[Wikipedia-l] R: Perl

Wed Apr 14 11:35:53 UTC 2004

Daniel said

> So, has Perl knowingly abused any sysop user rights
on the Maori Wikipedia,
> Wikibooks, or Meta?  Granted he failed to follow the
largely unwritten admin
> rules for Meta, but an apparent honest mistake is
hardly grounds for
> de-adminship (unless he does it again after being
informed of those rules).
> His actions on Meta seemed to be acts in good faith
as far as I could see.

I am sure Perl acted in good faith. But the rule he
infringed is about the **only** rule written on meta
:-)

What worries me a bit is that even after Perl was
pointed out to that **only** written rule, he goes on
claiming that he respected it.

It goes without saying Mav, that you were totally
correct in making him sysop on meta, since that was
the rule. (and still is for a few days...hurry people
!)

>I agree. Meta is a bit of a craphole and Alexander
did >what he could to  
>clean it up. I see no evidence that there was any
>attempt to resolve this  
>matter in personal discussion - there is certainly no
>message on his talk  
>page.

This was resolved **amply** in personal discussion on
IRC (and a tiny little bit on meta itself) with him
directly. There were numerous witnesses to the
discussion. I explained to Alex the importance of
reading the only ridiculously small and unique rule
governing sysops on meta, and tried to explain him the
unspoken rules as well. I recognise it might have not
been easy for him, since he never really had to follow
any sysop rules, and we know he has it hard to manage
human relationships unfortunately.

However, Alex is now aware of these rules, and I have
been trying to clarify them further. I hope (no, I am
sure) that Alex is now more careful.

>Why does this need to be discussed on a public
mailing >list?

This is discussed on this mailing list, because
**following** these events, mainly due to broken meta
policy, I proposed an update for deletion policy and a
new adminship access policy on meta, and very few
people are giving it any feedback. Actually feedback
is total support. However, I prefer to have it known
here, so to avoid latter hearing I made rules all
alone.

>The policy issues on Meta should be separated in the
>discussion from any  
>personal issues. As he notes on his user page, Alex
is >a kid with  
>Asperger's syndrome. Don't give him too much of a
hard >time, please. If he  
>does something really stupid there are more than
>enough ways to undo it.

Well, it is not because Alex unfortunately has
personal problems, that we should let him do how he
feels like, from using deception to get sysop, to
going against rules. Now, if he is being careful on
meta from now on, it is fine with me that he is sysop.
I already know that sysop does not mean trusted
anyway. 

>Furthermore, Meta issues belong on foundation-l, not
>on
>wikipedia-l, as Meta is not just about Wikipedia.

I disagree unfortunately. On the principle I agree,
but practically, who is registered to foundation-l for
now ?

>Regards,

>Erik

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