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

Thu Sep 8 03:44:04 UTC 2005

On 9/8/05, MAURICE FRANK <megaknee at btopenworld.com> wrote:
> I challenge you to print this on en-Wikipedia's home
> page, so that no user can deny realising it nor claim
> that readers don't know it. This is so that nobody
> thereafter will have any basis go round arguing that
> you hide the way you work. So you'll be better off,
> won't you?

I come across a lot more people complaining about blind enforcement of
Wikipedia's rules without any common sense or flexibility than people
complaining about flexibility and consideration of the surrounding
circumstances.

There is judgement involved in almost every administrator action. For
instance, take a look at the Blocking Policy Page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy
This page is linked to from the Main Page via the Wikipedia
Introduction (which is where people go when they click "anyone can
edit").

"Sysops MAY, AT THEIR JUDGEMENT, block IP addresses whose users
vandalise Wikipedia."
"Sysops MAY, AT THEIR JUDGEMENT, block IP addresses or usernames that
disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia."
"According to our username policy, ... inappropriate usernames are not
allowed, and in certain circumstances, sysops MAY block accounts with
such usernames."
"Usernames that are designed to impersonate legitimate users MAY be
blocked immediately and indefinitely."
"[S]ysops MAY block on sight any bot that appears to be out of control."
"Blocks MAY be imposed in instances where threats have been made...."

And, to cap off all the examples of leeway for sysop discretion
hard-codified into the policy wording, there is this one:

"Blocks without policy basis
...
Though rare, there have been situations where a user has exhausted the
community's patience to the point where they find themselves blocked
even though there is, strictly speaking, no basis in policy for the
block. Administrators who block without policy basis should be sure
that there is exceptional, widespread community support for the
block."

So there sometimes doesn't even need to be a policy basis, so long as
there is a wide community consensus. This just reinforces that policy
is there to largely guide administrators in their roles.
Administrators can and do take actions outside of policy, and largely
these actions are highly uncontroversial and to the benefit of
Wikipedia. Administrators are often required to make judgement calls
in the exercise of their administrator actions, and I think Wikipedia
would be a worse place if administrators were required to blindly
adhere to the policy with no consideration of the surrounding
circumstances.

If we are still talking about Zoe's blocking of that user, then I
think the edits of that user quite clearly fall within "disruption of
Wikipedia", specifically "changing other users' signed comments". Note
that section does not say "*deliberately* changing other users' signed
comments".

~Mark Ryan