Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:51, 13 July 2006

Policy

While there is discussion occuring at Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy/Personal attacks around a change in policy, this page is intended to centralize action that is already occuring.

Templates

{{Template:npa}} --> {{Template:No personal attacks}}
Hello, I'm ]. I noticed that you made a comment that didn't seem very civil, so it may have been removed. Misplaced Pages is built on collaboration, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on ]. Thank you.

{{Template:npa2}} --> {{Template:Attack}}
Please do not attack other editors. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you.

{{Template:npa3}}
Please stop attacking other editors. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people.

{{Template:npa4}}
You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you make personal attacks on other people. Comment on content, not on fellow editors.

Template chat

Just about these templates: it makes a lot more sense to me to have what's currently {{npa2}} be {{npa}} and vice versa. --Blackcap | talk 18:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought the "nice" message should go first, before the threats. I've also changed from them substitutions to transclusion. - brenneman 23:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Contrary to blocking policy and redundant

There is no formal power in the blocking policy, which is supposed to provide a definitive list of circumstances where the power of blocking can be used, permitting an administrator to block an editor solely for making personal attacks. This should really be dealt with by the editors in general using the normal dispute resolution mechanism. --Tony Sidaway 07:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

If an administrator feels that by making personal attacks a contributor is disrupting wikipedia, they may block them. Period.
brenneman 08:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I've done it myself, but blocking for disruption is controversial. Moreover this particular interpretation is somewhat beyond policy. Disruption for the purpose of the blocking policy does not include personal attacks. Such blocking should be done with community approval. The presumption that an administrator has unilateral powers to block users who insult one another is incorrect. --Tony Sidaway 08:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

What if the blocking threat was replaced by an RfC threat? Filiocht | The kettle's on 08:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

An RfC isn't something you threaten someone with, it's just a way of getting community input.

There is a policy proposal to make personal attacks blockable; apparently (according to the text of the proposal) attempts to do so in the past have failed. I have no problems in principle with a formal policy of this kind, though I have reservations about how it would apply in practice.

If you're interested in developing such a policy, please contribute there and get it to the point where it could be introduced as a policy through a site-wide survey. However if it were to be accepted we'd probably want to make this page a subpage of WP:AN. Blocking for personal attacks is likely to be always controversial, and in my opinion should preferably be done in cases where, by RfC, there is widespread community opinion that the editor in question has engaged in serious personal attacks and has not responded to reasonable and civil requests to stop. -Tony Sidaway 08:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, so threat is the wrong word. What I mean is have a warning message that advises users engaging in possible personal attacks that continuing to do so may result in an RfC. Filiocht | The kettle's on 08:57, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, here's the old policy proposal, which failed in September 2004.

• Misplaced Pages:Blocking_policy/Personal_attacks (old)

Your rewording still seems to imply that a RfC is some kind of stain on an editor's character. Far from it, it's just a way of getting community comment. I suppose it would be appropriate to say:

• "Personal attacks are against Misplaced Pages official policy, which all editors are required to follow. Rather than resort to personal abuse, editors are encouraged to resolve personal problems using dispute resolution"

Thing, is, in practice administrators aren't even a tiny bit constrained from handling real problems by blocking. The other day I intervened in a long-running squabble on Arvanites, briefly blocking three of the worst offenders in a combined abuse-a-thon and edit war. I submitted my actions to WP:AN and there was a general feeling that my actions were justified and had been, to a certain extent, effective. The result was mixed, I admit--the people concerned are still shouting at one another, and one of them has taken to complaining about his rights being trampled by an abusive administrator. But well, at least they've stopped the edit war for now! And I've got their attention so in principle I can get them all to calm down and start talking to one another. I think I've managed to transform a case that was probably going to head straight for arbcom into one where the participants are grudgingly beginning to recognise that they're not getting anywhere by attacking one another. --Tony Sidaway 10:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

