I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Ec
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Butting in to prove your ignorance are you?
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Butting in to prove your ignorance are you?
Odd that you sent this message three minutes after admitting that you were wrong. Would you mind retracting that statement and apologizing to Ronny, to Jerome, and to this list?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Butting in to prove your ignorance are you?
Odd that you sent this message three minutes after admitting that you were wrong. Would you mind retracting that statement and apologizing to Ronny, to Jerome, and to this list?
Huh?
There was no such admission, I merely said that I now understood what he did, and suggested how the situation could be better handled in the future. My response to Ronny speaks for itself. Jerome asked for it when he stuck his nose in. Thre was no attack against the list.
Ray
On Aug 1, 2004, at 12:46 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Butting in to prove your ignorance are you?
Odd that you sent this message three minutes after admitting that you were wrong. Would you mind retracting that statement and apologizing to Ronny, to Jerome, and to this list?
Huh?
There was no such admission, I merely said that I now understood what he did, and suggested how the situation could be better handled in the future. My response to Ronny speaks for itself. Jerome asked for it when he stuck his nose in. Thre was no attack against the list.
Ray
Perhaps this wouldn't have happened if you'd bothered to assume good faith, or at least contacted Fire privately to find out what was going on instead of tearing over to the list to complain publicly? I mean, what happened from the perspective of the uninvolved is that your first reaction to a sysop action you didn't understand was to come over to the mailing list and decry the "loose canon sysop" who tried to "sneakily acquire some kind of superior access" to your Wiki so he could "block a user that he does not like."
I mean, clearly he was sysopped by a steward. That is the only way to, as you put it, sneakily acquire access. There are only eight of those, and they're all very sane and respectable people. Alternatively, the other sane assumption would be that he was a developer or some other person who was supposed to have access wherever he needed it. I mean, sysops do not simply materialize from nowhere. In general, if someone has the power to block a user, there's probably a very good reason.
It seems like the default assumption would not be "Loose cannon trying to meddle with my Wiki" but "Oh. There must be some reason for this." Especially since there was a link, albeit a bad one, to the name change policy. This might have been a clue that the block had something to do with the name change policy. You could have, perhaps, gone to Wikipedia and found where the name change policy was supposed to be. Then, perhaps, if you were still concerned about what the reason was you could have, say, asked someone. Like Fire, for instance. I think he would have been a good person to ask.
Or maybe I'm just crazy. Never can tell.
-Snowspinner
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 15:46, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jerome Jamnicky wrote:
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 07:10, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block.
Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
You should get your facts straight before you make accusations like that.
Butting in to prove your ignorance are you?
Odd that you sent this message three minutes after admitting that you were wrong. Would you mind retracting that statement and apologizing to Ronny, to Jerome, and to this list?
Huh?
There was no such admission, I merely said that I now understood what he did, and suggested how the situation could be better handled in the future. My response to Ronny speaks for itself. Jerome asked for it when he stuck his nose in. Thre was no attack against the list.
Ray
Sticking my nose in? This is my business since I am one of the two people who has recently been doing the username change work. You have falsely accused Fire of two serious offences:
1) Acquiring sysop access in an underhanded way. 2) Blocking someone for personal reasons.
Fire was following instructions and made the simple error of leaving "Wikipedia:" out of his explanatory link. You did not check your facts, and you behaved as a "loose cannon" (to borrow from your vocabulary) and a "bull in a china shop" (your vocab, again).
People are wondering if this kind of behaviour makes your net contribution to the project negative. If you'd like to change this, you could start by apologising to Fire.
Jerome Jamnicky wrote: [cut]
Fire was following instructions and made the simple error of leaving "Wikipedia:" out of his explanatory link. You did not check your facts, and
It would be usefull if a wikilink of the format [[projectname:language:namespace:page]] whould work on all Wikimedia project wikis in all languages.
This [[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]] does not work in a wikipedia but it does in a Wikiquote.
Timwi wrote:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
This [[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]] does not work in a wikipedia but it does in a Wikiquote.
Hm. It should be [[w:nl:(etc.)]].
I just tried that on a few links at [[wikisource:Author:John Adams]] and it didn't work.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Timwi wrote:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
This [[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]] does not work in a wikipedia but it does in a Wikiquote.
Hm. It should be [[w:nl:(etc.)]].
I just tried that on a few links at [[wikisource:Author:John Adams]] and it didn't work.
In that case I think it is w: in some places and wikipedia: in others. They should probably be unified.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block. Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Ec
Hello Ray,
I was doing username changes requested on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username
There was also a user, 'Spik dk', who asked to get his username changed. That's what I did. The instructions say also, that I have to move the User: and the User Talk: Page from the old to the new nick. For security reasons ("This prevents a new user claiming the name, which would mean the signatures and author attributions made by third party users of our content would all be pointing to the wrong person."), there's also an instruction to block the old username.
After changing the username(s) in the database, I asked Angela to get temp sys-op on the Wikis were I had changed the usernames of the people who requested to block the old nicks. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions/Archive1
So: I was not blocking the user because I "don't like him" ( I even don't know him :) ), but because he asked for a username change and (following the instructions) it also included to block the old username :)
Yours, Fire
Ronny Raschkowan wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block. Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Ec
Hello Ray,
I was doing username changes requested on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username
There was also a user, 'Spik dk', who asked to get his username changed. That's what I did. The instructions say also, that I have to move the User: and the User Talk: Page from the old to the new nick. For security reasons ("This prevents a new user claiming the name, which would mean the signatures and author attributions made by third party users of our content would all be pointing to the wrong person."), there's also an instruction to block the old username.
