From the information posted here, this seems to be a case where a single
disruptive user, having been expelled from a larger project, is squatting on a smaller project which he has turned into a personal fiefdom. Under these conditions, and where the user in question is the only project admin, it is hardly remarkable that no community movement to desysop has formed. It is unlikely that anyone inclined to stand up to such a user would still be active on the project.
If the information posted here has been largely correct, there is absolutely no reason -- and no excuse -- for not desysopping this user. This strikes me as a profound failure of stewardship.
Cheers,
Sam / Visviva
On Jan 7, 2008 1:52 PM, Samuel Henderson samueljhenderson@gmail.com wrote:
If the information posted here has been largely correct, there is absolutely no reason -- and no excuse -- for not desysopping this user. This strikes me as a profound failure of stewardship.
Actually, I wouldn't phrase it that way.
The stewards are expressedly asked not to "make decisions" but to "carry out decisions". In this particular instance, no-one has made or is making a decision, very simply because there is no real precedent (or at least no precedent that has been applied).
I butted in because I believe that the logo/powered by instance is NOT a community decision, it's a Foundation matter and if needed, I'll start a policy that all projects hosted by Wikimedia should be labelled as such, and use this as a precedent, have it ratified by the board and whatnot. I find the deed rather common sense (ie. having those icons at the bottom of the website) but if it needs a policy, then let's have it.
But in the end, the desysopping or removal of this person should be a community based decision. Question is... where is the ru.wikibooks community? And if there is one, do they have enough relay within the steward/meta Wikimedia community to be heard? Do they even know the process to make this go forward? Do they actually *want* this person to be removed?
If anything, this strikes me as a a profound failure of community based decisions.
Delphine
On Jan 7, 2008 8:02 AM, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
If anything, this strikes me as a a profound failure of community based decisions.
Or profound proof that a small project should never have just one active admin at a time. Two admins can keep each other in check, and "defy" each other without fear of being banned or blocked. Is there a way to automatically list all projects that have only one admin? Such a list might be a good starting point to route out abuse situations in our smaller and more silent projects.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Jan 7, 2008 1:19 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
(...) Is there a way to automatically list all projects that have only one admin? (...)
http://s23.org/wikistats/wikimedias_html.php?sort=admins_asc&th=0&li... the number of wikis with only one active admin presumably is more larger than this automated listing. You can try for a check on one wiki per time with http://tools.wikimedia.de/~vvv/adminstats.php )
On 07.01.2008, 16:02 Delphine wrote:
But in the end, the desysopping or removal of this person should be a community based decision. Question is... where is the ru.wikibooks community? And if there is one, do they have enough relay within the steward/meta Wikimedia community to be heard? Do they even know the process to make this go forward? Do they actually *want* this person to be removed?
Ow yeah, there was an attempt to vote for Ramir's desysopping: http://tinyurl.com/35muof Guess how it ended? Ramir indef-blocked the initator of this vote! http://tinyurl.com/2n3lwz
Agreed. Stewards can use common sense as well, as community members, and the right choice would have been to desysop this user.
-dan On Jan 7, 2008, at 7:52 AM, Samuel Henderson wrote:
From the information posted here, this seems to be a case where a single disruptive user, having been expelled from a larger project, is squatting on a smaller project which he has turned into a personal fiefdom. Under these conditions, and where the user in question is the only project admin, it is hardly remarkable that no community movement to desysop has formed. It is unlikely that anyone inclined to stand up to such a user would still be active on the project.
If the information posted here has been largely correct, there is absolutely no reason -- and no excuse -- for not desysopping this user. This strikes me as a profound failure of stewardship.
Cheers,
Sam / Visviva
-- Samuel Henderson Miryang, South Korea - Chicago, Illinois, USA Document Translation, Review and Proofreading Korean-English, German-English Member ATA, NAJIT, KST Certified Korean-English Translator
This, for now, is up to the local community. (And yes, that is still
small). It are all points we *disagree* on, of course, and insults maybe, sure, but i think we ought to be careful with deadmin. If Ramir breaks no Wikimedia policies, then there is no deadmin at hand I think.
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Sorry but I disagree, Stewards should not decide, I proposed to desysop him here but there were iirc two suggested not to do this, the otheres were silent until now.
