AE admins set a new record for stupidity Options

[radek]

The subject itself is a bit parochial, but it does illustrate the incompetent workings of the Wikipedia admin bureaucracy and the sham that the whole "Arbitration Enforcement" and "discretionary sanctions" regime is. It's also of the "beat your head against the wall with incredulity" kind.

So the article is "Mass Killings Under Communism". Whatever you or I think about the article itself is beside the point here (honestly, I don't care about the article at this point one way or another). The thing is that the article has been contentious ever since I can remember. The exact people involved have changed but it's same ol' same ol'. As a result the article is on a 1R restriction (which is reasonable).

Anyway, so two editors, Tentontunic, and The Four Deuces were editing warring over a POV tag. TFD filed an AE request on Tentontunic for 1RR violation (standard tactic, when there's "discretionary sanctions" around as a weapon). Tentontunic pointed out that TFD did the same thing. Sounds pretty standard, right?

But what the geniuses at AE decided is that Tentontunic and TFD be let of without any kind of sanction, but that instead any editor who has ever been part of a Eastern Europe related ArbCom case (Digwuren, EEML, RB) is topic banned from the article. You know, to stop the perennial problems at the article.

Here's the thing. Aside from TFD, (and one other possible minor exception), NO EDITORS from these ArbCom cases have edited the article at ALL in the past six months, if not a year, if at all.

So the two culprits are let off with nary a warning while a whole bunch of people who don't have crap to do with this mess are all of sudden under sanction, courtesy of Sandstein, Ed Johnson, AGK and T. Canens. You'd think at least one of those four wouldn't be too lazy to actually click on the article's revision history and think about it for a second.

Of course, since most of the editors now sanctioned don't edit the article anyway, maybe the practical implications are small, in this narrow sense. Still even if you don't care about the principle, and fairness, here, then just consider the fact that these guys seriously believe that banning editors from an article that the editors don't edit will somehow solve the problems on the articles. You know, with pixie dust or something.

Of course the practical implications in a broad sense are more severe - stupid decisions like this one become the standard operating procedure on Wikipedia, they are unquestioned, they implicitly transfer power to a group of self appointed ... trying to think of an adjective here that is not too harsh yet appropriate and can't think of one, oh well at least I tried ... creeps (who don't even do much article/content writing themselves) and generally foster the prevailing atmosphere of admin incompetence combined with hubris.

Here's exchange at Sandstein's talk page. Here's article's revision history.

[EricBarbour]

Can I slap an arbitrary sanction on you, because for example, there is some shenanigans going on Northern Italy related topics, and then say, oh well, we can just wait a year and then if it looks like it didn't work I might, just might admit that this sanction was misplaced? Until then...
And what ended the trouble at London Victory Parade was not your sanction but ONE particular editor's topic ban.
Above all, I note that you have completely ignored my question - perhaps because answering it may be a bit embarrassing. So let me repeat it: can you specifically point/list these supposed previously sanctioned editors, who were part of the three ArbCom cases you include in your sanction, who did something wrong on the article at any point in the past year or so (aside from TFD)? Or hell, can you even specifically point/list such editors who EDITED THE ARTICLE AT ALL???Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Igny (talk · contribs), Petri Krohn (talk · contribs), Marknutley (talk · contribs), and that's only on the first few history pages and only usernames that I personally recognize as previously sanctioned. It is true that the group of previous edit warriors on this article and the group of previously sanctioned editors overlap only partially, but if (as you say) many of the latter have not so far edited the article, then banning them from it will not restrict them very much. Sandstein 23:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

None of these guys except for Petri were part of these cases. I'm assuming then that you're including anyone who's ever been "put on notice". Even so, Mark Nutley is currently banned anyway, I think Igny has only made one or two edits (and I wasn't aware he was "put on notice") and even Petri hasn't edited the article in awhile. Even allowing that, that still leaves a couple dozen editors who have nothing to do with the article. Is this like "it's better to punish a hundred innocent men than let one guilty one get away"? Oh wait, Tentontunic is not subject to any sanction so some of the guilty get away too. And as I already said the fact that these editors "have not so far edited the article, then banning them from it will not restrict them very much." is beside the point. There's a principle here, there's a notion of fairness and there is also implications for the general atmosphere in which Wikipedia takes place - the decision says it's okay to sanction editors for no reason at all. That's the kind of project we want here?Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:25, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like classic Sandstein to me.....Petri Krohn and Mark Nutley have nothing to do with that dispute,
he's doing the usual Sandstein bit, grabbing random Arbcom cases that "might" be related, and using them as strawmen.

Seriously, you're wasting your time arguing with him.

[radek]

Sounds like classic Sandstein to me.....Petri Krohn and Mark Nutley have nothing to do with that dispute,
he's doing the usual Sandstein bit, grabbing random Arbcom cases that "might" be related, and using them as strawmen.

Seriously, you're wasting your time arguing with him.

Yes, but usually Sandstein (and the others too, don't let him overshadow the other ones) grabs a random Arbcom case that "might" be related and uses it as a strawmen to ban the editor involved in the actual request.

Here he's grabbing a random Arbcom case that "might" be related and uses it as a strawmen to ban completely uninvolved editors. That's what I mean by the "sets a new record" topic title - even by the usual standards it's an obnoxious abuse of power and a particularly dull way of trying to "solve" a problem.