[WikiEN-l] Disruptive users

[Mark Pellegrini]

Jimbo wrote: "Actually, of course, we have huge volumes of guidelines, all
carefully
discussed and debated, and we have institutional mechanisms set up to
deal with such things, right?

What do you mean when we say we have "no guidelines against users who
are out to disrupt things"?"

We have policies against the most disruptive things a user can do. There are
plenty of
ways to disrupt Wikipedia without violating written policies. (Emphasis on
"written"). We
also have plenty of users who go right up to the edge of what is acceptable
behavior, and
admins are helpless to use common sense and ban these users for fear of
acting
"unilaterally" or being accused of abusing their powers. The institutional
mechanisms (the
arbcom, for example) are crowded out by cases that any admin with a modicum
of
common sense could have dealt with in 5 minutes. The "hard" cases, where the
issues
aren't so clear-cut, get ignored so that the most blatant cases can be
adjudicated.

--Mark