sysops.

I think we don't need to reduce the number, so much as ensure that they are following community made guidelines. Mark

--- Mark Richards <marich712000(a)yahoo.com> wrote: But if the sysops don't, surely they need to be desysopped. Also: people who have been inactive for a while (6 months or more) should perhaps be desysopped (with cursory reinstatement if needed).

I've considered that process which I would call desysopping without prejudice. I would have suggested 90 days, but would not oppose 6 months. This group has done nothing wrong; they just aren't around. For re-admission they just need to let us know that they are back and active. Some very good people would be a part of this group.

Mark, There is very wide acceptance that JRR is a reincarnation of a previously banned user. That previous user was not banned for a funny name, neither for content reasons, but for behavioral reasons. Though it can't be proved, I think the reincarnation is of wide-clarity to most of those who know the previously banned user. Afaik, the question had been asked to the user if he was a reincarnation (that step sounds really funny to me :-)). Evidence with regards to reincarnation has been posted on the AC request. So, I think the claim saying that these two steps have not been followed is bogus. ''Where it is becomes clear that a user account is a "reincarnation" of an existing banned user, the reincarnating account can likewise be blocked.'' Banning policy allow a sysop or a group of sysop to ban such a reincarnation. So, they are within their bounds of action as well. I do not think the banning can be said unilateral as well, as several sysops have banned him, or supporting his ban. If you wish, we may discuss again of all this, but honestly, I think evidence is sufficient and policy is allowing this. I hope you will trust me on this, because I say it, adding that I am not happy of this ban. I do not have the same opinion than the community with regards to banning this user, but I also see that my opinion on the topic is a very seriously minor opinion. So, I prefer to look at the big picture :-) ------ Now, the question is (and that is a very good question) : should sysops take such decisions, or should they wait for the AC to decide for them ? As I said above, I think the policy leaves room for a group of sysops to act temporarily, before the AC does. Is it good ? *yes, because AC is acting slowly. Participants are getting upset to see reincarnations waiting for 2 months before "judgment" by the AC. It is no good that participants become angry. In real life, there is similar provision.... when someone is said to have done something deeply wrong and is considered a potential threat to the society, he may be put in jail before the judgment is made. He should be put in jail only if there is enough evidence naturally. But this prevents damage to the society, while giving time to judge fairly. If there is a mistake, we should deeply apology to the wrongly-blocked person, and re-consider how we are looking for evidence for next cases. *yes, it is also good because power should be in the hand of people first. Those doing the daily work. This is the wiki way. Is it bad ? *yes, it may be bad, if decisions are taken **without enough evidence **without clear community support **Without respect for openness and diversity of opinion Should we not respect these three points, then, there would be a danger. I think the first point was amply provided in this case. If you are not convinced, ask Uninvited Company (sigh). The second point is perhaps a little less obvious. If you are not convinced, why not starting a poll ? There is a policy supporting ban of reincarnation. You are not certain it is a reincarnation ? You are not sure the community is certain it is a reincarnation ? Well, ask people what they think then. The third point is probably the more tricky one. I am not always certain we are entirely fair toward diversity of opinion. The last political debates are not really convincing me we are respecting this very well all the time. But that is the toughest point, and I have no reason to think it is better handled by AC than by whole community. We all have our personal bias, and only the addition of our bias will make a balance. In this, I trust editors on the whole to achieve balance. Heph and Guanaco agreed to wait for your feedback, so they did not revert again the block. This was very nice of them. I think it is quite bad to enter a blocking reversion war. Now, please, consider the three points : * do you need more information to convince you that enough evidence was provided ? * do you need more information to convince you that the block is generally approved, as a temporary measure to wait for AC to deliver his judgment ? And * do you think a centralised committee decision making is the only way, or do you think groups of trusted sysops may act temporarily while waiting for justice decision of AC ? Anthere Mark Richards wrote: review seems them. and to not the that amock, not _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org

Errrr, I think Maveric, Angela, Tim Starling, Eloquence and Uninvited Company, to cite just a few, will have a good laugh when they read I am part of an angry mob trying to ban 142. That sure has peps ;-) Okay. Let's go on privately then. Is there any news of the AC on this point ? Mark Richards wrote: too can't go being that reincarnation he a to as this. it, AC for are society, the wiki reincarnation I bias them. that that

I definitely want to see some evidence and also some information about what would be evidence. How do we determine that someone is a reincarnation of a previously banned user?

