Wikipedia:Requests for comment/InShaneee

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 06:32, 1 November 2006), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).

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 * protecting and unprotecting pages
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For all other matters (such as edit wars and page moves), please use the template at Requests for comment/Example user.



Statement of the dispute
I was blocked by InShaneee after reverting back a section of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games which he claimed was trolling. The section was about gathering information that could be used in a future RfC against the user A Man In Black. I had also claimed that he was assuming bad faith by assuming I was trolling when I stated that I was not (in fact, called it blatant trolling as well). He reverted yet again, only this time, threatened me with a block. I refused again, because I was not about to surrender and basically admit he is right and concede that I am trolling, when I am not. He then blocked me for 48 hours for doing so and harassing A Man In Black (despite the fact that this is the only thing that could be interpreted as me harassing him). I then, somewhat abrasively and sarcastically I admit, accused him of acting in bad faith. He removed that threatening a block extension as well, but I reverted it, and he blocked me for 96 hours. Eventually, Andrevan noticed this and unblocked. Soon after, however, InShaneee reverted this unblocking, saying that there should be no wheel war when he is the one who initiated one. On Andrevan’s talk page, he continues to assume bad faith and state that my intentions were opposite to what I was actually saying (ie, that I’m lying), and continues to claim that I am attacking and trolling AMIB instead. All in all, for this situation, I was blocked once by InShaneee for supposedly trolling, unblocked by Andrevan who disagreed that what I did was a blockable offense, and then another block from InShaneee because of an ongoing discussion of the block, and saying not to start a wheel war. Additionally, a block on me was not protecting Wikipedia from harm, but rather issuing punishment. Blocking policy states that punitive blocks are not good, meaning that InShaneee does not seem to understand the blocking policy. Additionally, he has continued to Wheel War, stating that admins should not do so in reference to other admins. He has also reverted the unprotection of my user talk page, but that has been reverted. He has also made elitist and arrogant comments, shrugging off and mocking the fact that he has violated the Wheel Warring policy. Additionally, he has recently made highly rude statements, implying that he thinks of himself as an authority figure to be respected and followed, based on his statements claiming he does not condone disrespect, and responding offensively towards tjstrf; instead of copping to violating policy, he told tjstrf to "do something about it". That is an acknowledgement that he violated a policy, but doesn't seem to care, referring to a warning about him violating policy as a "rant", later claiming that tjstrf was treating him like a newbie. Clearly, this user has an extreme superiority complex, and the fact that he not only violated WP:WHEEL but WP:BLOCK as well shows that he is irresponsible with his powers, and is not mature enough to be an admin.

Additionally, in his response, InShaneee has made a claim that this is disrupting Wikipedia in some way. All efforts to get him to explain what policy I have violated including leaving several messages on his talk page have been for naught - he even reverted one of my messages instead of answering it. Another example of conduct unbecoming an admin; no admin should just ignore a legitimate request, especially one in response to a controversial edit of the user. If any regular user constantly ignored legitimate requests, they'd have a pretty poor record, so I'd hope that InShaneee would experience the same side effect. - A Link to the Past (talk) 18:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Description
''InShaneee blocked me for 48 hours for apparently trolling (although with no evidence whatsoever), and then blocked me for an additional 48 hours for being sarcastic (a non-offense). The user has, throughout this, assumed bad faith on my part with no evidence, and then caused a wheel war.

Evidence of disputed behaviours

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Powers misused

 * Protection (log):
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 * Blocking (log):
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Applicable policies

 * Protection policy
 * Protected pages considered harmful
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 * Deletion policy
 * {explain violation of deletion policy here}


 * Blocking policy
 * Blocking policy
 * Wheel war


 * General


 * Civility
 * No personal attacks
 * Assume good faith

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
I cannot provide evidence, as the only way to resolve the dispute is to apologize, and I am not about to apologize for not having done anything wrong.


