[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[Surreptitiousness]

Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Aug 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
>   
>> I think the same thing applies to 
>> our civility policy.  If we want it to be respected, we have to start 
>> blocking people if they refer to another user as a "cunt", no matter 
>> what the provocation.
>>     
>
> Do this and you've suddenly made provocation a lot more profitable for the
> provoker.
>
> There's a reason why zero tolerance policies are considered unjust in real
> life by just about everyone who's thought about them.
>
>   

You haven't thought this through, or you've concluded that the correct 
response to provocation is escalation. The correct action to take when 
provoked is to walk away and involve someone else.  It may well be that 
the person provoking you should and will be blocked, but too many times 
as an admin I was called in because someone had called someone 
something, only to find it was after a long slanging match which 
involved both parties.  The only response then is to block both parties 
or neither, because otherwise you take sides, and we usually also use 
blocks as preventative rather than punitive. If you really feel like you 
have the right to call someone a cunt on Wikipedia, please leave now.