Luna wrote:
Well, let's offer a counter-example -- suppose one
person blanks a talk page
and replaces it with "FUCK YOU." Suppose they do this several times a day.
Suppose they use sockpuppets and various IP addresses to do so. Is this
offensive? Definitely. Is this disruptive? Definitely. I would anticipate
very little disagreement with a proposal to discourage such behavior.
The issue is not with the obvious miscreants and what to do about them,
but about the often ephemeral idea of good behaviour.
To me, this isn't a black-and-white issue.
There's a question of degrees.
Surely not all examples of disruptive behavior are quite as severe as what I
just offered, but once we admit that there *are* cases where offensive
behavior is bad and should be stopped, then it becomes a question of where
we draw the line.
"Drawing the line" is itself a troubling concept. It suggests rigidity
of thought. The future is in maintaining a high degree of flexibility.
My personal metrics? (1) Is the person acting in good
faith? (2) Is the
person helping solve more problems then they help to create? Once we've
answered those two questions, the path to an answer will frequently become
more apparent.
The question about good faith is a tricky one, because it begs the
question about defining good faith, and that one is more difficult than
defining civility. If one assumes good faith the evidence must come
before a determination of bad faith.
Ec