[WikiEN-l] 172 sysop status temporarily revoked

Thu Jul 24 02:01:35 UTC 2003

Erik wrote
>You're right, of course, that
>Nostrum's additions were highly biased, factually inaccurate and grossly
>misplaced. I read them. But calling people semi-literate or vandals does
>not exactly help in turning them into valuable contributors.

This user had been complained to by a number of people who told him about 
NPOV. He persisted constantly in adding in a POV diatribe over and over and 
over again and implied that anyone who wouldn't let him put in his diatribe 
was in denial or tolerant of paedophilia in the RC church.

>He used the headline "Homosexual abuse in catholicism", which is certainly
>misleading but not necessarily meant as an equation of pedophilia with
>homosexuality. It is an unfortunate fact that the large majority of
>pedophiles are interested in boys -- that's why these groups (well, not
>the Catholics, really) call themselves "Boylover associations", have sites
>like boylinks.net and so on. There are also "girllovers", but these are a
>minority. I can cite studies on this if you are interested.
>
Wrong.
1. He used the word 'homosexual' over a piece he wrote on paedophiles. He 
never once mentioned homosexuals. But he categorised those doing the abuse 
in catholicism as being homosexuals. In the population most paedophiles are 
usually heterosexual, the parents or relatives of the child being abused.

2. Paedophiles are interested in children. Some are gender-specific. Many 
many are not. The vast majority of priest paedophile cases I have studied 
relate to individual paedophiles abusing /both/ sexes, who are simply turned 
on by raping children, and they will rape whichever is the type they can get 
their hands on at any one time, boys or girls. I mentioned the case of Fr. 
Brendan Smyth in the article. He raped boys and girls in equal measure. So 
did Fr. Jim Grennan (who raped children /on/ the altar). Another priest I 
know of raped children (male and female) in a children's hospital.

>>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''
>
>I saw these edit comments and this is what I am referring to when I use
>the word "ugly". If the whole matter had been addressed calmly on the talk
>page of the article and the user talk page, we might not have seen
>Nostrum's "bad side" so quickly.

So it is everyone /else's/ fault this user made comments such as saying that 
maybe catholics want their children raped, is it? /He/ is responsible for 
his own actions. No-one else is.

>172 was aware of the guidelines but chose to
>violate them because he felt he was sufficiently backed up.

That is a gross and insulting delberate mis-representation. He saw the case 
as borderline as he was not someone who added one word to the article, he is 
not religious and has written nothing to wiki on child abuse. He suggested a 
course of action, understood it had support and /in good faith/ acted.

And of course
>he was right, to a degree -- with you by his side, what could go wrong?

I'll treat that comment with the contempt it deserves.

>172 enforced his position by protecting the page, knowing
>that he would receive support for doing so from some participants. But it
>doesn't matter if you do or don't support 172's decision -- what matters
>is that sysops are not supposed to do these things, because this leads us
>down a slippery slope where we end up with a cabal that makes decisions
>for the unenlightened masses. I would think that people from a leftist
>political perspective would be more sensitive to such issues of developing
>power structures.

Considering your own behaviour of changing dates to suit things the way you 
wanted, and then trying to interpret a vote on the matter in a way that 
suited you, I don't think you are in a position to criticise 172 for abuse 
of power.
>
>But I would not have revoked 172's sysop privileges if he had just agreed
>to ask someone else who did not participate in the debate to protect the
>page, as our guidelines recommend.

He couldn't get someone to do it straight away and understood he had 
agreement to act.

>He flat out refused doing so and
>reprotected the page after I had unprotected it,

If you had reprotected the page he wouldn't have had to. But you 
irresponsbly left the page unprotected opening up the prospect of a nenewed 
edit war. He re-protected it to stop that happening, while a solution was 
worked out or someone else came along to do the protecting instead.

You seem to think that protecting pages is a bad idea. That is your POV. You 
decided to enforce that POV on a page where a different solution was 
supported, tried and worked.

JT

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