Lately, it has come to our attention that some people are being only slightly dickish, rather than either not being dicks at all, or being giant dicks (who can be banned).
This is a request for members of the Wikipedia community to cease mild dickery: either desist with being a dick altogether, or become a gigantic dick so that immediate banning becomes justified.
Sometimes, it's a matter of perspective.
Examples
Each example states a form of mild dickery along with suggestions as to what to do if you choose the "become a giant dick" (BGD) or the "cease all dickery" (CAD) paths.
Delete images without removing the resulting redlinks, and then claim you're too busy deleting more images to go back to remove said redlinks.BGD: Keep deleting images randomly, creating a large number of redlinks.CAD: Follow the "what links here" button and remove all links to the image you're deleting.
Fail to source information properly and clearly.BGD: Begin sourcing extensively, using "reliable" founts of knowledge such as Stormfront, Encyclopedia Dramatica, or even (gasp) other Wikipedia articles as references.CAD: Begin sourcing extensively, using reliable founts of knowledge such as academic journals, works published by field experts, and reputable media as references.
Lightly haze newbies.BGD: Report any new editor to a controversial article on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, regardless of the fact that they were (accurately) correcting spelling errors. Make sure, when reverting, to use edit summaries like "Reverting vandalism".CAD: Try to be friendly to newbies, and help them avoid common pitfalls.
Squeeze a few choice words into your edits.BGD: Whenever editing, use highly offensive profanity or language explicitly intended to offend people.CAD: Always be sure to use appropriate language, and try not to offend anyone.
Start a single-purpose account to push your particular point-of-view, while carefully adhering to the letter of all Wikipedia policies and making a few token edits to other articles to muddy the issue.BGD: Within 24 hours of creating your account, revert on the same article at least twenty times, and when you inevitably get blocked, continue to abuse the unblock template until you lose access to your user talk page.CAD: Get some Wiki-experience editing articles you don't feel passionately about first, and only return to the hot button articles once you feel comfortable with the consensus-building process.
Fail to fix double redirects when moving pages.BGD: Keep moving pages around randomly, creating long chains of redirects in the process.CAD: Whenever you move a page, use the What links here feature to find any double redirects and fix them.
Engage in highly offensive vandalism, but only do it once a week, and make sure to blank the warnings on your Talk page so that your pattern of vandalism goes unnoticed for months.BGD: Replace as many pages as possible with racial slurs/homophobic slurs/phallic references/scatological references.CAD: Um... don't vandalize?
Ignore or erase concerns about your edits or other actions.BGD: Tell anybody who questions your actions "Because I said so", or even to "go fuck themselves".CAD: Be willing to justify and civilly discuss your actions.
Post unnecessarily verbose comments and responses, partially consisting of only tenuously relevant issues, in discussions.BGD: Respond to every single comment by repeatedly flooding pages with enormous reams of text without paragraphing while ensuring you not only discuss the original topic but also touch on the article subject and attack everyone around you, and when asked to truncate your comments respond with equally impenetrable screeds.CAD: Ensure contributions to discussions are clear, concise, and address the matter at hand while allowing others to make their points as well.
Fail to fill in the edit summary.BGD: Use the edit summary to make personal attacks on other editors, laced with plenty of profanity, and include some links to malware and shock sites for good measure. Or, just not put an edit summary at all.CAD: Use the edit summary to describe accurately, concisely and civilly what changes you are making.
Have two Wikipedia accounts at once.BGD: How about more? How about 3? How about 5? How about 10? How about 50? How about 100? How about 500? How about 1,000? How about 5,000? How about 10,000? How about 100,000? How about a whopping 1,000,000? Maybe even 1,000,000,000?CAD: Have only one Wikipedia account and don't make any more of them.
In all seriousness, being a dick on a small scale can be more damaging over the long term – to both yourself, and others – than being a large scale one, for the simple reason that it is easier to recognise that calling people "NAZIS", for example, is a personal attack, than it is to recognise that saying that a person's "opinion can probably be discounted, as he appears to support Wikipedia attack sites" is also a personal attack. Therefore, it is harder to discover and to handle.
The damage to the individual by behaving like a dick is quite real, by the way. By being a dick, they will tend to make more enemies, and alienate their friends and allies. Furthermore, even moderate "dickery" may lead them to ultimately getting themselves blocked, and even banned, if it goes on long enough. Extreme dickery just has a shorter lifespan.
