No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons"
will get you in trouble,
especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you
thought the other user "really was a moron". The two users were not treated
the same. There was no question that Xed had a problem. But carefully
reading the edits revealed the problems that Slrubenstein was having also.
It is just a case of going through the edits one by one and watching what
happened step by step.
Fred, while the catalyst for the e-mail might have been a specific case, I
carefully did not state which one, as I was asking whether the policy in
general was a good thing, rather than looking for a defence for any specific
decisions. I think this may be the symptom of a larger problem; there is a
concern among some editors about bringing obvious ArbCom candidates to
ArbCom, for fear that their own edit history will be put under the
microscope, meticulously examined for any whiff of policy violation. If one
has been making thousands of Wikipedia edits over months or years, it is
almost inevitable that some edits or statements will seem questionable, and
there is a belief that ArbCom will feel the need to sanction both sides to
give the appearance of even-handedness. I'm not saying this is actually the
case, but the belief is certainly out there, and the idea that "it's just
not worth getting rid of troublemakers" has been expressed more than once.
Jay.