[WikiEN-l] Newbie biting, the 3RR, and improper labeling of vandalism

[Charli Li]

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SPUI's mail client expels the following stream of bytes on 9/8/2007
7:04 PM:
> tl;dr version: three users including two admins revert-war a newbie past
> 3RR; one of them blocks the newbie for it, and doesn't block one of the
> admins, who had also broken 3RR, because the edits - made in good faith,
> and possibly even good edits - were supposedly vandalism. The blocking
> admin insists he did nothing wrong.
>
>
>
> Introductory links:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mm555
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Route_50&action=history
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mm555
>
> Rschen7754 and TwinsMetsFan are admins; O is not one on en.
>
> Mm555 appears to be a newbie, or a former IP editor, from the Carson
> City, Nevada area. Among his edits, he edited [[U.S. Route 50]] to add
> junctions with US 395 and US 95 to the infobox, and was reverted a few
> times, in my opinion properly, since having that many junctions for each
> state would make it too big. A comment was added to the infobox:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Route_50&diff=prev&oldid=156203841
> stating that there were enough junctions.
>
> A discussion on the talk page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:U.S._Route_50#Junctions_list_for_US_50
> basically agreed that US 93 is not a major junction and US 95 would be
> better; US 395 was brought up but not rejected.
>
> Mm555, after reverting a change from US 93 to US 95:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Route_50&diff=next&oldid=156558971
> decided that US 395 is better and changed to that:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=U.S._Route_50&diff=next&oldid=156559556
>
> Personally, I think I agree; the US 395 and US 95 junctions are fairly
> close, and the US 395 junction is in Carson City, the state capital.
>
> Rschen7754 reverted his edit "to good version", O made four reverts, and
> TwinsMetsFan made one. Mm555 ended up making five reverts. Rschen7754
> warned him several times for vandalism, and O threw in a "Please do stop
> and read the guideline" ( Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Infoboxes and
> Navigation/Infobox , which it doesn't look like anyone linked him to);
> it's also about the number of junctions, not which one to choose. Nobody
> told him about the 3RR and nobody pointed him to the talk page
> discussion. TwinsMetsFan blocked him for 3RR, but did not block O.
Well, we were wrong for using vandalism in the wrong way; we should've
used 3RR instead.  I do need to apologise for using the wrong
term(s).  The guideline was linked to in the section header as a
shortcut, and the talk page was clearly linked on mm555's talk page.
>
> I confronted TMF and O on IRC, and TMF said he didn't block O because O
> was reverting vandalism. They claimed that Mm555's edits were vandalism
> because he wasn't following the consensus on the talk page.
>
> What should be done about this? The blocking admin insists he did
> nothing wrong; I didn't get a chance to talk with the other admin, who
> gave most of the warnings. Obviously Mm555 should be unblocked and
> apologized to, if he's not already gone. But how do we prevent this from
> happening again?
I do have to agree that TMF did absolutely nothing wrong with blocking
mm555, as the blocking policy clearly states that edit and revert
warring and that continuous violations of policies/guidelines when a
consensus from uninvolved users says it's disruptive.  The second part
extracted from the policy could be disputed unless (1) the mailing
list says otherwise, (2) the original commenters on the article talk
page say otherwise, or (3) other uninvolved users who don't usually
also post to this mailing list say otherwise.  However, I believe that
the edit warring has happened with the same user, just with an IP,
prior to now, and consensus seems to be saying that they preferred US 95.

While that editor has been right with the fact that "vandalism" was
used in the wrong way, there are some bits by that specific editor
that currently imply owning the article because they're native to the
subject.  I should've reported to AN3 about this, requested protection
until disputes have been resolved, and focus on other things until the
dispute has been resolved.  Somehow today was one of my bad days as an
editor, as I've just hastily half-left a WikiProject and could not
think myself through this day.  I am sorry in every way possible if
others thought I was edit warring and not using the right procedures.

- --
Charli (vishwin/O)
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