The account of administrator User:Robdurbar on English Wikipedia went rogue in the early hours of this morning. Rob had made a friendly goodbye message about six weeks ago and hadn't been active since then.
Between 0957 and 1014 UTC, the account deleted the main page as well as several articles: "History", "Cheese", "Esteban Huertas, "Pita, Guinea", "Balham railway station" and "Mardi Gras Mystery". It also vandalized the main page and blocked several prominent editors including User:Jimbo Wales.
The account was blocked by User:Sarge_Baldy at 1013 UTC, but unblocked itself and blocked the blocker. At 1014 User:Jon_Harald_Søby, apparently having been notified on IRC by User:Peter_Isotalo through #wikimedia-stewards, desysopped the Robdurbar account on English Wikipedia, and the account was finally blocked indefinitely by User:Cryptic. As a formal matter, a checkuser request has been made for the disabled account.
Overall, this incident was handled very promptly and efficiently. Well done and I think a word of appreciation is due to all the volunteers involved.
The worst damage here was the loss of the main page for about fifteen minutes, and the accompanying scrabbling between Robdurbar deleting it and other administrators restoring it.
On 19/04/07, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
The account of administrator User:Robdurbar on English Wikipedia went rogue in the early hours of this morning. Rob had made a friendly goodbye message about six weeks ago and hadn't been active since then.
Sorry, Tony, I didn't notice your message before I posted.
Overall, this incident was handled very promptly and efficiently. Well done and I think a word of appreciation is due to all the volunteers involved.
Indeed.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
The account of administrator User:Robdurbar on English Wikipedia went rogue in the early hours of this morning. Rob had made a friendly goodbye message about six weeks ago and hadn't been active since then.
Between 0957 and 1014 UTC, the account deleted the main page as well as several articles: "History", "Cheese", "Esteban Huertas, "Pita, Guinea", "Balham railway station" and "Mardi Gras Mystery". It also vandalized the main page and blocked several prominent editors including User:Jimbo Wales.
Overall, this incident was handled very promptly and efficiently. Well done and I think a word of appreciation is due to all the volunteers involved.
The worst damage here was the loss of the main page for about fifteen minutes, and the accompanying scrabbling between Robdurbar deleting it and other administrators restoring it.
Presumably this person had already run the gauntlet to become an admin. Thus, being able to do that is no guarantee that a person will not turn rogue. It also shows that when it does happen the community has effective and efficient techniques for coping with this. It's something that the supporters of the current RfA system should keep in mind.
Ec
Presumably this person had already run the gauntlet to become an admin. Thus, being able to do that is no guarantee that a person will not turn rogue. It also shows that when it does happen the community has effective and efficient techniques for coping with this. It's something that the supporters of the current RfA system should keep in mind.
No reasonable person would ever claim RFA to be perfect at stopping rogue admins. We always knew there was a chance of an admin going rogue, the idea has always been to minimise that risk (without unreasonably withholding admin tools from anyone), not eliminate it. As far as I know, this is the first instance of an admin going rogue in this way - 1 out of about 1200 is pretty good going if you ask me.
And, of course, I congratulate those members of the community who dealt with the issue in exactly the way we've always said it would be dealt with - well done!
To update the situation, Mackensen found "nothing obvious to suggest that the account was compromised." The pattern of users blocked was not suggestive of random activity--one victim of the blocking had been blocked by Robdurbar in the past. The conclusion is that this was an administrator who decided to burn his bridges. Perhaps he has to study for exams.
Newyorkbrad has submitted a formal case for desysopping to the arbitration committee.
On 4/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Newyorkbrad has submitted a formal case for desysopping to the arbitration committee.
Is that actually required, assuming he doesn't appeal? Can't we just call it a "community desysopping" and be done with it?
It's a technicality, but I believe an important one. There has never been such a thing as a 'community de-sysopping' and creating such might be problematic.
If we were to institute such a thing, I believe it should be done with a bit more thought and discussion.
-Matt
It's a technicality, but I believe an important one. There has never been such a thing as a 'community de-sysopping' and creating such might be problematic.
If we were to institute such a thing, I believe it should be done with a bit more thought and discussion.
This is the kind of thing IAR is for - so we don't have to come up with detailed new rules to deal with situations that virtually never happen, we can just do the obvious thing and be done with it.
If you take a look at the actual arbitration request I filed on WP:RfAr, you'll see that I suggested that this situation be handled by the arbitrators simply saying that they confirmed the emergency desysopping, and that a full-fledged, formal arbitration case didn't seem necessary under the circumstances. The arbitrators so far have accepted this suggestion. Thus, I think we have sustained the principle of how desysoppings are to be handled while also being faithful to the idea of not bothering too much with process for process's own sake.
Newyorkbrad
On 4/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's a technicality, but I believe an important one. There has never been such a thing as a 'community de-sysopping' and creating such might be problematic.
If we were to institute such a thing, I believe it should be done with a bit more thought and discussion.
This is the kind of thing IAR is for - so we don't have to come up with detailed new rules to deal with situations that virtually never happen, we can just do the obvious thing and be done with it.
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No need for one. Trying to weasle out and get the bit back would fall under Wikilawyering. [[WP:IAR]] and [[WP:UCS]] are there for these situations
On 4/20/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Newyorkbrad has submitted a formal case for desysopping to the arbitration committee.
Is that actually required, assuming he doesn't appeal? Can't we just call it a "community desysopping" and be done with it?
It's a technicality, but I believe an important one. There has never been such a thing as a 'community de-sysopping' and creating such might be problematic.
If we were to institute such a thing, I believe it should be done with a bit more thought and discussion.
-Matt
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