[WikiEN-l] Reversing admin actions, was: ArbCom Legislation

[Carl Beckhorn]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:27:12AM -0400, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Actually, no. How the Wikipedia system works has often been missed. 
> Any admin can reverse any admin's decision, and this is a protection. 

In the end, since arbcom is the entity that decides on removal of admin 
access, they have some freedom to decide what they will permit in terms 
of wheel warring and what they will not permit. There have been several 
arbcom cases in which the committee decided that the unilateral reversal 
of an admin action is wheel warring, or that discussion should be tried 
first. Here are two:

 * Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war#Wheel_warring

 * Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Daniel_Brandt_deletion_wheel_war#Undeletion_of_pages

> A single reversal of an admin action isn't wheel-warring. 

I would argue it is, although historically the WP:WHEEL page has been 
written to permit it. I would argue that the definition of wheel warring 
that permits one unilateral reversal of any action is detrimental to the 
project. It short-circuits dispute resolution in favor of the status 
quo; it actively discourages those who disagree with an admin 
action from coming to compromise with the original admin. 

I'm not focusing specifically on BLP here, I'm thinking of the 
general principle. Once an admin action is performed to which there are 
objections, the correct course of action is to find a compromise thorugh 
discussion.  This is no different than any other disagreement on 
Wikipedia.

  - Carl