 * It should be noted, however, that multiple other users have attempted to resolve the dispute. I myself have civily attempted to challenge InShanee's behaviour multiple times: first by humble suggestion, and then when my reasons were written off  by direct citation of policy . This was disregarded as ranting . --tjstrf Now on editor review! 23:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * - A Link to the Past (talk) 08:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * - I certify the basis of this dispute. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * - Not handled appropriately by InShaneee. Andre (talk) 07:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * - After reviewing, it seems this could have been handled leaps and bounds better. --Nuclear Zer0 13:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * ~ crazytal es 56297  O rly? 00:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Emotional power abuse/personal stalking by InShanee. --Ragnarok Addict 16:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Not following best practice, if i say anything else it would lead me to being uncivil (and gettting banned by inshaneee), so i won't! Hypnosadist 19:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this statement
(sign with ~ )
 * Abused the power †he Bread  03:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Most definitely abused power.--Eupator 17:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Abuse of power -- Augustgrahl 21:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Abuse of power and not exactly his first time. الأهواز &#124; Hamid &#124; Ahwaz 16:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Addhoc 21:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Obviously power abuse.. InShane seem unable to deal with what admin should do. --Ragnarok Addict 16:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Abuse of power! Hypnosadist 19:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Response
I'll start by saying that Link has a long, long, long history of disruption (note the edit summaries especially in many of those), and that's just in the last month. Not to say he's not a good editor, however. As anyone going through his history as extensively as I just did will clearly see, he does a lot of nit picky little work like adding importance to Wikiproject banners that most editors are unwilling to do, and he does in in quantity. However, I don't think this gives anyone a free pass (see Karmafist). This all started with him posting seeking people to sign his upcoming RfC against User:A Man In Black on the CVG Project talk page. I found this to be highly inappropriate (the RfC has nothing to do with Video Games), and I said as much in the thread (I should note also that I have no opinion one way or the other about A Man, as I've had little to no direct contact with him). When I checked back later and saw the vast majority of posters agreed, I removed the thread in its entirety. Almost immediately, Link re-added it, claiming that I needed to assume 'good faith', and that since he found people willing to certify his RfC there, then it must have been a valid place to post it. I removed it again, and warned him that, now that he knew it was inappropriate, I would consider further attempts to post it trolling. He immediately re-added it. So, I blocked him for 48 hours for trolling. He immediately then began trolling me on his talk page, so I extended his block and protected his talk page with. At this point, I hopped into #wikipedia-en-admins to discuss this with some other administrators. While some questioned the length of the block, all that I spoke with either endorsed a block of some sort, or agreed that it was a judgement call. Yes, I did undo another admin's block, simply because it was done with no discussion with anyone, the very definition of wheel warring. I've allowed for the undoing of blocked I've done in the past many times due to discussion, and we all know that simply reverting someone solves nothing. At a later time, due to a suggestion from User:Newyorkbrad on my talk page, I shortened the block back to the original block, since I do agree that the second block may have been a bit harsh.

In summary, I still feel strongly that Link's reposting of that thread repeatedly warranted a block of some kind, and if my actions following that block were pushing the envelope, I do apologize. I attempted to get further input from the other administrators every step of the way, and did attempt to compromise at the end. --InShaneee 15:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Dionyseus 00:59, 18 November 2006 (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.''

Comment by NuclearUmpf
I stumbled upon this today and decided to do a little research, I cannot look up what happened on IRC, which is why I always felt it was bad to use. Of what I can see from the comments here, as well as the dif's provided, and visiting the userpage of User:InShaneee and User:A_Link_to_the_Past, it seems that InShaneee acted quite agressively. I have stumbled into this admin on AN/I and found them unhelpful and hostile, this seems to be replayed here. To me it seems they expect people to march in line with their orders and issue threats when they attempt to defend themselves. I know this isn't representative of the general admin population as I have had many conflicts and instead of threats the admins usually attempt to udnerstand the situation, not lay down a threat and move on. The general admin population is normally open to understanding the other side and taking advice, however their wheel warring and telling people to "do something about it" seems overly confrontational and hostile, especially considering that comment was being directed at other admins offering their advice.

