[WikiEN-l] 172 sysop status temporarily revoked

Wed Jul 23 20:20:45 UTC 2003

>
>Because he protected a page in an edit war/heated discussion in which he
>was involved -- see [[Talk:Catholicism]] -- I have temporarily revoked
>172's sysop privileges. I would not have done so if he had followed my
>advice not to do it again, but after I unprotected the page he immediately
>reprotected it, and there is no point in engaging in "protection wars" --
>we should be clear about the guidelines we follow.
>
>Note that I was not substantially involved in the relevant discussion, but
>I am generally on 172's side; the edits were desperately in need of work.
>However, sysops are not editors, and should not use their privileges to
>enforce their own views. If the page should have been protected, it should
>have been done by an independent third party. This is what our protected
>page policy has said for months.
>
>I am also concerned by the definitely non-Wikiquette tone in the above
>discussion.
>
>Unless there are any objections, I will only reinstate 172's sysop status
>if he agrees to follow our protected page guidelines.

I think Erik's decision is misguided and wrong, as he would have realised if 
he followed the debate in detail. The problem arose when on person tried to 
insert a semi-literate POV rant against catholicism onto the page.

The stuff this user tried to include included such nonsense as stating that

1. 10% of popes were paedophiles;
2. Mormons are catholics;
3. Born Again Christians are called 'New Born Christians;

The semi-literate nature of the rant can be judged by the following lines 
from it.

- Many people in such competition claim they castigate the group that has 
lesser dedication and rules, rules that are not as strict as the ladder.

- One could look at the branching and creation of different ideals such as 
Christianity, New Born Christians, Mormon, and so on. These divergences in 
the religion have support the belief that Christianity has divided into a 
group of sects

- There is much evidence to show the Catholic church has had sexual 
offenders as it's heads.

- This degradation could be supported through the change of the puritan 
ways, as seen in the history of America.

The author outrageously also equated paedophilia with homosexuality.

An indication of Nostrum's agenda and anti-catholic agenda can be seen in 
his comment to Pizza Puzzle - '' It seems everyone is against the truth. I 
suppose the breeders want their kids molested.'' And he told 172 that '' Oh, 
and if you're wondering, the reason my coments seem so outragous is because 
I'm an ignorant athiest. I really don't know much about the Bible, simply 
because I've only read about 2 pages.''

I removed the nonsense he kept putting in the article and put a critique of 
it on the talk page. JHK, referring to the additions, commented 'BTW, I also 
find Nostrum's stuff unreadable and his posture amusing.' Harris7 in one 
revertion "Substantial excision of anti-catholic rant" and in another case 
'The recent mods were highly POV and rather nonsensical '' Nostrum's 
justifications included ''added overbearing proof to people who would like 
to live in big holes under bridges, Say hi to sammy for me'' ''If you think 
there is POV in homosexual abuse in Catholocism then take it out, don't 
delete it, remember, fix, not censor, otherwise I will list you as a censor 
and you don't want to be on my bad side''

172 is not a religious believer but came to the page because of the edit war 
and like most people was horrified at the sheer awfulness of the text which 
this one user /kept/ over and over again trying to insert, each time 
insisting it was NPOV. (The user, Nostrum, also insisted on putting it near 
the top of the article, giving it more importance that such things as the 
Catholic belief in sacraments, the liturgy etc.)

172 commented: 'I know that I've been warned against this, but I'd be 
tempted to protect this page from that garbage.' -172

Mav's response was - 'I tend to agree.'

No-one urged him not to, in fact many openly agreed. Protection had also 
been requested on the wiki-list.

172 then wrote

'After hearing support that this page be protected, I agreed to do it only 
when the garbage was restored. The page was stable for a couple of hours or 
more, but then it reappeared. Hence the protection.' 172

As no sysop who had not taken part in the debate or expressed an opinion 
chose to impose the necessary protection and stop the illiterate POV 
nonsense from being inserted, 172 did what had to be done, which was to 
protect the page, having given people advanced notice and received no 
opposition at the time. What should have happened is that he then contact an 
independent third party with sysop powers when one came on and asked for 
them to remove his own temporary protection and insert their own indepedent 
one but due to an oversight that was not done.  172 simply did what someone 
had to do but which no-one was available to do.

In the circumstances I think Erik's response was an over-reaction. It wasn't 
as if 172 unilaterally decided to use his sysop powers in a row he was a 
longterm participant in. He simply did what had to be done on the page and 
which no-one else at the time was available to do. If he hadn't wiki would 
have had an article (one the major articles in any encyclopaedia) turned 
into a garbled, POV anti-catholic rant in pidgin english.

In an attempt to NPOV Nostrum's stuff (if you could work out what it meant) 
I wrote an additional section on the issue of clerical child abuse but that 
didn't stop Nostrum added his strange stuff. In an attempt to create an 
agreement, having protected the page, 172 wrote to Nostrum saying

''Due to all the problems with the text at question that have been 
identified, please post the portions that you want to have added on a talk 
page. They will be reviewed promptly by those who have actively contributed 
content to Catholicism-related topics and topics pertaining to the sex abuse 
scandal. If they meet encyclopedic standards, a place will be found for 
them.'' 172

One of Nostrum's responses was ''who are you to say your opinions of 
standards are higher than mine? You're gone boi.'' Nostrum

Furthermore Erik's decision to leave the page unprotected was clearly wrong. 
What he should have done is put his own protection on in place of 172's,  
not leave it unprotected when the user planting the anti-catholic rant had 
already indicated his intention to insert the rubbish over and over again. 
In the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable that 172 would 
reinsert the protection. What else did Erik expect to happen if a page that 
/has/ to be protected if left wide open for Nostrum to return for the 
umpteenth time and add it in? It had to to be protected. It should have been 
protected by someone not connected to the date. They didn't come to do it 
and when someone did come they left it unprotected. 172 acted to stop the 
clear vandalism on the page, nothing more.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail