Cla68 blocked, Cla68:trolling for incompetent administrators? Options

[Abd]

block review request on AN

So TP (that's a common Americanism for "toilet paper") becomes involved in a dispute with Cla68, and then blocks him. To his credit, it's only a 24 hour block, and he does ask for review. However, given that the discussion was taking place with wide attention, and that it wasn't an emergency, he'd have done far better to merely bring the matter up as a request for neutral review and action.

Too many admins simply don't get recusal policy, and one reason is that the "community" has heavily resisted clarifying it. It could be made quite clear, while still allowing emergency action in spite of a recusal obligation. I tried to establish this at Wikiversity, and it was resisted there, even though the Wikiversity environment is usually less toxic.

Recusal should be required whenever an appearance of involvement will exist for a reasonable observer, and I've claimed that a user claiming bias would be adequate, normally. Exceptions would exist and could be documented. Being involved in a content dispute is obviously involvement, though, with blocking being a means of "winning" the content dispute.

And then any admin could still act in the presence of a recusal requirement, by declaring an emergency, i.e., that harm would ensue if no action is taken. This would then require that the admin recuse from further action in the matter, establish the block reason by evidence, and turn the matter over to the administrative community. Claiming an emergency when there is no emergency, per later judgment, would be an error, and if this became common, there would be grounds for desysopping. But ordinary error, following proper procedure, wouldn't be such grounds.

Cla68 does seem to have been a tad insistent. I never resisted collapsing discussions of mine, provided that the summary was fair. I haven't looked at the situation, it does seem that Cla68 attempted to place a summary, and TP revert warred on that. It would have been far better to negotiate a fair summary. Instead TP insisted on My Way or the Highway.

Incompetent administrator. So new? Next case....

[Peter Damian]

Cla68 does seem to have been a tad insistent. I never resisted collapsing discussions of mine, provided that the summary was fair.

This was where the administrator was trying to suppress a complaint about personal attacks on Cla68. Cla68 presented the evidence about these attacks, which were promptly 'hatted' i.e. hidden from view by the administrator. When Cla tried to reveal these again, he was blocked. Information wants to be free.

[Abd]

Cla68 does seem to have been a tad insistent. I never resisted collapsing discussions of mine, provided that the summary was fair.

This was where the administrator was trying to suppress a complaint about personal attacks on Cla68. Cla68 presented the evidence about these attacks, which were promptly 'hatted' i.e. hidden from view by the administrator. When Cla tried to reveal these again, he was blocked. Information wants to be free.

Okay, I'll look more closely at this.

I've reviewed the hatting incident, and TParis' action was outrageous. He hatted a discussion and summarized it with a biased summary. He revert warred with Cla68, removing Cla68's summary -- which was a neutral summary, in fact, as "disruptive editing." He wrote, When a discussion is hatted, you don't summarize your statements outside the hat.) Actually, editors may, and only if the summary is itself offensive would it be a problem, and the problem wouldn't be that it summarized "outside the hat," as long as it was brief, and Cla68's summary was brief. Here it is:

*In summary, in the hatted discussion above, I alleged that '''Russavia, Prioryman, Shrigley, Matty the Damned, Bluerasberry, Secret, Exok, AniMate, Wnt, FeydHuxtable, Fluffernutter, and WereSpielChequers''' violated [[WP:NPA]] for personal and/or ''ad hominem'' attacks, including unsupported accusations of homophobia and harassment, related to this RfC. [[User:Cla68|Cla68]] ([[User talk:Cla68|talk]]) 00:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That is a totally neutral summary. I think that Cla68 was nonplussed by TP's actions, but he did not revert war, rather he attempted to compromise, at least at first.

I am asserting no judgment as to whether or not Cla68's accusations were cogent. I have not seen any of them that rose to a level of personal attack that would result in a block, however. His claims that the other editors had engaged in attacks seems weak to me, as to some of them. However, some of the alleged attacks make sweeping statements that can be taken as attacks, and Wikipedia has never nailed any of this down.

"False claim of a personal attack is a personal attack" is a poor principle to assert, however. If a user feels that they, or someone else, has been personally attacked, they might be wrong, but it could be important for them to find out, by discussing it. What is reprehensible is a bad-faith claim of personal attack, and, on another level, a claim that is so divorced from reality that it's disruptive even if the user believes it.

It would be malicious claims, not merely claims in error; and the problem with using "error" as a standard is that this can be highly subjective and a claimant may, in fact, know more than someone else making a superficial judgment of the claim of personal attack. Personal attacks can often be disguised with words that will be interpreted by the general public as innocuous, but which are inflammatory to the target.

