Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Darwinek 2

In order to remain listed at Requests for comment, 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 ~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 15:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).


 * (Darwinek | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute
Darwinek broke 3RR in a content dispute with  over, then blocked his opponent for 3RR, thus abusing his admin tools to gain advantage, falsely describing the dispute as a vandalism issue.

Desired outcome

 * For Darwinek to admit he was wrong in blocking Mt7 and to promise not to act like this again;
 * or else, for Darwinek to give up adminship

Description
Darwinek was revert-warring on the Koloman Gögh article and several other similar cases. The issue in dispute was how to describe the nationality of this person: a 20th-century football player, agreed to be a Czechoslovakian/Slovakian citizen, but believed by some editors to stem from the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. The evidence was his Hungarian-sounding name; neither side had other evidence either way. Mt7 was insisting on only mentioning "Slovakian"; Darwinek, who suspected Mt7 of Slovakian anti-Hungarian nationalist motivation, insisted on mentioning "Hungarian".

Both Mt7 and Darwinek broke 3RR on 19th March (Darwinek's reverts:, , , ), Mt7 also on a second similar article. Minutes after his 4th revert, Darwinek blocked Mt7, nominally citing his 3RR offense on a second article. However, note that Mt7's 4th revert came over 30 hours after his 3rd revert.

On 21th March, after a third party had reported Darwinek at WP:AN3, WP:AN and WP:ANI, both parties continued the same revert war. Darwinek made personal attacks against Mt7, describing him as a "schizofreniac" (sic). .

Challenged about his use of admin tools, Darwinek claimed that Mt7's edits constituted "vandalism" and he saw nothing wrong with his actions.

In an earlier incident, on 9th February, Darwinek blocked after engaging in a dispute with him on Articles for deletion/Ivan Špaček, and after mutual personal attacks  (Darwinek against Ross.Hedvicek:, , Hedvicek against others: ). The alleged 3RR violation was the removal of a personal-attacks warning on Ross.Hedvicek's own talk page.

In a third incident, on 21 February, Darwinek blocked for 3RR after edit-warring with him. Tulkolahten was later unblocked and Darwinek apologised because there had been fewer than 4 reverts (Note: Tulkolahten has spoken in Darwinek's defense and has asked for this incident not to be used against him ).

Powers misused

 * Blocking:
 * User:Mt7
 * User:Ross.Hedvicek
 * User:Tulkolahten

Applicable policies

 * Blocking policy
 * Used blocking powers to gain the upper hand in content disputes he was himself engaged him.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * Fut.Perf: ,
 * Thatcher131:
 * See also extensive discussion thread on WP:ANI:
 * Darwinek's response:, ,

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thatcher131 15:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC) Darwinek says No source also says he is Hungarian but it is most probable, he is. If there are no sources either way, then this is a content dispute, not vandalism, and in addition to inappropriate blocking, Darwinek has misused rollback in a content dispute.  Allowing one editor's idea of "common knowledge" to be the yardstick against which vandalism is measured is a very bad idea, especially in ethnic and regional disputes. If Mt7 really has been whitewashing articles about Hungarians from Slovakia on EN Wiki, dispute resolution is over there. Thatcher131 15:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * HighInBC(Need help? Ask me) 15:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC) The main issue here is confusing a content dispute with vandalism.
 * PTO - WP:VAND states that "Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia". PTO 20:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this statement
(sign with ~ )
 * I think this statement is accurate. Darwinek seems to have a large misunderstanding of several key concepts here. This should be a wake-up call for him that his gut cannot be trusted to make the correct decision on blocking.  I am really worried by the fact that he seems to still be in denial that this was in fact a content dispute and that believes insults can be appropriate if you label the person you are insulting as a vandal. Not to mention the insult he insists is "NO problem" is actually insulting many people with a mental illness as well as Mt7.  Birgitte SB  19:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Response
Hello. As for the block of Tulkolahten: He is my WikiFriend. We had both bad day then and indeed, I abused my powers against him. I apologized to him and we quickly reconciled. As for the block of Rostislav Hedvíček: Personal attacks? Yes, I cited various comments on him from CS Wiki and they could be insulting. But he is a pure vandal with no positive contribution to Wikipedia and I see NO problem with insulting vandals. They insult our community with their behaviour. Block was caused by his persistent removal of official Wikipedia warning from his talk page. As for the recent Mt7 case: There is an extensive crazy and misleading discussion on this in WP:ANI. What else to say? If whitewashing the ethincity of many people is a "content dispute", then calling African Americans "niggers", "porch monkeys" etc. (kind of vandalism I frequently revert) is a content dispute, too. :(

