[WikiEN-l] Admins who abuse their powers

Sun Feb 13 22:42:44 UTC 2005

Charles, I didn't want to have to go into the details of this
particular case, because it's not why I'm posting to the board. But in
brief, the admin recreated a page that had been deleted after a VfD (a
deletion that had been confirmed at a VfU); recreated it again after
an admin deleted his first recreation; pasted a fake deletion notice
on it in an effort to force a third (fake) vote about the deletion;
then when an admin protected the blank page so the first admin
couldn't recreate and write on it again, the first admin used his
admin power to unprotect it. But admins are not supposed to use their
power to protect or unprotect pages they're involved in editing.

Regarding the point you made about them unblocking themselves, if it
were possible to block an admin for abuse of power, then if they
unblocked themselves, they'd be abusing their powers again, and so
could be blocked again. It would actually be a very simple process,
perhaps with blocks increasing in time each time they unblocked
themselves.

Admins not having the power to block other admins for abuse of power
is like the police not being able to take action against an
out-of-control police officer. It makes no sense, and I would like to
change it, and so my question is how do I start that process.

Sarah

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:30:00 -0500, Charles Podles wrote:
if a sysop is consciously abusing his
> powers, then what's to stop him from abusing them further in order to unblock himself? Blocking for abuse of sysop powers would be
> pointless.
> 
> Last, I'm not sure unprotecting a page in order to edit it even
> qualifies as an abuse of admin powers---articles are meant to be
> edited, and unprotecting a page opens it to editing by all.
> 
> --Charles P. ([[en:User:Mirv]])
>