QUOTE(Kato @ Fri 30th May 2008, 5:06pm)
Far be it for me to stick up for Moulton, and even though this thread has become yet another arena for Moulton's ramblings, of course he's right in this instance.
The capacity to edit Wikipedia is worthless. Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Just get a new account if one wants to piss around on an online game for hours on end. Also, getting unblocked oneself, or seeing Mantanmoreland blocked, is not important.
What is important is something called "principle" and if one presses a principle as hard as one can, that principle might just stick, and inform future processes in a positive way.
By addressing the core problems, as Moulton and Wordbomb have done, their actions are far more important than some superficial need of an individual editor to right some personal wrong.
So Wordbomb shouldn't be unblocked on principle due to his badness, even though in principle he was driven to it.
When people do something
only for the principle, it is a fair bet that they are heading for trouble. Being a liberal sort of a guy, I can recognise the David Steel concerns of power without principles vs principles without power. It is a grey world, and while we can look to principles to guide us, there is also a need to be pragmatic. The art is understanding that the balance of these is not fixed and when to stick to principles and when to be pragmatic. If you like, principles are guidance, not law.
...and another thing.
I think that is why Wikipedia sucks when it comes to process. People are always looking for hard and fast rules, binding precedent, things that make decisions easy.
Wikipedia is too complicated for that. You just have to look at the basic policies to realise that taking judgement out of things like assessing reliable sources does not work.
Perhaps, in the end, sticking to your principles is about making sure you have precious few principles, but the right ones. Wikipedia has too many and some of them are plain wrong.