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The following is a proposed Misplaced Pages policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

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Misplaced Pages admins (also known as sysops) are editors granted special powers within our community. These powers include blocking editors and deleting pages found in violation of our policies. Admins may also protect pages against editing to avoid future violations of policy. We consider admins trustees of these powers; they are pledged to use them only for the benefit of the whole and not to advance personal agendas. However, some admins can and do abuse these tools.

All policies are subject to interpretation and we need admins to exercise good individual judgement in doing so. Because they are human, they are able to apply policies more flexibly and appropriately than any machine; but also, because they are human, they do make mistakes. Every day, there is a large quantity of tasks that must be done by admins; we are forced to accept human error along with good human judgement. Our solution to this paradox is to permit other admins to reverse admin actions by unblocking, undeleting, and unprotecting.

This leads to situations in which admins who disagree may use their powers in opposition, repeatedly reversing each others' actions. This is unacceptable. For historical reasons, this is called wheel warring. The goal of this policy is to reduce the frequency, intensity, and scope of wheel wars. Ideally, no wheel war would ever take place. Practically, we must balance the nuisance and disruption of a wheel war against the unintended consequenses of instruction creep and the wikilawering it generates.

Policy

Sanctions

Violators of 1WW are subject to a range of sanctions appropriate to the seriousness of the offense. Wheel warring is considered extremely disruptive. Violators may have their admin powers removed. ArbCom process is available but not required to enforce this policy.

Aggravation, mitigation, and defense

The scope of an admin's action is a critical factor in our evaluation of a charge of wheel warring. Factors in aggravation or mitigation may include, but are not limited to:

• Time: Actions which are repeated within minutes or hours are more serious than those repeated within weeks; actions repeated within months or years may not be actual violations at all.

• Range: Actions that affect large numbers of pages, highly prominent pages, or heavily-used Template or MediaWiki namespace pages are more important than those that involve a single obscure page. Multiple cotemporal violations of 1WW aggravate one another.

• Intent: Actions that clearly demonstrate disregard for community policy are more serious than those taken in clear good faith. An allegation of bad faith intent does not establish a violation of 1WW; but an established violation is aggravated by clear demonstration of bad faith. A clear demonstration of good faith may be sufficient to exempt an admin from sanctions.

• Talk: Actions performed subsequent to civil discussion on talk are presumed to be more amicable than those without. Neutral, honest, polite edit summaries and discussion prior to action go far to mitigate violations of 1WW. Hostile talk comments and edit summaries (or none) aggravate.

• Coviolation: Violating another policy in the same action aggravates a violation of 1WW. The other violation must be established as if there were no violation of 1WW; only then can it be considered in aggravation.

• Repeat offender: Having violated 1WW in the past does not establish that an admin has violated it in the present. But if a current violation is established then a prior violation is an aggravating circumstance.

The context of an admins action may influence the finding of wheel warring. Few defenses are able to succeed. Possible defenses include:

• Single action: It is quite possible for any single action to violate some other policy but this is a certain defense against 1WW. Violation requires repetition.

• Necessity: The defense may be made that it was necessary for an admin to violate 1WW in order to uphold some other policy or vital principle. Such argument may be considered in mitigation with the caution that it is extremely unlikely to be suffcient defense. Admins are advised to enlist the support of other admins in upholding policy.

• Ignorance: The defense may be made that an admin was not aware of admin opposition before repeating an action. However, we presume that an admin is aware that another admin has reversed an action before he repeats it. Admins who repeat a block should know if the previous block has expired or if another admin has unblocked. Admins do have a positive responsibility to review comments made on their talk pages.

• Amity: The defense may be made that an admin repeated an action after coming to an amicable agreement with all admins who initially reversed it. This is a good defense against a charge levied by an admin who did not participate in discussion. If the charge is brought by an admin who did participate in discussion, then the contents of the discussion must be examined for evidence of amicable agreement, absent which the defense of amity fails.

Commentary

Following are a number of (refactored) comments made in relation to wheel-warring policy. While none have effect equal to the policy itself, all may serve as a guide to interpretation.

