[WikiEN-l] Erik, a couple of requests

[Brian Corr]

I am very concerned and disturbed by these events.

I think that these sort of actions "win the battle, but lose the war."

I had not been involved in the Mav/168... issue, but what I have read on 
the list and the various Wikipedia pages leaves me still unclear why 168... 
had to be sysoped unilaterally and before the arbitration committee was 
assigned the case. If 168... had been engaged in a range of conflicts at 
that moment and taking advantage of his sysop powers in them, I could 
better understand, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I appreciate that 
Erik has apologized for forgetting to let people know about it. However, I 
am fearful for the reason Anthere laid out about people exercising their 
power to act as the police, the judge, and the jury -- even if I would 
agree with the decisions they make

However, I *have* been carefully following what's been going on with Sam 
Spade/Jack Lynch for the last couple of weeks. Indeed, I have been rather 
involved in dealing with him when I have the stamina. I am completely 
opposed to his being removed from VfA after a few minutes. I understand the 
point about flamebait -- and clearly many of us are convinced that this 
user is a troll -- a very persistent and strategic one, but still a troll.

But to remove this from VfA was counterproductive:

* Sam Spade was nominated by Perl at 21:24 -0500
* I had gotten notice from someone that Sam Spade was listed on the page at 
21:58 -0500.
* By the time I got to VfA the nomination was already deleted -- not even 
removed to the talk page. That happened at 21:52 -0500

I think that the nomination should have stayed up for at least a day -- 
then it could have been removed to the talk page as is normally done. If we 
are to operate in a cooperative manner, we need to know about these sort of 
things. I don't think it would have been a problem. There of course 
wouldn't have been much support for his nomination -- even though Erik told 
Sam Spade that he would have supported the nomination on his talk page -- 
but I think it would have created less "evidence collection" than did the 
numerous attempts of Aplank/Greenmountainboy to become an admin. If Sam 
Spade had left a message on VfA saying he didn't accept the nomination that 
would have been one thing, but I don't think his message to Perl 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Perl&dummy=1&diff=2675160&oldid=2674795> 
was enough to justify removing from VfA either.

I will add that I'm sure that Sam Spade reads this list a few times a day 
for more ammunition, so we are all doing the worst thing possible in this 
case -- we're feeding the troll here and all over the wiki. I think the 
voting and discussions of RfA would have done that to some degree, but now 
he's succeeded in getting the list involved -- again. And I'm sure bringing 
the conflict to this forum is much more nourishing than just having it on 
the wiki itself.

If you think I'm exaggerating I'd suggest spending a few minutes perusing 
his contributions: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&hideminor=0&target=Sam_Spade&limit=5000&offset=0> 
He's a master at wasting people's time -- both newbies and more experienced 
users -- and he's been sucking up a ton of people's editing energy. Three 
more examples:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Libertarian_socialism#featured_article???>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Bryan_Derksen&oldid=2306791#Atheism> 
as Jack
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pantheism> as Sam
(and I included one with my involvement in the interest of "full disclosure")

*But overall*, I am very concerned that we are being increasing divided and 
split by internal disputes and by trolls -- and while this isn't in any way 
new or unique, I haven't seen this level of rancor and mistrust in my time 
here. Considering how rapid Wikipedia's growth has been of late, I am very 
worried about what this bodes for the future.

I think the mediation and arbitration committees are an important first 
step, but for them to do what they need to, there needs to be more energy 
put into keeping them moving forward and staying active -- and I believe 
that the mediation committee needs to be able to directly refer "cases" to 
the arbitration committee. I also think that this must go hand-in-hand with 
a lighter touch by sysops and developers, and some clarification of 
guidelines to help make the various systems that keep Wikipedia functioning 
(sysops, bureaucrats, developers, the two committees, and Jimbo's role) all 
work together better than they are currently doing.

Thanks,
Brian (Bcorr)