[WikiEN-l] Kils sysop status temporarily revoked

[Jimmy Wales]

I support this.  Sysop is only a technical matter, and threatening people
with it in any way is very unbecoming.  The rest of this is a bit confusing
to me, but nonetheless, as a temporary measure, this is fine with me.

Erik Moeller wrote:

> I have temporarily revoked Kils' sysop status on en:, someone with  
> developer status on de: may want to do the same. Explanation:
> 
> In the last few days, a user named "Viking" has vandalized/downsized a  
> couple of articles he considered "indecent" (especially the [[fisting]]  
> article), threatened people not to question what he is doing if they  
> didn't have "administrator status" and then left (there was a brief  
> discussion of a possible ban). Kils subsequently deleted Viking's user and  
> talk pages and explained it was an "experiment of his children".
> 
> I asked him for details, he responded and then *deleted his talk page*  
> before I could read his response. I restored the talk page and there was  
> the following response.
> 
> -----------------------
> 
>  Eloquence: I confirm this - I do not think any had the quality of  
> vandlism, otherwise I would have stepped in. We were concerned that a  
> "handbook type" with direct instructions to certain practises on certain  
> pages was endangering the reputation of wikipeia and of us as visible  
> contributers and cooperators. A first thing many teachers and professors  
> for example do, before they endorse or use a web based project in class or  
> with students/parents, is to search for ugly content within. And there was  
> some, and as we were supported by responses of colleagues with the right  
> background it was beyond the rules of wikipedia - young vikings are often  
> of very spontaneous mannors, I advised them to do things different, but  
> then we are also very democratic. they plan to do it different now - we  
> could have done everything anonymous, but we did not - from that you can  
> deduct that we all are interested in communication and construction - we  
> are all astonished how much time you spent in the wikipedia project  
> (Anerkennung!) you seem to need only very little sleep - best greetings  
> across the ocean (from the USA) from uwe kils - user Kils 18:50 31 May  
> 2003 (UTC)
> 
> -----------------------
> 
> It seems quite clear that Uwe Kils shares Viking's standard of "decency"  
> regarding Wikipedia articles and feels that material e.g. about specific  
> sexual practices is inappropriate. In light of his actions, I do not trust  
> him to be a sysop anymore.
> 
> In spite of my objections, this should normally go through discussion  
> first before the status is revoked, but I am worried that Kils might  
> delete more pages, and it seemed like an appropriate safety measure. I  
> also wanted to allow others to take a look at his user talk page to have a  
> track record, and this was not possible with him being a sysop, because  
> then I could not protect the page or stop him from deleting it. If anyone  
> feels that Kils must be a sysop again, please post.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Erik
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