[WikiEN-l] The admin problem

[Jesse W]

I thank you for this statement of what happened.  Barring substantive 
rebuttals of the facts you lay out, I find that I agree with you that, 
while the goal was good, this was not rightly done.  I apologize for 
having supported it without realizing this.  I still think ta bu was 
acting in good faith, and doing what he felt was the best and only 
course, but I now see that this was not correct; an annoucment - "I 
believe that Wikipedia's use of TIME covers is invalid fair use for the 
following reasons.", a week or so of time for comments, discussion 
(either via an IfD, or simply as a freeform discussion), asking Jimbo 
on eis talk page, rather than by email, *then* deleting the images, 
would have been the right path to take.

Jesse Weinstein

On Feb 28, 2006, at 6:45 PM, Fastfission wrote:
> 1. An admin decided to start speedying properly tagged images, as
> copyvios. There are no CSD provisions for speedying copyvio images.
> 2. In accounting for his actions, when asked by a number of people,
> the admin said that his personal interpretation of the fair use law
> (and note that he pointed people to the page about the law, not our
> fair use policy) was that these were copyvios and put Wikipedia at
> risk. (Sound grounds and good intentions for discussing policy change,
> but not throwing it to the wind.)
> 3. After some more people started wondering where he was getting the
> authority to skip out on our copyvio procedures, he tells them to take
> it up with Jimbo or the WMF. (Note that a board member of the WMF soon
> said that they were indeed NOT the place to take  it up with.) He then
> alludes to a secret e-mail from Jimbo where he was given authority for
> deleting any TIME magazine images he wanted without question.
> 4. Finally, the admin produces the "backchannel" e-mail. And guess
> what? It said that the images should probably be AfDed, and that if it
> didn't pass AfD then *Jimbo* might speedy them himself. So it didn't
> quite give the admin the authority to speedy them himself in the
> slightest. Nevertheless, the admin told everyone else to eat their
> words in suggesting he was acting out of policy, and claims that this
> validates everything he had done.