QUOTE(Guido den Broeder @ Thu 6th May 2010, 11:40am)
Meanwhile, you place on the Public Speakers list and you meta user page are once again under siege (sigh).
It used to be that meta was a bit of a refuge, and a quite free place, frequented by many who understood the wiki vision and who supported and maintained it.
However, I noticed about two years ago that some meta administrators seemed to believe that they owned the place. Today, Abigor twice reverted the meta Public speakers list to a preferred version, once reverting Guido and then reverting IP (Kohs?), then full-protected it because of "edit warring."
Guido was preserving the status quo on that page from people who seemed to think that the Public Speaker page was for "speakers from the Foundation." The disclaimer standing on the page that contradicts that was added a few months ago by JzG, not exactly a supporter of Kohs, but JzG got it right that time.
On Wikipedia, that action by Abigor would be likely desysop, except for the reluctance of ArbComm to act against administrators who edit war with ordinary editors, it tends to consider the admin cabal to be "Wikipedia" and ordinary editors to be slaves, who are free to leave if they don't like it. On meta, Abigor didn't even discuss it. The Talk page has been quiet. The speaker page had likewise been quiet since March, when an IP removed Guido's name as "retired" and Guido restored that as "irrelevant," and certainly someone retired from an organization might often be an appropriate speaker about that.
In this case, Abigor
blocked Guido for supporting what had been a standing consensus for some time, as "trolling." Guido removed the notice as a "pa," i.e., a personal attack, which it was. Abigor reverted, and asked Guido not to remove the notice. Guido removed it. Butter on the popcorn, please!
Abigor shouldn't touch the Guido talk page with a ten-foot-pole, nor Guido, but he might. Now, do I warn him or does someone else? I'm watching the page now. Does the meta community tolerate administrative bullying? Abigor clearly had a content position here, and enforced it by protecting into favored version and blocking the editor he was reverting. This is on Abigor's meta talk page:
Some people will say I am the Great Duke of Hell, ruling 60 legions of demons, but that is only when you make me mad.Guido was mildly out of line, shouldn't have done that second revert without discussion, but Abigor is an admin and should know better. Someone should tell him. Or meta is toast as well. My guess at this point is that sensibility will prevail, Abigor will back down or at least stop acting, likely Kohs will be back on the speaker list. Or will we see the "60 legions of demons"?
I see, looking at the history of the Speaker list, that quite a few well-known Wikipedians supported Kohs' being listed, fairly recently. Abigor is acting against consensus, my guess, but one can never tell if the subterranean currents have shifted.
Hey, should I put my name on the speaker list? I'm currently in good standing on all the wikis, just some trifling topic bans on Wikipedia. I'm also an experienced public speaker.