Ed, I am sure you know there is a blocking policy at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]]. Like most Wikipedia policies, it is weasely, but even so I think you would have to read between the lines to find the right for administrators to block people for personal attacks without a community consensus.
Administrators are supposed to be there for doing custodial tasks that require somewhat sensitive privileges that can only be given to people after they have established their trustworthiness. They are supposed to be janitors. They are not cops, and they are certainly not cops and judges rolled into one, even though blocking people for violation of the 3RR and for vandalism blurs this somewhat. For policy enforcement and disciplinary sanctions, there is the RfC/RfAr process. Administrators generally should take their fingers off the banning button, except in the case of obvious vandalism. Let the RfC/RfAr mechanism do what it is supposed to do. That is the mechanism by which the community expresses its consensus about the behaviour of members and administrators should think long and hard before the short-circuit it.
On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500, Poor, Edmund W Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language).
But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that:
- We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who
make personal attacks. So once again I hereby "place myself on report". I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the rules - such as: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the 415 admins will reverse the block. Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. Uncle Ed
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