It seems before this got going this admin had commented to this user in an underhanded way, instead of discussing the users points they instead attempted to bring up their past, the comment is obviously not helpful and only serves to stoke flames, further supporting the above statement I guess.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) --Nuclear Zer0 13:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) TheOtherBob 15:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) --Eupator 17:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) --Augustgrahl 20:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) الأهواز &#124; Hamid &#124; Ahwaz 16:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6)  Addhoc 21:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Hypnosadist 19:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) --KP Botany 20:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment by TheOtherBob
I concur with NuclearUmpf. I've also come across this admin before (which is how I noticed this dispute), and similarly found him hostile and unhelpful. I believe that InShaneee has a good faith desire to help build the encyclopedia. However, he has not handled this situation well. His actions have been aggressive and excessive, and he has reacted inappropriately to criticism. (I particularly disliked the comment that he blocked the user for showing "disrespect," which I think demonstrates an inappropriate view of his role as administrator.) I have reviewed other comments on InShaneee's talk page, and am worried that there could be a pattern of this sort of problem. I think InShaneee almost certainly means well, but perhaps needs to step back and reconsider the way he deals with disputes. --TheOtherBob 15:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) TheOtherBob 15:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Brian Boru is awesome 15:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) --Getting nowhere now.if user repeats stuff again we should see if right for administratorship. no offense. Brian Boru is awesome 05:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) --Eupator 17:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) --Augustgrahl 20:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) الأهواز &#124; Hamid &#124; Ahwaz 16:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Agree with concern about blocking for "disrespect" as opposed to, just for example, protecting Wikipedia. Addhoc 11:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) --Elar  a girl  Talk 18:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Eluchil404 11:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Newyorkbrad
User:InShaneee is a respected user and administrator whose dedication to the project has been clearly demonstrated. I respect his commitment, reflected in this and several other situations I have seen, to upholding the highest standards of civility and user conduct. Any suggestions that he should no longer be an administrator are completely unwarranted. Having said that, it is submitted that this situation was seriously mishandled by InShaneee and, to a lesser extent, by other involved parties.

As it happens, I came across this situation because my preferences are set to watchlist pages to which I've contributed, and I had interacted with InShaneee with respect to another, unrelated, 96-hour block in August. (That case involved a block of a somewhat immature editor that was completely appropriate ab initio but which I thought could have been shortened when the editor promised to desist from the objectionable behavior; I suggested clemency on behalf of the blocked user; InShaneee disagreed and the editor served out the full block term; as it happens, since then, the editor's behavior has improved significantly, so it appears InShaneee's block served its purpose after all.)

Which brings us to the blocks of User:A Link to the Past that have triggered this RfC. I will not rehash all the diffs here, which have been summarized by the others above, nor will I comment on the merits of the original block (these are, at the least, debatable, but a debatable block by itself is not RfC fodder) or its length (which was longer than might have been usual for the perceived offense, but the user does have a prior block history).

Upon being blocked, A Link to the Past protested against the block on his talkpage (a blocked user can still edit his or her own talkpage, unless the blocking admin or another admin specifically protects the page). Some of the user's comments in this regard were unhelpful, but not atypical for a frustrated blocked user, particularly when some others agree with the user that the block was unnecessary. Without explanation, based on these comments, InShaneee doubled the block-length from 48 to 96 hours, with the block summary "trolling, incivility on talk page while blocked." Several users have commented that the doubling of the block length was unjustified. I have to agree with them, and I believe InShaneee now may accept that as well.

As A Link to the Past continued to protest against the now-extended block, InShaneee protected A Link's talkpage, thus silencing his comments and also disabling A Link's ability to use the "unblock" template to seek further review. It is to be expected that blocked users may protest against their having been blocked. Their comments provide a vehicle for interaction between the blocked user, the blocking administrator, and potentially others concerning the issues that led to the block. Protecting a blocked (but not indef-blocked) user's talkpage, as I understand it, is generally reserved for situations in which the user has severely abused the ability to edit that page, such as by posting obscene attacks, personal information, or the like. In this case, none of A Link's remarks on the talkpage were of that nature and InShaneee could have terminated his interaction with the user by simply walking away from that page. Several users have commented that the protection of the talk page was also unjustified. Again I have to agree.

Shortly after InShaneee extended the block on A Link to the Past, another admin unblocked. I gather this was done without consultation, which is bad form. InShaneee saw that his admin decision to block had been reversed, and immediately reinstated the block, with the comment, "discussion [on IRC] ongoing about block, do not wheel war." By this point, bells should have been going off in the mind of every involved administrator and editor that this situation needed to be referred to a forum like WP:ANI for a broader discussion to sort things out, but no one did. (I would have posted the matter to ANI myself, except that at the time I was reading pages on my handheld while waiting at an airport, making it impracticable to compile diffs.)

All this occurred on the night of October 30 in the United States (early morning October 31 in Wiki-time). The following morning, another administrator, again reversed the block, with the summary "block extension was vindictive." During that day, A Link to the Past made some edits. InShaneee apparently did not see that his block had been reversed until that evening. InShaneee then immediately reinstated the block, albeit to its original 48 hours rather than 96 hours. This reinstatement was unnecessary. By this time, frankly, User:A Link to the Past had to have gotten the message that his underlying behavior was controversial and should be desisted from, without the need to reinstate the block for a third time (and making an unholy mess of his block log, among many other unfortunate aspects). At this time, InShaneee also reinstated the protection of A Link's talk page. That was completely unnecessary and was quickly reverted by another administrator.

Another editor commented on InShaneee's talk around this time that based on the history to this point, it appeared that InShaneee had some kind of grudge against this user ("to a third party it starts to look like you have it 'out' for the guy"). I am certain that this was not, in fact, the case, but an uninvolved user could reasonably have reached the conclusion that it was. Circumstances in which an uninvolved user could reasonably conclude that an administrator is acting against an editor based on personal feelings about the editor should be avoided.

I then commented that reinstating the 48-hour block seemed unnecessary, particularly when the original block length had already half expired. InShaneee agreed with me to the extent of shortening the block to 16 hours, based on how long it would have run, but my point was that reinstating the block at all so long after the fact was not going to be useful and that the blocked/unblocked/reblocked/unblocked/reblocked user had to be totally confused by this point (to be fair, my own post may not have been clear as to exactly what I meant). I also noted in my post that the situation should long since have been referred to ANI. Around this point, there was a mild degree of mutual incivility during the discussion between InShaneee and a couple of editors, which I think reflects that everyone was frustrated by this point. The matter never was taken up on ANI and A Link to the Past served the remainder of the 16-hour block, which has now expired. His block log now contains nine entries arising from this single incident, which is, at best, unfortunate.

