On 5/28/05, Cranston Snord enviroknot@hotmail.com wrote:
Power corrupts. And as it turns out, Wikipedia Admins are absolutely corrupt, Absolute Power wasn't even required.
Now that's going too far.
No issue is just black and white, and yes, unfortunately there are politics ... and they are not trivial themselves. There are some admins who use the admin functions too hastily, or at times, inappropriately, but they are a minority. The majority of administrators don't abuse their adminship, but the same group often usually avoids the debates and politics... this also means that they are not quick undo another administrators actions.
By making allegations like this you do nothing for your case... who would want to help you after claims like this? Already you've been accused of being a sock by someone with a sufficient degree of access to actually tell if you are a sock (well, tell if you edit from the same IP as the user you're accused of being a sock of), and who doesn't have any incentive to make up stories against you. Running around and calling people liars will not get you any friends here, if you are really being wronged perhaps you and the person you are accused of socking could ask wikipedia to disclose the addresses you edit from to the world? Most Wikipedians respond well to rationality, and almost all people respond better to politeness. I understand why you do not feel you owe such kindness to those who have given you trouble, but here you are addressing a much larger community which is filled with people who have done you no wrong.
Ultimately, when you come to edit at Wikipedia you are improving our communities encyclopedia for the world. If a new users shows up and gets treated rudely by the community (for whatever reason), the expected behavior is for the new person to say "Fine, go without my help... you're not paying me to be here!". This sequence of events is unfortunate, which is why we try hard encourage presuming good faith and such... but this sequence is natural. So, when we see a brand new users fighting with vigor for the ability to stay in a community that has treated them poorly please forgive us for having strong doubts about the motivation and identity of that editor.