• Which is why I'm a bit confused by your opposition - all I've done is create some tools to centralise a process that already occurs. Oh, and I'm glad that there's some discussion here. Nothing worse than having a party where no-one turns up! - brenneman 12:31, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

No. The process you've tried to formalize has absolutely no support in policy. If you'll look at the policy discussions, you'll see that some blocks for personal attacks are accepted, others aren't. This, along with the pretty comprehensive failure of last year's attempt to introduce a personal attack blocking policy, suggests to me that this is an area in which a formal process would not be appropriate. The situation I describe above was a complex one that I'd been watching for some days before I intervened. All parties knew me and had been warned that they were behaving badly. All parties had been engaging in edit warring and protracted dogfighting, and with little attempt at good faith resolution. On balance, I thought that a very brief (three hour) blocking might bring them to their senses. It worked for some but not for all.

All of my blocks in such circumstances are subject to review and I always make a note of them on WP:AN. I think that's the right way to handle this kind of situation.

Your attempt to formalize the situation sets up what appears to me to be a "snitch" page. Someone makes a formal complaint about someone else's behavior, and at the end of the process someone may be blocked. Now firstly this appears to bypass the dispute resolution process, and secondly it seems to suggest that quickly escalating situations involving personal attacks is a good thing to do.

Dispute resolution is very important on Misplaced Pages. Editors are supposed to try to deal with interpersonal disputes by themselves, and the community is supposed to be involved. Administrators aren't supposed to intervene except where such measures have broken down to the point of disrupting the wiki--and in all honesty we'd be run off our feet if we intervened in every squabble where someone called someone else a poopy head.

There's also the question of how to defuse a situation. Sometimes an editor may be acting in a provocative manner and this bad behavior leads to further bad behavior by those who object to it. It's better to observe the whole situation rather than give the person giving the provocation a route by which he can snitch on the other and have him blocked for calling him names. Usually all it takes is to say to one person "okay, stop behaving unreasonably and let's talk about it" and to the other person, "don't call him names, we'll discuss this and reach a group decision." Administrators aren't the only people who have the authority and community respect needed to say things like that, and a threat of blocking isn't the only way, or the best way, to enforce such community-building efforts.

All-in-all, most instances of personal attacks are fairly piddling, and are best dealt with by a bit of finger-wagging and perhaps, in the right circumstances, Remove personal attacks. I fear that a formalized process like this would merely encourage a snitch culture and feed expectations of blocking for relatively minor offences. --Tony Sidaway 13:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

"Look! Over there! Some trees!"

Let's take a glance at the forest, eh? The trees are pretty, but they're blocking the view.

The "block" recommendation in the instructions is somewhat irrelevant. If an administrator sees this and doesn't know that blocking for personal attack is controversial, then that administrator isn't much worth his or her salt. In fact, personal attacks that take place outside of the user talk pages can pretty easily be vandalism -- depends on the attacks, their crudity, and whether they are destructive or merely angry. It's a case by case, person by person, situation. Now me, I think that any blocking for personal attacks during an argument is totally outside of the lines. I've never done it and don't think it should be done. I don't think salty language should get anyone blocked, either. On the other hand, when a talk page is exclusively attacks (as has happened before), I support blocks and/or deletion of that page. It's case by case.

The forest we're missing is that this is a "please help mediate" watchlist page. In that regard, it's good stuff. I support Tony's general argument that "may block" needs to be removed from the administrator instructions, perhaps in favor of "appropriate action." However, let's not get so obsessed with the list of appropriate actions that the discussion goes off the rails this once, please. Geogre 13:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

So bracing, this forest air. Yes, lets not get off focus here. The general idea is a place where personal attacks can be flagged and mediation requested. This is a good thing. Remove all notion of action from the messages; merely point out that personal attacks are not liked. Ask the offender to reflect a little, tell them to wash their mouth out with soap and water even. But use this page to make it easier to keep an eye on potential hotspots so that they can be cooled down before too much damage is done. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:49, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

We need to work on a name, then. I know, let's call it Requests for comment! --Tony Sidaway 13:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Tony, you appear to think that an RfC is to be used instead of mediation and that it's just a community chat. Perhaps that has been the impression you've carried away from RfC's you've been involved with. I can assure you that you are, if not alone in that view, at least representing a very, very small minority. RfC's are lodged with the goal of sanction. This is an attempt at promoting peace and harmony. That's a good thing, indeed, and it would be an even better thing if it thinned the ranks of unnecessary RfC's, as many of them now are just along the lines of "he called me names!"

