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<div style="background-color: #ffcccc;">This was deleted as an invalidly certified RFC; there was a brief discussion before the last deletion here: ]. I'm keeping it as a pet. You're welcome to add comment, if you're well behaved. But be aware that this RFC is essentially closed.
In order to remain listed at ], at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. This must involve the ''same'' dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: {insert UTC timestamp with <nowiki>~~~~~</nowiki>}), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: <tt>{{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (UTC)</tt>.


Customers who have been interested in this product have also perused ] ] (]) 22:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)</div>
<u>Please note</u>: This template is for listing disputes about actions that are limited to administrators only, specifically these actions:


In order to remain listed at ], at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the ''same'' dispute with a ''single'' user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with <nowiki>&#126;&#126;&#126;&#126;</nowiki>. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 12:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: <samp>{{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (UTC)</samp>.
* protecting and unprotecting pages
----
* deleting and undeleting pages
*{{user3|William M. Connolley}}
* blocking and unblocking users

For ''all'' other matters (such as edit wars and page moves), please use the template at ].


---- ----
''Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.''
*(] | ] | ])
----


==Statement of the dispute== ==Statement of the dispute==
The issue at hand is misuse of admin tools by protecting an article and editing it afterwards in a PoV manner, and blocking users the admin was in a content dispute twice, over the same article.
Inappropriately blocked a user for a 3RR violation which manifestly did not happen, using a definition of the 3RR which promotes editing disputes rather than promoting compromise.

=== Desired outcome ===
What I hope will come to pass is William will admit his actions were wrong, and hopefully apologize to Travb and the community for abusing his admin tools in this manner. I would further like the article put back to the state it previously was, so the people who edited the article before can do so again before William came in and removed half the content. Finally I would like William to be issued a community ban against editing this article.

The community ban is two fold, first to protect the editors who oppose Williams side from any further lashing out, or further penalties associated with editing against Williams point of view. This would also protect William as it seems he has taken this article as too personal as I do not know of him abusing tools in any other location, or related to anything other then this article, which is why all desired outcomes point only to this article.

I want to make something clear. I do not think William should lose his admin tools, though I have been informed that 4 instances of abuse of them warrants removal, I simply want the peace on this article to be formed by consensus and not fear off reprisal. I am sure William is a great editor, and great admin, or he would not have been around so long, and been given the privileges to be an admin in the first place. --] (]) 13:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


=== Description === === Description ===
William has blocked two users he was in a content dispute with over a single article and has twice used admin tools, once to protect the article, which he then began editing it while it was protected, and the second time to remove an outside admins protection.
This dispute arises out of ]'s insistence on removing whole sections from ]. It is generally agreed that, while ] claims exemption under ], this is incorrect. His edits are in fact ] by removing sourced and neutrally phrased information.


=== Evidence of disputed behavior ===
Reverting is undoing another editor's work. The editor in question makes clear his concerns (in the lower of the two passages he added): they are (a) Cox did not found CSW; (b) She did not break from CSI; (c) Cox left the board of CSW (although this is not quite true: she is still hon. President); (d) the Wilberforce award was not for slavery work but for human rights work in general. So the next time I edit the article, I make changes along exactly the lines Justif suggested. That counts as '''doing''' another editor's work, not undoing it.
On April 9, 2008, William M Connolley appeared on the "]" article, this article was under a previous title prior to that State terrorism and the United States. The page is often a hotbed of activity, adding and removing of content, so an admins protection was not unusual. William protected the page which is normally not an issue, but he then proceeded to remove content: In the course of 6 edits he removed 15k worth of text. Two days later William unprotected the article bringing it down to semi-protection .
This in itself is against the rules as I have understood them, an admin is not to protect an article and then edit it, unless the content being removed is requested and agreed upon on the talk page, or the content is a violation of the BLP policy, and finally unless the admin is taking an action requested by WP:OFFICE.


I have heard some arguments that I would like to address, the first is that the edits were not controversial, which removing all of the definitions of terrorism and state terrorism appear to be: He then proceeded to remove an entire section in the article Then chopping another section on what Low Intensity Conflict is Once William was done with his chosen edits he then lowered the protection so others can edit the article.
William M. Connolley's interpretation of 3RR enforcement seems to found itself on the assumption that if that two editors are constantly changing an article (as opposed to three or more), then they must both have broken the 3RR. Not so, and that's a very unsophisticated way of looking at it. If one editor is insisting on their version and only their version, and the other is trying to take account of their concerns and making good faith attempts at a compromise, then the first editor is breaking 3RR but the second isn't.


To show this was not drive by editing, I would like note William continued to edit the article right after. In the following 5 sequential edits William removed over 50% of the article: The size of the article dropped from 150K to 83K. The definitions were removed again, after another user readded them as not having been removed with consensus, removed a section where one author specifically defines an incident as "state terrorism", which is a prerequisite as laid out by some editors. You can examine the dif and see half of the article has vanished in between the 5 edits. These edits were obviously reverted as there was never a consensus to remove half the article: The user in question was ].
Holding to this misinterpretation of 3RR simply furthers revert wars, and deters compromise.


This leads to another issue. William then, against administrator blocking rules, blocked Supergreenred for reverting him, and what he calls disruption, the full discussion is .
The block was reversed by ].
Eventually an admin unblocked Supergreenred since it was clear William was in violation of the blocking policy. Supergreenred was eventually blocked for being a sockpuppet, however William blocking a user he was in a content dispute with over this article again repeated itself with Travb.


After numerous editors had reverted much of Williams article edits in protest: who is a frequent editor made a 1RR protest revert, as well as , both long term editors of the article. Travb also attempted to revert the article to its previous state: , , in Travb's third revert he makes it clear he has asked for page protection . William however blocks Travb over the reverts, again a violation of administrators blocking policy , which can also be seen in Williams block log . The page was protected per Travb's request, and William takes it upon himself to remove the protection .
=== Powers misused ===
*'''Blocking''' (]):
:#]


Something I noticed only afterwards, ] who reverted Travb 3 times, was not blocked for disruptive editing. --] (]) 15:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
===Applicable policies===

*''']'''
=== Applicable policies and guidelines ===
:#Blocked ] for an alleged 3RR violation when ] had manifestly not breached the 3RR.
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
*''']
:#] - Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute. The only exception is BLP.
:#] - Notes that tools should not be used in content disputes.
:#] - Instances in which an admin can protect then edit.
:#] - States a page should not be edited except for a situation where there is a clear consensus. The reverts that followed Williams edits should have signaled there was clearly no consensus for the edits.


=== Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute === === Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute ===
(provide diffs and links) (provide diffs and links to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute)
:#] - People voicing opinions of the deletions not being consensus
:#].
:#] - More discussion on the vast removals.
:#See ] generally.
:#] - More discussion on the vast removals and on the blocking of Travb who he was in a content dispute with.
:# I make a further attempt to solve the dispute, but William M. Connolley .
:#] - People requesting clarification of the blocking and editing on AN/I. No response, possibly due to William being offline.
:# to solve the dispute, but William M. Connolley .
:#] - An administrator asking for clarification on the editing situation presented above, Williams reply "I *think* that you're trouble making. If you have some other purpose, do please explain more" as if the question was not merited, or did not simply deserve an answer.


=== Users certifying the basis for this dispute === === Users certifying the basis for this dispute ===
''{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}''
<!-- Please note: If you did not try and fail to resolve the dispute, but agree with the summary's presentation of events, please sign in the next section. -->
<!-- Please note: If you did not try and fail to resolve the dispute, but agree with the summary's presentation of events, please sign in the next section. Please notify the user, via his talk page, that a conduct dispute has been raised. -->
(sign with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>)
:#] | ] 10:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC) :#] (]) 21:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
:#] (]) 22:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
:#


=== Other users who endorse this summary ===

=== Other users who endorse this statement ===
<!-- If you agree with the summary's presentation of events but did not try and fail to resolve the dispute, please sign in this section. --> <!-- If you agree with the summary's presentation of events but did not try and fail to resolve the dispute, please sign in this section. -->
:# ~ ] (]) 23:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC) User of interest has a long history of blocking those with whom he edit wars.
(sign with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>)
:# ] (]) 21:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC) While I voiced my concern (on the talk page and repeated on the ANI) I have not 'taken any other action' to resolve my concerns regarding this matter. The above summary appears to reflect the situation.
:#]\<sup>]</sup> 11:18, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

:#
==Response==
''This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.''

It would be impolite not to respond. But there is too much to respond to it all.

* I'm not very interested in the article in question. I never edited it before being asked to help. I am interested in wiki having a good article on the subject.
* You're not going to get your desired outcome.
* Some of the accusations are ludicrous.
:* Blocking supergreenred, an abusive sockpuppet, was obviously sensible.
:* And - gasp - I unprotected the page when it was on my "favoured" version. Obviously grossly promoting my own POV by, err, allowing other people to change it.
* I have cut swathes from this page because its grossly bloated. This is an important issue and deserves more attention. All too often articles accrete stuff because its verifiable and marginally related. Its hard to get rid of because people will always scream about their pet bit being removed. The invariable pattern is that when material is cut to sub-pages where it belongs, those people who were so protective of that information no longer care. It wasn't the info they cared about, but their contribution to a high-profile page.

If you care to strike out the ludicrous accusations, I'll reply to some of those remaining ] (]) 15:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

===Other users who endorse this summary:===
# ] (]) 16:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
# William fixed a problem. There was abuse of the project by a small number of agenda-driven individuals, evidence of sockpuppetry and other problems. William stepped in, fixed the problem with some admin actions that seem OK to me, and then went about his business. This complaint is frivolouos and fails to establish any meaningful pattern of abuse; in fact, I'd say it was a garden-variety complaint of "]" by people whose POV failed to prevail in the article, for reasons pretty much entirely unrelated to anything William did. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 21:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
# ] (]) 05:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
# ] (]) 08:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
# ] (]) 15:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

==Outside view==
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}
===Comment by Travb/Inclusionist===
====William's violation of ] with others====
Three independent administrators: Chaser, FeloniousMonk, and Viridae all found that William abused his administrative powers by blocking editors he was in an edit war with, violating ].


Here are William's violation of ]. All blocks can be found on .
# In an edit war with ] on ] William blocks Chris. Administrator Chaser later states "you're correct that WMC shouldn't have blocked an editor he was in a dispute with" On William's page Chaser says:<br>"Will...you can't block users you're in disputes with. The policy is unambigious and ArbCom has indicated the same thing. This is the kind of thing that people get de-sysopped for."
# In an edit war with ] on the page ], William blocks Lapsed for the reason "repeated re-insertion of unsourced material"
# In an edit war with ] on ] William blocks Jaymes2 for the reason, "repeated insertion of tripe"
#In an edit war on ] with ] William blocks Sterculius for "Tendentious edtis at GW"
#In an edit war with the actual person ] in the article ], which William actively edited before and after, William blocks ] for 3 hours, reason: "COI violation"
#In an edit war with ] on ] William blocks Wedjj for 8 hours, reason: "disruptive editing"
# In an edit war with ] William blocks ] (see more details above)
#In an edit war with ] on ] and ] William blocks Britcom for 8 hours, reason: Restoring incivil comment for this edit: in which Brit says: "Don't be a hypocrite WC"
# In the same edit war with ] on ] and ] William blocks Britcom for 24 hours ‎reason: Incivility
# In an edit war with ] at ] William personally blocks Wikzilla twice for Three-revert rule violations.
# In an edit war with ] at ] William blocks ] twice. William is chastized by admin ] for William abusing his administrative powers once again.
#In an edit war with ] on ] William blocks anon for three hours for this statment: "Buzz off hippy"
#With ] on ] William blocks DHeyward, length: 8 hours, ‎ reason: "violation of 1RR on GW; incivil edit summaries" There appears to be no 1RR because of arbcom. ] reverted this block.
# In an edit war with ] on the page ] William blocks Lapsed for 3 hours giving the reason as "incivility" for this edit
# For comments on ] which William actively edits, William blocks ] for incivility for this comment "A great read for all you cool aid drinkers."
# In an AfD which both ] and William are arguing in, William blocks Lordvolton for 8 hours for "incivility".
# William blocks ] for incivility because of comments on the page ], which he actively edits.
# William again blocks ] for incivility because of comments on the page ], which he actively edits.
#William blocks ]/] for a comment on William's talk page.
# William blocks ] for comments on ], an article William actively edits. Reason: "Inserting false information: incivility"
#William blocks ] for comments on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for comments on ], an article William edits regularly.
# William blocks ] for 3rr on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for comments on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for comments on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for incivility on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for incivility on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for "spam" on ], an article William edits regularly.
# William blocks ] for trolling for this comment "One thing is clear: this Misplaced Pages article and its fanatical guardians are a perfect example of how and why Misplaced Pages cannot be considered as a reliable source of knowledge." on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for 3rr on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for posting youtube link on ], an article William edits regularly.
#William blocks ] for "incivility" for comments on ], an article William actively edits.
#William blocks ] for "incivility" for comments on ], an article William actively edits.
# William blocks ] for "repeated posting of own content to sci opp on cl ch" for comments on ], an article William actively edits.
# Because of an argument on his user page with newbie ], in which Alexandergungnahov accuses William of vandalizing his page by adding a Welcome sign, William boots Alexandergungnahov for 8 hours for NPA.
# On a page that he actively edits, ] William blocks User:24.59.148.187, for the comment "making up B.S. excuses to", reason: incivility

====William's violation of ] with me ====
William M. Connolley's recent block of me was another violation of ]:

:Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators. Administrators should also be aware of potential conflicts of interest involving pages or subject areas with which they are involved.

