[WikiEN-l] Because they can: why dictators, totalitarians, and abusive admins do what they do

[George Herbert]

On 4/10/07, Parker Peters <parkerpeters1002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> George, you're a regular laugh a minute.

Always nice to keep things properly in perspective.

> Why would I believe unblock-en-l is any different? Why should anyone? The
> statistics show that three users answer more than 90% of the unblock
> requests on-wiki. THREE users, and they uniformly deny them all. Why would I
> believe that a secretive email list where nobody can see in, is any
> different? I don't see a reason why.

"The statistics" is an interesting claim - no statistics are in
evidence, nor am I aware of anyone having generated any.

There have been weeks where I was the user answering more than 50% of
unblock-en-L requests, and when time allows I still get a fair
fraction (this week I've done... i don't know, 10%?  20%?).

Close to a majority of unblock-en-l requests are responded to with
something along the lines of "Hello, for us to be able to help you we
need you to send us your Wikipedia account name, if you have one, your
IP address as shown on the block message that you are seeing, and the
rest of the text which comes up in that block message.  We need that
information to be able to identify which block is affecting you.
Thank you for contacting unblock-en-l", because more than half the
requests forget that many weeks.  Most of those users don't write
back.

Most of the rest are users bitten by an IP or IP range block which
wasn't their fault, and they get the "We have an abuser operating from
your ISP.  This block is set to anonymous-only, so if you can create a
Wikipedia account from your work, school, library, or an internet cafe
which (any location which isn't blocked) you can log into that account
and edit from your home IP address fine.  If you don't have alternate
internet access, contact us again and an administrator can help you
set up an account.  Thank you for contacting unblock-en-l."

There are a small but steady stream of vandals who appeal; in many
cases, we send them a bunch of links to the vandalism and sockpuppet
and general WP policies they violated, which the blocking admin didn't
explain to them, and they're clueless about.  Some are unrepentant
knowing vandals, who we decline to help, but who are free to post the
unblock template on their talk page or go to Arbcom, or directly to a
sympathetic admin if they can find them.

In some cases we find admins have made mistakes, or done something
abusive, in which case we go talk to the admin.  On rare occation an
unblock-en-L member has just unblocked, without talking to the
blocking admin first, but we operate under the principle that it's
better to talk first and avoid wheel warring over blocks.

There are a very few abusers who annoy us enough to stop listening to
their email complaints.  They are welcome to go talk to Arbcom.
Unblock-en-L is not a roadblock in the way of getting unblocked, it's
one of several mechanisms, and if we chose not to help anyone else
can.

>> "anyone who thinks we need more oversight is welcome to propose
more oversight."
>
> Bullshit. I'd have been happy to do so, but your corrupt freaks decided that
> anyone who dissents, anyone who gets too close to the truth about their corruption,
> has to be banned before those with power get exposed.

Unblock-en-L has very little power to be corrupt with.  If we stood in
the way, blocking other mechanisms of block appeal, it might be
possible for us to cause problems.  But we don't.  Any blocked user
has 1300-odd admins they can appeal to directly via email;
unblock-en-l; posting the templates on their talk page; Arbcom; and
the Foundation in extremis.

Unblock-en-L has not been granted any special power by the Foundation,
Arbcom, or community.  We're just there to help clear things up for
people, and if they need help, we can provide it.  There's no special
power in the list, or list members.  The Foundation or Arbcom could
come stomp on us tomorrow if they felt we were abusive, or the wrong
mechanism or any such.


I don't like being rude, but really.  Put up or shut up.  We're open
to oversight and review.  It's possible that there's no overlap
between the set of people you'd trust to propose to review
Unblock-en-L and the set of people who we'd trust with people's
privacy enough to do the oversight role.  If that turns out to be true
then we have a mutual problem.  But you haven't made the effort to
attempt to nominate someone for a review or oversight role.

If you aren't willing to even make the attempt to find a suitable
candidate, you're just bullshitting and being dramatic, and you don't
care about any actual problem with the list.  Either make that effort,
or go away.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com