Re: Wikibook User Arbitration

Andrew Whitworth wrote:

>I agree with Dragontamer (although I'm sure everybody already knows my 
>opinions on this matter). A user was blocked for misbehavior, and he 
>complained about it. I can't imagine any user (besides a vandal) getting 
>blocked and not complaining. This doesnt mean that every instance needs to 
>become some kind of arbitration nightmare. What I don't see, besides Panic's 
>plea, is a reason to review or even overturn SBJohnny's decision. People who 
>make bold decisions to benefit the project should be rewarded, and I dont 
>think we should be introducing unnecessary oversight into our system.
>
>--Andrew Whitworth (Whiteknight)
>  
>
A large difference between this situation and other typical user blocks, 
however, is that it occured due to a content edit war rather than from a 
blatant vandal, which really is a very different sort of problem.  While 
I may agree that this edit war is getting out of hand, the justification 
for performing a user block is definitely one of a grey area rather than 
something as clear cut as Johnny seems to be implying here.

The more I started to dig into reviewing Johnny's actions, and to see 
explicitly what exactly Panic did, the more confusing to me that it 
became.  In addition, apparently some very heated exchanged happened on 
IRC that have tainted this whole process and precipitated some of this 
action, independent of what was actually done on Wikibooks.  While I can 
appreciate some individuals being offended by a particular user due to 
some very crass and pointed remarks on IRC, that by itself doesn't 
justify a user block on the Wiki as a result of those heated exchanges.

I would also like to point out that on Wikipedia, it is precisely this 
sort of situation where user arbitration cases are established, and 
Wikipedia policy expressly forbids administrators from performing a user 
block in this situation without having it be reviewed by an arbitration 
committee.  I know Wikibooks is not Wikipedia, but the policies simply 
havn't been established at all for Wikibooks on this topic.

More to the point, I just want to know what is going on.  Simply logs 
like the block log and page move log (apparently one justification for a 
user block) doesn't seem to from my viewpoint provide justification or a 
clear explaination for what has happened.  It is for this reason and 
others that I simply requested some additional information.  Based on 
IRC chats I've had with Johnny, there did seem to be a strong motive for 
the block, but it wasn't apparent right away.

BTW, some comments here seem to imply that we should (seemingly) always 
accept what the other admins are doing.  It is one of the key 
responsibilities of administrators to police each other, and make sure 
we aren't stepping over the line.  I have been critical in the past of 
the actions of some administrators, although in the case of Johnny I've 
never had any real cause to have concern in the past.  Certainly in this 
situation it needed to be reviewed.

I would also like to note that I didn't "overturn" Johnny's decision in 
terms of unblocking, except after consulting him and getting a general 
agreement from Panic that by performing the unblock that both of them 
would use this time to cool off and avoid altogether editing on the 
Wikibook where the dispute seems to be occuring (C++ Programming). 
 Based on the user contribution history, Panic also seems to be abiding 
by this agreement as well.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning