[Wikimedia-l] Under block threat on fr.wp because of request on meta

[Newyorkbrad]

I have no knowledge of the dispute on French Wikipedia, but I've just read
the thread on Meta, and frankly I agree that your making and insisting on
your request seems to have been inappropriate.  We had a similar situation
recently involving English Wikipedia -- in which an editor went to Meta to
request that one of our checkusers have his rights remove because his
appointment was supposedly invalid, but he had never raised his concern on
English first and it turned out to be meritless -- and we did not take
kindly to that action at all.

As a matter of common sense, it seems more than reasonable that if a wiki
is transitioning from one method of appointing CUs to another, this doesn't
mean that all CUs appointed under the old method are invalid.  The
conclusion would be that French should be left with no CUs at all for an
indefinite period, which if French WP is subject to anything remotely
appoaching the level of spamming and disruption that hits English
sometimes, is unlikely to be a viable option.

The more intriguing question to me, as an editor who has been a member of
the English WP ArbCom for five years, is why French has decided to no
longer have an ArbCom.  Or is it just that there is disagreement about
the membership or method of picking the ArbCom?  (The Meta discussion is
not completely clear.)

Newyorkbrad



On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Teofilo <teofilowiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> A group of French admins is threatening me of what they call a "block
> with consequences" in the case I would perform any "similar move", a
> move similar with what I did which they interpret as "disrupting
> Wikipedia to illustrate a point" (1).
>
> As the wording is totally vague ("similar move") this deprives me of
> the right to express myself on community matters. My freedom of speech
> on community matters is being denied.
>
> What I did, was a request to stewards on meta to remove access for all
> current French Checkusers as a consequence of the French Wikipedia
> switching from the "wiki with arbcom" to the "wiki without arbcom"
> status (2).
>
> So I am under threat, because I tried to enforce the checkuser policy,
> which provides different access procedures according to whether the
> wiki is with or without arbcom (3).
>
> Would it be possible to provide some kind of protection to users
> making requests on meta in reference to WMF policies ?
>
> Would it be possible to have some kind of "meta-arbcom" that would be
> a supreme court responsible for guaranteeing a set of fundamental
> principles, such as freedom of speech ?
>
> References:
>
> (1)
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_utilisateur%3ATeofilo&diff=84877524&oldid=84615519
> (2)
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steward_requests/Permissions&oldid=4347135#per_CheckUser_policy.23Checkuser_access.2C_all_current_checkusers_on_fr.Wikipedia.org_.28wiki_without_an_Arbitration_Committee.29
> (3) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser_policy#Access_to_CheckUser
>
> See also:
>
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Checkuser
>  [The community vote in 2005 where checkusers where agreed by only a
> very short majority (52.4%)]
>
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