[WikiEN-l] "Wheel war" (Worst. Userbox. Ever.)

[Jimmy Wales]

Sam Fentress (Asbestos) wrote:
> Jimbo claims he blocked him for voting "Keep" on a TFD...

I know I'm a little late in responding to this, but I don't want this to
turn into a widely accepted urban legend.  Of course I did not, and
would not, block anyone just for voting "Keep" on a TFD.  Please.

Joeyramoney put a userbox on his page saying "This user is a pedophile".
  He was blocked for it, then unblocked, and well, you can go read the
whole sordid tale, but a wheel war ensued which ended only when I, in
careful consultation with as many members of the arbcom as I could find
that sad evening, attempted to restore "status quo" to some reasonable
state and temporarily desysopped several admins.

In the case of Joeyramoney his block was for trolling, in particular for
trolling by putting a "This user is a pedophile" userbox on his page.  I
unblocked him myself a couple of days later when it was determined that
he was more or less just a 16 year old kid with about a week of
experience at Wikipedia who likely had no idea that he was stumbling
into the middle of the Great Userbox War of 2006.

A 24 hour block would have been perfectly appropriate, though.

As to my actions in putting a very very very firm foot down that night,
I would do it again if necessary.  Not everything went perfectly that
night, and for that I am sorry.  But let us absolutely not let this go
down in history as "Jimbo blocked someone for voting on a TFD".

--Jimbo

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