I have written more than I intended to here, so I will end where I began: InShaneee is a dedicated administrator with a clear desire to benefit the project by enforcing the community's standards for civility and compliance with Wikipedia guidelines. That desire must always be balanced, however, against users' freedom to express their feelings on talkpages, so long as the limits of civility and NPA aren't crossed. I believe that InShaneee's statement above acknowledges some degree of overzealousness in this instance, and I am sure that he has learned some lessons from the comments he has received in the past couple of days, including on this page, so that piling on with further criticism should not be necessary (I realize that it is easy for me to say that, having just said my piece, but I hope my point is understood). Other editors and administrators, including the editor who filed this RfC, can also profitably reflect on their own contributions to this situation and how similar events can be avoided in the future. Newyorkbrad 01:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  05:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Nicely said. I also concur with Bob's point about the "disrespect" comment. InShanee should have recused himself as soon as there got to be any sort of personal interaction. Twice re-blocking is utterly unacceptable; let other admins sort it out at that point. Derex 07:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC) I can no longer sign this as a whole, because it endorses continued adminship. At this point, based on more recent evidence, I have lost all confidence in the judgment of InShaneee as an admin. The last straw is him edit-warring to delist his own RFC. Simply incredibly poor judgement.    Derex 17:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) A good admin who lost his cool in this situation. Personally, I don't blame him. ALTP is a trying editor and anyone's patience would wear thin if you have to deal with him for a while. I think InShaneee will learn from this RFC alone and improve how he handles such situations. I see this as an isolated incident and not a wide spread problem. -- Ned Scott 22:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I concur with Ned Scott. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  04:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) -- Selmo  (talk) 18:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Addhoc 11:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) From my experience and observation InShaneee is a good and balanced administrator. From what I read here I must agree with Newyorkbrad and Ned Scott because in general InShaneee is one of the most helpful and fair admins on WP. Khorshid 04:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4)  Proto ::  type  15:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Khosrow II 01:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Khoikhoi 02:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) KP Botany 17:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC) I concur, with the additional note that InShaneee takes on too many hard-core and complex cases, probably leading to a bad attitude sometimes. Take a break, let someone else do the tough work. It's hard to take seriously such vindicativeness by an administrator against editors who challenges his actions, which is how I see this now, not just a random event, but a pattern of overt hostility by an administrator seeing his perceived power challenged by non-administrators, particularly an administrator who cannot support his own actions. And an administrator who harrasses an editor instead of discussing a block, who has no understanding that editors are offended at being blocked, is NOT trying to "enforce the community's standards for civility and compliance with Wikipedia guidelines," but simpling harrassing editors because they can get away with it is as an administrator.   Wikipedia offers editors opportunities to contest administrative action, administrators who don't honor this, by attacking an upset editor on his talk page, are not assuming good faith, and are not complying with Wikipedia's guidelines.  I no longer concur that "InShaneee is a dedicated administrator." KP Botany 21:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) ManiF 04:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Dionyseus 23:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Agreed.  The original block was valid, but InShaneee demonstrated what looks like poor judgement in the follow-up. Much of the complaint amounts to sour grapes by people who have been stopped in the past.  Dredge hard enough and you'll find disgruntled users - good, bad and indifferent - in the logs of every busy admin.  Nothing to write home about, but InShaneee needs to take a bit more care. Guy (Help!) 17:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "InShaneee needs to take a bit more care" NO! he needs to be civil, assume good faith and not ban people for disrespecting his power over them (ie disagreeing with him). He as part of this RfC has never admitted any wrong doing or seemed to take any of the comments of other admins or lowly editors into account in his behaviour. He has continued in his superior attitude because he believes as an admin he IS superiour to editors.Hypnosadist 17:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Precisely. InShaneee is not a good admin; in fact, he is a distinctively bad one. - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Colin Keigher (Talk) 18:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 04:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) ~  Flame vip  e  r  Who's a Peach? 14:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) I agree with Ned Scott: a good admin has made an error. This must not make us lose the immense value of InShanee's work in fighting uncivility, that in many areas of wikipedia has became almost a plague.--Aldux 17:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hm? It seems that InShaneee is more on the side of being uncivil rather than fighting it (or rather, he fights it and supports it). - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't say I agree with everything InShanee's does. I agree that InShanee is too harsh in dealing with problematic editors, and I would appreciate him to be more moderate in his tone, but what I agree with is his severity, as I've noted that leniency towards uncivility generates the increasing uncivility that characterizes the talk pages of many articles.--Aldux 13:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Zscout370
I spoken to both parties on IRC to find out what is going on. From what I understood from the both of them, I believe that both InShaneee and Link should look at this RFC and make some amends to their actions. One of the issues I looked at was the reversal of some of the edits Link has made to the CVG talk page. While RFC's should not be announced days ahead to get support, and based from what I witnessed from the Userboxen War, linking a RFC from a project page to get support is a very bad idea. And as an admin, I put my initial trust first with admins. I trust that InShaneee talked to other admins before about removing the information and waited for the go-ahead before he removed the information. However, InShaneee used the rollback feature, which is not a good idea when in a dispute with a user (unless backed up by force from ArbCom or higher). I hope both parties can come to an agreement somehow before anything worse happens (and sadly, I think I might be too damn late). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 03:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Addition
It has been brought to my attention by outside parties that InShaneee did not heed my advice about the rollback. He used the rollback feature 5 times on Nov 6. starting from 22:04 until 22:25 to remove a message by the bringer of the RFC and by others about a discussion for an article. While a block was not issued for this, this is the textbook case of rollback abuse. This is one of the things being mentioned in the RFC and one thing I mentioned to InShaneee privately. If there is something an adminship should be stripped over, this is it. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I am disturbed by an apparent on-going pattern as documented here by you, and below by Fut Perf. It's one thing to lose your cool and make a mistake; we all do that. There's more going on here than that. This is beginning to rise to the level of meriting a recall election, though that can only be done voluntarily. Derex 07:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Caligvla
I have found InShanee to be fair mined and constructive. This issue should be promptly closed.--Caligvla 05:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):

Comment by Fut.Perf.
First off, I don't want to see this as an RfC against InShaneee, but rather one about his adminship methods. I haven't much to say about the specifics of this particular case, but rather about the larger pattern of which it is part (as illustrated again by yet another incident since the RfC started.)

I have a lot of respect for InShaneee's dedication and impartiality in trying to enforce civility standards and prevent trolling, but I do see a problem with the way he does it.

Admin intervention should always be designed so as to defuse conflicts. InShaneee's interventions, very frequently, end up confrontational and ultimately lead to more tension, more resentment, and more ill-will between the involved parties.

I've seen the pattern unfolding numerous times: A user does something disruptive (or perceived as such by InShaneee). InShaneee steps in with a warning. From that point on, any response given by the offending user is countered with an escalating sequence of more warnings, brusque rebukes and blocking threats, leading to more anger on the other side. Any criticism then brought forward by the offender, either against the people they were being in dispute with, or against InShaneee himself, is scrutinised for the smallest signs of incivility, setting the escalation of blocking threats (or actual blocks) spirallling.

InShaneee operates on the basis of a very strict interpretation of the NPA rules, where even simple incivility infractions are regarded as blockable offences. But our blocking policy clearly does not list simple one-off attacks as routine reasons for blocking, let alone mere incivilities or instances of "disrespectful" behaviour, unless they are persistent and severly disruptive. And there is a good reason for this, which these incidents illustrate only too well: Civility shouldn't be "policed" with routine blocking threats, not because doing so wouldn't be just or because incivil behaviour is okay, but because it is ultimately not very helpful.

What I'm particularly concerned about is InShaneee's extremely rigid, literalist interpretation of the phrase "comment on content, not on the contributor". This adage from WP:NPA is certainly a useful rule of thumb to give to someone who has in fact been attacking others, to show them a way of behaving better. But it is most definitely not a useful defining criterion of what a "personal attack" is in the first place. According to InShaneee's interpretation, apparently any critical comment about another contributor's mode of operation, their qualifications or their underlying motives is illegitimate. This, to my mind, is fundamentally misguided. Whoever has any experience with mediating and resolving conflicts out in the real world will surely know that talking about each other's perceived motivations is in fact a fundamental, indispensable part of any sane, rational dispute resolution process.

InShaneee's approach to conflicts effectively boils down to having a two-class society of editors, in which admins play a "policing" role. "Normal" users are not to do anything about disruptive behaviour of others, not to comment on it, not to criticize it - they are only to report it to admins and let the admins deal with it. This deprives editors of their fundamental ability and responsibility in managing their own affairs and solving their own problems. And, I believe, it is a fundamtally wrong view of what adminship is about.

A side-effect of this "police-like" understanding of the admin role is that InShaneee sometimes feels free to talk about the offenders he blocks in terms that he would certainly object to as being "disrespectful" if they were used by them. There's clearly a problem of double standards here. Mind that this is by no means a problem of personal hypocrisy, far from it: it is a logical consequence of admins assuming the "police" role that makes them into a class of editors standing above the rest.

A second, uglier, side-effect is the kind of behaviour it fosters in users. InShaneee has sometimes encouraged users to systematically report each other's civility infractions to him. I am concerned this encourages a mentality where "I'll report you to an admin!" is mistaken for a routine step in dispute resolution. Even worse, I believe there are users in Wikipedia who may be systematically employing the tactics of provoking an opponent into breaking NPA and then going to InShaneee with it, as a staple ingredient of edit-warring. In this way, InShaneee's strategies may be unintentionally playing into the hands of just the kinds of trolls or edit-warriors he wants to check.

