Wow, I think that is the first time I have started a thread on this
mailing list that has received so many replies. :)
I posted here in the hope of receiving guidance from the list
subscribers about what they consider to be acceptable on this mailing
list, so that the WikiEN-l moderators can tailor our moderation to
suit the subscribers. For weeks we have been receiving messages like
"who let this through to the list" and "why isn't this person banned
from the list" in relation to various people, and I was unsure to what
extent the 'tolerance' of the subscribers to the mailing list endured.
On 20/02/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Calling someone "abusive" is still an ad
hominem statement. Rather
than saying "Admin X is abusive!1!" the person should say "Admin X
engaged in behaviour on Y page that seemed abusive to me, here's some
diffs..."
Yes, that's what I was getting at. You can raise the issue of
questionable behaviour by an administrator without resorting to
calling them "abusive". I guess that makes this an issue of civility
rather than personal attacks? But this thread, if anything, indicates
that calling someone abusive is not considered to be as grave as I had
thought. Maybe it's becoming so widely used that people have become
desensitised to the accusation. Anyway, at least one other user had
their emails rejected because of this, and they readily re-submitted
the email modified to remove such accudsatory language, and it was
accepted onto the mailing list.
I'm not interested in rejecting any email simply because it accuses an
admin of misconduct. If that happened, how would dodgy admins be
exposed? But what I am hoping to avoid is WikiEN-l becoming "the new
Wikipedia Review", wherein a crowd of overly paranoid banned users sit
and go through every single admin action of their most hated
administrator (generally the admin who blocked them in the first
place). I recognise that it is a balancing act between total
censorship and a total free-for-all. I just wanted to know in which
direction the balance should tip, according to the wishes and
sensitivities of the subscribers to the mailing list.
For the record, and since the mailing list has generally expressed an
opposition to the moderation of such messages, I copy below the
messages whic I moderated. Please look into the person's complaints.
~Mark Ryan
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Samuel L Bronkowitz" <countpointercount(a)gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 11:31:12 -0600
Subject: Just the latest
Not satisfied with trying to silence those they've banned, the abusive
admin crew are now trying to silence Miss Mondegreen for speaking up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ANI#Stop_archiving.21_in_re_RunedChozo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ANI#Proposed_Community_Ban_of__Miss_Mondegr…
"Mackensen" has also been routinely "cleaning" comments regarding his
behavior off of the page.
But you don't care about systemic abuse, obviously.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Samuel L Bronkowitz <countpointercount(a)gmail.com>
Date: Feb 18, 2007 7:39 PM
Subject: more abusive administrator behavior
To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APSPMario&diff=108…
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:P…
User "Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington" blocked him, removed his
unblock request, redirected the page to his talk page, then locked
them both.
He claimed "Trolling" for PSPMario legitimately trying to file an
unblock request.
How long do you plan to keep up the charade that there's no systemic
abuse of administrator powers going on?