On 9/8/05, MAURICE FRANK megaknee@btopenworld.com wrote:

I challenge you to print this on en-Wikipedia's home page, so that no user can deny realising it nor claim that readers don't know it. This is so that nobody thereafter will have any basis go round arguing that you hide the way you work. So you'll be better off, won't you?

I come across a lot more people complaining about blind enforcement of Wikipedia's rules without any common sense or flexibility than people complaining about flexibility and consideration of the surrounding circumstances.

There is judgement involved in almost every administrator action. For instance, take a look at the Blocking Policy Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy This page is linked to from the Main Page via the Wikipedia Introduction (which is where people go when they click "anyone can edit").

"Sysops MAY, AT THEIR JUDGEMENT, block IP addresses whose users vandalise Wikipedia." "Sysops MAY, AT THEIR JUDGEMENT, block IP addresses or usernames that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia." "According to our username policy, ... inappropriate usernames are not allowed, and in certain circumstances, sysops MAY block accounts with such usernames." "Usernames that are designed to impersonate legitimate users MAY be blocked immediately and indefinitely." "[S]ysops MAY block on sight any bot that appears to be out of control." "Blocks MAY be imposed in instances where threats have been made...."

And, to cap off all the examples of leeway for sysop discretion hard-codified into the policy wording, there is this one:

"Blocks without policy basis ... Though rare, there have been situations where a user has exhausted the community's patience to the point where they find themselves blocked even though there is, strictly speaking, no basis in policy for the block. Administrators who block without policy basis should be sure that there is exceptional, widespread community support for the block."

So there sometimes doesn't even need to be a policy basis, so long as there is a wide community consensus. This just reinforces that policy is there to largely guide administrators in their roles. Administrators can and do take actions outside of policy, and largely these actions are highly uncontroversial and to the benefit of Wikipedia. Administrators are often required to make judgement calls in the exercise of their administrator actions, and I think Wikipedia would be a worse place if administrators were required to blindly adhere to the policy with no consideration of the surrounding circumstances.

If we are still talking about Zoe's blocking of that user, then I think the edits of that user quite clearly fall within "disruption of Wikipedia", specifically "changing other users' signed comments". Note that section does not say "*deliberately* changing other users' signed comments".

~Mark Ryan