Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/168

message: **I was wondering when this would show up. Functionally, 168's protection changed nothing, as I was about to do so anyway. I have some simple questions for 168 that will determine my view of this matter. 168, if you were given the chance to change your actions with respect to protection of DNA, would you? If so, how? -- Cyan 03:26, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment I see no reason to regret my action or anything truly wrong with it. I suppose you might be able to persuade me otherwise, but you'd have to try.168... 04:42, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: (A point I make much later below is that vandalism is not decided by concensus. An individual sysop has the authority to temporarily ban someone for what to he or she judges to be vandalism. I should have banned instead of protecting, but if I had, then the appropriate thing to question is my judgment, not whether I conformed to the rules, which in that event I would have been explicitly in compliance with.168...)   
It's generally considered important that sysops not to use the special privileges they have in conflicts, particularly not conflicts with non-sysops. The principle is that sysop privileges are intended to serve the purposes of the community at large, not the individual sysops. Thus, when I protected DNA, I did it on behalf of the community, and likewise when Snoyes unprotected it. I can assert these things without fear of contradiction because neither Snoyes nor I were deeply involved in the editing of the page, nor had either of us expressed strong views about the text during discussions on the talk page. Your protection, on the other hand, is not such a clear-cut case. You have clearly stated a view on what should be written in the article, and the protection you undertook to perform favoured your preferred version. The thesis that Lir is a vandal could be a justification, but it is not universally accepted, and this is the source of the damage to your reputation.
This damage is not a huge deal: enough people find Lir to be a pest that your actions may be viewed as justified by a significant portion of the community. You will almost certainly not lose your admin privileges over it. Nevertheless, the action was not above reproach; you've generated a certain amount of distrust, and similar actions in the future are now more likely to cause people to distrust you.
Now, having made that argument, I must suggest a course of action that would have been preferable, in the sense that no shadow of a doubt about the propriety of the action could have accrued to you. This course of action is simply to treat yourself as a non-sysop for the purpose of this conflict. Non-sysops in conflict must request protection from a disinterested sysop, and this is the course of action available to you which was above reproach.
(I do not require a counter-argument; if you haven't been convinced by the above, then it is likely we shall not agree about the propriety of your action after any amount of back-and-forth, and I can live with that.) -- Cyan 05:33, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: Let me get this straight: Lir is tolerated because he hasn't been banned by Jimbo. Well, I have not been banned by Jimbo. Therefore I should be tolerated.168... 06:28, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: What specifically is the "due process" I violated and how did I deny Lir respect as an editor? I didn't ban or block him, which I think is what you said people objected to as a violation of due process. If I denied Lir respect as an editor by protecting the page, then I did the same thing simultaneously to everybody who might have wanted to edit or revert it, and you have done the same in the past. I don't think there is a due process, just a rule about who can do the protecting when, which is somewhat subject to interpretation. 168... 06:54, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: I see your argument now. But first of all there are two due processes as I understand them. One is that sys ops have the authority to issue temporary blocks without Jimbo. The other one has until now has depended on Jimbo, but is in transition to a committee-based system. Anyway, as I said before I didn't block Lir from Wikipedia. But I've conflated a couple issues by offering "vandalism" as my excuse for protecting a page. I don't actually know that vandalism officially is an excuse to protect a page. Perhaps it isn't. If it is, because I have authority to issue temporary blocks, and because blocks are only issued for vandalism, therefore I have the authority to decide what is vandalism and what isn't. Are there rules pertaining to temporary blocking (and thus to the assignment of "temporary vandal" status) that say what relationship a sysop is not allowed to have with the page that is being vandalized? I don't think so. I think I stumbled into a gray area, accurately assessed it as such, and behaved both reasonably and--though this is unknowable at the present--for the best of the community. 168... 16:50, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: (I do not deny that I am stretching the definition of "vandal" and actually specifically what I said was I regarded Lir as a "class of vandal." I think Lir is bad and I trust my judgment, which has been informed extensively by what others write about Lir. I am using the democratic process, such as it is here, to stretch our notion of "vandal" in such a way as to enable the current system of rules to deal effectively with people like Lir, which it manifestly and despite the complaints of many cannot deal with now.168... 16:59, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion from [[User talk:Cyan]] and [[User talk:168...]]

message: ***Functionally what we are seeing here is the inevitable question posed when the wiki was first founded: what will happen when users disagree about the contents of an article? Its well and good to encourage discussion -- but 168 refuses to discuss. He, of course, will say that he merely doesn't want to discuss with trolls; regardless, he is refusing to discuss. As a community, we still don't know how to deal with debates.Lir. 21:28, 29 Jan 2004
****Now, personally, I'm glad the page is protected again -- I despise edit wars; however, the fact that 168 cant even follow the few explicit rules of sysoping, kind of gives credence to my argument that I'm not the troublemaker. He is the one breaking rules, he is the one deleting valid information which has been added to the article, and he is the one making personal attacks. I don't think sysops should behave in that manner. Lirath Q. Pynnor21:28, 29 Jan 2004
****"I despise edit wars." [rolls on floor laughing] Adam 06:15, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried but lir reverted theresa knott 19:56, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If it wasn't wrong to do it the first time it wasn't wrong to do it the second, in which the case was even more clear cut. I already said I wasn't sorry. Should I say it again? I'm not sorry. Anyway, for the record, I protected this time for probably less than 3 minutes (somebody else might like to check that).168... 07:19, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: I suppose that there is nothing keeping someone from reapplying, though I doubt that such an application will be accepted by the majority of people on RfA. - snoyes 05:49, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of the protection and abuse accusation by others

message: Moved to Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mav
:I don't see why people are moving my comments around, instead of replying to them. But my grandpa used to say of such people: "Give them enough rope, and they'll hang themselves." (I always thought that was way harsh, but maybe he was right.)
:I'm beginning to lose my patience with 168's antics. Do you want to be the first admin to get "de-opped"? Why don't you knock it off and try cooperating with Mav instead of thwarting him? --Uncle Ed 15:38, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of a post by Ed on Talk:DNA

message: 168..., please, please, please, take a step back and cool off!  Until recently you were making a lot of superb edits and additions to wikipedia.  Now you seem to be spending all of your time baiting people and trying to defend your aggressive stance.  I understand how User:Lir exasperated you, but how did you let that bring you all the way to making (I think unfounded) accusations against people such as Ed Poor?  Ignore these stupid pages, and start making useful edits to those science articles again.  We've potentially lost Cyan, and don't need to lose you too. Stewart Adcock 18:01, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A note from a somewhat bemused bystander