[WikiEN-l] Yes, A Reincarnation

Sun Jun 13 00:30:40 UTC 2004

--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> 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?

Disclaimer: I have recused myself from this case and am only speaking as a
Wikipedia editor.

I have also looked into the matter and also agree that JRR is the same as a
long line of hard-banned troll reincarnations that started with 142.177 and
probably even 24. In addition to what Fred has said, this user very often links
to and copies pages that 142.177 and 24 wrote on meta. If this user were not
142.177 or 24, then how could he have known where all the 142.177's meta pages
and Wikipedia articles were since 142.177 was a dynamic range and thus his
edits are not easily tracked? 

The preponderance of evidence is obvious here and IMO it even very close to 
evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (looking at the server logs will determine
evidence beyond a reasonable doubt). So I also agree with Fred's conclusion:
that any admin may ban JRR and revert any edit he has made (especially when
that edit was to restore an edit previously made by 142.177, 24, EoT or Cave
Troll). 

> 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.

I also agree with this and think it comes under our existing 'offensive user
name' policy. Trolls by there very nature are subversive and tend to tear down
community structures and goodwill. So any user name with 'troll' in it (unless
the user can prove it is part of their real name) is very offensive to me and I
hope to many other Wikipedians since it represents a force that could destroy
our community. 

Our policies are meaningless if they are not enforced and undoing enforcement
work is counterproductive and IMO often harmful to the community. What we need
is to make sure that policy enforcement is not carried out by any single admin,
but at least in groups of three (this would not affect the ability of single
admins to unilaterally block vandals). Those admin actions would then be
subject to reversal/approval by a quorum of the AC and if a more permanent
solution is needed, by an AC trial. 

But the AC should assume good faith in admin actions unless it is obvious that
the admin was not acting in good faith. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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