QUOTE(trenton @ Sat 7th August 2010, 11:12pm)
I'd be curious to know how Mr. Jyothis got involved (suckered?) into this situation. Was one of Jimbeau's minions whispering in his ear, or was there some sort of official decree from the lord master himself...
I wouldn't make a big deal out of it. What to do about this depends on the local situation at various wikis. If a WMF wiki has explicitly unblocked Thekohser or an acknowledged Thekohser sock, with a showing of consensus, there are then grounds to go to meta and request any relevant global locks be lifted. And to squawk if it isn't done. The consensus in early May was to allow the local wikis to make the decision, and the global lock on Thekohser was lifted, with various stewards going around to the individual wikis and setting local blocks, which local admins could then undo, I suppose if they dared. With local consensus and no clear guidance from the Foundation to the contrary, it should be safe. This was merely setting a global "default" condition, not attempting to rob local wikis of discretion.
But May 30, Mike.lifeguard reinstated the global lock based on "discussions." I asked him what discussions. He didn't specify. So I consider that the global lock is weak, basically the opinion of a small number of stewards, getting away with it because they can get away with it until it is confronted with a real local consensus.
At Wikiversity, I predict local consensus to unblock Thekohser in short order. There is too much obvious and good evidence to show it's proper and safe. It hasn't happened yet because of the current flap over Ottava Rima and, to a lesser extent, Adambro. Adambro is simply demanding a local consensus first, which he will get when the process has been set up. I can only do so much at a time. If someone wants to help ... SB_Johnny, you could get your tools back in a flash. You would not be obligated to do much of anything, but you could be a great help in resolving the issues there. It would take practically no work. (If someone raises a great flap, let them raise a great flap, they will just show their colors all the more, hastening the day....)
By the way, I've written policy that would have prohibited you from reversing Jimbo, explicitly, without first having a local consensus. I don't think that the events with you really had much effect, but a due-process approach might have resolved the problems much more rapidly. Jimbo isn't coming back, I'm sure, but stewards might still show up if we don't keep our neighborhood clean. "Clean" means that ethical standards are established and followed, when, say, WMF wikis and the activities of users are studied. And whatever can't be studied locally under those standards, necessary to keep the WMF family of wikis from fighting with each other, there is always netknowledge, which should have its own standards that don't have to consider the ownership by the WMF.