After changing the username(s) in the database, I asked Angela to get temp sys-op on the Wikis were I had changed the usernames of the people who requested to block the old nicks. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions/Archive1
So: I was not blocking the user because I "don't like him" ( I even don't know him :) ), but because he asked for a username change and (following the instructions) it also included to block the old username :)
Yours, Fire
Hello Ronny Thanks for replying. Perception is often everything, and now that you have made an explanation it makes sense. What I saw was a user whose only contribution was to start a Faroese home page (I have no knowledge of Faroese obscenities, so I would have no way of knowing if he had done something like that.)
What I saw was that a user was blocked indefinitely for flimsy reasons. He failed to follow some bureaucratic procedure about how his name would be changed, and was receiving a penalty far in excess of what we would give to ordinary anonymous vandals. I checked the admin list to see if your name was there; it wasn't. By this point I suspected the worse, so I unblocked him and wrote my message to the mailing list.
In retrospect I can now see that this block was for technical rather than disciplinary reasons. No such block had ever taken place in Wikisource before. Would it not be more appropriate if you had explained what you were doing before you took this action? Any of the existing active sysops would have been happy to accomodate the situation. All we had was a non-working link back to Wikipedia.
Ray
I think all this misunderstanding would not have happened if you had explained what you were doing Fire. Most of the disputes seem to come from action from person A, misunderstood by person B.
As mediators often say, most disputes have two sides.
So, while it is good that person B try to take more time to understand what occured and perhaps ask privately at first, it is also good that person A avoid this to happen in taking care of explaining what is going on.
A link to the request on meta pasted in the user page. Or a short explanation left in the banning comment would be likely to do the trick.
Ronny Raschkowan wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire. He is not a sysop on Wikisource, yet he was able to come and block a user indefinitely with no better excuse than a non-working link to wikipedia about name-change policy. I immediately reversed the block. Those who participate in Wikisource are quite capable of deciding who should be blocked. We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource to sneakily acquire some kind of superior access for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Ec
Hello Ray,
I was doing username changes requested on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Changing_username
There was also a user, 'Spik dk', who asked to get his username changed. That's what I did. The instructions say also, that I have to move the User: and the User Talk: Page from the old to the new nick. For security reasons ("This prevents a new user claiming the name, which would mean the signatures and author attributions made by third party users of our content would all be pointing to the wrong person."), there's also an instruction to block the old username.
After changing the username(s) in the database, I asked Angela to get temp sys-op on the Wikis were I had changed the usernames of the people who requested to block the old nicks. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions/Archive1
So: I was not blocking the user because I "don't like him" ( I even don't know him :) ), but because he asked for a username change and (following the instructions) it also included to block the old username :)
Yours, Fire
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:10:08 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire.
Have you thought about discussing this with Fire rather than embarrassing him by bringing this to the mailing list?
We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource
Please don't attack users you know nothing about. Fire is not a "loose cannon".
to sneakily acquire
It wasn't sneaky. It was fully logged on Meta, which is where all emergency or necessary short term sysoppings occur.
some kind of superior access
Firstly, Fire has shell access to all of the Wikimedia servers, so adminship on Wikisource is hardly superior to what he already has. Secondly, adminship is not supposed to be indicative of any level of superiority.
for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Whatever makes you think he didn't like the user?
Fire was undertaking an often requested, and largely thankless, task of renaming users. This is not a job many of the developers enjoy, yet he and Jeronim have been working through a huge backlog of such requests over the last couple of days. Attacking people for working on this, especially when they are completely following the written recommendations for doing it, is hardly going to encourage our developers to undertake such tasks is it?
Angela.
I see you're up to your old grudges again. ;-) Give it up, and you'll feel better.
Angela_ wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:10:08 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I am annoyed by the behaviour of user:fire.
Have you thought about discussing this with Fire rather than embarrassing him by bringing this to the mailing list?
I thought of going to his talk page, but since this was the first time he showed up it was likely that he wouldn't look at it. The mailing list was appropriate since the block was also a public act.
We don't need this loose cannon who has not otherwise participated in Wikisource
Please don't attack users you know nothing about. Fire is not a "loose cannon".
He did "fire" out of nowhere
to sneakily acquire
It wasn't sneaky. It was fully logged on Meta, which is where all emergency or necessary short term sysoppings occur.
There was no emergency or immediate necessity.
some kind of superior access
Firstly, Fire has shell access to all of the Wikimedia servers, so adminship on Wikisource is hardly superior to what he already has. Secondly, adminship is not supposed to be indicative of any level of superiority.
superior access = access to do things that those who do not have such access cannot, access to a broader range of functions
for no other reason to block a user that he does not like.
Whatever makes you think he didn't like the user?
He blocked him indefinitely.
Fire was undertaking an often requested, and largely thankless, task of renaming users. This is not a job many of the developers enjoy, yet he and Jeronim have been working through a huge backlog of such requests over the last couple of days. Attacking people for working on this, especially when they are completely following the written recommendations for doing it, is hardly going to encourage our developers to undertake such tasks is it?
He could easily have explained himself. Under the circumstances where this was a technical rather than a disciplinary block, any active sysop on Wikisource would have been happy to accomodate him. You certainly should have known better than to perform a temporary sysopping in preference to seeking co-operation.. If your written recommendations included getting the co-operation from those in the project in question (especially the smaller ones), then maybe someone like User:Fire would not leave us with the impression that they are a bull in a china shop.
Ec
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