Dante Alighieri wrote: I think that the best thing to do is to write to me about someone being a problem, long before a ban is actually justified, so that I can hopefully intervene helpfully in such a fashion that no one is embarassed or outraged at what they perceive to be a false public accusation, etc. Of course, this will not always work. At the same time, "sunshine" is important, and when it comes time, I think that frank, open, and honest discussion on the mailing list is indispensible. I think it has become abundantly clear over time that public attacks and counter-attacks generate a lot more heat than light. The notion that by calling someone a 'troll' or 'vandal' on a /ban page or in the comments field while reverting edits is going to reform them doesn't have a very good track record of actually working. Banning usually works, but with some notable failures. Auto-reverting, by which I mean me declaring an 'open season' on someone, well, the jury is still out on that one. But one thing that I'd like to see a lot more of is peer pressure to "leave a clean paper trail" for me. What I mean by that is that the best thing you can do to a problem user is be scrupulously kind and helpful, letting them hang themselves with their own hostility, rather than leaving me with a huge freaking mass of claims and counter-claims that I have to either sort through or not, as time permits. There's an ulterior motive on my part, of course. If two parties who hate each other have a competition between themselves to be excessively kind and courteous to the other, just to leave me with no doubt as who who is the problem user, it turns out that no one is being a problem user, and we actually get work done rather than fighting each other. --Jimbo