Andre Engels wrote:
"Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net schrieb:
I suppose I should not have used the word "likely". It was just too polite. :-)
Cunc could not possibly have unblocked something without it having been blocked, but I'm sorry I keep forgetting that some people have difficulties accepting logical conclusions as evidence :-P
Sorry, but there is an important step missing in your 'logical conclusions'. Cunctator unprotected the page -> The page was protected. Correct. (after correct workding) The page was protected -> Someone protected the page. Correct (in all probability). Someone protected the page -> A sysop protected the page. Correct. A sysop protected the page -> A sysop abused their power. Nope, sorry.
General rule is that sysops should not protect pages that they are involved in. The general rule is NOT that sysops should not protect pages. If that were the rule, sysops would not have been given the possibility to protect pages in the first place.
Nothing in any of what I said implied that any simple application of blocking priveleges was necessarily an abuse of power. What is an abuse of power is the use of those powers to impose a particular point of view. Insisting on including the VfD notice in an article when its future existence is the topic of debate does express a POV. A person who has not previously participated in an article, and who makes any substantive change in the contents of the article in conjunction with the application of the blocking process, no longer can be said to be approaching the subject with clean hands. Therein lies the abuse of power. Furthermore, a person actively engaged in an edit war can quietly ask a previously uninvolved colleague whom he knows shares the same POV to block the article. That would be within the letter of the rules, but just slightly conspiratorial.
Ec