Further, Requests for Comment on user behavior were, originally, a place where the community would develop a consensus on a behavior, not resolve it, and then proceed to an arbcom ruling, if the community agreed. There is no debate on personal attacks: we don't like them. An RfC, therefore, that merely asks "is this a personal attack" is a waste of time, especially since implicit in that is "let's block the bastard." Much better to defuse it, and a watchlist for that purpose is just one of a number of recent proposals to answer the problem of a backlogged and petty RfC page.

When one of Misplaced Pages's deliberative functions gets overwhelmed by scale issues or tardiness of resolution, the good users begin offering up innovative answers. Hence all the attempts at deletion reform for the overburdened VfD. Hence also the mediation cabal and this.

I regard these as proof that Misplaced Pages works, at least as an idea, and that it's alive, at least a little. Geogre 16:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Please read Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment for an explanation of the purpose of Requests for comment. An RfC "seeks community input regarding specific topical, policy, and personality disputes." Sanctions may evolve from RfC, because sanctions can be performed if there is community consensus to do so. Conversely community consensus may favor an alternative solution. The fact that some or even most people seek sanctions in proposing a RfC does not mean that this is the purpose of an RfC. Accordingly, this proposal is simply a duplication of RfC. --Tony Sidaway 17:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

So...you think that there is some debate about whether name calling is good or not? There is a need for comment to affirm this? Or is it that you figure that all mediation should take place through the slow process of RFC? If not, your comments are quite bizarre or mistaken. Geogre 02:12, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

No, personal attacks are unequivocally wrong. However I think the current treatment of personal attacks is more or less commensurate to the damage done. You're a clever guy, geogre, we both are. It's easy for a bright person to goad someone into namecalling, and then they go and snitch and hey presto the victim gets blocked. We won't do that because we're not bullies, but there are some who would take advantage of such a system. RfC permits a more complete investigation of the situation, allows for a right of reply and outside views, and so is more likely to pick up on situations like that. --Tony Sidaway 00:38, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that this is actually how it would work? Jeez, not giving much credit to your fellow admins, are you? Are you going to suggest that WP:AIV is a bad idea because admins will block people listed there without thought as well?
brenneman 01:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

You're still debating the "block" thing. I thought we had all agreed that this does not call for a block. It merely says that a person can block for name calling. That, alas, has been going on for a long time, and it's not for the heated exchange over a content argument, but for the blocked vandal who comes back with "Asshole!" all over user pages of the admins who did the blocking. This proposal simply lodges a space where people who'd like to prevent name calling from getting to the snitching and blocking stage to hear about it and try to work things through. I don't see it as a tattle board at all. In fact, it's kind of the obviation of that. It also cuts down on the tremendously unuseful clog of "namecalling" RfC's -- RfC's that are largely not needed and exist primarily to get a case for a block made. By not having this be RfC, it slows the blocking for namecalling. I still don't get what you're arguing about, except one word, and you could, I think, have worked more with the author and less as though he were your sworn enemy to get that word changed. Geogre 01:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

This is a really good idea, Aaron. Thanks for setting it up. Why is npa3 defenestrated, by the way? SlimVirgin 06:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

MFD

This page was nominated for deletion in november 2005, but consensus was to keep it. Radiant_>|< 23:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Snuh?

