On 3/5/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
First, whether admins should make judgments when it seems that a username clearly violates policy. This is going to happen regardless of the result of any vote. The next time I see someone create the username "Linuxbeak ON WHEELS! ! !", "Jimbo Whales Is Communism", etc, I am going to indef block, not sit around waiting for dicussion. The same goes with "GEORGE BUSH IS A WHORE" and so on.
Indefinitely block an IP address because the user thought "Linuxbeak ON WHEELS!!!" would be a funny username? That seems a trifle over the top, no? I'm not an admin, but such a user seems far from being beyond redemption, and he hasn't even done anything wrong yet! Bizarre that we agreed that it was wrong to block users who announce an intent to insert pro-pedophilia POV into articles, but we would indefinitely block a user who simply chooses a cheeky username.
Most username blocks I've seen are of this variety: new accounts with blantantly inappropriate or vandalistic usernames where discussion is obviously a waste of time. It's very easy to get skewed results when you use
It depends what you're discussing. Renaming "Jimbo Wales Is Communism" to "Newuser499" or even "JWIC" seems fair and reasonable. Blocking the user's IP for the next millennium doesn't.
loaded terminology like "snap judgment" to describe cases like these. But the results you get aren't going to change what the admins on the front lines are doing to protect against vandals.
As I have no experience fighting vandals who register new accounts, I'm prepared to believe that the vast majority of these problematic usernames really are nasty vandals. But just theoretically it seems unnecessarily heavy handed.
Second, there is the question of what constitutes an inappropriate username. I don't see any need to use the mailing list to set up binding precendent in this matter. There is no way to make a comprehensive definition of "inappropriate" and each case should be dealt with individually.
No, there's not much problem there - there are good examples on the policy. What I'm concerned about is that the policy says that the treatment for such cases is renaming the user - not blocking. And actual practice is apparently completely different.
Steve