User:Geo Swan/opinions/Haroon Rashid Aswat and BLP

__NOINDEX__ See User:Geo Swan/Stale drafts Haroon Rashid Aswat is a British muslim of Indian heritage, who has been linked with the London transit bombings of July 2005.

A former US Prosecutor, John Loftus, is reported to have alleged, during an interview, on Fox News, on July 29th, 2005, that Aswat was an MI6 source, and that MI6 had helped hide him from justice and counter-terrorism officials.

Short version of BLP dispute
On July 30 2007, ie two years later, User:Tom harrison made two excisions to the Haroon Rashid Aswat article. The edit summaries they left were brief, and uninformative. However, I could see that the article needed better sources. I decided to (1) revert the poorly explained excision; (2) provide better references. In retrospect I would do this slightly differently if I were in a similar situation.

When I replaced the article with a version that I thought used better sources, User:Tom harrison put the article in page protect, without any prior explanation. He then proceeded to make about half a dozen smaller excisions -- excisions whose wisdom I felt, I continue to feel, was open to debate.

After User:Tom harrison finished his edits he responded on Talk:Haroon Rashid Aswat to my query about the page protection, stating that he saw two choices open to him: (1) protect the page; (2) block me from editing.

IMO being elevated to administrator does not free a wikipedian from engaging in civil, meaningful dialogue, and explaining themselves to other wikipedians. IMO, threatening to block other wikipedians, without first making a meaningful attempt to clearly explain your concern is an over-reach of an administrator's authority. Geo Swan 14:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)