User:Kitty keeps telling me that "I suck," and that I ought to "get off of the stage." I echo that. I tried reasoning with him and I tried fluffing him, but to no avail (unless licking in sheer contempt counts as an avail). I request demand an immediate investigation and intervention. Thank you! El_C 02:18, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Contribution history shows no such thing. Do not waste our time with fictitious allegations. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 05:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you suck, get off the stage! Kitty 06:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Again, I echo that. Leave me alone! Anyway, should this noticeboard be linked to someplace not totally obscure? So people would know it exists? I fear that not wasting time has been something this board never moved past, and not in a good way. Any thoughts? El_C 06:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it should most certainly be linked from somewhere else. Where the best place for that would be, however, I couldn't tell you.--Sean|Black 06:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:NPA? Dunno. El_C 07:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

El C, why are you forging personal attacks against yourself? And if you aren't, what the hell is going on? That is a significantly greater form of assholery than making personal attacks in the first place. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 06:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I am trying to humor you, Phil! Is it working? El_C 07:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to admit, I am amused, although intervention noticeboards are not the proper place for such humor. (Talk pages are fair game.) — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 07:18, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yase! My quest for stupidity not totally curtailed (this time). Seeing how I was the fourth person to ever edit the board (with you being the fifth), I took the liberty of turning the noticeboard into a standup comedy stage of utter lameness and dismay. El_C 07:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that went reeeal well for you. Bwhahah! Kitty 07:25, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Non-Admin actions on this page?

See also Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Dealing_with_WP:PAIN_backlogs.

Following on from an idea I expressed in the above thread, I want to suggest a possible addition to the actions possible on this page.

Currently, PAIN seems to be an anomoly in its location in the disuption resolution chain. In WP:NPA the steps are 1) talk to the other user 2) use dispute resolution, and 3) WP:PAIN. Most of the suggestions in WP:DR (informal mediation, WP:30, or WP:RFC/USER, none of which are mentioned in PAIN) have the appearance of more "formal" complaints than PAIN.

Suggestions:

1. Refocus PAIN to be earlier in the dispute (which is de facto seems to be), in the mode of bringing possible attacks to the attention of third parties. Update WP:NPA to reflect this.
2. Allowing non-admins users to deal with/comment on these requests. This is consistant with vandalism, anyone can revert or warn, and admins only have to get involved when it's serious enough to warrent admin level action. I'm a little unsure whether non-admin should remove complaints that they have dealt with, it may be better not to do so. Even so, this should reduce the admin load, if they see "A complains about B, with comment from C (A/B was fine/uncivil/attacking, answered/reminded to be civil/warned) it should help.
3. Add link to other dispute resolutions if this page doesn't work, most proably WP:RFC/USER

These suggestions are an attempt to ensure that personal attack complaints are handled reasonably quickly, at least for low-level ones, before they get the chance to escalate. Emphasising non-admins can get involved in calming people down here is also in keeping with meatball:DefendEachOther. Any comments? MartinRe 17:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm always in favour of things being resolved at the lowest level possible. Perhaps some cross-pollination with Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts would be good. - brenneman 12:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

"Not a severe enough attack"

I've noticed that some editors are removing notifictions because they've decided the 'attack isnt severe enough', and that 'the complainant needs to grow a thicker skin'. Is it truely appropriate to wait until it is 'severe abuse' before warning the user off formaly. What level of abuse is 'severe'? --Barberio 09:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find the phrase you have quoted, unless you are paraphrasing "slight incivility, but no serious personal attacks" as 'attack isnt severe enough', which is incorrect as those two phrases have completely different meanings. I have looked myself at the history of the complaint, and agree with angr that it is baseless, giving a user an {{npa}} when they made a perfectly valid edit with description "rm repetition" is not a personal attack, by any stretch of the imagination, just because that edits reverts a change you made. It's not even un-civil, the edit description wasn't "rubbish" or "vandalism", it was a simple explaination, and there was repetition.

Wrt the 'thicker skin' comment (which I guess is another incorrect paraphrase of "If you consider those personal attacks, you're either extremely thin-skinned or you've never encountered a real personal attack") might I remind you of the bolded warning that appears on every page you edit: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it."

