Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
_ Editors _ Week-Long Block, No Warning
Posted by: jd turk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#I_have_blocked_Para_and_Crum375_for_edit_warring_on_Brown_Dog_affair
Seems like Viridae just locked this one down without a lot of warning. Crum only had three edits to the page in the last four days (and looked like he was also posting to the talk page), and he got slapped down for a week.
Posted by: Viridae
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
Posted by: Proabivouac
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
Crum's block log for previous edit warring is unconvincing - one dates to 2006, and the other would have better been characterized as principled but misguided disruption. It seems probable that someone will reduce the block to the same 48 hours that Para received.
Posted by: Gold heart
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
Crum's block log for previous edit warring is unconvincing - one dates to 2006, and the other would have better been characterized as principled but misguided disruption. It seems probable that someone will reduce the block to the same 48 hours that Para received.
Blocks shouldn't be done on a whim, as they add to editors "block logs", and then they are cited again and again months, and even years afterwards. A bit like a "bad record".
Talk about "giving a dog a bad name"! Ugh!
Posted by: Viridae
Hardly a whim...
Can this be appropriately merged please.
Posted by: jd turk
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
No, I did. It's still not enough evidence to block him for a week with no warning, especially when he hadn't edited the page in ten hours, and just three times in the last four days. If blocking is only used for protection and not punishment, it seems a simple warning would have sufficed (even though both editors were familiar with the concept).
Posted by: Gold heart
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
Crum's block log for previous edit warring is unconvincing - one dates to 2006, and the other would have better been characterized as principled but misguided disruption. It seems probable that someone will reduce the block to the same 48 hours that Para received.
Blocks shouldn't be done on a whim, as they add to editors "block logs", and then they are cited again and again months, and even years afterwards. A bit like a "bad record".
Talk about "giving a dog a bad name"! Ugh!
Hardly a whim...
Can this be appropriately merged please.
Just generalising. Couldn't resist the pun.
Posted by: Viridae
Did you notice the revert by crum going back nearly a month perchance??? NO I thought you didn't. He most definitely knew what he was doing.
No, I did. It's still not enough evidence to block him for a week with no warning, especially when he hadn't edited the page in ten hours, and just three times in the last four days. If blocking is only used for protection and not punishment, it seems a simple warning would have sufficed (even though both editors were familiar with the concept).
He had reverted warred for nearly a month, against 4 different people, citing a talk page consensus that didn't exist? A warning shouldnt be required to tell an established editor that they are way out of line.
Posted by: Aloft
x-posted, sorry
For the people saying that Viridae should have warned first, check out this diff from Crum concerning this very situation, with the edit summary of "no need for warning for experienced editors"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR&diff=prev&oldid=224250230
This was in the 3RR report for Para a few days ago. So there you go, Crum himself has said that a warning isn't necessary.
Posted by: jd turk
He had reverted warred for nearly a month, against 4 different people, citing a talk page consensus that didn't exist? A warning shouldnt be required to tell an established editor that they are way out of line.
Likewise, a week-long block against an established editor shouldn't just come out of the blue.
You say this wasn't on a whim, but how else would you describe it? It doesn't seem like you were on this article trying to help establish consensus or trying to sort through things, it looks like you just surfed on and blocked both sides with no warning and no discussion, even though the debate wasn't even active.
This was in the 3RR report for Para a few days ago. So there you go, Crum himself has said that a warning isn't necessary.
I'll agree with both of you, a warning isn't necessary. However, it seems like a courtesy to issue a warning to both editors in a cold edit war before slamming the door on them for multiple days. If this is such a big deal and has been a huge problem for a month, why did it get this far?
Just looks bad, that's all I'm sayin'.
Posted by: Viridae
He had reverted warred for nearly a month, against 4 different people, citing a talk page consensus that didn't exist? A warning shouldnt be required to tell an established editor that they are way out of line.
Likewise, a week-long block against an established editor shouldn't just come out of the blue.
