[WikiEN-l] Blocking for inappropriate usernames

[Steve Bennett]

Hi all,
  The situation on blocking people for bad usernames seems extremely
confused at the moment. According to the official policy
(WP:USERNAME), this should not happen:

--
    If enough people complain about your user name (through talk pages
or the mailing lists or Meta-Wikipedia), the bureaucrats will change
it. Neither complaints nor name changes should be arbitrary, but user
names that are offensive to a significant number of people will be
changed, not without notice, but without appeal.

    Co-operative contributors should normally just be made aware of
our policy via a post on their talk page. Voluntary changes (via
Wikipedia:Changing username) are preferred: users from other countries
and/or age groups may make mistakes about choosing names -- immediate
blocking or listing on RfC could scare off new users acting in good
faith.

    Where a change must be forced, we first discuss it. This can take
place on either (A) the user's talk page, (B) a subpage of the user's
talk page, or (C) a sub page of Wikipedia:Requests for comment. It
should be listed on Wikipedia:Requests for comment in the appropriate
section. The user should also be made aware of the discussion.
--

However the policy claims that username changing is currently
disabled, so all of that is moot. Arguably, if you can't change a bad
username, then blocking might be permissible? But in any case,
[[WP:CHU]] makes no mention of it being disabled.

On the talk page for Wikipedia:Username, there was a straw poll on
whether sysops should be able to make snap decisions when policy is
clearly breached. It has achieved anything but consensus (roughly 55%
in favour).

So what is going on? Why do we keep seeing messages on this list about
people being blocked without warning for having mildly provocative
usernames?

Steve