[WikiEN-l] "block" considered too harsh a word?

Tue May 10 17:06:54 UTC 2005

How about 'suspended'?  Equally accurate and less terminal-sounding than
block.

Hi everyone, by the way.  As you might guess from my e-mail address, I am
User:Worldtraveller.

-----Original Message-----
From: Asbestos [mailto:asbestos999 at gmail.com]
Sent: 10 May 2005 17:29
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] "block" considered too harsh a word?

If users can't be bothered to read the part of the message where it says
they've been blocked for just 24 hours, they're going to throw a fit no
matter what the word is. "Blocked" itself is a neutral word: it accurately
describes the fact that they can no longer edit.

This reminds me of the idea that some schools are now requiring their
teachers to grade papers in purple pens, because a red F apparently
distresses some students...

Sam
--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos

On 5/10/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> As we have seen numerous times in the past, users who are new to the
Wikipedia tend to vastly overreact to being blocked. Some people throw
quite a fit even when they're blocked for a mere 24 hours.
>
> A friend of mine suggested that perhaps the word should be changed to
something more euphemistic and something less harsh than "block". I can
sympathise with this thinking, because if I saw a page telling me I'm
"blocked", not knowing what it means I would probably interpret it to mean
"blocked indefinitely", and as we know people don't tend to read the
entire message and hence don't notice where it mentions the time limit.
>
> Unfortunately, he didn't have any ideas what to call it instead. So I'm
wondering what everyone else here thinks?
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

-- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos
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