Fred Bauder wrote: It's pretty simple really, using the old saw: 1) They look like a duck. Check, derivative usernames (Entmoots of Trolls, JRR Trollkien, Leo Trollstoy) 2) They walk like a duck. Check, editing mostly the same articles as the banned user did. 3) They quack like a duck. Check, the edits made to the above-mentioned articles are virtually the same as those made by the banned user. Even with all three of these being the case, it is hypothetically possible that they are not, indeed, a reincarnation of the banned user. However I think it is overkill to go to their house, knock on their door and ask "Hey, are you [banned user]?" Assuming that the banned user was banned for their behavior, it makes sense that a new account displaying the same behavior should also be banned.

I have a question. I thought Halifax was range blocked, and proxies unusable. So, how could JRR or LT edit ?

... As I said above, I think the policy leaves room for a group of sysops to act temporarily, before the AC does.

Is it good ? *yes, because AC is acting slowly. Participants are getting upset to see reincarnations waiting for 2 months before "judgment" by the AC. It is no good that participants become angry.

In real life, there is similar provision.... when someone is said to have done something deeply wrong and is considered a potential threat to the society, he may be put in jail before the judgment is made. He should be put in jail only if there is enough evidence naturally. But this prevents damage to the society, while giving time to judge fairly.

If there is a mistake, we should deeply apology to the wrongly-blocked person, and re-consider how we are looking for evidence for next cases.

*yes, it is also good because power should be in the hand of people first. Those doing the daily work. This is the wiki way.

--- Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Without comment on this particular block, I completely agree with your above general statement. I would in fact like to deputize admins so that they have more authority to do this sort of thing but would have to implement such blocks in triads (three admins would be needed to issue a block; the ability for single admins to block obvious vandals would not be changed). I agree - The AC is a panel of judges who have the authority to issue long term bans. This is a large responsibility and contrary to what many might think, it is not fun at all. Thus cases move slowly. We are not, nor have ever been a police force and therefore cannot protect people from the actions of others. Our job is to judge those people and issue remedies which we hope will be fair to the accused and to the community. Admins are the ones who implement those rulings. This concept in the U.S. at least is called 'probable cause'. It allows policemen to detain suspects before trial and allows individual judges to extend that through trial based on incomplete evidence. The goal is to balance the rights of the accused with the right of the public to not be harmed by somebody who the police or the arraignment judge reasonably thinks may do harm if released. A full trial will determine guilt. In fact I want the AC to change its arbitration policy a bit to allow for probable cause blocks of users during a trial based on a simple quorum (4 votes in favor). Such a user would only be able to edit his/her user and user talk page, and the AC pages concerning him/her. But that only takes care of the trial part. IMO, admins also need the ability to do this during day to day operations (the pre-trial part). Either way we need to greatly increase the size of the AC so that it can deal with the workload. Not necessarily - if probable cause was in fact valid to begin with then the user was not wrongly blocked. But just as there is a possibility for police abuse, there is also the possibility of admin abuse. If that is the case, then the admin may be in a trial of his/her own. However, we should assume good faith of admins as much as possible - otherwise everybody will be too afraid of using their sysop power to do what needs to be done for the good of the community. I agree. The current set-up is rather top heavy with the AC having most of the authority and most of the admins feeling as if their hands are tied. I would like to spread some of the AC's authority around but would like to proceed with caution. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

From: Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> Reply-To: anthere9(a)yahoo.com, English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 08:34:13 +0200 To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Blocking without following policy * do you need more information to convince you that enough evidence was provided ?

