[WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on

Thu Jun 2 11:20:55 UTC 2005

BJörn Lindqvist said:
>> >I even witnessed first-hand a
>> >user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get
>> >a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which
>> >wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the
>> >admin involved..
>>
>> I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration
>> Committee procedure.  Which case are you referring to?
>
> Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are
> supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin.

In the case of threatening or abusive behavior, a post on [[WP:AN/I]]
should be enough.  Although it seems to me that administrator abuse is
often a fallback claim by people who are behaving in a problematic manner,
I don't dismiss it out of hand and I think it would be most extraordinary
if administrators didn't occasionally act in a heavy-handed, unjust and
sometimes even vindictive manner.  We should take such things seriously.

I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous.  Just slap together a
few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try
to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not
reacted).  Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve
the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence.  Move
the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. 
It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution.

Non-administrator complainants tend to be hobbled, however, by their lack
of knowledge of how Wikipedia works.  Administrators tend to know better
than other editors just how much discretion they're allowed (it's quite
extensive, and arguably has to be so).

Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators,
some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers.  Usually in such
cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a
particular admin has gone too far.