You say this wasn't on a whim, but how else would you describe it? It doesn't seem like you were on this article trying to help establish consensus or trying to sort through things, it looks like you just surfed on and blocked both sides with no warning and no discussion, even though the debate wasn't even active.
This was in the 3RR report for Para a few days ago. So there you go, Crum himself has said that a warning isn't necessary.
I'll agree with both of you, a warning isn't necessary. However, it seems like a courtesy to issue a warning to both editors in a cold edit war before slamming the door on them for multiple days. If this is such a big deal and has been a huge problem for a month, why did it get this far?
Just looks bad, that's all I'm sayin'.
How is a block out of the blue when it follows a month of edit warring?
Posted by: jd turk
How is a block out of the blue when it follows a month of edit warring?
If I may ask, how did you find this edit war, just for future reference?
It seems that Crum has made more than a few edits to the talk page in that month, which seems to me to be showing good faith. You say he was making edits based on what he thought/said was the consensus. I don't think a week-long block on somebody who was discussing things on the talk page is appropriate, not without at least discussing where their pattern of editing is violating policy. Discuss, gain consensus, make changes. That seems to be what he was trying to do, or at least was trying to give the illusion of doing. Either way, it seems like it deserves more than just a drive-by week-long block.
In all fairness, I haven't looked at the edits for Para. It was just the length of the block on Crum that stood out to me.
Posted by: Aloft
He knew better, he did it anyway, and his actions over the past month clearly indicated that he wasn't going to stop until someone stepped in and prevented him from doing it again.
Posted by: jd turk
He knew better, he did it anyway, and his actions over the past month clearly indicated that he wasn't going to stop until someone stepped in and prevented him from doing it again.
Bang. That's Wikipedia Justice. Some scofflaw was talking things over and it didn't seem like he was getting the message, so rather than discuss it, you just drop a week-long ban on a longtime editor.
I thought blocks were to protect, and not to punish. A page protection or a 1RR notice could have served the same purpose, couldn't it? Just curious.
Posted by: Viridae
He knew better, he did it anyway, and his actions over the past month clearly indicated that he wasn't going to stop until someone stepped in and prevented him from doing it again.
Bang. That's Wikipedia Justice. Some scofflaw was talking things over and it didn't seem like he was getting the message, so rather than discuss it, you just drop a week-long ban on a longtime editor.
I thought blocks were to protect, and not to punish. A page protection or a 1RR notice could have served the same purpose, couldn't it? Just curious.
Page protection removes the ability of everyone else to edit the page as well. The blocks are protectionist and the length of time is based on the length of time spent edit warring on the article as well as the knowledge that they are both experience users and should have known better.
Posted by: jd turk
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=next&oldid=225155133
Three and a half hours of unproductive discussion later, both blocks are lifted.
Posted by: Aloft
Reverting to begin again shortly.
Posted by: jd turk
Reverting to begin again shortly.
The good faith assumed here is overwhelming.
Posted by: Aloft
Why would I assume good faith?
Posted by: gomi
Reverting to begin again shortly.
The good faith assumed here is overwhelming.
Wikipedia's "Assume Good Faith" rubric is one of the more ridiculous charades in the place. We are not bound by it here.
If we had a silly set of useless rules, ours would likely be something like "Assume Reality" -- obviously not a sentiment that would travel far on WP.
Posted by: jd turk
Wikipedia's "Assume Good Faith" rubric is one of the more ridiculous charades in the place. We are not bound by it here.
If we had a silly set of useless rules, ours would likely be something like "Assume Reality" -- obviously not a sentiment that would travel far on WP.
Agreed, if you have to give an IP editor four warnings before you can block him for replacing articles with the word "poop," good faith is a stretch.
As for assuming reality, the reality is that the block was a bad one and reversed by a comfortable consensus. The two editors have now been warned and anything approaching an edit war will probably be taken care of quickly by previously uninvolved admins...which is what should have happened in the beginning.
It would have saved a lot of drama, which is apparently still going on several hours after the blocks were reversed.
