I am very concerned and disturbed by these events.

I think that these sort of actions "win the battle, but lose the war."

I had not been involved in the Mav/168... issue, but what I have read on the list and the various Wikipedia pages leaves me still unclear why 168... had to be sysoped unilaterally and before the arbitration committee was assigned the case. If 168... had been engaged in a range of conflicts at that moment and taking advantage of his sysop powers in them, I could better understand, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I appreciate that Erik has apologized for forgetting to let people know about it. However, I am fearful for the reason Anthere laid out about people exercising their power to act as the police, the judge, and the jury -- even if I would agree with the decisions they make

However, I *have* been carefully following what's been going on with Sam Spade/Jack Lynch for the last couple of weeks. Indeed, I have been rather involved in dealing with him when I have the stamina. I am completely opposed to his being removed from VfA after a few minutes. I understand the point about flamebait -- and clearly many of us are convinced that this user is a troll -- a very persistent and strategic one, but still a troll.

But to remove this from VfA was counterproductive:

* Sam Spade was nominated by Perl at 21:24 -0500 * I had gotten notice from someone that Sam Spade was listed on the page at 21:58 -0500. * By the time I got to VfA the nomination was already deleted -- not even removed to the talk page. That happened at 21:52 -0500

I think that the nomination should have stayed up for at least a day -- then it could have been removed to the talk page as is normally done. If we are to operate in a cooperative manner, we need to know about these sort of things. I don't think it would have been a problem. There of course wouldn't have been much support for his nomination -- even though Erik told Sam Spade that he would have supported the nomination on his talk page -- but I think it would have created less "evidence collection" than did the numerous attempts of Aplank/Greenmountainboy to become an admin. If Sam Spade had left a message on VfA saying he didn't accept the nomination that would have been one thing, but I don't think his message to Perl http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Perl&dummy=1&diff=2675160&oldid=2674795 was enough to justify removing from VfA either.

I will add that I'm sure that Sam Spade reads this list a few times a day for more ammunition, so we are all doing the worst thing possible in this case -- we're feeding the troll here and all over the wiki. I think the voting and discussions of RfA would have done that to some degree, but now he's succeeded in getting the list involved -- again. And I'm sure bringing the conflict to this forum is much more nourishing than just having it on the wiki itself.

If you think I'm exaggerating I'd suggest spending a few minutes perusing his contributions: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&hideminor=0&target=Sam_Spade&limit=5000&offset=0 He's a master at wasting people's time -- both newbies and more experienced users -- and he's been sucking up a ton of people's editing energy. Three more examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Libertarian_socialism#featured_article??? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Bryan_Derksen&oldid=2306791#Atheism as Jack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pantheism as Sam (and I included one with my involvement in the interest of "full disclosure")

*But overall*, I am very concerned that we are being increasing divided and split by internal disputes and by trolls -- and while this isn't in any way new or unique, I haven't seen this level of rancor and mistrust in my time here. Considering how rapid Wikipedia's growth has been of late, I am very worried about what this bodes for the future.

I think the mediation and arbitration committees are an important first step, but for them to do what they need to, there needs to be more energy put into keeping them moving forward and staying active -- and I believe that the mediation committee needs to be able to directly refer "cases" to the arbitration committee. I also think that this must go hand-in-hand with a lighter touch by sysops and developers, and some clarification of guidelines to help make the various systems that keep Wikipedia functioning (sysops, bureaucrats, developers, the two committees, and Jimbo's role) all work together better than they are currently doing.

Thanks, Brian (Bcorr)