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