I suggest to open a RFC on Meta if You still think someone should be desysoped instead of accusing anyone a failure after an action has finally been made, thanks.
Best regards.
2008/1/7, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com:
Agreed. Stewards can use common sense as well, as community members, and the right choice would have been to desysop this user.
-dan On Jan 7, 2008, at 7:52 AM, Samuel Henderson wrote:
From the information posted here, this seems to be a case where a single disruptive user, having been expelled from a larger project, is squatting on a smaller project which he has turned into a personal fiefdom. Under these conditions, and where the user in question is the only project admin, it is hardly remarkable that no community movement to desysop has formed. It is unlikely that anyone inclined to stand up to such a user would still be active on the project.
If the information posted here has been largely correct, there is absolutely no reason -- and no excuse -- for not desysopping this user. This strikes me as a profound failure of stewardship.
Cheers,
Sam / Visviva
-- Samuel Henderson Miryang, South Korea - Chicago, Illinois, USA Document Translation, Review and Proofreading Korean-English, German-English Member ATA, NAJIT, KST Certified Korean-English Translator
This, for now, is up to the local community. (And yes, that is still
small). It are all points we *disagree* on, of course, and insults maybe, sure, but i think we ought to be careful with deadmin. If Ramir breaks no Wikimedia policies, then there is no deadmin at hand I think.
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Hello,
On Jan 7, 2008 2:59 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed. Stewards can use common sense as well, as community members, and the right choice would have been to desysop this user.
No. Stewards do not decide. This is a golden rule. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_policies#Don.27t_decide
Some stewards would personally be happy to desysop this user. But they must not do it. There is no emergency, we are not talking about some compromised sysop account deleting the en:wp main page over and over.
If you want to change steward rules, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Rewriting/Stewards_policy . But I doubt you will find many people to write in the policy that they can desysop who they want without any community decision. And by community decision, I am not talking about a few users agreeing on a mailing list.
I think it is clear that nobody can be desysopped on the basis of a few random responses on the mailing list.
On the other hand, this might be (most probably is) a typical situation we are going to encounter more and more. Somebody becomes an admin of a smaller project in the phase of growth, creates arbitrary policies (which may or may not directly contradict to written WMF policies), and bans outright everybody who disagrees with these policies. In this case, it makes no sense to talk about the community decision: if a sensible-size community is ever formed this is going to be a community of people who basically agree with the policies.
The questions are:
1) Does smth have to be done with this situation, or we (community in the broad sense) just leave this purely to the project; unless there are some organized complaints from active project users, or unless the project policies clearly contradict to WMF policies, nothing has to be done.
2) If smth has to be done, should it be a routine procedure on Meta (votes etc), or is it a case for the future arbcom. (I would be in favor of the former).
I am not so much talking about this particular project.
Cheers, Yaroslav
Hello,
On Jan 7, 2008 2:59 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed. Stewards can use common sense as well, as community members, and the right choice would have been to desysop this user.
No. Stewards do not decide. This is a golden rule. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_policies#Don.27t_decide
Some stewards would personally be happy to desysop this user. But they must not do it. There is no emergency, we are not talking about some compromised sysop account deleting the en:wp main page over and over.
If you want to change steward rules, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Rewriting/Stewards_policy . But I doubt you will find many people to write in the policy that they can desysop who they want without any community decision. And by community decision, I am not talking about a few users agreeing on a mailing list.
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau
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We allow the emergency desysopping of rogue admins who are deleting main pages and such. Why then, would we not allow the emergency desysopping of the only admin on a project who is ruling by fiat and screwing with the media wiki interface in a clearly negative way, and edit warring over that?
I firmly believe that common sense trumps everything. Even the "golden rule" you mention. This IS an emergency, since there is nobody to oppose him on the project. If there were a dozen admins there, one could simply block him, and we'd be done with it. But there are not.
-Dan On Jan 7, 2008, at 9:18 AM, Guillaume Paumier wrote:
Hello,
On Jan 7, 2008 2:59 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed. Stewards can use common sense as well, as community members, and the right choice would have been to desysop this user.
