Eclecticology wrote:
[many things that pleased me greatly; I respond to a part]
Toby Bartels wrote:
I know the danger of making absolute statements. But I'm having a hard time thinking of a plausible situation where such a name change would be remotely a good idea -- I mean for the community to attempt to impose on me by force.
Yes, there are exceptions. Some months back there was the Anthere/Anthère/Anthére.... issue where somebody introduced a name that differed from that of a respected user by only an accent. As it was the person was trying to make some point and had no intention of continuing to use the confusing name, otherwise this could be a situation where the issue might be forced.
I agree that this is a pretty clear case for forcing a name change (although in the end the impostor relented and nothing was forced). I still have a hard time thinking of a plausible situation where that would apply to /my/ username -- which was the topic in the bit that you replied to. But more generally, yes, these situations do exist.
I suspect that the world would be a better place if we didn't have the technical means to enforce some rules.
Laws depend on enforcement to be effective. Regrettably speeding laws work only because there's a cop there with a radar gun. The number who will avoid speeding out of well considered altruism is likely small. Technology is a double-edged sword.
Technology, yes; but the point here is, so are laws. If there were no cop with a radar gun, then we might have safer cars. There is a whole anarchist literature (some bad ideas, some good) on how to have safe streets (etc) without having cops with guns.
But still an ideal. I often wonder about the sort of vision that sustains the participation of some Wikipedians.
Ultimately, I write on Wikipedia because it's fun and interesting. Why I get involved in policy, must be some sort of idealism. I often drop out of that, actually; although usually real life plays a big role in those temporary disappearances (which less often extend to encyclopaedia articles as well).
-- Toby