Greetings:
I am the attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation in the US. I work for
the Board. Among my responsibilities is keeping the Foundation out of
legal trouble and responding to lawsuits, actual and threatened. I have
had a long chat with Eric Moeller about the circumstances that resulted
in his ban (since reverted by someone Being Bold). I also believe that
the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to
the Foundation.
The issue of blocked articles is a complex one, and in many instances
can be the visible result of careful consideration on the part of
Foundation board members, staff, and other admins/bureaucrats/sysops who
have knowledge of the facts and circumstances. Often the community at
large will not have any idea what the facts and underlying
considerations are. Not everything that involves Wikipedia is public,
nor should it be. The typical user or admin doesn't have all the pieces
of the puzzle. Don't let hubris get the better of you.
There may be those of you who have yet to experience the American legal
system in any fashion, save for a movie or two. Dealing with lawsuits
is what I do for a living. Avoiding them is also what I do for a
living. My job is to make sure that the Foundation has the best legal
advice and best options open to it to keep things running smoothly, and
to not land in court unless all other avenues have been exhausted.
The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy. People will challenge it
through their words and actions. Everyone is entitled to his or her
opinion. But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and
sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious
use of confidentiality at the Foundation level. The Foundation officers
and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I
do as a lawyer for my client.
Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have
expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use. There is a
healthy debate yet to be had about it. We can have that debate, but I
also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater
than loyalty to any one user. Even someone with the history of
contributions to Mr. Moeller.
-BradPatrick
Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
Fowler White Boggs Banker
501 E. Kennedy Blvd.
Suite 1700
Tampa, FL 33602-5239
bpatrick(a)fowlerwhite.com
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces(a)wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Erik Moeller
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:57 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; English Wikipedia;
wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny
I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to August
2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous international
activities such as conference speeches, as well as my book and articles
about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before, nor have I ever been
subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in fact, I was one of
Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom, and one of the people
who proposed that very committee).
I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
"Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he
was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to
the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time
office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
What happened?
Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
[[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
"POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
"This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied the
regular {{protected}} template.
Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and unprotected
the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection policy. I also
asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it explicit whether the
protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have reprotected, of course,
if he had simply said that they were, and left it at that.
I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an
overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the
community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Erik
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At the request of Oscar from the Netherlands wikipedia, I have temporarily
removed Waerth's status as a Steward, pending the resolution of his conflict
with the nl.wikipedia community. I do this with a heavy heart, and recognize
that something like this has never been done before, however, it became
necessary in order to thwart Waerth's threats to override his own block on nl.wiki.
I would be grateful to receive the comments and suggestions of other
stewards on this matter, especially because the circumstances are unprecedented.
Please let's not turn this into a flame fest, but rather a productive
discussion of what policy should be.
Danny
Hi all,
Yes default is a good idea, so to try to avoid upsetting some users.
Regarding the 33% limit, it would have to be turned off but the
fundraising could always be advertised as contribution matching: "for
every dollar we give, we receive three." I'm just firing ideas and I
realize there might be plenty of other issues.
Tony
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bruguiea
BorgHunter schrieb:
> I understand the concerns about the Office action, and how it may have
> posed a legal threat to Wikimedia. The issue at stake here, however, is
> not "Was the Office action justified?" Rather, I think the problem was,
> at a fundamental level, communication. Along the way, it was failed to
> be communicated that the action in question was indeed an Office action.
> Thus, it was acted upon as if it was not.
And then it is okay to revert another admin's actions without even
asking before? This seems to me a problem of lack of good faith an admin
should assume.
If Wikimedia feels the need to
> issue such an action, should it not be clearly labeled to avoid that
> very legal threat to Wikipedia that Danny was attempting to avoid in the
> first place? I hope that all involved have learned from the experience,
> but I don't think that Erik constitutes a continued threat. His action
> was borne of misunderstanding, and actions against him to prevent
> further threats are, now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up,
> unnecessary.
