I don't know what you expect, Björn, but a certain degree of protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom being given evidence of the violations in question.
I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an admin. Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that has been collected and also ignored.
Secondly, a lot of users go straight onto the attack of a blocking or reverting admin while simply asking to undo their actions or asking for an explanation would be much more helpful.
Very true - many admins exploit that fact. Some admin blocks a user, that user comes back in another form and sprouts insults around him/her, the admin can then defend its decision by the bad behaviour the user exhibited IN REPSONSE to the harassment. But the fact you mention is not really pertinent and can not defend bad actions from admins.
Also, you can't expect admins to be infallible all the time. I've made some bad decisions, but I've always been open to discussion.
I don't "expect" that. :) I know that each and every sysop is about 100 times more secure in their position than the average user because of admin cameradiereship (sp?). But I would have very much preferred a system in which one bad decision is enough. If one admin goes down, there is 100 other users to replace him/her.
BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that RFCs.
I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the procedure was exactly as I described. I even witnessed first-hand a user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin involved..
I must also add so I don't offend someone to much. I think that even if you replaced all misbehaving cowboy-sysops with good well-behaved ones, nothing would change. Why? Because it's the System man, the System!
-- mvh Björn
From: BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com
I don't know what you expect, Björn, but a certain degree of protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom being given evidence of the violations in question.
I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an admin.
Actually, it doesn't appear to work very well for admins who are being harrassed by editors.
Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that has been collected and also ignored.
What specific evidence are you talking about?
BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that
RFCs.
I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the procedure was exactly as I described.
No, it has always been that way. You're confusing RfC with RfAR.
I even witnessed first-hand a user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin involved..
I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee procedure. Which case are you referring to?
Jay.
I even witnessed first-hand a user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin involved..
I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee procedure. Which case are you referring to?
Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin. Taking the matter directly to the ArbCom doesn't work. And I was mistaken about the deadline too, it is 48 hours. The case I am referring to is between a user whos username starts with O and an admin whos username starts with R. I'm not interested in bringing up the specific case to the mailing list (it happened many months ago) because nothing good can come out of it. I'm just, hesistantly, mentioning the usernames by their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described.
BJörn Lindqvist (bjourne@gmail.com) [050602 19:12]:
their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described.
I think you lost me when you talked earlier about how oppressed Lir was by the arbitration process.
- d.
their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described.
I think you lost me when you talked earlier about how oppressed Lir was by the arbitration process.
What are you talking about? I said that Lir was harassed by certain admins, not opressed by the fine men and women in the Arbitration Commitee.
BJörn Lindqvist said:
I even witnessed first-hand a user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin involved..
I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee procedure. Which case are you referring to?
Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin.
In the case of threatening or abusive behavior, a post on [[WP:AN/I]] should be enough. Although it seems to me that administrator abuse is often a fallback claim by people who are behaving in a problematic manner, I don't dismiss it out of hand and I think it would be most extraordinary if administrators didn't occasionally act in a heavy-handed, unjust and sometimes even vindictive manner. We should take such things seriously.
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution.
Non-administrator complainants tend to be hobbled, however, by their lack of knowledge of how Wikipedia works. Administrators tend to know better than other editors just how much discretion they're allowed (it's quite extensive, and arguably has to be so).
Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution.
That's the problem - the admin had to be abusive in the same way to someone else, and you have to locate that person. Somehow I don't find that very likely in the majority of cases.
SPUI said:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution.
That's the problem - the admin had to be abusive in the same way to someone else, and you have to locate that person. Somehow I don't find that very likely in the majority of cases.
No, you and someone else have to make an effort to deal with the *same* problem.
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move
Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty quickly.
Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far.
I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity.
On 6/2/05, BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move
Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty quickly.
Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far.
I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity.
-- mvh Björn _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases. a full ist of admins who have lost thier adminship (for a number of reasons) may be found at [[Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Former_Administrators]]
From: geni geniice@gmail.com
172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases. a full ist of admins who have lost thier adminship (for a number of reasons) may be found at [[Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Former_Administrators]]
In addition, as I said before, other admins have had admin powers temporarily revoked, or have had other sanctions placed on them.
Jay.
BJörn Lindqvist said:
I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move
Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty quickly.
Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far.
I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers privilegies.
There's a list of five cases of desysopping:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship
Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity.
The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are governed by the same standards that apply to all editors.
SPUI said:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are governed by the same standards that apply to all editors.
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Tony Sidaway wrote:
SPUI said:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are governed by the same standards that apply to all editors.
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users.
SPUI said:
Tony Sidaway wrote: But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users.
