Value, respect, and strive for diversity in editors

It's a huge change that you're asking for. I kind of wish we had done this right from the start. You're right that training would have to become a part of it. But we wouldn't just have to train admins. We'd have to train editors as well.

And even then, the biggest challenge is distinguishing between legitimate criticism and "disrespect". I mean, if you said "Randomran keeps re-adding information that is untrue and unverified", I shouldn't be able to say "Noraft should be banned for calling me a liar".

Randomran00:14, 8 May 2010

I think you're right about everything you've said. And I agree that it is a huge change, but I think it is one that we really need to make.

Regarding differentiating between criticism and disrespect, I think clear, nonspecific guidelines again save the day. In this case, establishing a guideline that editors should request things for themselves, not for others (i.e. it is okay to say "I feel I'm being disrespected and I'd like administrator intervention," but not "Ban Noraft for calling me a liar.")

In the same way that current rules (such as WP:Notability) give rise to typical/common outcomes in Articles for Deletion discussions, the new rules will also have common outcomes. For example, I would suspect that if we instituted the aforementioned guideline, a common outcome of requesting a ban on another user would be an administrator warning and referral to the guideline stating that calling for bans on others is not respectful.

Noraft03:16, 8 May 2010