I like to start a survey on who is the worst Wikipedian admin.

I will start the list with my good friend

Gamaliel (T-C-L-K-R-D) , as well as Ryulong (T-C-L-K-R-D)

This should a list of the bad actors of Wikipedia. The world should
know their names.

Ryanpostlethwaite

How are we defining "worst" here? The one I most dislike, the most incompetent, the most abusive ...

All of the above. I consider abusive a prime trait.

Abusive is in the eye of the beholder. I'm far happier with a tell-it-like-it-is admin like Tan39 than I am with the creepy Chillum, for instance.

seconded. and I'll add georgewillaimherbert

They're all irritating fucktards, it's just a question of degree.

The problem with this post is that I haven't been an admin for nearly a year now.

So clearly Joe's logic is as flawed as his grammar on this site.

I also fully expect a response to this post by Joe to include this bad grammar that I describe as well as some sort of image or YouTube video which he feels will make his point moreso than the vitriolic prose that he'll accompany it with.

On the other websites I visit, this previous statement would usually be prefaced with "inb4".

But that doesn't mean you don't suck. Still.

Oh noes. You have brought up a thread I started in which I ask for assistance in stoping a vandal who has access to dynamic IP address assignment. However shall I defend myself or make some sort of smart retort on the frivolity of your discovery?

Oh wait.

Ah, Ryulong. You've got to admit, you did make some curious decisions in your admin days. Remember the time you were blocking accounts that hadn't been making a sufficient number of mainspace edits, and then you just happened to (unwittingly) do it to an admin, leading you to profusely apologize? That was some pretty funny stuff. And how did you end up losing adminship, anyway?

I feel obliged to point out that the WP:DICK of Distinction award pageant, recently completed for 2009, is focused precisely on this issue.

Vis. Ryulong's lack of a current bit, I wonder whether the question is recent abuse of power, or total, lpng-term damage. I would argue that for all-time damage and abusiveness, Jayjg (T-C-L-K-R-D) 's combination of abuse of power with propaganda-pushing makes him a leading candidate, even though he's barely used his bit in the last year and is now banned from his domain of interest.

At a certain point, this becomes like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The array of admin abuses at Wikipedia is a never-ending source of wonder, a kaleidoscopic display of all that is venal and treacherous in human interaction. Once a year, with the DICK of Distinction awards, we attempt to take a sort of snapshot out of the continual flux of admin abuse, but we should not assume that we have captured the true essence of what can only be properly conceived as a truly transcendent pile of dog shit.

Jayjg, hands fucking down. Though he is now banned from his primary arena.

And your you have a bad heart and soul... Your a sociopath.



The issue of "Dick" ves "worst" I think there is a difference.

And you do not disappoint. Except for the lack of a relevant image and/or song on YouTube.

That, coming from a gutless little man child, I consider that a compliment.

VoC rants and raves about Gamaliel, but he also rants and raves about Obama. My primitive heuristics cannot determine how I should process this information.

VoC, are you a chemist?

Is it necessary to be an administrator to be nominated? Because, Bro Tark, I would be happy to nominate you for the dick of the year. I am sure you have done as much as any WP editor to earn it.

But, if everyone just nominates the editors who got in his/her way, it becomes a political vote that has only marginal meaning for WP. In fact, it seems to me that the whole idea just feeds the problem of WP as a political battleground.

Your previous strenuous defense of Jayjg during the case where he was stripped of his OV, CU and access to the functionaries mailing list is hereby noted.

I argued against arbcom topic banning anyone from the group of articles under question, no matter which side of the issues they were on. I still feel that topic banning of those editors was a mistake. I also argued that removing Jayjg's oversight and checkuser privileges was irrational because there was not even an accusation that he had misused them.

You have to admit, that's a better rejoinder than some of the ones Mr. Ryulong made while he was still an admin. More evidence that disengagement from Wikipedia improves personal wit and intelligence!

Still, the image had a misspelling in it that didn't appear to be intentional...

