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(a)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.