I'm been running action research on how a blocked editor who is perceived as uncooperative is handled. I'm coming across excessive use of blocking, etc., technically incorrect, but that's common Wikipedia bullshit, nothing worth getting excited about with each incident, I'm just documenting this for long-term analysis.

However, I have seen one serious action that should properly raise immediate concern.

Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Misuse clearly prohibits, as a matter of policy, the use of the revision deletion tool for anything but serious problems in history. Block and ban enforcement, per se, are not in the list of situations allowing the use or RevDel.

Discussion of this tool, over implementing it, clearly disallowed its usage for ordinary ban enforcement. See also Wikipedia:Revision deletion/examples on this.

Kww, responding to a pair of self-reverted edits to Talk:Cold fusion, revision-deleted them in addition to blocking the IP. The sole reason given was "ban evasion." Contributions for the IP that made that edit show nothing, of course, because those were the only two edits. (One edit and one self-reversion).

I made those edits, and documented them immediately on a page that is tracking self-reverted edits and showing how the community responds to them. It would defeat my purpose if these edits were intrinsically disruptive. Any admin can verify that they were not such.

The block and ban enforcement here, though revision deletion, is purely punitive and does not protect the wiki in any way, it simply hides what is going on. It hasn't stopped me from editing at all, not even a hiccup. The only difference is that I'm now keeping copies of my edits as well.

Note: I don't mind this action, personally, the loss of the text is minor, though irritating. (Only because this was a very unexpected response.) If this stands, I will repeat the behavior elsewhere, seeing if revision deletion continues to be used, documenting it, because I know what the community thinks about this, when its consciousness is raised. I've used self-reversion to develop community consensus for the unban of a user who was highly controversial, much more than I.... Individual admins thought it was disruptive and eventually tried to stop it, but ... the involved WMF community rejected, in the end, those administrators, not the user and me.

I consider the information being developed useful, and intend -- and am prepared -- to continue far beyond the level of response that has been shown so far, should the admin community continue to escalate. Anyone who would like to follow this can watch the page linked above, and comment is welcome there on the Talk page. Yes, from those who oppose what I'm doing as well as those who might support it. Want me to stop, convince me that it's harmful. That probably won't be easy, but you could try. I'll listen.

The "admin community" is not a coherent group, which is part of the problem. Under some conditions, its collective behavior becomes the behavior of the worst and least qualified members, but the whole community is responsible for what it allows.