This policy is clear and unambiguous. That is why William and his supporters have ignored this policy violation, which is the center of the dispute.

William M. Connolley admitted that he broke ]:
:Time to start a major flamewar I think. ''may be warned, restricted, or ultimately blocked by any uninvolved administrator...'' is a problem, in that only the people involved understand the issues, have followed what is going on, and can issue blocks in a timely manner. Yes I have some obvious examples in mind, and ] is the most recent one. There should be some way for admins to block people they are involved in disputes with. There also need to be some safeguards on it, I suppose.

William M. Connolley blocked me but not any other users who supported his edits in the dispute.

Regarding Ultramarine's statement that Coren is an uninvolved admin, Coren is not an uninvolved editor he and I went back and forth on the September 11 Arbcom.

Ultramarine and Connolley have worked in tandem on the article.

==== Other admins have been desysopped for fewer ] abuse ====
At least 7 other admins have been desysopped partly for fewer ] abuse, see ].

Users who endorse this summary:
#] (]) 00:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
::<small>Note this endorsement was based on an earlier version. ] (]) 20:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)</small>

===Outside view by ]===
I've got the Sharks going to the stanley cup, winning in five games. Anybody want to lay ten bucks on it?

Oh, yeah, and William did exactly what was needed to help the project. The fact that several tenditious edit(ors/warriors) are attacking him should be worn with pride. Someone go write an article instead of bothering with this 'ZOMG admin abuse!' crap. There was no content dispute, and even if there was, the editors should still have been blocked. Blocking them improves the encyclopedia, and if the rules stand in the way of improving the encyclopedia, then the rules ]. Always have, always will, it's one of our ].

====Users who endorse this summary====
#<u>]<small><sup>]</sup></small></u> 06:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
# ] (]) 20:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

== Comment by Ultramarine ==
Just pointing out that the issue has been discussed on ] . An independent administrator reviewed and reblocked Travb/Inclusionist. ] (]) 11:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

== Comment by BozMo ==
The above speaks for itself. I had a good look at several of these when they came through AN/I and I cannot see anything which WMC did which was inappropriate or went against policy (although there are things I personally would have shied away from). However I can see a lot of pointless time wasting including in my view this RfC. --] ] 06:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:Are you stating that blocking two users you are in a content dispute is not against policy? --] (]) 11:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

::Content dispute means something more than have edited the same pages. --] ] 15:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

:::How about having edited in a manner that over 3 users have disagreed with you and started considerable debate over the validity of the arguments? Would 10 edits that were reverted signify a content dispute? --] (]) 15:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

== Comment by Merzbow ==
This article has been a trainwreck for years, an unreadable mass of text that kept growing longer and longer with everything anyone could throw at it, and attempts to trim it down were typically met with name-calling and puppetry. As with other notorious messes like ] and ], sometimes it takes one or more admins to take harsh actions, for a period of time, to stabilize such articles. It's not like WMC had been editing this article for six months and just recently decided to use his admin powers.

TravB's technique of marching in, reverting three times, then running off to request page protection in the hopes that it will be applied before the other side reverts again is quite clever. I actually had done this myself on another article a long time ago when I was a less mature editor, and succeeded at it. TravB unfortunately (for him) didn't; the other side did revert before protection was applied, and he was blocked (as he should have been, and as I should have been but wasn't for that long-ago incident). Perhaps Devil should have been blocked also, but TravB's actions show willful calculation to get the article locked in his favored version. - ] (]) 07:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:Good point, Merzbow. William made some changes to try to get the article moving in the right direction, but of course some people would object. And as for consensus, few if any of the editors on that page edited with consensus - so to now get annoyed because William made some ] changes is rather hypocritical. In the past various editors have ignored consensus because they've said that only "established" editors have the right to create consensus, so they can ignore relatively new arrivals. ] (]) 09:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

::This RfC is not about the article itself, its about the abuse of administrator tools, which happened 3-4 times in the process, judging by the recently added information, it seems this happens more often then I anticipated. The policy specifically says an admin should not make changes without consensus while it is protected. --] (]) 11:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:::Can you please quote policy on that specific point? Thanks, ] (]) 12:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:::: I suspect he's referring to ], or more precisely, ]: "Pages protected due to content disputes should not be edited except to make changes unrelated to the dispute, or to make changes for which there is clear consensus." — ] (]) 12:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

:::::Ah, right. Well I think that the extreme edit-warring on the article in question means that William probably did the right thing. It was a suggestion, and the protection was lifted not that long after. I think the policy is designed to stop admins using protection to establish edits for long periods of time. It wouldn't have made a difference if William had lifted the protection and then made the edit rather than doing it the other way around in this case. ] (]) 12:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::He also blocked 2 users he was in a content dispute with, which is against the blocking policy for admins. This is all listed above, so I am not sure how you could have missed it. --] (]) 13:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::He blocked two users because of their behaviour - they were edit-warring with other people. Supergreen was identified as a sockpuppet and his behaviour was very disruptive. Trav was also disruptive and the block was confirmed by another admin. It might have been better for Will to ask someone else to step in, but it's not as if Will reverted them three times and then blocked them. ] (]) 14:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::So you think that this admin did not ''selectively'' block the faction of the edit war which was against his POV, right?--] (]) 15:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::No, I think he blocked who he believed the source of the trouble was. Blocks are, so I keep hearing, preventative not punitive. It's worth noting that Trav was re-blocked by another admin and that the other admin didn't take any action against other users. ] (]) 15:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::The other users actions were not known at the time of the block. I pointed this out to you on another page, perhaps you did not read it. --] (]) 16:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::If he blocked the other faction of the revert war the trouble would have disappeared as well so in which sense you say that Travb could be considered "the source of the trouble" while the other faction could not?--] (]) 17:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

== Comment by DHeyward ==
It's clear that Travb is a timewaster. His block should be expanded to indefinite before he drags everyone into pointless RfC's and ArbCom's. His contributions to either establishing consensus or improving any article is essentially nil. His timewasting is notorious, perpetual and longwinded. The block was appropriate and we should simply move on. --] (]) 18:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


: '''Comment'''. ] (now known as ]) has a substantial history of editing the article in question, extending over a period of several years. According to Wannabe Kate, ], an editor with over 23,000 edits to his name, has made 148 edits to the article and 856 edits to the talk page of the article, spanning several years. He/she is not "clearly a time waster" as DHeyward suggests, and an indefinite block is unthinkable. Shame on you. ] (]) 22:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
== Response ==
::Okay, he's a prolific timewaster. This RfC is a case in point. He's made 17 edits within the span of an hour to this RfC, most of them highly exaggerated accounts rehashing past events. It wastes everybody's time having to respond to both the overwhelmingly tediousness of such edits and their volume. He uses this tedious style as well as contentious and disruptive edits and reverts to thwart consensus and policy such as ] and ] and ]. You also forgot to add the sockpuppet and anon's he used ] to his edit totals. --] (]) 06:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
''This is a summary written by the sysop whose actions are disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the sysop's actions did not violate policy. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.''
:::This isn't about Travb or DHeyward, you two argue everywhere. For DHeyward to be here insisting that Travb using socks months ago is permission to discount any and all concerns for the future is absurd, especially when they are abuse of admin tools that no one has disagreed with as against blocking rules. --] (]) 08:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
::::I Write Stuff is right. I removed my comments. This is a RfC on William. ] (]) 17:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


==Comment by silly rabbit==
Many people get blocked for 3RR, few take it as badly as Dbiv. However... just a quick note to start: ''The block was reversed by User:Mackensen.'' Yes it was. To avoid misunderstanding thnough, I don't think M reversed it because of not-breaking 3RR. In fact I'm not perfectly sure why M reversed the block. M should probably explain this.
I'm on the fence about a few things. I find William's decision to edit the page under protection lacking in transparency. Could someone please link to when and how William was requested to edit the page, and precisely what discussion took place? If such a request had been made with sufficient community exposure, then I may be inclined to agree with ]'s assessment that William came in to fix a problem and did what he was asked to do. If, on the other hand, William decided to take sides in a content dispute without a wider community mandate, then he clearly abused his administrative tools during this affair, and I must agree with ]. ] (]) 00:14, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


: This is a fair question, but one that I can't answer, as I've forgotten. G33 was unwise enought to complain to me about DH at one point; I may have come in via that. You seem to assume that I've taken sides in a content dispute; I haven't ] (]) 19:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Continuing: the edits in question are , , and . Three of these are clearly reverts - they are marked as such. So the issue is whether the 4th is too. I would claim that it pretty clearly is: it re-introduces ''Baroness Cox is one of 18 co-founders of the ] organisation...'' just like the others; it re-adds ''Anti-Slavery campaigning''.
:::::''"You seem to assume that I've taken sides in a content dispute; I haven't " ''. You would appear to have become involved in content issues now, even if you weren't before. ] (]) 21:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::If Ultramarine or Dheyward were asked to list the names of people who oppose their views in general on the article, do you think your edits would be in line with DHeywards and Ultramarine, or Travb and Giovanni33? If possible can you please also answer why you felt Dance With The Devils 3RR on the page did not warrant a block, however Travb's did. I ask because while you may not have the intention of supporting a particular side, your edits, and your views may just happen to reflect one particular side. --] (]) 20:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


::WMC had blocked me for a 1RR violation on ]. G33 mistakenly believed that I was on 1RR restriction (he left a pretty 1RR warning on my page before asking WMC what the 1RR meant - it was a community 1RR restriction on a paragraph in an article that applied to everyone). WMC then went to look at what the hubub was about and discovered the absolute worst article in Misplaced Pages. Ironically, G33 ''is'' on a 1RR restriction from ArbCom and was blocked shortly thereafter. Even more ironically is ] uses my block as an example of WMC's misuse of tools. --] (]) 23:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This seems clear enough to me. Its possible I'm wrong, but I don't see how ''User:Dbiv had manifestly not breached the 3RR'' can possibly be supportable.
:::So what WMC is recalling had nothing to do with the state terrorism article in question? So I guess it still leaves the question unanswered. --] (]) 02:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
::William, ''for the good of the article'' != for the good of the encyclopedia. Full protecting and then making non-urgent edits at your leisure is bound to bring the project into disrepute, is it not? ] (]) 03:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


==Comment by ]==
Dbiv may (or may not) be restrospectively claiming justification for his reverts as anti vandalism (if so, why is he compromising with a vandal). But he doesn't indicate this in the edit summaries. Also, the 3RR exception for vandalism is very narrowly drawn; I don't think this is included.
I haven't read the article in question but, given the title, I can see that it must be a hotbed of edit warring so I won't even bother looking at it. From a 'just the facts' perspective it appears that an admin has protected a page primarily to edit it and has used blocks against users of one particular pov without opening up a discussion with the broader community. It is possible, even likely, that the admin's motives were pure but under ] admins have no special privileges and that includes not having a special privilege to use blocks and protects to control the direction of edits. Many a time I've thought "if only I could protect this page and edit in peace the article would be perfect", but I cannot because I'm not an admin. An admin should not use the tools to manage content in a way that an ordinary user cannot, and any admin doing so should, at the least, be censured. --] (]) 20:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
*'''comment''' I don't believe that the interpretation "it appears that an admin has protected a page ''primarily'' to edit it " (emph added) is entirely accurate. It is my interpretation of events at the time that the admin ''primarily blocked'' the article to prevent edit warring. However, after placing the block, the admin then proceded to edit the locked article without gaining group consensus (removing content that did not violate copyright or BLP issues), unblocked the article per the expiry of the edit war lock, then blocked an editor who restored content to the article. ] (]) 15:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
*:That would then be a lesser evil (without malice aforethought)! --] (]) 15:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
*::Correct - if looked at in isolation. However the lack of a statement that 'oops - I should not have edited an article where I am playing traffic cop' and the sizable history of similar incidents that TravB/Inclusionist has posted suggest this may not simply be a short term lapse of judgment. ] (]) 16:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
*:::Is an RfC the right place for this? If there is the accusation of a pattern of this type of behavior then shouldn't there be something on ]? (Or, how does one involve the broader community to comment on the appropriateness of the admin's behavior?)--] (]) 18:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


==Comment by ]==
Dbivs attempts to "resolve" this dispute essentially consist of asking for an apology. Thats hardly dispute resolution.