There is something to be said for that vote. He should go up for the coveted DICK award.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...Requests.2FCase

The humanity of his typical posts....



Isn't he sweet?

The dop-addict 'Chillum '. I cannot believe how anyone can behave like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history

I leave a message on a friend's page, and this c-nt reverts it (at least Paul August decently reverted back).

Postlethwaite also deserves a prize.

Unbelievable.

Yeah, he's clearly playing favorites there.


Your well-poisoning abuse of the passive voice is hereby noted.


Apparently he misused them by edit-warring and joking about beer (which exists distinctly from the aforepoisoned באר). Yes, that's B-E-E-R as in Ice Cold Beer (which, in middle America, tastes much like Sweet Blue Water apart from the carbonation).

But, how hard could it have been to cite a specific incident or two and give the community some general fucking idea which abuses of checkuser/oversight access (or accumulations thereof) are actual grounds for removal?

Arbcom has already established that disclosing a user's (ehh…) non-standard browser configuration during an RFA is not on one of them. Neither is discovering a user's various former accounts, revealing these to one's spouse (even when one's spouse was is active WP editor), and somehow using it as a pre-text to checkuser unrelated users who are not among said former accounts.

Some of us would like to know how arbcom actually decides things like this, yet they refuse to answer straightforwardly, instead feeding us a bunch of bullshit about decorum and certain edits being "within permissible bounds for an admin, but not for a functionary".

My best understanding currently is that Chillum is in favor of letting edits by a sock puppet to a main space article stand, while reverting edits made by the same sock puppet to other editors' Talk Pages. His (or her) grounds for the latter is that the edits were made by a banned editor, and banned editors can't edit. Unless they are improving a main space article, of course.

I wasn't the one to add the text to the image in the first place, so I cannot be held for that error.

Perhaps not amongst the on-Wiki Admin caste.

IMHO, anyone who is such an obviously driven POV-warrior should also be de-sysopped and put on an even footing with the WikiPeons whom he is prone to abuse.

The term "Worst" does indeed need to be defined.
Worst in abuse? Corruption? People skills? Perverting the general goals and mission of WP to their own ends?
Worst currently or ever?
Does King James count? He is an admin, after all.
And he also played a major role in fostering the festering culture of the adminion corp(se).

If you mean admins I personally dislike, well that is a long and growing list that includes many of the usual suspects.

For me at the moment it is TenofallTrades - a truly miserable all-round git, and FencesandWindows - just a typical helpyourbuddy/maimtheeditor/refusetoaknowledgehim git - but a particularly obnoxious example.

Stifle always seems to pop up being unimpressive.

Admin are so bad at the moment this thread could really inflate. Some may have good points - but who cares? I honestly don't think the system will last the year. Something's got to give.

Chillum is an idiot. His opinion is worth spit.

Compared to four or five years ago, the system works beautifully and admins are acting like veritable saints. There is a sense of rules, fairness, and responsibility that simply did not exist several years ago, around the time this forum was set up. Abusive admins actually feel community pressure now, and the ArbCom will actually take action now. Yeah, TenOfAllTrades is obnoxious--but is he abusive?

According to his talk page, Chillum is now retired after yet another round of hilarity with a good content/lousy civility editor.

Not even a lousy civility editor. I know "KD Tries again" in real life (from about 25 years ago). He is one of the most consistently polite human beings I have met. He was simply complaining, in his polite way, about Chillum deleting a message from his talk page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...Talk_Page_alone

But why compare to 5 years ago? I had my nose turned up then, like half the intelligent word still does (a lot less intelligence) now. I'm only concerned with what with what Wikipedia is.

It's the 'spirit of Wikipedia' that gets abused. We cannot do anything about editors ignoring it, but the idea is that admin aren't supposed to. Showing bad faith in the editor you've never met before, putting your "POV" (from emotionalism to subject bias) before the central policies. Failing to be friendly before threatening. Ignoring clear consensus when you are supposed to remind people of it. Not even believing that it's your job to be a 'Wikipedian' before anything else. Simply not behaving like an admin.

Most abuses will be over POV protection, and either won't be seen, or cannot be proved. The only way to get around that is to try and make admin who believe in Wikipedia and we can trust. But admin promote admin that kiss arse.

There is no way for anyone to (esp without prejudice) call an admin up on the 'little things', or even the medium and large things. Editors are not allowed to 'warn' admin (for TenofAllTrades, to warn and not 'move' on it is a strike against your name, that makes you disruptive if you dare to do it to others too). Only the seriously high profile crimes eventually get punished on Wikipedia. To chase an admin up over anything less is to endanger your account. If you piss off too many admin, and you are anything less than a model editor, you have seriously compromised your account. That naturally leads to account changing, but do enough admin really care? It's a corrupt system. It's so obvious I don't even know why I'm writing all this right now. We need fixed terms at very least.

What makes a bad debt collector? I am strong believer in the principle that people divide into basic personality types, and that these determine what job they are useful at. Some people like repetitive monotonous routine type work, and get upset when you try and give them more rewarding and useful work. That's fine, because you need people to do the monotonous work. Some people don't have an original thought in their heads, but possess finely-honed analytical skills. That's fine, they will be good accountants and auditors. A good debt collector is one who can be as menacing and threatening as possible without actually breaking the law. A bad one is one who doesn't get the money back. And so on.

Some people have no other happiness than to ensure that members of the public abide by a certain set of rules. The rules don't matter to them: it is their job to make sure that they are followed. Think of the scary official characters you meet at an airport. If you step over that yellow line which is exactly five feet in front of the passport-checking booth, you know what happens. If there is one small mistake in the way you filled in the 10-page landing form, God help you.

Wikipedia admins fall in the latter class, don't they? Law/security enforcement officers. They don't need to be smart, they just need to battle constantly against the hordes of people who want to step over the yellow line. They don't care if the person is a terrorist/teenage vandal, or a responsible member of the public who simply got the rules wrong.

So, what makes a bad admin? Nothing. Admins have to be the way they are, because the personality type attracted to the job (likes a badge, likes enforcing rules on reluctant people, dealing-with-crowds mentality) is best suited to the way that Wikipedia is set up. A system that tries to build a project using 'anyone who can edit' is bound to end up in exactly that way.

I have said it many times. It's not the people, it's the system.

Does anyone know why it is that the really bad types all get a 'Awesome Wikipedian' present from Rlevse? E.g. TenofAllTrades a few days ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=347109850

I've often pondered on the logic of why people get these (Haiduc got one, e.g.). What are they for?

Chillum says:



Such a command of the English language, it's a loss for Wikipedia.

It's co-op gaming. What else? The first time I saw the Day bollocks (a few years ago now I think) I was genuinely taken in - ie I thought the admin must be a seriously good one.

I've actually questioned Rleves about giving these, but too indirectly, and he studiously missed the irony. When I saw the one awarded to Tenofall while he was being such a relentless cock at CDA, I was tempted just to take the whole 'Your own Awesome Wikipedian Day' award to RfC as a "a bad, gameable and generally anti-Wikiepdian idea". It's not really the climate though, esp if you have just been accused of complaining too much for having the gall to take on more than one admin at once.

I've always distrusted barnstars, beyond the 'original' one given for a decent reason I suppose. I saw two obvious socks award them to each other once. An admin was given one once for unblocking me from his own block - an award for rectifying a untenably bad knee-jerk decision, that he proudly displays in an Award List that shows no indication of why it was given it at all. He unblocked with a real power trippy caveat too. I think there will be a 'tipping point' in Wikipedia's evolution, where enough editors have been round long enough to just be simply too tired of the way things stand.

The full list is here. I am trying to think of what criteria he's using that would encompass myself, Coldplay Expert (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Orangemike (T-C-L-K-R-D) and Bedford (T-C-L-K-R-D) within a month of each other, but am thus far failing.

