[Wikipedia-l] Indefinite block and desysopping by User:Danny

Thu Apr 20 08:37:35 UTC 2006

Hello

I have restored Eloquence sysop status on the english wikipedia this 
morning (I did it on meta since I do not have bureaucrat status on 
en.wiki, so it will not appear on the en bureaucrat log).

First, I appreciate Erik saying he will be more careful on these matters 
in the future. Thank you.

However, I think Danny should be very careful not to have his role as an 
employee of the Foundation (acting as WP:Office) confused with his role 
as an editor. When action is not taggued as WP:Office, Erik is perfectly 
within his right to revert (along the three revert rule, which also 
applies to Danny).

Thirdly, I think the reaction of the WP:Office was too bold. Erik is a 
long time serious editor. Not a wild kid. He is accessible to reason. 
Blocking, even for 2 hours (and needless to say for indefinite time) is 
not suitable without discussion first. Unsysoping with no discussion 
either is just plain not okay.

I appreciate that the whole issue was very stressing for Danny, hence 
his reaction. Danny is directly in contact with critical situations, 
which is difficult for him.

Nevertheless, Danny, you appear as the "voice" of the Foundation on 
en.wiki, so you should be careful to act as much as possible as the 
members of the Foundation would act.

It would be *talking*.

Anthere

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and a MediaWiki developer since
> 2002. I was Chief Research Officer of the Foundation from May to
> August 2005. I initiated two of Wikimedia's projects, Wikinews and the
> Wikimedia Commons, and have made vital contributions to both. I have
> made roughly 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia, and uploaded about
> 15,000 files to Wikimedia Commons. A list of my overall contributions
> can be found at
> 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
> 
> and the linked to pages; this does not include my numerous
> international activities such as conference speeches, as well as my
> book and articles about Wikipedia. I have never been blocked before,
> nor have I ever been subject to an Arbitration Committee ruling (in
> fact, I was one of Jimmy's original suggestions for the first ArbCom,
> and one of the people who proposed that very committee).
> 
> I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and
> desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an
> "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not
> specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that
> he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead
> talk to the Foundation attorney instead. To my knowledge, this is the
> first time office authority has been used to indefinitely block and
> desysop a user.
> 
> What happened?
> 
> Yesterday, Danny radically shortened and protected two pages,
> [[Newsmax.com]] and [[Christopher Ruddy]]. The protection summary was
> "POV qualms" (nothing else), and there was only the following brief
> comment on Talk:NewsMax.com:
> 
> "This article has been stubbed and protected pending resolution of POV
> issues. Danny 19:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)"
> 
> There was no mention of WP:OFFICE in the edit summary or on the talk
> page. Danny did not apply the special Office template, {{office}}, nor
> did he use the "Dannyisme" account that he created for Foundation
> purposes, nor did he list the page on WP:OFFICE. Instead, he applied
> the regular {{protected}} template.
> 
> Given that Danny has now more explicitly emphasized this distinction
> between his role as a Foundation employee and a regular wiki user, I
> assumed he was acting here as a normal sysop and editor, and
> unprotected the two pages, with a brief reference to the protection
> policy. I also asked Danny, on [[Talk:NewsMax.com]], to make it
> explicit whether the protection was under WP:OFFICE. I would not have
> reprotected, of course, if he had simply said that they were, and left
> it at that.
> 
> I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must
> emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much
> appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was
> under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any
> case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much
> an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny,
> the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the
> ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I
> pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
> 
> Thanks for reading,
> 
> Erik