Posted by: gomi
The reality is that Crummy, as one of SlimeVirgin's posse, is immune from meaningful sanctions on Wikipedia because of pervasive, systemic corruption.
Posted by: jd turk
The reality is that Crummy, as one of SlimeVirgin's posse, is immune from meaningful sanctions on Wikipedia because of pervasive, systemic corruption.
Oh. Glad I asked. I figured it was something simple like that, rather than it being a bad block.
Just for future reference, I have no dog in this fight and don't care to. I don't know who WR loves and who WR hates, and it doesn't really matter to me. I was just pointing out the situation on ANI here for discussion, since WR has a much better perspective on things sometimes than WP.
Posted by: The Joy
MONGO and friends are not happy with you, Viridae. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DHeyward#Viridae
I hope you're not trying to commit wiki-seppuku. 
Posted by: Aloft
MONGO and friends are not happy with you, Viridae.
Posted by: maggot3
iirc wikimapia is strongly discouraged according to wp:el, as its copyright status is dubious, at least according to what sfan00 told me - hence his removal of the link several times. i love crum375's "please stop warring" while warring himself.
Posted by: dogbiscuit
Just to note that Crum's only interest in this article will be as a proxy for SlimVirgin, who authored most of it as part of her long term aim of getting animal rights fully documented. Crum is quite happy to take the heat for this, and it is not an isolated incident. It would be stupid to ignore his abusive behaviour, and I agree that any administrator should need no warning whatsoever for edit warring.
It was not for nothing that Crum got the tag team of the year award 2007. What is therefore more depressing is that other admins pretend to have no knowledge of Crum's abusive behaviour, even when carefully documented in ArbCom proceedings.
Posted by: that one guy
MONGO and friends are not happy with you, Viridae.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DHeyward#Viridae
I hope you're not trying to commit wiki-seppuku.
DHeyward:Mongo::Crum:Slimvirgin (or for those of you who didn't do wordmasters, DHeyward and Mongo are like Crum and SV, practical meat puppets).
Dogbiscuit: I'm sure more admins than you think are aware of it. They're just too chickenshit to do anything about it because they know SV and crew will dig up every piece of little evidence against them, toss it around off wiki, then send it all to arbcom and open up a case.
Posted by: guy
It doesn't seem like you were on this article trying to help establish consensus or trying to sort through things, it looks like you just surfed on and blocked both sides with no warning and no discussion
Ah, but had he been involved in the discussions and then blocked, theree would have been a claim of CoI.
Posted by: Moulton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DHeyward#Viridae
I hope you're not trying to commit wiki-seppuku.
I am really puzzled by this guy. --MONGO
Ooh! Perplexity! An emotional state I can empathize with.
Posted by: Abd
Well, this is really old. I was just looking up some information from meta, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO in the MONGO RfAr, and saw many of the familiar names. That was 2006, before I became aware of the mainstage Dramaz. Rootology, at that point, was not an administrator, and reading the RfAr, I'm struck by how lightly ArbComm took MONGO's actions, and how heavily they sanctioned Rootology, nothing is presented as evidence (in the findings) supporting the drastic remedy they applied. This looks quite like the drastic preference shown for administrators that I later saw. MONGO, the day after the case closed, used his tools to protect the ED page from re-creation, I can imagine him doing a little victory dance.
Mongo is still editing, for better or worse.
Rootology came back, after that indef ArbComm site ban, and became an administrator, then retired, and the timing of that might be related to my own RfAr, Abd-William M. Connolley, because WMC -- who had been involved in the original ED mess and the MONGO RfAr -- revert warred with him over what should have been a routine notification of Hipocrite re my RfAr. No clerk lifted a finger over that, so I'm guessing that it was a kind of last straw for him. Or it was completely unrelated, he'd just had enough.
Posted by: Milton Roe
Well, this is really old. I was just looking up some information from meta, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO in the
NECROTHREAD
Posted by: Abd
The thread is very old. I decided not to start a new one. This really wasn't about MONGO, though. Not now, not then.