I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since 2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to August 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about 15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous international activities such as conference speeches, as well as my book and articles about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before, nor have I ever been subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in fact, I was one of Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom, and one of the people who proposed that very committee).
I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
What happened?
Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages, [[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was "POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
"This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied the regular {{protected}} template.
Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and unprotected the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection policy. I also asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it explicit whether the protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have reprotected, of course, if he had simply said that they were, and left it at that.
I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Erik
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Erik Moeller stated for the record:
<snip>
I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
<snip>
I have unblocked Eloquence on the English Wikipedia. Blocking him was clearly inappropriate. Blocking him indefinitely was astoundingly stupid. Desysopping is equally insane, but resysopping him can wait for the wheels to grind.
- -- Sean Barrett | I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. sean@epoptic.org | But this wasn't it. --Groucho Marx
Hello
I have restored Eloquence sysop status on the english wikipedia this morning (I did it on meta since I do not have bureaucrat status on en.wiki, so it will not appear on the en bureaucrat log).
First, I appreciate Erik saying he will be more careful on these matters in the future. Thank you.
However, I think Danny should be very careful not to have his role as an employee of the Foundation (acting as WP:Office) confused with his role as an editor. When action is not taggued as WP:Office, Erik is perfectly within his right to revert (along the three revert rule, which also applies to Danny).
Thirdly, I think the reaction of the WP:Office was too bold. Erik is a long time serious editor. Not a wild kid. He is accessible to reason. Blocking, even for 2 hours (and needless to say for indefinite time) is not suitable without discussion first. Unsysoping with no discussion either is just plain not okay.
I appreciate that the whole issue was very stressing for Danny, hence his reaction. Danny is directly in contact with critical situations, which is difficult for him.
Nevertheless, Danny, you appear as the "voice" of the Foundation on en.wiki, so you should be careful to act as much as possible as the members of the Foundation would act.
It would be *talking*.
Anthere
Erik Moeller wrote:
I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since 2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to August 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about 15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions can be found at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous international activities such as conference speeches, as well as my book and articles about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before, nor have I ever been subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in fact, I was one of Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom, and one of the people who proposed that very committee).
I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and desysop a user.
What happened?
Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages, [[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was "POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
"This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied the regular {{protected}} template.
Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and unprotected the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection policy. I also asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it explicit whether the protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have reprotected, of course, if he had simply said that they were, and left it at that.
I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Erik
Anthere wrote:
[...]
I think the reaction of the WP:Office was too bold. Erik is a
long time serious editor. Not a wild kid. He is accessible to reason. Blocking, even for 2 hours (and needless to say for indefinite time) is not suitable without discussion first. Unsysoping with no discussion either is just plain not okay.
I appreciate that the whole issue was very stressing for Danny, hence his reaction. Danny is directly in contact with critical situations, which is difficult for him.
Nevertheless, Danny, you appear as the "voice" of the Foundation on en.wiki, so you should be careful to act as much as possible as the members of the Foundation would act.
It would be *talking*.
Anthere
Talking of talking... I wonder whether you have talked to Danny and the others involved in this to find out whether he /did/ talk to people before blocking Erik? By the reasoning above that seems a reasonable thing to do before condemning him for not doing so. Baring in mind that he might feel that those conversations were confidential and that he is obliged not to pass on details of course.
--sannse
sannse wrote:
It would be *talking*.
Anthere
Talking of talking... I wonder whether you have talked to Danny and the others involved in this to find out whether he /did/ talk to people before blocking Erik?
I know he did not talk to Erik I hope he did not talk to too many people to lead to a collective decision of blocking and unsysoping Erik on several projects, because it would not be just a mistake in the heat of a tough action he had to implement for the Foundation, but rather a planned cabal :-)
By the reasoning above that seems a reasonable
thing to do before condemning him for not doing so. Baring in mind that he might feel that those conversations were confidential and that he is obliged not to pass on details of course.
--sannse
Confidential conversations ? Errrr... To board members ? Yeah
Sannse. I totally support Danny in what he did on the article itself. He did it for the good of the project and the good of the Foundation. And he did it upon the recommandation of one of our most trusted legal counsellors. If that was not clear, I totally support that and I absolutely trust Brad for the advice given.
However, what I object to is the fact of blocking undefinitly and mostly unsysoping editors we have known for years (and who were trusted by enough editors not so long ago that they could have been right now board member instead of myself), for what seems to me either a mistake from the editor, or more likely the willingness to make a point. I know it is rather frowned upon to do something only to *make a point*. But bear in mind that Danny was acting under his editor account to implement a Foundation decision, which some editors are perfectly in their right (imho) to object to. Very few people have been unsysoped in the past years. When such a decision was taken, it was really because of a very serious misdeed. And never on several projects at a time.
I read carefully the emails of the past few days. I read three criticisms. The first is that we should have talked to him privately only. The second is that he was right to do that. The third you just raise is that he might have reasons to behave this way which are confidential.
I will try to answer to these three reasons.
I know Danny is bold, bolder than I could ever be. I understand fully he was under pressure and I can understand why he did so. That's okay. But I do not agree. Could I have told him privately I did not agree ? Certainly so. But the fact is that everything Danny does in the name of the Foundation is perceived as being approved by the Foundation. On the english wikipedia, Danny is largely the hand and the voice of the Foundation. I do not wish that editors feel that the Foundation can simply ban forever and desysop on all projects someone just for making a point. And if I simply told Danny that I disagree with this in private, publicly, the Foundation would appear as supportive. Well, I let others their opinion, but I *request* that it is respected that *I* am an adult and *I* have the right to have an opinion. If I say nothing, it appears I support something I object to in reality.
Collective does not mean stopping to have an opinion. It does not mean keeping one's opinion for oneself and nodding obediently to what the boss or to what the employee says.
My freedom of speech have been reduced considerably since I was elected on the board. There should be a limit.
Second, boldness. Some of you consider what Danny did is fine. You are perfectly entitled to think so. That's fine with me. I just have a different opinion.
Third, confidentiality. I will make it short. In this precise case, I feel I know enough of the situation to understand why Danny did this. And as I already said above, the action on the page was perfectly fine with me. Now, if there are confidential reasons why he blocked and desysoped Erik as the voice of the Foundation, I feel I should know them and I should agree with them. The alternative is simply resignation from the board.
ant
sannse wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Confidential conversations ? Errrr... To board members ? Yeah
No, they would likely not be confidential to you of course - which is why I asked whether you had talked to him before publicly attacking him (twice)
--sannse
Of course, it is hard to guess what is confidential until one knows it exists... unless one is prescient, which I am not.
I think... trust is not something which can be commanded. It exists or it does not exist. I take my lesson on this and I take a break to digest. I recommand you digest as well. There is a lesson for everyone here.
Florence (<---- not Anthere)
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