Ed Poor wrote signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the rules - such as: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] There is a policy about removing personal attacks. That there is policy about 'removing' those doing the attacking is news to me. I wouldn't dream of using admin powers in this way. Ed Poor shoots from hip, once more. Exactly what kind of place would Wiki-en be if say, 100 of our sysops took this line, on a daily basis? I don't want to find out. Others please support me, in saying that Ed is out of line here. Policy can't just be made on the hoof, any more. The scare quotes round "authorized" tell me just about all I need to know. Civility is a big plus on WP, but enforcement of this kind goes way beyond what I would accept. Out of hand bans for vandalism, yes. Charles

Ed, I am sure you know there is a blocking policy at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]]. Like most Wikipedia policies, it is weasely, but even so I think you would have to read between the lines to find the right for administrators to block people for personal attacks without a community consensus. Administrators are supposed to be there for doing custodial tasks that require somewhat sensitive privileges that can only be given to people after they have established their trustworthiness. They are supposed to be janitors. They are not cops, and they are certainly not cops and judges rolled into one, even though blocking people for violation of the 3RR and for vandalism blurs this somewhat. For policy enforcement and disciplinary sanctions, there is the RfC/RfAr process. Administrators generally should take their fingers off the banning button, except in the case of obvious vandalism. Let the RfC/RfAr mechanism do what it is supposed to do. That is the mechanism by which the community expresses its consensus about the behaviour of members and administrators should think long and hard before the short-circuit it. On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor(a)abc.com> wrote: