Maybe we should revive the idea of a partial ban:
- Contributor blocked from editing articles -- stops the edit war
- But can still edit talk pages -- which keeps dialogue open
I proposed exactly that once, but the idea got little support. I'm all for it, though I don't think even a complete block really shuts down dialog. After all, Bridget did show up here on the list, and she's quite free to e-mail anyone (the "you're blocked" page shows the user who blocked you, and the "e-mail this user" function is not blocked).
But the real issue is acceptable criteria for imposing such a block. While we all agree that outright vandalism and obscenity are legitimate reasons and that "point of view" and "emotional involvement" are really bad reasons, I hold that "demonstrated unwillingness to work with others" is a perfectly legitimate one as well, so long as one judges this on genuine content-neutral grounds. Others may disagree.
Here's another thought experiment. Suppose you are organizing a conference to dicuss some topic, and preparing for it by hosting a mailing list discussion. A troublemaker appears on the list and disrupts things. It is discovered that the troublemaker is in fact a bright 9-year-old. Is there any question in anyone's mind that it would be a perfectly legitimate exercise of control to simply drop the kid from the list and the conference, because it's clear that a child that young doesn't yet have the maturity or experience to effectively work with the group or understand the deeper issues? "Free speech" and other freedoms are marvellous things, but such rights only apply to adults whom we can hold responsible for their actions.
On Wikipedia, we can't see whether the troublemakers are adults or not, so we give them the benefit of the doubt. But some of them probably are, in fact, children. It wouldn't surprize me a bit to discover that Lir is a very bright 14-year old. Why should we bend over backwards to give such a person presumed rights here that even the most liberal of us wouldn't grant in real life?
And since we can't know the physical age of someone here, it is perfectly reasonable for us to evaluate the /actual actions/ of of contributors, and to judge whether or not they have the maturity to work within this system. If someone acts like a 10-year-old, they should be treated like one. A block isn't saying "you're an awful person" or anything--it's just saying "go to your room for a while, the grown-ups are talking".