I do not see any reasons why William should not edit ]. However blocking editors he is an edit war with sounds like a serious problem. Is that indeed supported by the evidence above?] (]) 22:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary (sign with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>):
:Incontrovertibly. ~ ] (]) 22:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::I see that an ArbCom case has been initiated against William, so the evidence above will probably be considered by ArbCom. I do believe that William acted against ] policy and improperly deleted edits by ] in article ] and later in article ], but this is a minor issue. I had too little interaction with William to judge about that] (]) 02:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


==Comment by ]==
# ] 11:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
How about a nice warm cup...? ''']''' <sup>(])</sup> 13:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


==Discussion==
===Response to the response===
''All'' signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to ]. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.<!--
A reversion of vandalism is a reversion of vandalism, whether mentioned in the edit summary or not. I can't go back through time and retrospectively add to edit summaries the fact that they were vandalism reverts, and especially not when blocked without a chance to explain.


When Justif did explain his problems, I did not revert back to my version. I took his comments on board and incorporated them with mine, to move forward to try to produce a compromise.


But why I am 'taking this badly' ought to be fairly obvious. Here am I, trying to make an informative, sourced, neutral article, and trying to work with a user who will shout "Libel! Lies!" at everything, even when it is obviously not defamatory and is sourced. Here am I trying to reach a consensus, and I get prevented from editing when I haven't broken any rules and have tried to help the encyclopaedia.


Worse, not merely am I prevented from editing, I get a black mark in the teacher's register that might be held against me in the future on any unrelated item. I'm not in the market for another RFA right now, but I might be in the future, and I do not want to have to explain your ludicrous interpretation of the 3RR and how it wrongly led you to block me. But I will have to, unless you apologise. As you ought to know, ignorant and wrong comments in the block log are there indefinitely, and have already caused a serious problem this month with productive and useful editors leaving.


That's why I want an apology on the block log. If you refuse, I want that block log entry deleted entirely. ] | ] 13:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


Do not comment below. Please read the instructions above.
== Outside view ==
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.''


''{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign.}''


Users who endorse this summary (sign with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>):
#


-->
== Discussion ==
''All'' signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to ].

Latest revision as of 12:05, 27 September 2021

This was deleted as an invalidly certified RFC; there was a brief discussion before the last deletion here: Misplaced Pages:AN#William_M._Connolley_2. I'm keeping it as a pet. You're welcome to add comment, if you're well behaved. But be aware that this RFC is essentially closed. Customers who have been interested in this product have also perused Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration#User:William M. Connolley William M. Connolley (talk) 22:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

In order to remain listed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 12:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 23:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC).

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

The issue at hand is misuse of admin tools by protecting an article and editing it afterwards in a PoV manner, and blocking users the admin was in a content dispute twice, over the same article.

Desired outcome

What I hope will come to pass is William will admit his actions were wrong, and hopefully apologize to Travb and the community for abusing his admin tools in this manner. I would further like the article put back to the state it previously was, so the people who edited the article before can do so again before William came in and removed half the content. Finally I would like William to be issued a community ban against editing this article.

The community ban is two fold, first to protect the editors who oppose Williams side from any further lashing out, or further penalties associated with editing against Williams point of view. This would also protect William as it seems he has taken this article as too personal as I do not know of him abusing tools in any other location, or related to anything other then this article, which is why all desired outcomes point only to this article.

I want to make something clear. I do not think William should lose his admin tools, though I have been informed that 4 instances of abuse of them warrants removal, I simply want the peace on this article to be formed by consensus and not fear off reprisal. I am sure William is a great editor, and great admin, or he would not have been around so long, and been given the privileges to be an admin in the first place. --I Write Stuff (talk) 13:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Description

William has blocked two users he was in a content dispute with over a single article and has twice used admin tools, once to protect the article, which he then began editing it while it was protected, and the second time to remove an outside admins protection.

Evidence of disputed behavior

On April 9, 2008, William M Connolley appeared on the "Allegations of state terrorism by the United States" article, this article was under a previous title prior to that State terrorism and the United States. The page is often a hotbed of activity, adding and removing of content, so an admins protection was not unusual. William protected the page which is normally not an issue, but he then proceeded to remove content: In the course of 6 edits he removed 15k worth of text. Two days later William unprotected the article bringing it down to semi-protection . This in itself is against the rules as I have understood them, an admin is not to protect an article and then edit it, unless the content being removed is requested and agreed upon on the talk page, or the content is a violation of the BLP policy, and finally unless the admin is taking an action requested by WP:OFFICE.

I have heard some arguments that I would like to address, the first is that the edits were not controversial, which removing all of the definitions of terrorism and state terrorism appear to be: He then proceeded to remove an entire section in the article Then chopping another section on what Low Intensity Conflict is Once William was done with his chosen edits he then lowered the protection so others can edit the article.

To show this was not drive by editing, I would like note William continued to edit the article right after. In the following 5 sequential edits William removed over 50% of the article: The size of the article dropped from 150K to 83K. The definitions were removed again, after another user readded them as not having been removed with consensus, removed a section where one author specifically defines an incident as "state terrorism", which is a prerequisite as laid out by some editors. You can examine the dif and see half of the article has vanished in between the 5 edits. These edits were obviously reverted as there was never a consensus to remove half the article: The user in question was user:Supergreenred.

This leads to another issue. William then, against administrator blocking rules, blocked Supergreenred for reverting him, and what he calls disruption, the full discussion is . Eventually an admin unblocked Supergreenred since it was clear William was in violation of the blocking policy. Supergreenred was eventually blocked for being a sockpuppet, however William blocking a user he was in a content dispute with over this article again repeated itself with Travb.

After numerous editors had reverted much of Williams article edits in protest: RedPenofDoom who is a frequent editor made a 1RR protest revert, as well as BernardL, both long term editors of the article. Travb also attempted to revert the article to its previous state: first revert, second revert, in Travb's third revert he makes it clear he has asked for page protection . William however blocks Travb over the reverts, again a violation of administrators blocking policy , which can also be seen in Williams block log . The page was protected per Travb's request, and William takes it upon himself to remove the protection .

