[WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

[Mark Ryan]

Hi. I see that what looks like an identical version of this email is
waiting in the moderation queue, however I assume from the fact that
this email is through onto the mailing list that you don't want it
accepted to the list.

> Yeah, it's not like it's the biggest holiday weekend of the summer or
> anything.
> 
> Wait. It's the 4th of July weekend? WHOOPS!

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that I am not
performing my job properly because I'm relaxing on a long weekend? I'm
Australian, and don't celebrate the 4th of July. I'm actually in the
middle of helping out at a national conference, so I apologise if my
replies or administrator actions are sparse. The other four mailing
list administrators appear to have been taking up the slack while I've
been busy.

> Marmot is a user wrongfully banned from Wikipedia for the "crime" of
> dissenting and pointing out when Admins were abusing their powers.
> 
> Kurita77 I know you knew about; he was a recent new user who came to this
> list to ask why someone had PERMANENTLY BLOCKED his account from Wikipedia,
> and instead of treating him respectfully the Admins around here treated him
> like complete crap, made fun of him, sent him nasty emails laced with racial
> slurs, and sat around slapping each other on the back congratulating
> themselves for driving him into enough anger that he started swearing, at
> which point the admins on THIS LIST used that as an excuse to block him
> (oops, sorry, "moderating" him which means you'll just let all his emails
> sit and expire without even bothering to read them) for getting upset at
> wrongfully being blocked.

I've just had a look over my archives of WikIEN-l. I might have been
told in passing about Kurita77 spamming the mailing list (perhaps in
the IRC channel?) but the threads in WikiEN-l were unread by me
(according to Gmail, anyway). I don't actively read WikiEN-l all the
time, and often require my attention to be brought to a situation in
order to take any sort of action. As it stands, it appears from that
thread that Kurita77 was placed on moderation by Angela, who is not a
WikiEN-l mailing list administrator. She is a member of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees.

As for Marmot, I will have a look at the user's history on Wikipedia.
I presume that is the person's username on Wikipedia.

There are 532 members of the WikiEN-l mailing list (including your
four temporary addresses). Accusations of misconduct about refusing to
respond to Kurita77's complaints pretty much accuses all 532 of them
(or at least the Wikipedia adminstrators among them) of corruption of
some form.

> Let's test that shall we? Hmm?

Yes, your email was accepted. I note it was not me who approved this
email either (I was asleep) however I would have done so as well.

> If you think those were over the line, fine.
> I stand by my categorization of Ambi as being Wikipedia's version of the Red
> Queen. Her constant agitation for harsher and harsher punishments by ArbCom,
> combined with her absolute refusal to show ANY effort to communicate with
> the users in question, is the equivalent of the Queen sitting around
> screaming "Orf Wiv 'Is 'Ead" at anything that got near her.

I'm not sure who the "Red Queen" was. Is it something out of Alice in
Wonderland? I can't remember. However, you are perfectly entitled to
share your opinion (again, in a civil manner).

> In general, the Ambi/Gerard theory of Wikipedia has sucked. Instead of a
> Wikipedia based on encouraging civil discourse and where temporary blocks
> are for the purpose of encouraging users to behave within policy (and NEVER
> supposed to be punitive) we have admins like Bauder, Gerard, Ambi, Sidaway,
> and others I can name running around like the Wikipedian Inquisition.
> 
> They make up new policy as they go, they enforce things that aren't in
> policy, they REFUSE to enforce policy against each other or against their
> "favorite" users.
> 
> This needs to stop. But anytime it gets brought up, they instantly go off
> the deep end looking for any reason, no matter how minor, to block accounts
> and attack those who are calling their behavior into question.

That's more like it. How do you recommend we fix the system?
Constructive criticism is good.

> Unfortunately, your IDEAL of how they should act and the REALITY of how they
> act are two completely different things.
> 
> The fact remains that if they knew my Wikipedia account name, they wouldn't
> hesitate for a nanosecond to slap a block on it.

I guess there are some who would be prepared to do that. But, in my
opinion, there would be even more administrators who would object to
such an action and would be prepared to reverse it. Maybe I should
further clarify the role of the mailing list (as independent) on the
mailing list information page. Any comments on this are of course more
than welcome from the Wikipedia community.

> No, but they quickly get ignored or derided for daring to come here for
> redress of the regular abuses of power we see from Wikipedian admins.
>
> Rather than this place being where new users who have been bitten by
> overzealous, power-hungry admins can come to get redress it's become a place
> where the users come so that the rest of the admins can have a good laugh at
> their expense.

As I said above, there are many people on the mailing list (and
obviously not all are Wikipedia administrators). Instead of having at
least some of these people responding to these requests for redress,
we get people unsubscribing from the mailing list, not reading it or
actually complaining about the messages and requesting an end be put
to them. So it may be failing as a place of redress for unwarranted
blocks, but more as a result of the reaction of its subscribers as a
whole. In some ways, the administrators have been simply responding to
the list's subscriber base.

> I'm giving you a chance to behave in good faith here. We'll see what
> happens. So far I have four cases of abuse by Wikipedia admins, and ZERO
> indication that they - especially as 90% of your list adminship are also
> Wikipedia admins - are inclined to act in good faith.

Actually 100% of our list adminship are also Wikipedia admins. I think
I became list administrator for this mailing list maybe a week before
I got made a Wikipedia admin.

I am prepared to unmoderate you on the *strict* undertaking that you
be constructive and civil. Please do not make me regret doing this, as
it would be a demonstration of bad faith on your part.

~Mark Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list administrator