Most of the points you query are raised on WP:NPA, clarifing what is and is not personal attacks, and, as has been pointed out, dispute resolution must be tried before going straight to WP:PAIN. Regards, MartinRe 10:37, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:NPA a little more carefully. Note 'and when made without involving their personal character' and 'Accusatory comments such as "Bob is a troll", or "Jane is a bad editor" can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly, in bad faith, or with sufficient venom.'. Ad hominem attacks are ones of personal character, and thus are personal attacks. I sincerly hope that ad hominem attacks have not been consistantly removed, since that's acting counter to policy.

I also note you are mistakenly combining WP:DR with WP:PAIN. There is no requirment to go through dispute resolution to raise a personal attack complain, and any requirment would be totaly counter productive. It is suggested as an alternative where the issues are a content dispute, it is not a requirement. --Barberio 12:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I think that WP:PAIN, in the way it is currently being managed, is redundant since its purpose is being much better served by WP:WQA. WP:PAIN simply adds a layer of complication, and hoop jumping, to a situation that can be much better handled simply by combined user/admin interventions after a posting on WP:WQA.

Maybe it's time to shut down the page, by redirecting it and all references to WP:WQA. --Barberio 12:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

In the intrests of concentrating effort, I'm tagging this to be merged into WP:WQA. --Barberio 12:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I wonder...

I do not monitor this page very often, how does one qualify what a "personal attack" is for the purposes of this page? I don't think I would feel comfortable as an administrator to judge this. Would it be more effective if we restricted this page to insults that are say, boarderline legal or death threats instead? That would be more black and white, and would be easier to implement with (hopefully) less controversy. Thoughts? --HappyCamper 14:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Header

There's a discussion on a new header at Misplaced Pages talk:Personal attack intervention noticeboard/Header. Paul Cyr 03:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it here for more eyeballs. - brenneman 23:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

References to administrators

WP:ADMIN says that regular users may handle all administrative tasks (aside from those requiring sysop functions), so I think references such as "This page is intended to get administrator attention" should be changed so that it is not exclusive to administrators. Simply being that I've had to explain to numerous users that although I am not an administrator, I am allowed to act upon reports; such as warning users and removing reports. It's simply a case of making the header less administrator exclusive, since WP:ADMIN says all users have the rights of admins (excluding sysop functions). If you disagree, please explain in detail with support from WP:ADMIN as to why. Paul Cyr 18:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It does not say that - it says In the early days of Misplaced Pages all users acted as administrators and in principle they still should. Any user can behave as if they are an administrator (provided they do not falsely claim to be one), even if they have not been given the extra administrative functions. This does NOT say that users have the same rights as admins, it says that they *can* behave as if they were an admin. However, the edits you are making affect a page designed to get administrator attention quickly when dealing with personal attacks. Your edits dilute that, and this is exactly the kind of change I think we need to get a consensus on before you go making changes based on what appear to be your personal preferences as to how things ought to run around here. TheRealFennShysa 19:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The noticeboard is not a policy or guideline, and thus does not require consensus before changes are made. As for the semantics of "rights", if the only difference between regular users and administrators is the things admins are able to do, and WP:ADMIN says regular users are allowed to do the same thing as administrators, then yes, they do have the same rights. As for your comments about my personal prefences, please avoid red herrings as they only take away from the debate. Paul Cyr 19:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

