Whether he is "barely" deserving of a fair treatment or otherwise, nobody
here has given him a fair treatment by any stretch of the imagination.
That won't do.
I also have Phil's "circle the wagons" rant up above. He thinks expansion
kills online communities. I think he's right.
Expansion kills online communities because of people like Phil who won't
admit that they need to let go and they need to deal with the new people
coming in fairly. People like Phil who think that "shoot them all unless
they are exactly like us and make no noise whatsoever" is the way to go
about dealing with newbies.
Now you know why I went anonymous. If I didn't Phil would be leading a
charge to have me removed right now for saying that.
David and SlimVirgin's behaviour in this matter has been sub-par. So has the
behaviour of the rest of you on this list. This doesn't just affect that one
user. It affects everyone they tell about Wikipedia. It affects everyone who
agreed with them on one topic or another at Wikipedia. I've only looked at
the Enviroknot profile for any length of time but based on its list of
contributions there was potential for a good editor. Solid edits were made
and backed up on talk pages, edit summaries and wikipedia policies were
properly referenced.
The only offense I can see in the Enviroknot profile is a pair of 3RR
violations. The one SlimVirgin put in tonight is totally unjustified. The
one earlier when people were claiming Enviroknot was also another IP address
is pushing your luck.
Meanwhile, editors and administrators alike have been hounding that profile
looking for any excuse to attack it. None of you bothered to set aside your
feelings long enough to look at the situation.
That isn't right. The behaviour of all of you in this scenario is making me
sick to my stomach. I thought you were better than this. If that's really
Phil's attitude, then there's no way he should be given power at Wikipedia.
If the rest of you share that attitude, then Wikipedia is doomed.
A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>
Reply-To: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>
To: tempforcomments(a)hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on
Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 23:11:03 -0400
While I agree with your points with respect to admin behavior, I
wanted to point out that Enviroknot edits from the same IP as a known
block evading pest who keeps creating socks to support his position.
I think everyone deserves a fair treatment, but Enviroknott has made
that very difficult with his accusations, and is probably only barely
deserving of a fair treatment considering that it's almost certain
that he is a sock as claimed by others.
On 5/30/05, A Nony Mouse <tempforcomments(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
I have been watching the last week's events
with dismay. I have been
trying
to compose this email for two hours, but every
time I get close,
something
else comes up.
I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you
would
react and I do not wish to take any chance that I
would be harassed for
this.
There are two cases that bother me. Jack Lynch aka Sam Spade and
Cranston
Snord aka Enviroknot. Both of these cases scare
me because of the
precedent
that they have set.
In the case of Jack, there was a question of a block war. Administrators
were fighting over what to do with him. This is not a good thing for
Wikipedia editors no matter who they are. It indicates that the user is
less
of a concern than something between the two
Administrators.
It is the case of Cranston Snord aka Enviroknot that worries me more.
This
is the case that has made me take the drastic
step of sending an email
to
the list anonymously. I had originally been
trying to type up a response
to
Cranston's concerns about being blocked. I
believe that SlimVirgin
violated
policy by doing so. Unfortunately for me, such an
email would likely now
be
a day late and a dollar short.
Cranston was a disruption to the list, but much of that disruption was
caused by other people on this list treating him with incredible
disrespect.
I was taken aback by his accusations against
administrators but having
looked at the cases in hand I believe that he has a point.
There were emails on this list asking whether anyone was taking him
seriously. This is the height of arrogance, and it is something that
frightens me. Administrators should never be acting as if ordinary
editors
do not matter.
As for his complaints about being blocked, the dismissiveness on this
board
hurt me. No matter who it is making a complaint,
we have a duty to
investigate it. We are listed as the last resort for users who have been
wronged. I took the time to investigate SlimVirgin's blocking of
Enviroknot,
and I believe that it is not valid.
By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails
long,
and despite the number of list members who had
posted, none save
SlimVirgin
had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns
on the block in any way.
SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call. An edit made in good faith
should never be considered a reversion, even if it contains some content
that is included in a later reversion.
Instead of acknowledging this fact, the list members were universally
dismissive of Enviroknot from the first email. One went so far as to
demand
that the term "rogue admin" not be
used, without addressing the reasons
that
it had been brought up in multiple cases
recently.
We have a problem with administrators exceeding their authority on
Wikipedia. We have a problem with administrators not applying policy
correctly. And we have a problem with arrogance on these lists, with
administrators believing that they are somehow better than others.
With the increased power of administrator access comes a responsibility
to
use it fairly and adhere to the established
procedures and policies. The
actions of an Administrator should themselves be NPOV. We have stated
policy
that when a user is found to be violating policy,
if they return and do
not
break policy, their previous transgressions
should not be held against
them.
There are a number of administrators who are failing in that
responsibility,
and they are present on this list. One of them,
rather than addressing
Enviroknot's concerns in a calm tone and actually going over policy,
chose
to kickban Enviroknot entirely.
I have never until today been ashamed to be a part of Wikipedia, but
there
it is. Take it as you will.
A.Nony.Mouse, for the purpose of this conversation.
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