problem with it, and hence repeats the offense. If he is supposed to operate by our standards then he is faced with an impossible task of not offending us, which I don't think is a reasonable request. Of course, this isn't necessarily the case, he could have had a massive paradigm/premise shift and see things in an entirely new light etc. But so burned, the community is rather shy.~DavidPoole

2011-10-01 12:15:14   Is that pink lemonade that Steve is drinking? Whatever it is, it looks positively delicious. First chocolate milk and now this. These talk pages are torture. —ScottMeehleib

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