An outside WP:3O, even if not called for (and this'll be my sole contribution to this thread, although I've suggested to WP:AN/I that you guys might need a few more opinions in here): I would object to Paul's changes from a procedural (as opposed to philosophical) perspective. Although I think that his metapedian contributions to the community are no doubt appreciated by a large amount of individuals, Paul as a non-administrator has no ability to enact preventative blocks, just to issue warnings. And those warnings, according to the instructions the page, should already have been performed by the complainant before reporting the matter on this board — an additional warning from a non-admin third party I don't feel will, in most cases, really have much impact on the individual making the personal attacks. If he wanted to clear items off the board for not having gone through sufficient process (i.e., "cleared because complainant has not issued {{npa3}} yet"), that might be of use. In short, although I very much assume Paul has nothing but the noblest of intentions, I think that his participation in the process creates the illusion that the matter is being handled, and I don't think it is, since he has no gun to brandish — and I believe this board is for the point in the process where the gun needs to be brandished. That's my take on the situation, at least. — Mike • 20:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that Mike. Although your overall view differs from mine, you did bring up numerous good points that I think are valid (i.e. me not having a gun). In light of this, I do still think the header should not imply that only admins are able to review cases and issue warnings, but I think it would be okay if it implied that it's directed towards admins for users who have gone beyond {{Npa2}}. In other words, I think it's fine for non-admins to handle everything upto {{Npa2}}, but admins should handle {{Npa3}}(final warnings) and bans. Paul Cyr 02:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Aaron Brenneman's edit had the summary "per talk" however it was just a reversion to the previous version which is not the consensus on this talk page. The page still makes it seem exclusive to administrators. Paul Cyr 04:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it looks like both WCityMike and TheRealFennShysa have said that they feel your edits were in error, which makes it two to one, and the begining of a consensus. I have to say that I agree with them - if you feel like you can help out, fine, but don't go rewriting the rules and instructions around here to try and justify your actions - edits like this really should have been discussed with others before you start changing procedures. I also noticed that you only went in and changed this header after it had been noted on other talk pages that you weren't an admin, but were trying to act like one. MikeWazowski 05:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to hide the fact that I changed the header after comments about me. In fact I'll come out in say that those comments were the sole reason why I changed the header. Doesn't mean I don't think the edits were right. The comments about my actions were incorrect, so to prevent misunderstandings I changed the wording. In retrospect, I may have been excessive, but the goal of the edits are justified (to make the header not appear that WP:PAIN is exclusive to admins). As for the two against one vote, you should also not that Misplaced Pages policy says "voting is evil". Consensus is based on the number of opinions but as well as their explainations and justifications. For example, the fact that TheRealFennShysa opposed my edits after he was one of the people who seemed to think that non-admins couldn't maintain the board and that his arguement contained red herrings, makes it weigh less than Mike's arguement which analysed both sides and gave justified conclusions.

Mike's comment was that the page requires admins for making blocks, and that warnings threatening blocks from non-admins are pointless. That does not mean that the page is exclusive to admins, as the original header implies, which Aaron reverted to. So no, it isn't two against one, it's one against one and another in the middle. Paul Cyr 05:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've created a new header which incorperates Mike's post. It allows non-admins to warn users upto npa2, but asks them to leave npa3 and blocks to the admins. Paul Cyr 18:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a good compromise to me. TRFS, what's your take on it? (Also, on a sidenote, honestly, do you mind the 'TRFS' acronym? If one doesn't want to type out your whole name, is "Fenn" acceptable, or "Shysa," or "TRFS," or ... ?) — Mike • 21:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer this to remain a noticeboaard directed at administrators, full stop. - brenneman 00:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Must warn

I'm removing the must components of the header. Discretion needs to be applied, and it's classic instruction creep to create yet another legalistic requirement like that. - brenneman 00:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Bah, there's no easy way to untangle the "must" warn from the editor/admin question, so I'm leaving it to not look like I'm pushing the point regarding non-admins. - brenneman 00:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Post block review

Hiya, I was recently blocked (and then had my talk page protected, do you have any idea how irritating that is?) by Tyrenius for what he considered a personal attack. I disagreed and tried to engage him in conversation but he instead , I still do not believe I engaged in a personal attack and would like some feedback on what exactly I said that was so objectionable and to publically illustrate (what I can't see as anything but) immature vindictiveness on the part of an admin. Is this the correct forum for that? Litch 03:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)