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

Thu Apr 20 22:23:47 UTC 2006

Kelly said:

"NOBODY is entitled to revert without discussion.  3RR says we're willing to
tolerate it for regular editors.  Admins are expected to be above
this.  Any admin who doesn't want to play by this rule is invited to
visit [[m:Requests for permissions]]."

Slimvirgin said:

"The first person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel
war, and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening as a rule."

True story:
Last month, I restored [[Static grass]] after another admin mistook the AfD
template for the PROD template I had replaced a few hours previously.  The
toolserver was lagging and as a result the PROD list was outdated, and
because the two templates look similar, it was an easy mistake to make.  The
discussion on AfD was ongoing.  More than 20 hours later, the deleting admin
left a message on the AfD page apologizing for the mistake.  Are you
suggesting that I should I have just left the article deleted until he
logged on again to undo the deletion, thus bringing the AfD discussion to a
halt?

What if he had left on vacation immediately after deleting the article?
Does the AfD just sit there?

Alternatively, what if I talked with 4-5 other admins and they all agreed
that I should undelete the article?  Under the definition above, I would
still be starting a wheel war by undeleting the article.

Obviously wheel warring is bad news, but surely common sense must be applied
in some situations.  If you think I'm off track, please tell me what I
should have done instead.

Nathaniel

On 4/20/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/20/06, slimvirgin at gmail.com <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/20/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Is it the right of every administrator to second-guess the
> > > administrative actions of any other administrator, and instantly
> > > revert them if they feel justified?
> > >
> > > The culture of feeling entitled to instantly revert, though, is quite
> > > damaging.
> > >
> > Exactly right. Some admins have adopted a definition of "wheel
> > warring" that excludes the first revert of an admin action -- so that
> > if X blocks, and Y unblocks, Y is not wheel warring. But if X restores
> > the block, X has started the wheel war. This is nonsense. The first
> > person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel war,
> > and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening as a rule.
>
> I concur entirely with Sarah's definition of when a wheel war begins.
> This culture of "free whacks at the post" has to go.  NOBODY is
> entitled to revert without discussion.  3RR says we're willing to
> tolerate it for regular editors.  Admins are expected to be above
> this.  Any admin who doesn't want to play by this rule is invited to
> visit [[m:Requests for permissions]].
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Nathaniel C. Sheetz
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ncs124