All of this is a distraction from the basic issue in the RfC. That doesn't mean it's not important. False claims of homophobia are offensive, just as actual homophobia is offensive, and I'm not sure which is worse, it depends on context.

The issue for Fae is not his alleged sexual preferences, by themselves, that's a red herring. It's his activities on-wiki and in connected ways, combined with his role as a public face for Wikipedia, through the chapter, that are problems. A separate problem is the issue of RfAs with concealed prior accounts. That, though, isn't his fault, it's structural and with ArbComm. How can the community make a decision on trust if prior behavior is concealed. It's like the Poetlister RfA at Wikisource, was it? I get confused with the Wikiquote sequence. Solid editing history, a shoo-in. Until a functionary violated confidentiality and pushed, and it all came unglued.

(Part of the problem is supermajority requirement for approval.... combined with no term limit. Sane process: lower approval, maybe much lower, with easy suspension.)

TP's original summary wasn't neutral at all, it was, in fact, an argument. His subsequent actions attempted to hide a neutral summary, which was offensive. Basically, he was insisting on showing his opinion and judgment, while hiding the neutral summary of Cla68. If Cla68 had asserted the charges, as assertions of charges, i.e., claims about the editors, outside the collapse, the matter might have been different. But he did not. He merely stated that he'd made allegations. Given that the same admin, TP, then repeated on AN that Cla68 had made allegations, and that, necessarily, people were then going to look at them, his action was totally silly. His hatting, maybe okay. His non-neutral summary, not okay, he's basically making a comment in a debate then hiding everything but his comment. His revert warring over Cla68's attempt to place a neutral summary outside the hat, he should have been warned and blocked if he continued. And his block, then, of Cla68 would be grounds for desysopping, I've seen desysopping for less.

As I often argued before ArbComm, if he acknowledges the error, and unless this has been a pattern, he should not be desysopped. What ArbComm often did, though, even when finding abuse, was to simply assume that reprimanding the admin was enough, they never bothered to find if the admin actually got the problem, so it's been no surprise that these admins then repeat the behavior, and it can take years to come around to another opportunity to address it.

I argued that on seeing a prima facie case of admin abuse, ArbComm should immediately restrict the administrator, enjoining use of tools except in emergencies or for clearly useful actions, however they need to state the restriction. If the administrator does not cooperate, then, tools should be removed immediately. This is entirely separate from running a case, this would be an injunction issued, as courts normally issue injunctions. It does not prejudge the case. Normally, an admin would cooperate and there would be no need for emergency desysopping. Indeed, I didn't seek desysopping in cases I was involved in, as I recall. What I sought was recognition of recusal failure, by the admin. ArbComm, for JzG, thought that would be "humiliating." They have very strange priorities.

Cla68 was right on.l

This was Cla68's last edit before block. He was not repeating prior content, per se. TP was repetitively asserting the same edit, without change or compromise, clearly revert warring. This was the last version:

In the section below, I listed editors, with diffs, who I felt violated [[WP:NPA]] during the course of this RfC. Some disagree that the examples constituted violations of NPA. I stand firm in my opinion, however, that the diffs show ''ad hominem'' attacks which I consider to be violations of NPA. The editors I had listed, with supporting diffs, include: '''Russavia, Prioryman, Shrigley, Matty the Damned, Bluerasberry, Secret, Exok, AniMate, Wnt, FeydHuxtable, Fluffernutter, and WereSpielChequers'''. [[User:Cla68|Cla68]] ([[User talk:Cla68|talk]]) 04:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

TP reverted this neutral summary as "disruption." (It's neutral because part of it is directly verifiable, and part is attributed opinion. Note: he could be correct even if many of the diff'd edits do not show personal attacks, he would literally be correct -- in his opinion -- if only two showed NPA violations.

Sure. "Disruption." Disruption of TP's agenda. TP may not have given weight to the fact that many other editors were watching that page, and nobody else was joining him in reverting Cla68. Every revert warrior believes that they are right, but doesn't understand when to back off and use DR process.

TP is incompetent and, unless he gets what he did, dangerous as an administrator. This is what he'll do with so many watching, what will he do when he's not being watched?

It often happened that when an admin finally did his thing with an editor who was connected, and a desysopping case was filed, later review showed abusive activity that had escaped notice. A user is blocked, say for a moderate period, responds with anger, which is a normal response to being blocked, especially a newbie who thinks he or she is right, so the same admin then indefs and removes talk page access, based on personal attack.

This was clear recusal failure.