Something I noticed only afterwards, Dance With The Devil who reverted Travb 3 times, was not blocked for disruptive editing. --I Write Stuff (talk) 15:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes - Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute. The only exception is BLP.
  2. Misplaced Pages:Admin#Misuse_of_tools - Notes that tools should not be used in content disputes.
  3. Misplaced Pages:Admin#Exceptional_circumstances - Instances in which an admin can protect then edit.
  4. Misplaced Pages:Protection_policy#Content_disputes - States a page should not be edited except for a situation where there is a clear consensus. The reverts that followed Williams edits should have signaled there was clearly no consensus for the edits.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute)

  1. Talk:Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_the_United_States#Massive_deletions - People voicing opinions of the deletions not being consensus
  2. Talk:Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_the_United_States#WMC.27s_deletions - More discussion on the vast removals.
  3. Talk:Allegations_of_state_terrorism_by_the_United_States#Protected.2Funprotected - More discussion on the vast removals and on the blocking of Travb who he was in a content dispute with.
  4. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review_.28William_M._Connolley_of_Travb.29 - People requesting clarification of the blocking and editing on AN/I. No response, possibly due to William being offline.
  5. ] - An administrator asking for clarification on the editing situation presented above, Williams reply "I *think* that you're trouble making. If you have some other purpose, do please explain more" as if the question was not merited, or did not simply deserve an answer.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

  1. Giovanni33 (talk) 21:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  2. Inclusionist (talk) 22:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

  1. ~ UBeR (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC) User of interest has a long history of blocking those with whom he edit wars.
  2. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC) While I voiced my concern (on the talk page and repeated on the ANI) I have not 'taken any other action' to resolve my concerns regarding this matter. The above summary appears to reflect the situation.

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

It would be impolite not to respond. But there is too much to respond to it all.

  • I'm not very interested in the article in question. I never edited it before being asked to help. I am interested in wiki having a good article on the subject.
  • You're not going to get your desired outcome.
  • Some of the accusations are ludicrous.
  • Blocking supergreenred, an abusive sockpuppet, was obviously sensible.
  • And - gasp - I unprotected the page when it was on my "favoured" version. Obviously grossly promoting my own POV by, err, allowing other people to change it.
  • I have cut swathes from this page because its grossly bloated. This is an important issue and deserves more attention. All too often articles accrete stuff because its verifiable and marginally related. Its hard to get rid of because people will always scream about their pet bit being removed. The invariable pattern is that when material is cut to sub-pages where it belongs, those people who were so protective of that information no longer care. It wasn't the info they cared about, but their contribution to a high-profile page.

If you care to strike out the ludicrous accusations, I'll reply to some of those remaining William M. Connolley (talk) 15:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary:

  1. John Smith's (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  2. William fixed a problem. There was abuse of the project by a small number of agenda-driven individuals, evidence of sockpuppetry and other problems. William stepped in, fixed the problem with some admin actions that seem OK to me, and then went about his business. This complaint is frivolouos and fails to establish any meaningful pattern of abuse; in fact, I'd say it was a garden-variety complaint of "rouge admin abuse" by people whose POV failed to prevail in the article, for reasons pretty much entirely unrelated to anything William did. Guy (Help!) 21:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  3. Jtrainor (talk) 05:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  4. Ultramarine (talk) 08:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
  5. Vsmith (talk) 15:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Comment by Travb/Inclusionist

William's violation of Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes with others

Three independent administrators: Chaser, FeloniousMonk, and Viridae all found that William abused his administrative powers by blocking editors he was in an edit war with, violating Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes.


Here are William's violation of Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes. All blocks can be found on William's block page.

  1. In an edit war with User:Chris_Chittleborough on Hockey stick controversy William blocks Chris. Administrator Chaser later states "you're correct that WMC shouldn't have blocked an editor he was in a dispute with" On William's page Chaser says:
    "Will...you can't block users you're in disputes with. The policy is unambigious and ArbCom has indicated the same thing. This is the kind of thing that people get de-sysopped for."
  2. In an edit war with User:Lapsed Pacifist on the page Shell to Sea‎, William blocks Lapsed for the reason "repeated re-insertion of unsourced material"
  3. In an edit war with User:Jaymes2 on Global warming William blocks Jaymes2 for the reason, "repeated insertion of tripe"
  4. In an edit war on Global Warming with User:Sterculius William blocks Sterculius for "Tendentious edtis at GW"
  5. In an edit war with the actual person User:PiersCorbyn in the article Piers Corbyn, which William actively edited before and after, William blocks User:PiersCorbyn for 3 hours, reason: "COI violation"
  6. In an edit war with User:Wedjj on Global Warming William blocks Wedjj for 8 hours, reason: "disruptive editing"
  7. In an edit war with User:Supergreenred William blocks User:Supergreenred (see more details above)
  8. In an edit war with User:Britcom on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎ and Global Warming William blocks Britcom for 8 hours, reason: Restoring incivil comment for this edit: in which Brit says: "Don't be a hypocrite WC"
  9. In the same edit war with User:Britcom on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎ and Global Warming William blocks Britcom for 24 hours ‎reason: Incivility
  10. In an edit war with User:Wikzilla at Global warming‎ William personally blocks Wikzilla twice for Three-revert rule violations.
  11. In an edit war with User:ConfuciusOrnis at Climate change denial William blocks User:ConfuciusOrnis twice. William is chastized by admin User:FeloniousMonk for William abusing his administrative powers once again.
  12. In an edit war with user:207.237.232.228 on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change William blocks anon for three hours for this statment: "Buzz off hippy"
  13. With User:DHeyward on Global Warming William blocks DHeyward, length: 8 hours, ‎ reason: "violation of 1RR on GW; incivil edit summaries" There appears to be no 1RR because of arbcom. User:Viridae reverted this block.
  14. In an edit war with User:Lapsed Pacifist on the page Shell to Sea William blocks Lapsed for 3 hours giving the reason as "incivility" for this edit
  15. For comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming which William actively edits, William blocks 65.12.145.148 for incivility for this comment "A great read for all you cool aid drinkers."
  16. In an AfD which both User:Lordvolton and William are arguing in, William blocks Lordvolton for 8 hours for "incivility".
  17. William blocks User:HalfDome for incivility because of comments on the page Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png, which he actively edits.
  18. William again blocks User:HalfDome for incivility because of comments on the page Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png, which he actively edits.
  19. William blocks User:Isonomia/User:Haseler for a comment on William's talk page.
  20. William blocks User:Jepp for comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, an article William actively edits. Reason: "Inserting false information: incivility"
  21. William blocks User:Dean1970 for comments on Carl Wunsch, an article William edits regularly.
  22. William blocks User:71.211.241.40 for comments on Global warming controversy‎, an article William edits regularly.
  23. William blocks User:Juanfermin for 3rr on List of scientists opposing global warming consensus, an article William edits regularly.
  24. William blocks User:UBeR for comments on The Great Global Warming Swindle‎, an article William edits regularly.
  25. William blocks User:Peterlewis for comments on Historical climatology, an article William edits regularly.
  26. William blocks User:69.19.14.31 for incivility on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  27. William blocks User:Likwidshoe for incivility on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, an article William edits regularly.
  28. William blocks User:Kismatraval for "spam" on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  29. William blocks User:69.19.14.29 for trolling for this comment "One thing is clear: this Misplaced Pages article and its fanatical guardians are a perfect example of how and why Misplaced Pages cannot be considered as a reliable source of knowledge." on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  30. William blocks User:Grimerking for 3rr on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  31. William blocks User:Dick Wayne for posting youtube link on The Great Global Warming Swindle, an article William edits regularly.
  32. William blocks User:DonaldDuck07 for "incivility" for comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, an article William actively edits.
  33. William blocks User:Rotten for "incivility" for comments on The Great Global Warming Swindle, an article William actively edits.
  34. William blocks User:219.64.26.28 for "repeated posting of own content to sci opp on cl ch" for comments on Scientific opinion on climate change, an article William actively edits.
  35. Because of an argument on his user page with newbie User:Alexandergungnahov, in which Alexandergungnahov accuses William of vandalizing his page by adding a Welcome sign, William boots Alexandergungnahov for 8 hours for NPA.
  36. On a page that he actively edits, Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png William blocks User:24.59.148.187, for the comment "making up B.S. excuses to", reason: incivility

