[WikiEN-l] Zoe's Abuse of Power as a Sysop

Tue Sep 6 17:51:31 UTC 2005

Felix

You really need to look at how you address people and address conflict. Your 
complaint about Moriori was posted, verbatim, in dozens of separate places. 
Posting the same message in a 
whole lot of places is considered spamming.

Several people pointed out that your edits were breaking other people's 
comments. Whatever the cause, it isn't like you were unaware of the problem. 
You really should check to make sure you didn't do it after posting to a 
talk page. If you know you are creating a problem you should clean it up, 
not rely on other people to clean it up for you.

Other users do not constitute "official channels", and it is not the job of 
admins or mediators to act as intermediaries. You should have communicated 
with Zoe directly, not asked Dmcdevit to convey you message for you - 
everyone on this site is a volunteer, there are no paid staff. In addition, 
you need to talk with people (not at them) and you need to lay off the 
demands a little. Again, we are all in the same boat here. A little more 
conversation and a few less "I demand satisfaction or I will see you in 
court" type exchanges would go a long way. This is a community, not a 
structured bureacracy. Yelling at people never helps. You say that when you 
told Zoe that you would "seek arbitration" she called it a "threat". It is a 
threat. 

Creating new accounts to bypass a block is strictly forbidden. What's the 
point of blocking someone for misconduct if they can just come back under a 
new name? You have asked that "punitive action" be taken against Zoe, but 
all she did was enforce the rules. Inserting hard returns into people's 
comments is considered vandalism. If it was unintentional, as you say, then 
you should have fixed it when it happened. Sure, admins should not let their 
mood cloud their decisions, but then, every admin decision can be undone by 
other admins. If you had come here and pleaded your case, accepted 
responsibility for what you had done wrong, resolving to behave in a more 
collegial manner in the future, someone would have unblocked you. Your 
actions met the definitions of "vandalism" and "spamming", even if you did 
not intend them to. You have engaged in sockpuppetry. And you have consumed 
hours of people like Dmcdevit's, Flcelloguy's and Duncharris's time (and 
those are just the people who's Talk pages I watch), repeating the same 
complaint over and over. This isn't a business, you don't get and can't 
demand instant responses.

As for "resuming your normal activities on Wikipedia" - they have mostly 
consisted of a battle to get apologies from people who have offended you. 
Leaving the Moriori issue aside (which you both agreed to settle) you still 
have a long list of people from whom you have "demanded" apologies for 
perceived slights. And a word to the wise - people who want to get into 
vendettas should really start with an easier target than Raul/Mark. Other 
than Jimbo and the Stewards, I dount there is anyone more 
powerful/influential in En.

Ian