[WikiEN-l] admin abuse

Mon Jan 26 07:31:17 UTC 2004

Delirium wrote:
> Sascha Noyes wrote:
>
> >On Monday 26 January 2004 12:41 am, UB 1 wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Wikipedia:Administrators - As of September 2003, it is
> >>now possible for sysops to block usernames. It is
> >>important to note that sysops are not authorised to
> >>decide whether a particular case of vandalism warrants
> >>banning by username. The ability to ban by username
> >>has been made available for the purposes of enforcing
> >>a ban already approved by Jimbo. It may be used to
> >>block obvious reincarnations of hard-banned users.
> >>
> >>Special:Ipblocklist - 05:10, 26 Jan 2004, Angela
> >>blocked UnbannableOne (contribs) (Unacceptable user
> >>name. Please log in with something different.
> >>Unacceptable behaviour. Please quit it.)
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I'm behind Angela on this one. [[user:UnbannableOne]] is an obvious
> >"boundary-experiment" by an old troll taking advantage of there not
existing
> >any officially sanctioned policy enforcing body in order to troll
wikipedia,
> >while making themselves "unbannable" by adding legitimate content.
> >
> >
> I haven't looked into this particular case so can't say (yet) whether I
> think banning was correct or not, but I don't like the precedent of
> sysops banning logged-in users based on individual judgment calls (even
> if that call was right in this case).  Given that our procedures are
> still in flux I'm not particularly upset about this one, but I feel
> fairly strongly that future cases should be probably be sent to the
> arbitration committee.  That's of course still a judgment call, but at
> least it's a judgment call by multiple people instead of one.
>
> On the other hand, probable reincarnations of already-banned users are
> fine (in my opinion at least) to ban on sight.  Though I do think our
> ban message should provide some sort of contact address (wikien-l?) so
> people accidentally banned as a reincarnation of a logged-in user can
> email to inform us of that fact.
>
> -Mark

UB1 was basically attempting to bait people into banning him, by choosing
the username "UnbannableOne", and by getting into an edit war with five
different sysops over awarding himself a "barnstar". Angela was more than
happy to take that bait, and so predictably enough, UB1 made a complaint.

If Angela didn't block the user, I'm sure someone else would have, in short
order. It wasn't exactly an individual judgement call, there was some
IRC-related encouragement.

-- Tim Starling