No. Stewards do not decide. This is a golden rule. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_policies#Don.27t_decide
Some stewards would personally be happy to desysop this user. But they must not do it. There is no emergency, we are not talking about some compromised sysop account deleting the en:wp main page over and over.
If you want to change steward rules, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Rewriting/Stewards_policy . But I doubt you will find many people to write in the policy that they can desysop who they want without any community decision. And by community decision, I am not talking about a few users agreeing on a mailing list.
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau
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On Jan 7, 2008 4:16 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I firmly believe that common sense trumps everything. Even the "golden rule" you mention. This IS an emergency, since there is nobody to oppose him on the project. If there were a dozen admins there, one could simply block him, and we'd be done with it. But there are not.
No, this is not an emergency. This is a serious issue requiring attention from the community, but there is no urgency in it. You really seem to project your experience from the big English-language Wikipedia to the tiny Russian-language Wikibooks, though they can't be compared at all. RfCs on meta are a good way to deal with issues on small projects with almost no community.
On Jan 7, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Guillaume Paumier wrote:
No, this is not an emergency. This is a serious issue requiring attention from the community, but there is no urgency in it. You really seem to project your experience from the big English-language Wikipedia to the tiny Russian-language Wikibooks, though they can't be compared at all. RfCs on meta are a good way to deal with issues on small projects with almost no community.
Guillaume, the evidence has been made overwhelmingly clear. The last time that any sort of attempt to comment on the situation was made, according to MaxSem, the guy indef-blocked the instigator. So you have a guy hiding WMF logos and stuff, revert warring over it, blocking over any sort of criticism, violating of the core policies that Wikimedia projects are founded on, and you don't see that as an emergency? Who can stop him? Oh that's right, nobody, because he can block anyone who opposes him, and has shown evidence already that he will do so. You don't see that as an emergency?
And don't even begin to presume to say that I'm projecting my experience from en.wp. I edit en.wikiversity as well. I know what smaller projects are like. And if this was happening on en.wikiversity, I'd be throwing a fit over it.
-Dan
The information about the atempted community request for desysop was given afterwards. There was no warring, no blocking or any other kind of emergency. We solved it with talking to him.
Best regards.
2008/1/7, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com:
Guillaume, the evidence has been made overwhelmingly clear. The last time that any sort of attempt to comment on the situation was made, according to MaxSem, the guy indef-blocked the instigator. So you have a guy hiding WMF logos and stuff, revert warring over it, blocking over any sort of criticism, violating of the core policies that Wikimedia projects are founded on, and you don't see that as an emergency? Who can stop him? Oh that's right, nobody, because he can block anyone who opposes him, and has shown evidence already that he will do so. You don't see that as an emergency?
And don't even begin to presume to say that I'm projecting my experience from en.wp. I edit en.wikiversity as well. I know what smaller projects are like. And if this was happening on en.wikiversity, I'd be throwing a fit over it.
-Dan
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I don't get the issue here, all that's needed is another admin so that this guy can't just do whatever he likes. Why doesn't the community just have some kind of RFA, let a steward know, and the problem pretty much disappears?
On 07/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't get the issue here, all that's needed is another admin so that this guy can't just do whatever he likes. Why doesn't the community just have some kind of RFA, let a steward know, and the problem pretty much disappears?
Because he's run off anyone who would form membership of such a community, as has been noted already.
- d.
On 07/01/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't get the issue here, all that's needed is another admin so that this guy can't just do whatever he likes. Why doesn't the community just have some kind of RFA, let a steward know, and the problem pretty much disappears?
Because he's run off anyone who would form membership of such a community, as has been noted already.
If it's really that bad, then we close the project. If there are serious problems with a project and there is no community to fix them, we close the project.
2008/1/7, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
If it's really that bad, then we close the project. If there are serious problems with a project and there is no community to fix them, we close the project.
And who is this 'we' that is going to close the project? If we really would be able to do so, it would not be necessary. At least I would be perfectly willing to use my Steward powers (when I get them, I still need to find a photocopier etcetera first) if there were a request or explicit authorization from the board to do so. And I think there's more Stewards who would do the same, and that with anything less than that, we won't have the right to close down the project either.
On 07/01/2008, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2008/1/7, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
If it's really that bad, then we close the project. If there are serious problems with a project and there is no community to fix them, we close the project.