In short, while I applaud InShaneee for his efforts in upholding decent behaviour standards, I would seriously recommend he reconsider the means he employs, and his understanding of adminship as a whole. Admins are not the police, and admins have no monopoly in dealing with and talking about other editors' behaviour.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Hypnosadist 19:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) --Nuclear Zer0 10:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Seems this might be more widespread than I first thought. -- Ned Scott 10:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Well intentions but very inappropriate methods.--Eupator 17:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjo e  08:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Addhoc 11:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Thanks for the thorough research and insightful comments. I myself noticed that InShaneee is often in the mood of "shoot first" but that was just a bypasser's observation; your post here clarified it well. Duja ► 14:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) --TorriTorriTalk to me! 15:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Agree with most of your basic points. I was aghast when he warned me "you're going to have a very, very unpleasant time here" when I chose not to have my name on a list. Moriori 22:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Note: Comment was taken out of context. ---J.S (t|c) 08:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Rubbish. Specifically, he said " if you don't like having your name on the same page as other people, you're going to have a very, very unpleasant time here". In other words, as I said above, he warned me  "you're going to have a very, very unpleasant time here" when I chose to not have my name on a list. There's only one context -- threat. Moriori 08:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I have read the discussion and I dont see any threat there. In fact I would say it looks like InShaneee was trying to be helpful by saying to you that if you cant handle constant changings then you will hate your time on WP. He is 100% right because nothing stays same for very long and things are moving and shifting here to there. And anyone who reads the discussion can see that there is no threat or bad tone. Khorshid 10:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I was about to respond but suddenly thought I should look at your history first. I did. Enough said. Moriori 01:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Watch your tone. --InShaneee 04:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I've never been one of the LOL brigade, otherwise....... Moriori 05:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Moriori, you are taking that message out of context, and now you're making personal attacks and being rude. Calm down, man. -- Ned Scott 05:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * "Now", (your word), I am "making personal attacks" and "being rude". Evidence please. And remember "context", which you mentioned. Moriori 09:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If I honestly have to explain this to you, then it's not worth the effort. -- Ned Scott 09:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You actually cannot explain it to anyone. You cannot show that subsequent to InShanee's "Watch your tone" comment, I made personal attacks or was rude. Any claims posted on Wikipedia require supporting evidence. Moriori 21:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Given InShaneee's comment "Watch your tone" posted underneath the words "InShaneee's interventions, very frequently, end up confrontational and ultimately lead to more tension", I would suggest that he hasn't grasped what this RfC is about. Addhoc 12:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I agree with this. Furthermore, InShaneee is one of the main reasons why I don't take Wikipedia rules seriously any more. This exchange led to a 48 hour block: . When I questioned his judgement and why he was warning me rather than another user who was being disruptive, he told me he wasn't prepared to "babysit" me. And he has also used the "douche" insult against me. I can't find the diff right now, but here is another example in the edit summary: . He seems to develop some sort of vendetta against users for no real reason related to content and any minor infraction is dealt with severely. He continually blocked me in edit disputes with others who were acting very disruptively and as such gave me a block summary worthy of Joseph Stalin in order to discredit me as an editor. Instead of solving editorial disputes, he just isolates certain users, stalks them and prompts them to edit anonymously - I'm not the only one who has done this. Consequently, I really don't care what admins think any more. They will always support InShaneee's rudeness and punishments of those who he is determined to block. Admins always rally to each other's defence, especially behind InShaneee. So, why should anyone take Wikipedia rules seriously when InShaneee acts with impunity? Yeah, I know you people will jump to his defence and cast me as some sort of evil creature and an enemy of Wikipedia, but failure to take this problem with InShaneee seriously will just heighten disputes. It's your choice. I want InShaneee to put himself up for re-election and be judged by his peers. If he wins, then his approach will obviously be approved by the Wikipedia community.--الأهواز &#124; Hamid &#124; Ahwaz 13:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm an admin and I'm certifying this dispute, not rallying to anyone's defense. Andre (talk) 00:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * He called you a douche? ~  Flame vip  e  r  Who's a Peach? 14:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Hypnosadist
User:InShaneee Blocked me for incivility and then called me a douche! If you want to know more just check his and my talk pages. Its was exactly as User:Future Perfect at Sunrise said, also he reapetedly deleted comments off article talk pages, which is how i first got noticed by him when i "dared" revert one of his deletions. His deleteion of one a newbie's first posts on talk followed by inshaneee's behaviour is possibly a reason that editor has not been back!

It is my opinion that the actions of User:InShaneee have been disruptive and damageing to wikipedia.Hypnosadist 07:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

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 * 1) That is disturbing and unfortunate.  If there's an upside, it is that the "douche" incident happened a month before this RfC - and is therefore only evidence of past behavior rather than continuing problems.--TheOtherBob 18:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a continuing problem as far as i am concerned, he is still just as rude, argumentative and thinks that his adminship is a carte blance to do what ever he wants. Look at the "watch your tone" comment, i've just been waiting for the right place to complain about how he has treated me and how i've seen him treat other people.Hypnosadist 18:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Addhoc 19:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we disagree. My hope is that things could have changed since then - but your point about the above comment is very well-taken. --TheOtherBob 19:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I also concur.--Eupator 22:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Ragnarok Addict 23:00, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * InShaneee continued this behaviour with me. At the time I had just made a couple of posts about Khoikhoi, and a look at my contributions page at the time InShaneee posted his comment showed clearly that "the lion's share" of my posts were never Khoikhoi rants--I was doing a ferocious content and copy review of the Sei Whale article for FA status at the time, just look at its talk page to see what the real lion's share of my contributions to Wikipedia were at the time, and decide for yourself if InShaneee is exhibiting evidence of this behaviour.  Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone compounds them by further dumping on the target, and people who take out retribution on the target of their mistakes, who can't apologize, who don't understand that sometimes things get heated, should not be in the position of having powers that they can and do abuse. I can't imagine that any editor would not be blocked by an admin for calling someone a douche bag, that any editor would be allowed to post outright lies about someone in order to cloud others' views of them.  There is no evidence that it is only past behaviour, but plenty that it's not.   KP Botany 16:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Hipocrite
RFC's are not a club to harass users. This page is being used to harass users. Thus, this page is either not an RFC or is being misused.

