You Wrote:

I fight to keep things open, not to tolerate anti-social behaviour, but to keep Wikipedia from becoming the online equivalent of a police state. I believe that soft security is the best way to run a wiki community, and that too much hard security will eventaully kill us.

If we lock down Wikipedia too tighly, we'll lose *most* of our great contributors.

Stephen G.

I agree with this. Just for the record, I don't intend to ban people for name-calling or even being stubborn--I had that opportunity in the case of 24, and thought it was not something that should be done. I just would like to codify our expectations of what users should do: simply try to treat each other with respect. Give each other the benefit of the doubt. Avoid personal attacks.

I do think this is very important. Not everyone has been on the net long; and it's quite easy when first starting online to miss the fact that there are people at a monitor somewhere reading what you just wrote. Online newbies flame a lot without thinking; wikipedia newbies do it a lot too. Let's just make it explicit and encourage people not to.

Let's face it: if we had always been as quick to ban as we are right now, then Larry, The Cunctator, Ed Poor, LDC, and I would all have been banned at one time or another, possibly permanently. (24 is still banned, isn't he? That was meant to be temporary). We've all been trollish, disrespectful, and/or stubborn at one time or another for various reasons. But look: Larry has contributed some fine philosophy articles and was crucial in codifying NPOV; The Cunctator has contributed fine articles on the Sept. 11 attacks and is this list's consciensce; Ed is now a diplomat extraordinaire; Lee is an excellent coder and a workhorse who's also written some first-rate articles on poker.

What I would like is a page to encourage people to be how we want them to be, instead of punishing when they're not. Something simple & direct, e.g. [[Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot]]. I don't want to ban everyone who uploads goatse.cx or is adamant about a point of view, but I also don't want people insulting each other and leaving out of frustration. We are a community; we all have the same goals; we all have something to contribute. Let's keep the process open, and let's be as generous with others as others were with us. :-)

kq