And who is this 'we' that is going to close the project? If we really would be able to do so, it would not be necessary. At least I would be perfectly willing to use my Steward powers (when I get them, I still need to find a photocopier etcetera first) if there were a request or explicit authorization from the board to do so. And I think there's more Stewards who would do the same, and that with anything less than that, we won't have the right to close down the project either.
"We" as in the larger community. I can't remember what the procedure is for closing projects, but there is one. If the project doesn't have a community able to appoint a new admin, then it doesn't have a community able to actually do anything with the project, so what's the point of having it open?
The best forum for this is on the meta-RfC dealing with both this individual problem and the larger issues (which are, as far as I know, already anticipated in many cases in the processes the stewards currently use).
Nathan
On Jan 7, 2008 12:27 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2008, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2008/1/7, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
If it's really that bad, then we close the project. If there are serious problems with a project and there is no community to fix them, we close the project.
And who is this 'we' that is going to close the project? If we really would be able to do so, it would not be necessary. At least I would be perfectly willing to use my Steward powers (when I get them, I still need to find a photocopier etcetera first) if there were a request or explicit authorization from the board to do so. And I think there's more Stewards who would do the same, and that with anything less than that, we won't have the right to close down the project either.
"We" as in the larger community. I can't remember what the procedure is for closing projects, but there is one. If the project doesn't have a community able to appoint a new admin, then it doesn't have a community able to actually do anything with the project, so what's the point of having it open?
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OK, so - I often find it's helpful to me to write out the situation as we know it and pray it sparks a brainstorm in someone else. If this is helpful to you, read on. If not, please feel free to skip this post and move on. And please forgive the long-ish post...:
The facts as we know them are: -There's one admin on a small project. -There is no community to form to initiate an RfA of some type for another admin -The extant admin had a bit of a hissy fit when there was a community request to de-admin, which resulted in the initiator being banned (what further circumstances were there? Did the initiator honestly DO something to get banned? Or was the ban over just this request to de-admin?) -The admin has manipulated - in an unacceptable way - the MediaWiki interface. -The admin is - at least in translations we've been supplied (not that I doubt them, because I don't - but I don't know if there are explanations somewhere or bad translations, etc - I'd feel more secure if I could read Russian for myself, but I can't so....) abusive to other members of the community and the Foundation.
Given those facts: -There's no question in my mind that the admin needs to go, but we really don't have a mechanism in place to do it, although an RFC on Meta has been suggested (which seems sensible to me provided that it can be appropriately advertised so that community members - past and present - can comment on it). -How do we handle this in as peaceful a manner as possible, while asserting the larger Community's role in the success or failure of this small project? That is, how do we handle our moral responsibility to do as little damage as possible in dealing with this project while trying to judge from the outside what the right steps are? And, in addition to that, how do we avoid sparking a larger conflict with someone who surely feels his world has been shattered - just a little bit - but the very large magnifying glass of foundation-l, which has just turned itself on "his" project?
There are longer term questions that will have to be dealt with by someone other than us: -How does one reconstitute a community that's had a crisis of confidence? -How do we locate someone in a fractured community to give the sysop bit to when reasonable people may have been run-off from the project? -How do we keep it from happening again?
Philippe
-------------------------------------------------- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 10:49 AM To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bunners at the bottom of every page
On 07/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't get the issue here, all that's needed is another admin so that this guy can't just do whatever he likes. Why doesn't the community just have some kind of RFA, let a steward know, and the problem pretty much disappears?
Because he's run off anyone who would form membership of such a community, as has been noted already.
- d.
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Dear Philippe, dear all,
Imho, as already suggested by several people, RFC on Meta ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RFC ) would be best to discuss this further and to find out if further steps are necessary, (since the problem this post was about is solved), we don't have an arbcom (yet).
-How do we keep it from happening again?
Imho we already do, we don't grant permanent adminship on small projects, only temporary, and we do not grant bureaucratship on small projects, without community, at all.
Best regards.