On the subject of 'Chillum' again, does anyone understand Malleus' cryptic remark here?



What exactly does he claim to know? Or was just rhetorical?

Bad analogy. They are more like the burly guys who guard the doors at exclusive nightclubs, selecting those few who will be invited in. So in a sense, they are the ones who choose, on the basis of the "house POV," those who will be permitted to step over the yellow line, because Wikipedia rules are nothing if not flexible.


That last line is a non sequitur.

I am a paragon.

The present case overlooks the possibility that conduct as well as discourse can be uncivil. As far as I can see, Chillum unilaterally deleted content from some twenty editors' talk pages yesterday, without introduction, explanation or apology. That strikes me as both unusual and uncivil. Nor was he able to offer a coherent reason when challenged.

Personally, I thought Chillum's "you don't own your talk page" significantly ruder than Malleus's "waste of space." But maybe that is because it was aimed at me.

If only.

My first ever block (after 4 years on the project) was by 'Chillum' (then 'High in BC'). March 4 2007, three years ago. He 'retired' in a huff after Bishonen unblocked me.

It all went horribly wrong for Damian after that, didn't it.

Indeed. If one focuses on the personal qualities that go into making an abusive admin and uses that as the metric, you are actually more likely to come up with the name of a not very well known admin than a truly notorious one.

Der Autobahnenfuehrer ("Rschen7754"), who I encountered through a brief tiff three years ago, serves as an excellent case in point. Amongst the young wiki-dicky admins of Wikipedia, you are very unlikely to encounter anyone more anal retentive, ill-tempered, combative, controlling, quick to assume bad faith, unconsciously self-parodying, or inflexible (as even his "on-wiki" friends admit) as is he. Indeed, on a Google search for "teenage mutant wiki admin", his userpage is the number one hit. Still, I see no indication that he is that well-known on WP outside of the admin corps, and is probably not much better known here. The question is why.

The answer, as it turns out, is simple: he is doing practically nothing to live up to his rather considerable Hasten The Day!™ potential. Instead of engaging in ba-telle and general drama-whoring all over "the wiki" like Durova, he spends nearly all of his "on wiki" time and energies tending to his little walled garden on WP, i.e., the "WikiProject U.S. Roads" and the road articles that they WP:OWN. As self-appointed and largely unchallenged Autobahnenfuehrer, he has drained the road articles of even what little color or controversy a road article might otherwise have. You rarely if ever read of kickbacks, rigged bidding, routing controversies, construction/repair delays, or appalling cost overruns. A brief paragraph on a dangerous curve is about as close as they ever get to controversy. Indeed, one of his gauleiters has openly exulted in the fact that WP road articles are nearly completely devoid of any information that the general motoring public would find interesting or useful.

For every truly notorious abusive admin of WP, there must be at least three or four equally abusive but utterly uninteresting wiki-wonk admins not unlike Der Autobahnenfuehrer. He is truly one of the greyest of all the little grey men of WP. What a waste! At one time, I had such high hopes for the boy.

There is a strong impression sometimes that there are a set number of notorious admin in existence who are too politically strong to be desysopped - I think the unknown admin can be obscured by this sometimes. To a degree, it comes from here as well as WP. At the RfC on Community de-Adminship, the oppose voters (and largely admin) are often saying that there are always a just a 'notorious few' bad admin the current system is able to deal with them. I don't agree with CDA (we need to fix the root of the problems), but the truth is that scores if not hundreds of admin will be potentially under fire. When they are given the bit, admin, within a few easily-learnt boundaries, can pretty much do what they want.

Thank you Cedric. This was very funny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Triadian...oadfan_paradise

Worst as in...personality? Track record? Judgment? All of the above?

One admin that I came in contact with, both on-Wiki and off-Wiki, was (I believe) mentally ill. Fortunately, that individual is no longer active on WP -- and the less that is said about that poor soul, the better. (The last thing I want is that person returning because of my comments.)

For those who are active, I would say that Risker is probably the ultimate waste of Wiki-space.