Are you saying that rather than (A) banning jerks, we should rather (B) simply revert their "work" and drive on without them?

I think this is better than banning them, yes.

Beyond that I'd like to point out that this "hard/soft" security debate, is just part of a larger set of issues. As I see it there are two different kinds of movements bounded set, and center set. A center set movement is defined by its mission or purpose, and have very little interest in determining who's in and who's out of the group. Bounded set movements are very much interested in determining the boundary conditions for group membership. You're in if you do A, B, or C, and out if you do X, Y, or Z. As a center set movement (like the wikipedia community) age, they tend to acquire more and more of the characteristics of bounded set movements.

This can be seen in Larry's proposal to involve more specialists by creating a bounded set movement for them, so they don't have to deal with the "fringe" types, as well as in most of the recent talk about how to better deal with the "fringe" elements.

My overall view is that we ought not to become a bounded set movement. This is my primary concern, and I think the distinction between hard and soft security is of secondary importance. If we were to become more concerned about membership in our club than our mission to build a free encyclopedia, I'm fairly confident that our movement will slowly fall apart.

Yours Mark Christensen