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My overall point is that if we are looking to find "moral authority" we need to think and act in ways which respect human dignity, and which encourage at least a basic level of kindness and

civility.

So your point is that we have to treat even our trolls with kindness and civility, and that is what will allow our productive members to be respected and treated as if they had some legitimate authority on the project? I disagree completely.

No, that is not my point. I'm glad you disagree, because I do too. My point is that respect for human dignity is a mandatory subset of what we should do, not that it is the only thing necessary.

Your point too is far overstated. There is much more than we could possibly do than simply "encouraging at least a basic level of kindness and civility." I do agree that we should do that.

That was my whole point, I did not go further. I made no claims that my post addressed all the problems we face, so to critique it because "more can be done" is inaccurate.

In particular, I did not address the point that we need to make our rules more clear, and be more consistent in enforcing those rules. I think your description of our need in this area is exactly right. However, I think that even this needs to be done in a way that indicates our respect for people generally, and specifically for the people who we are asking not to work on our project any more. Obviously we need to also respect the people who've work hard on our project, as well as experts who donate limited and valuable time to work on our encyclopedia project. I don't see these goals as mutually exclusive.

In particular, as I see it there's just no point tying negative labels to anybody. When somebody violates the rules of our project, we should seek to have the same NPoV description of what they've done that we expect in other places. And we don't need to judge their character to say that we think the project would progress more smoothly without their participation.

As far as I can tell, the only real disagreement we seem to have is about what constitutes a basic respect for human dignity in the context of a public project. My position is that negative labels just aren't respectful, and therefore name calling is not appropriate. In the office, I expect the people I work for/with to deal fairly with people's ideas, and not to call each other names. I expect the same from my roommates, nephews, parents, and friends. And I would --really like-- to be able to expect it here.

I sometimes catch myself occasionally writing one of my colleagues off as incompetent, or lazy, or stupid, if only in my head. But when I recognize this in myself, I recognize it as wrong. I am more than willing to admit that others don't share my distaste for negative labels. But before you reject it, I'd like to hear why you think calling Lir "a disruptive child" is better than attempting to briefly describe Lir's --behavior-- as disruptive, counterproductive, and lacking in maturity. As I see it there's no need to judge Lir's value as a person, we have no idea why Lir is responding in the way she is, and in other contexts she may be perfectly coherent, mature, and productive.

Yours Mark Christensen