William's violation of Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes with me

William M. Connolley's recent block of me was another violation of Misplaced Pages:Blocking_policy#When_blocking_may_not_be_used :

Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators. Administrators should also be aware of potential conflicts of interest involving pages or subject areas with which they are involved.

This policy is clear and unambiguous. That is why William and his supporters have ignored this policy violation, which is the center of the dispute.

William M. Connolley admitted that he broke Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes:

Time to start a major flamewar I think. may be warned, restricted, or ultimately blocked by any uninvolved administrator... is a problem, in that only the people involved understand the issues, have followed what is going on, and can issue blocks in a timely manner. Yes I have some obvious examples in mind, and Allegations of state terrorism by the United States is the most recent one. There should be some way for admins to block people they are involved in disputes with. There also need to be some safeguards on it, I suppose.

William M. Connolley blocked me but not any other users who supported his edits in the dispute.

Regarding Ultramarine's statement that Coren is an uninvolved admin, Coren is not an uninvolved editor he and I went back and forth on the September 11 Arbcom.

Ultramarine and Connolley have worked in tandem on the article.

Other admins have been desysopped for fewer Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes abuse

At least 7 other admins have been desysopped partly for fewer Misplaced Pages:BLOCK#Disputes abuse, see User:Inclusionist/Bad.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Giovanni33 (talk) 00:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Note this endorsement was based on an earlier version. Inclusionist (talk) 20:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by User:AKMask

I've got the Sharks going to the stanley cup, winning in five games. Anybody want to lay ten bucks on it?

Oh, yeah, and William did exactly what was needed to help the project. The fact that several tenditious edit(ors/warriors) are attacking him should be worn with pride. Someone go write an article instead of bothering with this 'ZOMG admin abuse!' crap. There was no content dispute, and even if there was, the editors should still have been blocked. Blocking them improves the encyclopedia, and if the rules stand in the way of improving the encyclopedia, then the rules lose. Always have, always will, it's one of our five founding pillars.

Users who endorse this summary

  1. M 06:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  2. Jtrainor (talk) 20:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Ultramarine

Just pointing out that the issue has been discussed on WP:ANI here. An independent administrator reviewed and reblocked Travb/Inclusionist. Ultramarine (talk) 11:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by BozMo

The above speaks for itself. I had a good look at several of these when they came through AN/I and I cannot see anything which WMC did which was inappropriate or went against policy (although there are things I personally would have shied away from). However I can see a lot of pointless time wasting including in my view this RfC. --BozMo talk 06:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you stating that blocking two users you are in a content dispute is not against policy? --I Write Stuff (talk) 11:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Content dispute means something more than have edited the same pages. --BozMo talk 15:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
How about having edited in a manner that over 3 users have disagreed with you and started considerable debate over the validity of the arguments? Would 10 edits that were reverted signify a content dispute? --I Write Stuff (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Merzbow

This article has been a trainwreck for years, an unreadable mass of text that kept growing longer and longer with everything anyone could throw at it, and attempts to trim it down were typically met with name-calling and puppetry. As with other notorious messes like Views of Lyndon LaRouche and List of events named massacres, sometimes it takes one or more admins to take harsh actions, for a period of time, to stabilize such articles. It's not like WMC had been editing this article for six months and just recently decided to use his admin powers.

TravB's technique of marching in, reverting three times, then running off to request page protection in the hopes that it will be applied before the other side reverts again is quite clever. I actually had done this myself on another article a long time ago when I was a less mature editor, and succeeded at it. TravB unfortunately (for him) didn't; the other side did revert before protection was applied, and he was blocked (as he should have been, and as I should have been but wasn't for that long-ago incident). Perhaps Devil should have been blocked also, but TravB's actions show willful calculation to get the article locked in his favored version. - Merzbow (talk) 07:14, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Good point, Merzbow. William made some changes to try to get the article moving in the right direction, but of course some people would object. And as for consensus, few if any of the editors on that page edited with consensus - so to now get annoyed because William made some WP:BOLD changes is rather hypocritical. In the past various editors have ignored consensus because they've said that only "established" editors have the right to create consensus, so they can ignore relatively new arrivals. John Smith's (talk) 09:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
This RfC is not about the article itself, its about the abuse of administrator tools, which happened 3-4 times in the process, judging by the recently added information, it seems this happens more often then I anticipated. The policy specifically says an admin should not make changes without consensus while it is protected. --I Write Stuff (talk) 11:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Can you please quote policy on that specific point? Thanks, John Smith's (talk) 12:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I suspect he's referring to Misplaced Pages:Protection policy, or more precisely, WP:PREFER: "Pages protected due to content disputes should not be edited except to make changes unrelated to the dispute, or to make changes for which there is clear consensus." — the Sidhekin (talk) 12:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, right. Well I think that the extreme edit-warring on the article in question means that William probably did the right thing. It was a suggestion, and the protection was lifted not that long after. I think the policy is designed to stop admins using protection to establish edits for long periods of time. It wouldn't have made a difference if William had lifted the protection and then made the edit rather than doing it the other way around in this case. John Smith's (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
He also blocked 2 users he was in a content dispute with, which is against the blocking policy for admins. This is all listed above, so I am not sure how you could have missed it. --I Write Stuff (talk) 13:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
He blocked two users because of their behaviour - they were edit-warring with other people. Supergreen was identified as a sockpuppet and his behaviour was very disruptive. Trav was also disruptive and the block was confirmed by another admin. It might have been better for Will to ask someone else to step in, but it's not as if Will reverted them three times and then blocked them. John Smith's (talk) 14:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
So you think that this admin did not selectively block the faction of the edit war which was against his POV, right?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 15:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
No, I think he blocked who he believed the source of the trouble was. Blocks are, so I keep hearing, preventative not punitive. It's worth noting that Trav was re-blocked by another admin and that the other admin didn't take any action against other users. John Smith's (talk) 15:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
The other users actions were not known at the time of the block. I pointed this out to you on another page, perhaps you did not read it. --I Write Stuff (talk) 16:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
If he blocked the other faction of the revert war the trouble would have disappeared as well so in which sense you say that Travb could be considered "the source of the trouble" while the other faction could not?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by DHeyward