I am a respected long-time admin with over 40,000 edits. I created hundreds of new articles, including two Good Articles and several DYKs. I constantly fight vandalism, block IPs or users, constructively edit articles and make maintenance, e.g. delete many images with the same name on Commonz, CFD etc. I make Wikipedia a safer and cleaner place to be. I would like to say decent and good editors should not fear me or other admins, because I respect them and their work and encourage them to contribute to our encyclopedia constructively. That's why I everyday welcome new helpful and decent users.

As for the apologize: If I should apologize, then only to the community and other respected users for my misleading behaviour. Administrators Community is a great community of many outstanding users with the holy mission of making this place a better place to edit and without them Wikipedia is nothing. Sorry if my actions forced some people to not believe in admins. - Darwinek 17:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1)  ≈Tulkolahten≈ ≈talk≈ 23:53, 21 March 2007 (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 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.}

Tulkolahten's view
Regarding my block I can fully confirm Darwinek's words. I wish it would not be used against him in any way, it is a closed story only between us and I don't want this block to be reviewed at all please. Admins are dealing with requests and vandals and disputions all the day all the week and all their beings. If Mt7's edits are considered as vandalism then Darwinek did well, if not he did wrong. But between the tens of edits, reverting vandalism from anons, requests from other users, how can one realize that simple edit, removing statement without sources, is disagreement and not a vandalism? When you spot someone changing David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English professional footballer to David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is a Scottish professional footballer what will you do? Do you mark it as a disagreement too? No, of course, you will revert it as a vandalism and if the editor will continue you will block him asap. On the other hand if someone brings sources it is much different situation, but Mt7 did not. Even in good faith it is at least original research without sources. Sometimes content dispution is hot and not far from strong words. But hot blood is a fuel for hearts, only machines has no blood, no feelings and no hearts. Every editor makes a mistake sometimes, if necessary short block should be ordered but don't throw all the Darwinek's goodness out just for one small mistake.  ≈Tulkolahten≈ ≈talk≈ 23:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus view
For the most part I agree with Darwinek and Tulkolahten. Many of Mt7's edits are disruptive - but not all. An admin should not block somebody with whom he is involved in a dispute. In such cases he should contact another admin to consider the block, and if the user is clearly a vandal, consult a group of admins on WP:AN(I) before blocking for a longer period. Being an admin myself, I often find myself wanting to block some clearly disruptive users - but I don't. I am pretty sure that I would get rid Wikipedia of few vandals and flamers... but it's a slippery slope. At some point I am sure I'd have become so accustomed to blocking those whom I would see as vandals I would block an innocent user. This is why we have a rule that admins don't block those with whom they are engaged in a dispute unless there is no doubt they are trolls/vandals - and as I said, while Mt7 is far from a good editor, he is not a perfect example of a troll, neither. Darwinek should consider this and promise he will be more careful with blocking in the future (feel free to ask me or other admins to consider reverting or blocking dirsuptive users instead). That said, I fully support blocking Mt7 for his disruptive revert warring, and I assuming Darwinek admits he was too hasty to block this time and will be more careful in the future, I see no reason to consider penalizing him in any way. Admins, in the end, are just humans, and are entitled to an occasional mistake.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Endorse completely...well said.--MONGO 04:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) -- Asterion talk 08:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) --Jespinos 19:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Appleseed (Talk) 02:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Pavel Vozenilek's short comment
(1) Either this or Requests for arbitration/Darwinek should be closed and/or redirected. (2) I wrote a bit about context I am aware on. Pavel Vozenilek 19:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
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