2008/1/7, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com:
OK, so - I often find it's helpful to me to write out the situation as we know it and pray it sparks a brainstorm in someone else. If this is helpful to you, read on. If not, please feel free to skip this post and move on. And please forgive the long-ish post...:
The facts as we know them are: -There's one admin on a small project. -There is no community to form to initiate an RfA of some type for another admin -The extant admin had a bit of a hissy fit when there was a community request to de-admin, which resulted in the initiator being banned (what further circumstances were there? Did the initiator honestly DO something to get banned? Or was the ban over just this request to de-admin?) -The admin has manipulated - in an unacceptable way - the MediaWiki interface. -The admin is - at least in translations we've been supplied (not that I doubt them, because I don't - but I don't know if there are explanations somewhere or bad translations, etc - I'd feel more secure if I could read Russian for myself, but I can't so....) abusive to other members of the community and the Foundation.
Given those facts: -There's no question in my mind that the admin needs to go, but we really don't have a mechanism in place to do it, although an RFC on Meta has been suggested (which seems sensible to me provided that it can be appropriately advertised so that community members - past and present - can comment on it). -How do we handle this in as peaceful a manner as possible, while asserting the larger Community's role in the success or failure of this small project? That is, how do we handle our moral responsibility to do as little damage as possible in dealing with this project while trying to judge from the outside what the right steps are? And, in addition to that, how do we avoid sparking a larger conflict with someone who surely feels his world has been shattered - just a little bit - but the very large magnifying glass of foundation-l, which has just turned itself on "his" project?
There are longer term questions that will have to be dealt with by someone other than us: -How does one reconstitute a community that's had a crisis of confidence? -How do we locate someone in a fractured community to give the sysop bit to when reasonable people may have been run-off from the project? -How do we keep it from happening again?
Philippe
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 10:49 AM To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bunners at the bottom of every page
On 07/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't get the issue here, all that's needed is another admin so that this guy can't just do whatever he likes. Why doesn't the community just have some kind of RFA, let a steward know, and the problem pretty much disappears?
Because he's run off anyone who would form membership of such a community, as has been noted already.
- d.
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-There is no community to form to initiate an RfA of some type for another admin
This is the bit I don't get. You mention the admin being abusive to members of the community, yet say there is no community. The amount of community required to make a new admin on a small project is tiny. One person willing to do it, one person supporting them and no-one (other than the rogue admin) objecting is all that should be required to get a steward to promote. It seems like there is enough of a community for that.
There are longer term questions that will have to be dealt with by someone other than us: -How does one reconstitute a community that's had a crisis of confidence? -How do we locate someone in a fractured community to give the sysop bit to when reasonable people may have been run-off from the project?
The other Russian projects might be able to help. Put a notice somewhere on ruwiki, say, telling people that this project needs fresh blood, and hopefully a handful of people will take up the challenge. It only needs 3 or 4 people, really.
-How do we keep it from happening again?
Strongly discourage projects having only one admin. I wouldn't ban it completely, as someone suggested earlier, since that would stop one person being able to found a new project, but once a community reaches a reasonable size to have multiple admins, it should do so. Perhaps we should have a central policy on choosing admins for small projects. Something like: On any project with fewer than 3 active admins (defined as having used admin tools in the last month), anyone wishing to become an admin can do so by creating a page linked to from the village pump (or equivalent) and if, after a week of voting, there is a simply majority in favour (anyone with more than 50 edits on the project can vote, sockpuppets are discounted), they can go to the stewards and get promoted.
At the moment, each project has it's own system for appointing admins, which makes it very difficult for small projects to get new admins, since they first have to develop a consensus on how to do it. Imposing a central method on small projects would remove that hurdle.
2008/1/7, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com:
On Jan 7, 2008 4:16 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I firmly believe that common sense trumps everything. Even the "golden rule" you mention. This IS an emergency, since there is nobody to oppose him on the project. If there were a dozen admins there, one could simply block him, and we'd be done with it. But there are not.
No, this is not an emergency. This is a serious issue requiring attention from the community, but there is no urgency in it. You really seem to project your experience from the big English-language Wikipedia to the tiny Russian-language Wikibooks, though they can't be compared at all. RfCs on meta are a good way to deal with issues on small projects with almost no community.
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." Henry David Thoreau
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I agree with Elisabeth and Guillome, let's open a RfC and clean up Ramir's "problematic actions".
Nick
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