"Phil Nash" pn007a2145@blueyonder.co.uk writes:
I think it should be clear of the context in which this thread has developed- that of obviously offensive or disruptive usernames;
My point exactly. At some point i saw an enwiki policy that usernames containing non-ascii characters was so offensive that it warranted a permanent block. I don't know if that particular policy still stands, but that is beside the point in this case. The actual problem with blocking "offensive" usernames is that what offends in one language could be a perfectly normal name in another. For instance, would you block the user "I fart"?