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

[FT2]

Without commenting on the specific case itself, this is to focus on the
final question " What should be done about this? The blocking admin insists
he did nothing wrong"


I haven't read the case, so I don't know if the admin did wrong or not.  

There is a balance of two issues here.

On the one hand, admins are trusted and they are appointed on the back of a
significant majority who believe they deserve that trust. Part of the reason
is, they are not 100% fettered by rules and writings; they have their own
personal judgement of what is best for the project, and a key part of their
role is to use that judgement.

On the other hand, admins are accountable to a higher standard than most
editors. I was asked at RFA what I felt the difference was with admins, and
summed it up, "admins have fewer excuses". I believe that. An admin is
presumed to know that COI is an issue, and balance that with IAR and benefit
of the project. An admin is trusted to not misuse their access, and if in
doubt to double check. There is historically, a culture of trust and
presumption of self-management, self-discipline to check or ask others to
act if doubt may arise. Admins are trusted to act as role models, to
exemplify meutrality when they act as admins, more, not less, than users in
general. 

Admins are human and emotion isn't ignorable, but inability to consider ones
position, balance it, decide to recuse, set aside involvement, or misuse of
access, are always going to breach my feeling on the subject. Every admin
knows that if there is a problem, one can ask others. Just like every editor
should know if you have a dispute you seek DR, not to edit/revert war.

If it did happen that an admin broke 3RR or revert warred, or
mischaracterized an editor as vandalistic when this was unfair, then that
shows a certain disregard for communal standards and their position as a
role model. If the user was out of line, these are still not how to handle
it - one blocks them for 24 hours +, warns them, asks others to intervene...
whatever. There may be a good case to IAR and block a user, or call a spade
a spade, but there is (for example) *never* a good case to mischaracterize
them to make them seem blacker than the reality.

If this is an uncommon thing, then it's not actually a global project issue
(it's localized to individuals, and cases, and best handled via DR). If it's
more common, then it may need to be that some way would be needed to deter
or better address cases where admins have used their access with poor
judgement or with noticeable bias, or without a good balance of "benefit to
the project" vs. "fairness and neutrality to individuals".

How the problem is "solved" depends on 2 things:

1. Is there actually a problem, as opposed to an isolated case? Yes there
are several cases cited, but with multiple thousands of editors, vandals and
warriors, and edits watched in real time by hundreds of admins, it's
important not to assume a few cases mean there is a "problem".

2. What the community thinks. Problems of this kind would be solved by the
community taking a view what is best, and by discussion of proposals, and by
changing trends. (For example, admins may one day decide to be stricter
about critiquing obvious bias or COI by other admins, if there was a
problem.)


Beyond these, I'm not sure what else I can say. But those, to me, seem like
the core of it. We're here to build a project via a community, and no large
community runs 100.000% smoothly. It's important not to over-react or expect
utter perfection, *and* it's important to not be complacent and condone
wrong actions. There is a balance. Assessing if the balance we have now is a
good one or if we want to tweak it a bit, is the real question here.


My $0.02.


FT2.


-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of SPUI
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 12:04 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newbie biting, the 3RR, and improper labeling of
vandalism

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=1562
03841 
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=1565
58971 
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=1565
59556

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.

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?