[WikiEN-l] "block" considered too harsh a word?

[Ray Saintonge]

Timwi wrote:

> As we have seen numerous times in the past, users who are new to the 
> Wikipedia tend to vastly overreact to being blocked. Some people throw 
> quite a fit even when they're blocked for a mere 24 hours.
>
> A friend of mine suggested that perhaps the word should be changed to 
> something more euphemistic and something less harsh than "block". I 
> can sympathise with this thinking, because if I saw a page telling me 
> I'm "blocked", not knowing what it means I would probably interpret it 
> to mean "blocked indefinitely", and as we know people don't tend to 
> read the entire message and hence don't notice where it mentions the 
> time limit. 

It isn't a question of what you name something.  As long as a newbie 
isn't causing damage or otherwise acting in a hostile way, there should 
be some latitude given.  Before any blocking takes place there should be 
good faith attempts to contact and reason with him.  It may be 
frustrating to see today's newbie do the same stupid things as last 
week's newbie, but one cannot assume that he saw the warnings that were 
given lto ast week's newbie. 

A sysop who ignores this and peremptorily and impatiently blocks a 
newbie deserves the same treatment that he would mete out to the newbie.

Ec