[WikiEN-l] Votes for Deletion

Fri Nov 28 00:22:29 UTC 2003

Andre Engels wrote:

>"Ray Saintonge" <saintonge at telus.net> schrieb:
>
>>I suppose I should not have used the word "likely".  It was just too 
>>polite. :-)
>>
>>Cunc could not possibly have unblocked something without it having been 
>>blocked, but I'm sorry I keep forgetting that some people have 
>>difficulties accepting logical conclusions as evidence :-P
>>
>
>Sorry, but there is an important step missing in your 'logical conclusions'.
>Cunctator unprotected the page -> The page was protected. Correct. (after
> correct workding)
>The page was protected -> Someone protected the page. Correct (in all
> probability).
>Someone protected the page -> A sysop protected the page. Correct.
>A sysop protected the page -> A sysop abused their power. Nope, sorry.
>
>General rule is that sysops should not protect pages that they are involved
>in. The general rule is NOT that sysops should not protect pages. If that
>were the rule, sysops would not have been given the possibility to protect
>pages in the first place.
>
Nothing in any of what I said implied that any simple application of 
blocking priveleges was necessarily an abuse of power.  What is an abuse 
of power is the use of those powers to impose a particular point of 
view.  Insisting on including the VfD notice in an article when its 
future existence is the topic of debate does express a POV.  A person 
who has not previously participated in an article, and who makes any 
substantive change in the contents of the article in conjunction with 
the application of the blocking process, no longer can be said to be 
approaching the subject with clean hands.  Therein lies the abuse of 
power.  Furthermore, a person actively engaged in an edit war can 
quietly ask a previously uninvolved colleague whom he knows shares the 
same POV to block the article.  That would be within the letter of the 
rules, but just slightly conspiratorial.

Ec