On 28 May 2007 at 17:28:38 +0100, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/05/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
But, then, I've also developed some doubts about your own judgment given your activity on this list last week, when you developed out of whole cloth an entirely bizarre interpretation of [[WP:BLP]] that held that this policy could be used as a Harry-Potter-esque magical incantation by any admin in order to take unilateral action that would not be permitted to be questioned, debated, reversed, or subjected to any sort of process or consensus save the unlikely possibility of a full-blown ArbCom case. The fact that nothing in the actual wording of the policy itself even hinted at this interpretation didn't faze you one bit, though you later backed down after a storm of controversy here.
What on earth? It's been practice since WP:BLP was instituted.
Not that I've observed. There have been plenty of cases of admins making changes or deletions to an article under BLP concerns which have resulted in subsequent review, debate, modification, and reversal without the ArbCom acting.
The way Fred originally put it, it would be possible for some admin to wake up deciding that he didn't like Britney Spears and didn't think she should have an article on Wikipedia, and then just go and speedy-delete it, giving "BLP" as the magic word (does a wand need to be waved along with this?); then, no discussion, debate, DRV, AFD, or other questioning would be permitted, no other admin (or even all other admins acting in concert) would be allowed to reverse the action on penalty of desysopping, and only an ArbCom case would be able to reverse it (even though the ArbCom says they don't get involved in content disputes).