It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. WMC has been waving a big red flag in front of the community, daring it to block him, engaging in behavior that with any other editor, would have resulting in immediate warnings and blocks.

I've seen this before: an editor is popular with some segment of the community, and basically gets away with murder for years, sometimes. Once he was desysopped -- as a result of outrageous behavior that should have resulted in desysopping (or his agreement to stop) years earlier -- there was no more any particular reason for him to appear sane. As an admin, he could block editors he had disagreements with and then yawn and feign disinterest, letting others run interference; many times, there were AN reports and the like, and his cabal faction would pile in and prevent consensus from forming. I'd see 50-50 comments, but the cabal faction would then claim that he'd been "vindicated." Not.

He started out by raking ArbComm over the coals for daring to remind him that admins don't do what he'd been doing. He'd actually left them no choice, by blocking me in the middle of the case I'd filed over his claim that he could block me Whenever He Pleased.

Burned-out admins seem to develop some kind of death wish, and set up conditions to be removed from their misery. Since he wasn't otherwise banned, he still was tempted to do the same old same old, but just as an ordinary editor now. But it hasn't worked so far, he's still not banned.

He's been blocked, now, since the case was filed, twice. I predict more, he's obviously defiant, and he's been that way since the case close.

I find the unblock reason, September 11, 2009, of ‎(consensus at WP:AN suggests blocking admin was involved; block therefore inappropriate), to be fascinating. Claiming involvement of a blocking admin, with ordinary editors, never flies, and the cabal faction claimed again and again stuff like, "Well, okay, maybe he shouldn't have done it, but the community hasn't rejected the action itself." In theory, a claim of involvement should never, in itself, reverse an admin action, and I saw precedent for this again and again, and it's correct. However, a claim of involvement can and should allow unblock without it being considered wheel-warring, if supported by a discussion. Was it?

See discussion on the admin's talk page. The AN discussion was noted there by Short Brigade Harvester Boris, a common supporter of WMC. The discussion of the event on the admin talk page indicates strongly that the admin was not involved.

See the AN report..

At the time of the unblock, there had been agreement that the block was involved by Cla68, who later, on the talk page cited above, said it was an error, and Mr. Z-man. This was only a 12-hour block, and the unblock was not discussed with the blocking admin before being reversed. The report had been open less than an hour before JulianColton acted based on "agreement" there. Improper. So what else is new?

It was only a few days later that WMC was desysopped.

The latest drama is at General sanctions

He's also under an ArbComm sanction now against mentioning me on-wiki. ArbComm, in its typical myopia, hasn't looked at the real situation, WMC has not been the worst offender. I didn't ask for that sanction, ArbComm has this tendency to assume that any dispute is personal, and has a great reluctance to address obvious factional problems, no matter how bad and how obvious they become.

That's because such problems are difficult, and they are volunteers, and don't have the support they'd need to handle it. I suggested how they could get that support, but they apparently imagine that I do this to gain some personal advantage, and if they just control my behavior, everything will be peachy keen. Not. So they neglect the advice and then wonder why the same problems keep coming back.... Okay, let's now ban this editor, maybe that will fix it. Nope? Must be another problem editor, how about this one?

The situation is getting worse, much worse, rapidly. I'll post about that elsewhere.

This post has been edited by Abd: