On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 15:05:28 -0700, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
This is a request for clarification about admins and their powers.
There's been a clear case today and yesterday of an admin abusing his powers (unprotecting a page he wanted to edit), and engaging in what could be argued amounts to vandalism. Complaints about this have met with the response that, though it's agreed that this admin abused his powers, there's nothing that can be done about it, because admins aren't allowed to block other admins for an abuse of power. All editors can do in a case like this, we're being told, is begin the long process of RfCs, mediation, and arbitration.
Regardless of the details of this particular case, is it true that admins are not allowed to block other admins for an abuse of power?
If this is true, how do we go about getting that changed?
It's not allowed, yes: the blocking policy does not cover abuses of admin powers. In any case it would be pointless to block admins for such reasons, as they can unblock themselves and likely will if they don't think they were abusing their powers. (I can only remember one case of deliberate, admitted abuse of admin powers, and the sysop who did that was trying very hard to make a point about the handling of problematic users.) Then, too, if a sysop is consciously abusing his powers, then what's to stop him from abusing them further in order to unblock himself? Blocking for abuse of sysop powers would be pointless.
Last, I'm not sure unprotecting a page in order to edit it even qualifies as an abuse of admin powers---articles are meant to be edited, and unprotecting a page opens it to editing by all.
--Charles P. ([[en:User:Mirv]])