QUOTE(Adrignola @ Sun 8th August 2010, 7:07pm)
For those interested, Mike.lifeguard has
posted a response (as well as JWSchmdt).
Okay, this is what a local editor with cojones will do: Warn Mike.Lifeguard for incivility based on the "troll" comment. It's blatant, and it is inconsistent -- and disruptive -- to allow privileged users to be uncivil while demanding it of ordinary users.
And if anyone warned of incivility disregards the warning, they should be short blocked (at first) just like anyone else will be, by a neutral sysop. They do have the technical ability to unblock themselves, but that is widely recognized as abuse. These things test the system, they are not POINT violations, because they are amply justified by policy.
Jimbo short-blocked Bishonen for incivility on Wikipedia, and I was cheering, even though I like Bishonen. It is extremely dangerous to allow anyone to be "above the law." What ensued displayed how much Bishonen believed herself to be a "vested contributor," a concept that is long-term extremely destructive. Jimbo himself should have been warned when he called users "trolls."
It is not a useless exercise, it will establish precedent. My personal guess is that if Jimbo were warned about specific incivility, he would heed the warning and not repeat it. If he repeated it and was short-blocked, there is a good chance he'd respect the block, thus establishing clear leadership for others to follow. He was once blocked for disregard of consensus on Wikipedia. It was very short, one second, I think, but a point was made. He did nothing to retaliate, he didn't even mention it (he could have done better, but he certainly didn't do badly with this). Bishonen, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder, which saddened me. She missed such an opportunity. She could have said, "Thanks for pointing out that I'd become angry and was uncivil." It would have been a victory for everyone, including herself. But she did not. She had not even experienced the block, I think it was two hours while she slept. No, it was the Very Idea, that She, the Very Center of the Wikiverse, might have to follow standards set for ordinary mortals.
And, of course, this is the situation on Wikiversity with Ottava, who came unglued when I blocked him for two hours for blatant incivility. And who then again came unglued when Jtneill, the most active Wikiversity bureaucrat, finally got around to examining the history of this affair, confirmed that the block was within my custodial discretion, and proceeded to again warn Ottava himself. Ottava immediately filed a Community Review on Jtneill, over three other BS complaints, it was blatantly retaliation. Ottava somehow thinks that Wikiversitiy would never dare desysop him; after all, the place would fall apart without his rejection of trolls and disruptive users and out-of-process deletions. He doesn't seem to notice that his actions are not being approved, that users are rejecting them, that he has practically no support. Hence, I think, I'm looking at maybe two weeks for what has become an inevitable Community Review, based on Ottava's failure to respond to the Custodian feedback report over the first mess, his out-of-process desysop request on me at meta. (He didn't mention that I'd blocked him, and he told the stewards that the request was merely routine, which was totally bogus, it was far from routine. There was routine practice described in policy which he was bypassing. He was my mentor, and thus he could request desysop if he withdrew his support, but only after giving me 48 hours to find another mentor, policy was explicit on this.)