It looks to me like the block on Libertas should be removed immediately, Evercat has pretty much admitted he abused his powers in blocking her.. His IRC communications are irrelevant to his wikipedia actions. He could have ignored the talk page issues and let them settle down.
However, I don't think he did anything wrong using info available to all, to figure out and speculate on a talk page about who libertas, was, wasn't or might be. That is the risk we take when we use the internet. If he had used sysop powers to violate pseudonym privacy that would be a different matter. I know I don't expect my IP address and information discoverable from it, to be private.
-- Silverback
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I'm gonna get in some pre-emptive retaliation since I expect this might be about to be discussed...
I've been accused by User/Troll Libertas of being all "creepy" since I revealed "her" location after 172 asked me to investigate whether "she" might be User:Reithy. Libertas claims I've repeatedly revealed "her" location. This is sort of true. I did indeed look up "her" location and reveal it.
(I use "her" throughout since "she" claims to be female, but I distrust trolls...)
I did not use any special powers to find Libertas' IP address. Of course, mere sysops have no such powers. Libertas revealed "her" IP address by editing logged out. 172 then gave me it, and asked me to investigate. I had never been involved with Libertas before.
As far as I recall (the Wiki is much too slow right now to check, so possibly I'm forgetting something), I mentioned the location on the following occasions:
I initially mentioned it on 172's talk page, noting that it differed from Reithy's. I restored it a few times when Libertas edited it (because I don't like my comments being edited) and mentioned it once more in a stupid debate (that Libertas started, by complaining about something I wrote on my userpage about reincarnation) over whether userpages can contain controversial claims.
I regret the last occurence (the gist of which was that if "she" really was from said location, it didn't make sense that "her" userpage was so pro-American, so it looked like it was that way just to stir things up); but I was discounting the possibility of an American living in said place. So that was stupid of me.
Anyway, this culminated in a big blowout on IRC. I don't have a log, alas, but it involved "her" repeatedly claiming that I was acting creepy, behaving like a thug, and threatening "her". "She" also seemed to claim that I knew "she" was female (I didn't) and that this made my discussion of "her" location more disturbing. Curiously, Libertas was happy to reveal "her" location to everyone on IRC during this discussion.
I did apologise on IRC for the last occurence.
But "she" kept on with "her" insults, and finally, becoming Really Bloody Furious (tm) I blocked "her". This was possibly another mistake. I'll step down as a sysop, if people feel I should, but "she" seems like an obvious troll to me.
But I'm tired, and upset, and angry, and going to bed now.
Evercat
Allan Crossman - a.crossman@blueyonder.co.uk The Moon is Waning Crescent (45% of Full) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The block should be removed. Things said on an IRC channel on freenode are things not said in the wikipedia namespace. Just as emails sent through wikipedia are not covered by wikipedia policy.
I saw what was said between you and Libertas. You said some pretty nasty things as well. You are CLEARLY too emotionally/personally involved to issue a block against Libertas, and it should be lifted immediately. IRC is not part of the wikipedia namespace, no matter what the [[l33t hax0r]] #wikipedia junkies would like to think. It would be an embarrasment to wikipedia.org if it was.
Your last act as an admin should be to get another admin to block you for the exact same time that Libertas was erroneously blocked. Its a shame, since you seem like a nice person, and this may have been an unfortunate lapse.
nas ral wrote:
Your last act as an admin should be to get another admin to block you for the exact same time that Libertas was erroneously blocked. Its a shame, since you seem like a nice person, and this may have been an unfortunate lapse.
I really don't think we need to actively punish admins for being human. He was baited, and absent a pattern of abusive behaviour, combined with his clear understanding that his actions were improper and what led to them, Allan needs some sort of pseudo-formal scolding. He doesn't need to be stripped of his adminship or banned.