Ambi wrote:

... While double standards are not a good thing, sometimes discretion is really useful. Blocking a really good and long-term contributor over a one-off 3RR violation is madness. If it happens a few times, then that may be justified, but else it just serves to infuriate and potentially encourage them to quit the project.

I think double standards are an excellent idea, but not the way Ambi means.

They're not good when you hold others to a higher standard than yourself, of course, as when political POV pushers excuse torture and mass murder when carried out "for the sake of the cause" but profess to despise it (for its own sake) when carried out by "opponents of the cause".

But it's good when one holds *oneself* to a higher standard than you demand from others. One of the reasons I'm so popular around here is that I've always assumed that I should strive, and be judged by, a higher standard than anyone else here. Call it pride, if you like, but who's the most successful Mediator we have? And how many NPOV disputes have I permanently settled?

[cringes while tomatoes and dead cats are thrown]

Let's stop all this fussing about who's allowed to do what and get back to the actual work of this project. I don't give a dry-eyed duck about B.C./A.D versus BCE/CE or centre/center or Danzig/Gdansk or how disgusting a photo we can upload "informing" our readers about [[human feces]]. All that childishness does is distract us from real work.

Uncle Ed