[WikiEN-l] Hardblocking usernames

[Ray Saintonge]

Luna wrote:

>On 8/8/07, Ron Ritzman <ritzman at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>"I will not assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary"
>>A username like "suckmydick" is evidence to the contrary.
>>    
>>
>Yes, "suckmydick" should be blocked, but should they necessarily be
>prevented from choosing a more appropriate name? 
>
If that's the person's only fault I don't even see the point of blocking 
at all.  If they register the name and go away without editing they have 
effectively prevented anyone else from using the same name.

>What message should we be
>sending? Is it "please choose another name" or "please choose another name,
>oh wait, you're autoblocked, lol, gtfo and don't come back"? In most cases,
>I'd prefer the former. From experience watching the live new users feed,
>most people don't suddenly turn around and register "suckmydick2" if you
>softblock them, and most of the serious trolls use dynamic addresses that
>won't be significantly affected by autoblocks, anyway; I can't help but
>question whether these harsh blocks are really doing much good, on the
>whole.
>
They really don't do much good.  More effort goes into these 
counter-measures than these individuals with short attention spans ever 
put into their silly games in the first place.  Energy is much better 
spent on dealing with the more persistant vandals.

Ec