• As a rule, administrators should not undo each other's admin actions. If you disagree with an admin's action, discuss the issue with him/her.

• If your action is reverted, you may not re-revert it: you must either discuss it or allow some other admin to take the action.

• Discussion is warranted, not reversing action.

• Any policy that makes exceptions will be open to interpretation, and thus fail to entirely prevent wheel warring.

• Page protections are not generally supposed to be permanent but they do not automatically expire like blocks do.

• Appeal to authority tends to polarize the discussion. The rogue admin has little incentive to participate in real discussion. All he/she has to do is be obstructionist enough to polarize the discussion and argue that consensus has never appeared. "I don't have to seek consensus because I can drag this out until Jimbo gets involved."

• Benefit of doubt should lean towards curtailing admin powers.
  • No, Assume Good Faith should apply to admin decisions.
  • Assume Good Faith applies to the admin who decided to revert the action, too.

• Please, no automatic deadminning. This should be like user blocking: preventive of disruption rather than punitive of the user.

• Edit warring over protected pages is very disruptive.
  • A stronger policy against edit warring on protected pages may be wise but this policy is focused on use of non-editing admin powers.

• Whoever reverses an admin action is responsible for any problems that result.

• Some wheel wars are conducted by admins who each believe they are Misplaced Pages's sole defender against some threat. An admin needs to remember that he does not stand alone against the forces of chaos; he can enlist the aid of another admin.

• Putting in an exception for vandalism invites attempts to surf the loophole thus created.

• This should be per-user, otherwise the admin who takes action first is protected from having their action undone by anyone.

• Keep in mind that deadminning requires steward intervention and most stewards will require evidence that a consensus exists on the project; they cannot be expected to review underlying rules to determine if a violation of local policy exists.

• I like to see standards of conduct sharp and explicit, penalties for violations adjustable to fit the crime. Violations should never be common enough to demand rubber-stamp justice.

• Self-reverts to correct one's own mistakes are allowed.

• We can tolerate all the divisive, biased admins on Topic X weighing in, each throwing his single stone, and stepping aside. Eventually they will all have exhausted their single shots and more neutral admins can come along and clean up.

• If one side is obviously wrong, they will probably run out of admins to vote for them sooner than the other side.

• 1WW might suggest to admins that what they're doing may be wrong, even if they're allowed to do it once.

• This has the problem of rewarding the aggressor, if only two admins are involved. Admin A blocks, admin B unblocks. Admin A can't reblock and if no one else gets involved, admin B got his or her own way by being the aggressor.
  • This objection is based on the "sole defender of the wiki" theory of adminship. We're a community, and I should think that most admins have made contacts within the administrative community who can be asked to review a situation and reimpose a reversed action.
  • The "only two admins" scenario seems like a red herring to me. It's not as if we didn't have WP:ANI, user talk pages, e-mail, and IRC. You can always find another admin.

More information may be found by examining the contents of the discussions that led to the establishment of this policy. See Proposed wheel warring policy (7 forks), Talk Archive, Talk (current).

Examples

These are some specific hypothetical example scenarios of admin actions which explore the question of whether any admin has violated 1WW. These examples do not pretend to exhaust all possible applications of this policy. While none have the effect of policy, all may serve as a guide to interpretation. Note that in any such case, real or hypothetical, one or more admins may well have violated other policies and guidelines, such as civility, neutrality, or process. Here we only explore possible violations of 1WW.

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Wheel war
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' reading list
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard
• Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy
• Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy
• Misplaced Pages:Protection policy
• Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes
• Misplaced Pages:Revert only when necessary
• Misplaced Pages:Three-revert rule
• Misplaced Pages:List of controversial issues
• Misplaced Pages:Adminitis
• ]

External links

• meatball:AnarchyAndFreedom
• meatball:SoftSecurity
• meatball:MetaModeration
• meatball:TitForTat
• meatball:FidonetPolicyFour:

  9.1:

  1. Thou shalt not excessively annoy others.
  2. Thou shalt not be too easily annoyed.

  9.2:

  If you are having problems with another sysop, you should first try to work it out via ... conversation with the other sysop.

• Misplaced Pages proposals