This was not a misunderstanding, this was lack of good faith. Erik
should have trusted danny that he has good reasons for an action which
might not be selfexplaining. If he wanted to know more, he could have
asked. And an admin who acts before he understands the situation can -
as this incident has shown - potentially endanger the foundation.
> I don't think anyone is questioning the legitimacy of the
> Office action here, but I think we all are concerned that a
> misunderstanding led to all this. Again, I ask: Should Office actions
> not be labeled explicitly as such?
It is often better to play things low and not on an official level. I
don't know if this was the case here.
greetings,
elian
You may find a new version of the checkuser access policy here
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CheckUser_Policy#Access_.28new_version.…
the main differences are
* it takes into account the fact some local communities with arbcom do
not necessarily want to delegate appointement of checkusers to their arbcom
* any local project may choose at least 2 people amongst the already
approved checkusers, with localized requirement (the local community
choose itself percentage of support, minimum number of votes etc...)
Which would allow to make Essjay and Karynn checkuser on en.wikibooks if
the en.wikibooks is happy with this.
Warning : the idea is not that all checkusers be selected by wikipedias
and later imposed on other projects. The idea is rather that generally,
a person widely supported in one project to do a job... is some one we
generally trust to do the job properly anywhere.
So, if wikicommons wants to appoints 5 checkusers from 5 different
languages, all those 5 may serve on various other projects. The one
requirement to keep though : always at least 2 checkusers per project.
Opinion ? Please comment on the meta page. Trolls not welcome. I do not
have the time this week :-)
ant
On 4/20/06, Oskar Sigvardsson <oskarsigvardsson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/20/06, Sean Barrett <sean(a)epoptic.org> wrote:
> >
> > Death Phoenix stated for the record:
> >
> > > Since Danny didn't apply the WP:OFFICE tag, does that warrant an immediate
> > > desysoping and indefinite ban? I've seen such measures only after an
> <
> > Minor correction: even the ArbComm cannot impose an indefinite ban.
Both the ban and the desysopping were indefensible. Editors should
not be punished for violating nonexistent policies.
Desysopping on more than one project was unprecedented and outrageous.
It is perfectly legitimate to have legal reasons for actions to remain
secret. It is not legitimate to pretend that such reasons don't exist
-- and then punish editors because they really do.
> > Don't let the issue here get buried under discussion of OFFICE. The
> > issue is that Danny, while apparently acting as a common or garden
> > variety admin, -- and not just without discussion, but rather while
> > /actively refusing to discuss/ -- imposed a lifetime ban from Wikipedia.
Right. This is not an OFFICE issue, except insofar as that was the
source of a misunderstanding. This is an issue of misuse of authority
and refusal to communicate, once the misunderstanding had taken place.
--
++SJ
> > Indefinite block.
> >
> > While /actively refusing to discuss/.
> >
>
> Precisely. Trying to defend Danny's desysopping and ban by crying
> wheel-war is just wikilawyering in my opinion.
>
> --Oskar
Hi,
"The Wikimedia Foundation servers are currently experiencing technical
difficulties. [...] If you would like to help, please donate."
Ok, this happens regularly and we can live with it, luckily Wikimedia is
not a commercial company but mostly based on voluntary work, so let's
donate some money...
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising
Unable to connect to 207.142.131.213
Uhm, the problem that people may like to donate when servers are down
but cannot do so when servers are down is known for ... years? Why is
wikimediafoundation.org still hosted at Wikimedia's own server
farm? It's only a small website isn't it? I bet the costs of moving to a
reliable, independent webhoster will easily pay off.
Maybe it's that Wikimedia Foundation does not need the money?
with a shake of the head,
Jakob
Kelly said:
> People who put themselves into harm's way will get run over from time
to time.
> You can safely assume that anything Danny does that appears difficult
to
> explain is probably him responding to a legal threat in some way,
since that's
> basically all he does anymore. They are *that* frequent.
Put simply, you're asking us to give Danny the benefit of the doubt.
That's fair enough, but don't you think that Eloquence has earned the
benefit of the doubt, as well? Of course he has, but Danny certainly
didn't give it to him.
-strom