Anthere wrote: question) : should for the AC to decide for a group of sysops are getting upset to "judgment" by the AC. real life, there is done something to the society, he should be put in But this prevents fairly. the wrongly-blocked evidence for next cases. the hand of people wiki way. I agree with this. Perhaps if we had an AC filled with lots of paid employees or people with no other non-Wikipedia commitments it'd be better to have a dedicated investigative team to decide these things, but that seems pretty far-fetched. I think reaching a consensus on whether the user is a reincarnation, (the wiki way, as you aptly described it) is a better approach. I'm not sure if this should be formalized or left sort of informal, but the general guideline would be that if a pretty large majority seem to think it's a reincarnation, we should assume it is, while if there is widespread disagreement, then perhaps we can't assume it is. -Mark _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Here is JRR Trollkien's first edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Political_dispute&… I find it bizarre that you think it is someone besides this previously-banned user who is attempting to "provoke conflict". Even more bizarre than the fact that this user is still posting three months later.

On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 15:16:20 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Without commenting on whether or not this is honest or bannable or anything like that... this looks like it belongs on Meta.

Now, regarding the "banned user", I believe standard practice (at least on certain hard-banned users - Michael... 142? if not everyone) is to revert everything they do on Wikipedia, whether or not it is good, valid, right, wrong, misleading, or enlightening.

The implication in the preceding post seems to be that it's obvious via this page history that the user in question is in fact a user who is already hard-banned.

I have finally looked at this and the evidence is clear. JRR Trollkien is The Cave Troll is EntmootsofTrolls. There is no reasonable scenario which would result in someone reposting that stuff and calling it a minor edit. I believe, based on that evidence alone, any adminstrator may within Wikipedia policy ban JRR Trollkien as a reincarnation and revert any edit he makes. Or am I going too far? I still think any user who has "troll" in their name should be summarily banned, after a request to change their name just in case a mistake has been made in choosing a name. However when this kind of edit is made the chance of that is vanishingly small. Fred From: John Robinson <john(a)freeq.com> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:24:19 -0500 To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Don't look for trouble. (was Re: Blocking without following policy) I find the idea of a popularity contest to see whether someone is returning user bizarre. In fact, I find the whole idea of returning users bizarre. If the user needs to be banned, ban them on the basis of the edits they make, there is no need to speculate on whether they are returning. If they don't do anything worth banning, so much the better. Don't provoke conflict unless it is necessary - I think there is a word for that. Mark R Here is JRR Trollkien's first edit:

2878571&oldid=2754803 I find it bizarre that you think it is someone besides this previously-banned user who is attempting to "provoke conflict". Even more bizarre than the fact that this user is still posting three months later. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Sorry, but who is LT? Fred <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> presented. Re: [WikiEN-l] Yes, A precious JRRT, name in of <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> (was find user whether the

"provoke http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l protection around http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Sunday 13 June 2004 21:19, Mark Richards wrote: precious JRRT, In this and future cases, would this formula be acceptable as an evidence? Wikipedia has n users which have "Troll" in their username, and exists for time t. Therefore, on average, user with "Troll" in its username is created every t/n. If an user with "Troll" in it username is created let the T be the time between its creation and banning of the last user with "Troll" in its username. Then, p=((t/n)/2)/T represents probability that the user is previous user. If the probability is higher then some value (say 10), ban the user. There's only 10/p chance that you are wrong. (I am not a statistician but surely someone can check and improve this.) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Erm, no, this would be like imprisoning black people because you think they are more likely to commit crimes anyway.

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I would support any move to reduce the number of Likewise.

I would support any move to reduce the number of sysops.

That is presumption of innocence which is totally forgotten * blocking is done without AC consideration first to the case * reverting of dozen of edits is made, regardless of the quality of the edits; in effect blind reversion resulted in ** removing perfectly accurate categories, which resulted in people losing time to put them back ** restoring spelling mistake that the banned user had corrected * letting RK go wild again on ethical topic. I understand why Heaph blocked the guy, but in effect =>consequence number 1 (block) is saying "we do not trust AC to do what it should o" =>consequence number 2 : deliberate impoverishment of the encyclopedia (reinsertion of mistake to enforce a ban) plus addition of work load for Bryan Derksen and I, who had to revert back the reversion, to restore the good edits manually =>consequence number 3 : RK is removing again whole parts of articles, plus adding very unnice comments, which are irritating me *greatly*. I feel like censorship from RK is on its way again. And I do not think this is good. I think this is just plain bad. Mark Richards wrote: evidence, followed and gathered given Trollstoy (Reincarnation Trollkien (Reincarnation _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l