As a clarifing comment, I refer to the reopening and reiteration of old issues over three months after those issues were put to bed. Start a new RFC or don't, but don't try to bludgeon an editor with reopening old wounds.


 * 1) Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 20:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Yup. Guy (Help!) 15:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment by 81.178.208.69
It seems to me InShaneee is the worst sort of adminstrator. He uses the blocking tools without any reference to policy, views himself as a superior editor who needs to control the lesser editors, and ignores anyone who asks him to justify his actions. He blocked me because I removed (three times over four days, with explanations in edit summaries) a tag he wanted on a talk page, thus breaking the rule that admins should never block someone they're having a content dispute with. He will not respond to repeated requests for an explanation of his action. When an admin's actions are questioned, the very least that the community should expect of them is that they talk about it. To ignore the community is immature and rude, and might cause the community to lose faith in an administrator behaving this way. 81.178.208.69 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: here is a link to the ANI discussion over that incident. 18:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

A fictional 3RR accusation and consequent 24 hours block for Daizus
I have recently been blocked by InShaneee for no real reason. His actions I consider unjust to me and it seems it is quite a trend here of controversial actions in his behavior as administrator. And as his actions frustrated me and (perhaps) altered my "Wiki profile", I consider I should express them somewhere and this seems the right place to do so. I also have issued a complaint with almost the same content in WP:AN/I.

History
On 13th February as I logged to Wikipedia I first noted I have a message on my talk page. Going there I saw a 3RR block message signed by InShaneee. I knew I had some reverts on that page regarding a controversy related to WP:NC but I remembered I had avoided falling under the incidence of 3RR rule, hence my first reaction was to protest with a reply in my talk page. But then immediately I checked the page history for the article on Albert Wass and I noticed I had 4 reverting edits in a 24 hour interval (11 February 20:48 - 12 February 16:45; I'm using server time as reference) and then, in good faith, I thought I rushed in denying the accusation and withdrew my reply. Amazed by the difference between what I knew I had done and what I saw in that first glance, I proceeded to analyze the situation. And I discovered my 4 reverts were actually about two different things:
 * 11 Feb, 20:48 - revert names
 * 11 Feb, 21:12 - revert names
 * 11 Feb, 21:19 - add tags
 * 12 Feb, 16:45 - revert names, revert tags

As such, I was not under the incidence of 3RR rule and I requested an unblock. However, my request was denied by Arjun because apparently, my block was registered for another article: Burzenland. This can be seen in my block log and in the first edit InShaneee performed in my talk page, a edit which he later corrected. And here I want to mention I couldn't find a 3RR report issued on me (and thus the evidence for the accusation and the block). True, I have performed a lot of edits in the article on Burzenland, but there were not even 2 edits reverting the same content. Furthermore I protested in my talk page and I requested evidence for the 3RR accusation. I have not received responses or apologies, though both administrators were active since then, as easily anyone can see in their contributions history. Daizus 13:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment from A Link to the Past
I had just recently given InShaneee an ultimatium - to apologize for the excessive and unnecessary block, and to agree to my conditions (almost all of which he was required to agree to as an admin) or face an RfAr (more like a chance to not be stripped of his power rather than an ultimatum, really), and he blanked my message. So, I will now be seeking an RfAr. Other than the recent developments brought to my attention, I have a Word document containing several violations which of course include all of the violations he made to get to the RfC in the first place. - A Link to the Past (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, that's sure to help. Ultimata, threats, demands - always the hallmark of a genuine attempt to resolve differences for sure. Guy (Help!) 23:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I had already took back that and given my own apology. But thank you for sarcasm that serves no purpose but to increase tension (since you're oh-so good at it).
 * Now I can say that he's going to the RfAr for multiple serious admin abuses instead of just this situation. - A Link to the Past (talk) 00:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

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