I should say, the fact we are willing to discuss not assume is fine. Obviosuly the harm and upset arising is not.
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 1:18 AM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote: (Snip)
The second problem beyond that is the problem of "fiddling while Rome burns". While we potter round discussing if, perhaps, such and such an incident was uncivil or BITEy, and whether anyone feels consensus exists to act, the user affected may be discouraged and leave. That's fine, we want to go careful and not be over extreme. Again we count on users to act to a high standard and enact the norms of the community. if they do - and the norms are pretty uncontroversial - then these issues would largely be resolved by the involved person themself.
Given that the community has fairly stable long term and universal norms (although the detail and edge cases are very uncertain) what we need is admins who at least agree and follow those norms or try to, to a high standard. This would mean taking care in grey cases to avoid risk of upset even if it's an "edge case"... take care to be visibly fair and neutral even if they could argue they aren't involved, take care to explain and apologize if needed rather than assume or act rough.
This is what I mean by needing users to have the right basic attitude. the rest then overlays that.