It's clear that Travb is a timewaster. His block should be expanded to indefinite before he drags everyone into pointless RfC's and ArbCom's. His contributions to either establishing consensus or improving any article is essentially nil. His timewasting is notorious, perpetual and longwinded. The block was appropriate and we should simply move on. --DHeyward (talk) 18:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment. User:Travb (now known as User:Inclusionist) has a substantial history of editing the article in question, extending over a period of several years. According to Wannabe Kate, User:Inclusionist, an editor with over 23,000 edits to his name, has made 148 edits to the article and 856 edits to the talk page of the article, spanning several years. He/she is not "clearly a time waster" as DHeyward suggests, and an indefinite block is unthinkable. Shame on you. silly rabbit (talk) 22:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, he's a prolific timewaster. This RfC is a case in point. He's made 17 edits within the span of an hour to this RfC, most of them highly exaggerated accounts rehashing past events. It wastes everybody's time having to respond to both the overwhelmingly tediousness of such edits and their volume. He uses this tedious style as well as contentious and disruptive edits and reverts to thwart consensus and policy such as WP:RS and WP:V and WP:NPOV. You also forgot to add the sockpuppet and anon's he used Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Travb to his edit totals. --DHeyward (talk) 06:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This isn't about Travb or DHeyward, you two argue everywhere. For DHeyward to be here insisting that Travb using socks months ago is permission to discount any and all concerns for the future is absurd, especially when they are abuse of admin tools that no one has disagreed with as against blocking rules. --I Write Stuff (talk) 08:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I Write Stuff is right. I removed my comments. This is a RfC on William. Inclusionist (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by silly rabbit

I'm on the fence about a few things. I find William's decision to edit the page under protection lacking in transparency. Could someone please link to when and how William was requested to edit the page, and precisely what discussion took place? If such a request had been made with sufficient community exposure, then I may be inclined to agree with Guy's assessment that William came in to fix a problem and did what he was asked to do. If, on the other hand, William decided to take sides in a content dispute without a wider community mandate, then he clearly abused his administrative tools during this affair, and I must agree with User:I Write Stuff. silly rabbit (talk) 00:14, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a fair question, but one that I can't answer, as I've forgotten. G33 was unwise enought to complain to me about DH at one point; I may have come in via that. You seem to assume that I've taken sides in a content dispute; I haven't William M. Connolley (talk) 19:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
"You seem to assume that I've taken sides in a content dispute; I haven't " . You would appear to have become involved in content issues now, even if you weren't before. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 21:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
If Ultramarine or Dheyward were asked to list the names of people who oppose their views in general on the article, do you think your edits would be in line with DHeywards and Ultramarine, or Travb and Giovanni33? If possible can you please also answer why you felt Dance With The Devils 3RR on the page did not warrant a block, however Travb's did. I ask because while you may not have the intention of supporting a particular side, your edits, and your views may just happen to reflect one particular side. --I Write Stuff (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
WMC had blocked me for a 1RR violation on Global Warming. G33 mistakenly believed that I was on 1RR restriction (he left a pretty 1RR warning on my page before asking WMC what the 1RR meant - it was a community 1RR restriction on a paragraph in an article that applied to everyone). WMC then went to look at what the hubub was about and discovered the absolute worst article in Misplaced Pages. Ironically, G33 is on a 1RR restriction from ArbCom and was blocked shortly thereafter. Even more ironically is User:Inclusionist uses my block as an example of WMC's misuse of tools. --DHeyward (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
So what WMC is recalling had nothing to do with the state terrorism article in question? So I guess it still leaves the question unanswered. --I Write Stuff (talk) 02:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
William, for the good of the article != for the good of the encyclopedia. Full protecting and then making non-urgent edits at your leisure is bound to bring the project into disrepute, is it not? 86.44.30.169 (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by RegentsPark

I haven't read the article in question but, given the title, I can see that it must be a hotbed of edit warring so I won't even bother looking at it. From a 'just the facts' perspective it appears that an admin has protected a page primarily to edit it and has used blocks against users of one particular pov without opening up a discussion with the broader community. It is possible, even likely, that the admin's motives were pure but under No big deal admins have no special privileges and that includes not having a special privilege to use blocks and protects to control the direction of edits. Many a time I've thought "if only I could protect this page and edit in peace the article would be perfect", but I cannot because I'm not an admin. An admin should not use the tools to manage content in a way that an ordinary user cannot, and any admin doing so should, at the least, be censured. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:43, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

  • comment I don't believe that the interpretation "it appears that an admin has protected a page primarily to edit it " (emph added) is entirely accurate. It is my interpretation of events at the time that the admin primarily blocked the article to prevent edit warring. However, after placing the block, the admin then proceded to edit the locked article without gaining group consensus (removing content that did not violate copyright or BLP issues), unblocked the article per the expiry of the edit war lock, then blocked an editor who restored content to the article. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 15:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
    That would then be a lesser evil (without malice aforethought)! --RegentsPark (talk) 15:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
    Correct - if looked at in isolation. However the lack of a statement that 'oops - I should not have edited an article where I am playing traffic cop' and the sizable history of similar incidents that TravB/Inclusionist has posted suggest this may not simply be a short term lapse of judgment. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 16:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
    Is an RfC the right place for this? If there is the accusation of a pattern of this type of behavior then shouldn't there be something on WP:ANI? (Or, how does one involve the broader community to comment on the appropriateness of the admin's behavior?)--RegentsPark (talk) 18:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Biophys

I do not see any reasons why William should not edit Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. However blocking editors he is an edit war with sounds like a serious problem. Is that indeed supported by the evidence above?Biophys (talk) 22:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Incontrovertibly. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I see that an ArbCom case has been initiated against William, so the evidence above will probably be considered by ArbCom. I do believe that William acted against WP:NPOV policy and improperly deleted edits by User:HommieDaKlown in article Nuclear winter and later my edit in article Soviet propaganda, but this is a minor issue. I had too little interaction with William to judge about thatBiophys (talk) 02:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Sceptre

How about a nice warm cup...? Sceptre 13:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

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