You have a good point. I just looked the Willswikihelp case. He bit a newcomer who wrote a little eulogy to Sonny Bono in the middle of the South Lake Tahoe, California article. That's very bad behavior. What made it even worse was that another editor backed him up. A touch of groupthink there, I think.
I hope RickK will apologise to this guy. This really didn't look like vandalism, just a newcomer making an inappropriate edit.
Then RickK jumps into Isabella Allende and reverts what looks to me like a reasonable, if wordy, edit about her children's books. Cantus jumps in and does the same thing. Very bad behavior.
SchmuckytheCat then goes and lists Chertsey.jpg, which Willswikihelp uploaded, on IFD claiming it was "no source, uploaded by vandal" and without going to Willswikihelp asking him to complete the licensing information on the image.
There's a huge failure to assume good faith here, and I see absolutely no reason for it. The image was in effect trashed without any kind of good faith request for licensing information. That kind of behavior is enormously bad for Wikipedia.
I'm shocked.
On 6/3/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
You have a good point. I just looked the Willswikihelp case. He bit a newcomer who wrote a little eulogy to Sonny Bono in the middle of the South Lake Tahoe, California article. That's very bad behavior. What made it even worse was that another editor backed him up. A touch of groupthink there, I think.
I hope RickK will apologise to this guy. This really didn't look like vandalism, just a newcomer making an inappropriate edit.
Then RickK jumps into Isabella Allende and reverts what looks to me like a reasonable, if wordy, edit about her children's books. Cantus jumps in and does the same thing. Very bad behavior.
SchmuckytheCat then goes and lists Chertsey.jpg, which Willswikihelp uploaded, on IFD claiming it was "no source, uploaded by vandal" and without going to Willswikihelp asking him to complete the licensing information on the image.
There's a huge failure to assume good faith here, and I see absolutely no reason for it. The image was in effect trashed without any kind of good faith request for licensing information. That kind of behavior is enormously bad for Wikipedia.
I'm shocked.
Then why not practice what you preach, and go talk to RickK? It does seem like a mistake has been made (although it is worth noting that Willswikihelp did seem to have some problems with Wikiquette when I looked, but that didn't make him a vandal), but would it be not be more appropriate to talk it over and see what happens rather that running to the mailing list calling for blood? I'm getting awfully tired of this small group that believes a non-admin deserves a thousand chances and neverending good faith in the faith of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whereas if an admin slips up, they deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered.
-- ambi
Rebecca said:
On 6/3/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
I'm shocked.
Then why not practice what you preach, and go talk to RickK? It does seem like a mistake has been made (although it is worth noting that Willswikihelp did seem to have some problems with Wikiquette when I looked, but that didn't make him a vandal), but would it be not be more appropriate to talk it over and see what happens rather that running to the mailing list calling for blood?
I do not call for blood. I have expressed a hope that RickK would apologise for his shocking behavior. I'm sorry if my shock has been transmuted into a call for sanctions in your mind--I should perhaps have made it more clear that I only wish to see administrators, and all other editors, treat newcomers with understanding.
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users.
And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass admins? For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to your harrassment of RickK?
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users.
And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass admins? For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to your harrassment of RickK?
Nothing. Admins should be held to a higher standard. Those that are unable to avoid RickK-like behavior should not be admins.
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
JAY JG wrote:
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason?
Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users.
And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass admins? For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to your harrassment of RickK?
Nothing. Admins should be held to a higher standard.
They are, but certainly no users should be allowed to harrass others; this isn't Viligantipedia.
Those that are unable to avoid RickK-like behavior should not be admins.
And those that are unable to avoid SPUI-like behaviour? Perhaps they should not be posting to this mailing list, as a start.
Jay.
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
?
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa.
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
?
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa.
If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not?
SPUI said:
JAY JG wrote:
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
?
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa.
If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not?
Surely you don't need to be told the answer to that rhetorical question.
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
JAY JG wrote:
From: SPUI drspui@gmail.com
?
So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions.
Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa.
If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not?
It appears that the abuse is mostly coming from you, so if I were you I'd be cautious about starting a campaign to get tough with abusers.
Jay.
From: BJörn Lindqvist bjourne@gmail.com
Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far.
I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that you have seen more than one instance of this happening.
I've seen it in a number of cases; sometimes the admins lost their powers temporarly, sometimes permanently, sometimes they had other sanctions not involving admin powers.
It would very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity.
Bu the rules *are* formalized, and the precedents *have* been set, and it doesn't seem like admins are "VIPs with diplomatic immunity" except to a small number of editors who are typically trolls or cranks.
Jay.