Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jeffrey O. Gustafson 2

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Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute
Jeffrey O. Gustafson has on numerous occasions violated the civility and image speedy deletion policies, misused the user talk namespace, and engaged in behaviour and adopted an attitude that is detrimental to the project and does not befit an administrator or editor in good standing.

Specifically, he has been uncivil to various users, has speedily deleted images under speedy deletion criterion I7 without the requisite 48-hour notification, has repeatedly blanked and deleted his talk page, has refused to address concerns by other members of the community, and has stated his intention to continue this pattern of behaviour (for details, please see the section titled "Evidence of disputed behavior").

It may be that Jeffrey is simply tired of having to explain his deletions, but that is part of being an active administrator. In addition, exasperation is not an excuse for incivility, policy violations, and an attitude of open contempt (see the "fetid cesspool" comment made in this post) as long as he continues to carry out administrative functions (deletions, blocks, and protections). "Administrators are held to high standards of conduct because other editors often turn to them for help and advice" (quoted from WP:RFA), yet the kind of behaviour exhibited by Jeffrey could easily earn a less established editor warnings and a block.

Desired outcome
Jeffrey O. Gustafson to take responsibility for and discontinue his inappropriate actions and behaviour, including: If he is not willing to change his behaviour, then he should either (a) discontinue use of his administrative tools until such time as he is willing or (b) resign his adminship, with the option to reapply via normal channels (i.e., Requests for adminship).
 * 1) Adhering to the civility policy
 * 2) Adhering to the speedy deletion policy
 * 3) Discontinuing disruptive blanking and/or deletion of his talk page (he can chose not to have archives, but blanking the page after every single comment?)

Description
See the initial "statement of the dispute" above and the "evidence of disputed behavior" section below.

Violation of the civility policy

 * Deleting his user page with the deletion summary "Fuck you, Veridae". See log
 * Restoring his user talk page with the summary "crybabies need their binkies. myam mnyam mnyum yum". See log
 * Edit to the article Hungarian Wikipedia with the edit summary "good grief! remove nauseating self-references, de-POV-ify.... this was disgusting".
 * Deleting Image talk:F93.jpg with the edit summary "Blah, blah, blah", presumably in response to a comment posted there by a user.
 * In reply to a requested deletion review of an image he had deleted, Jeffrey posted a comment with the edit summary: "Complete waste of my time".
 * Blocking IP 75.74.179.109 with the block summary: "Jackass".
 * Cutting down another user during the 3rd BJAODN MfD. diff link.

Violation of the speedy deletion policy

 * Deleting images (see log, especially images deleted per "replaceable fair use") under speedy deletion criterion I7 without a prior 48-hour notification (admitted here) and a stated lack of interest in informing uploaders so that they can avoid the same mistakes in the future (see here), accompanied with the following edit summary: "I'm an executioner, not a teacher".
 * Update: On 12 July 2007, Jeffrey O. Gustafson deleted 150-200 images while citing image speedy deletion criteria I4, I5, I6, and I7. The absolute majority of these were not tagged prior to deletion. CSD I4, CSD I5, and CSD I6 only permit deletion of images that have been tagged for at least 7 days. CSD I7 requires a wait period of 2-7 days, depending on when the media was uploaded.
 * Speedily deleting a userpage per WP:NOT, when that is clearly noted as a non-criteria (see User:Meteshjj and its 11 subpages for one example).

Misuse of the user talk namespace

 * As with the user namespace, pages in the user talk namespace are given "wide latitude to users to manage ... as they see fit" but "still do belong to the community" (quoted from User page). Jeffrey has repeatedly deleted his user talk page (see log), thereby interfering with attempts to engage him in coherent and constructive discourse.

Attitude not befitting an administrator or editor in good standing

 * After it was brought to his attention that CSD I7 deletions require 48-hour notification, he responded with: "copyrighted images of living individuals used as the primary illustration of the subject are replaceable fair use, period, and will get deleted, no matter what, 48 hours or not".. After another administrator (User:The wub) then asked "so how do you expect people to learn for the future? or to help look for new free images? ignoring the arbitrary 48h is one thing, but it would help to inform them", Jeffrey replied with: "I'm an executioner, not a teacher".
 * After being informed that he was the subject of a thread at WP:AN/I, he blanked the notification with the edit summary: "You have my word that I shall ignore that thread and never see any comments made there... so, go nuts!"
 * Jeffrey O. Gustafson has repeatedly blanked comments and questions regarding his administrative actions without replying or by replying dismissively with comments/edit summaries like:
 * "I don't feel there was anything to answer with the last two requests"
 * "at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, I just don't care"
 * "please leave me alone"
 * "views noted. also, if anyone else would like to pile on, feel free"
 * "Whatever you say, Friday" – in response to a request to explain why he deletes comments from his talk page; followed shortly by this
 * "waste my time again..." – in response to a question about why two particular images were deleted
 * On June 23, he removed his name from the List of administrators/G-O (the appropriateness of the removal itself is not being challenged). After it was reinstated (twice), he removed it a third time with an edit summary containing: "... I wish not to be pestered by anyone looking for help I will not give."
 * Speedily deleting articles but failing to provide informative or valid edit summaries. See, for instance, the following images (there are many others) deleted with the reason: "useless":.

Applicable policies and guidelines

 * Civility
 * Criteria for speedy deletion (as a subset of Deletion policy)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

 * Discussion on the user talk page initiated by William Pietri:
 * Discussion on the user talk page initiated by WJBscribe:
 * Discussion on the user talk page initiated by Black Falcon:
 * Discussion at WP:AN/I: Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive268
 * Discussion on the user talk page initiated by Newyorkbrad:

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}


 * Black Falcon (Talk) 23:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Drewcifer3000 23:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked into the rightness or wrongness of the image deletions, but I attempted to resolve the civility issues without success. William Pietri 00:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

 * R Parlate Contribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 01:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC). Especially the blanking of his talk page. At one point, he even had his talk page deleted and protected so no regular user could even contact him.
 * You do realize, though, that many admins have been speedy deleting userpages per WP:NOT recently? -Amarkov moo! 05:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Particularly the image deletions. Orpheus 06:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Totally unacceptable behavior. Everyking 13:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * JOG seems to have a flair and passion for enforcing Wikipedia rules. The human aspects of a collaborative project, however, do not seem to come naturally to him -- he can be infuriating.  I believe that setting a few guidelines for him (preserving histories, responding in talk page, possibly including links to deletion rules on his talk page, etc.) will help him interact with others more productively and will hopefully reduce both the frustration felt by those who encounter his edits and administrative actions and his frustration in dealing with them. Jfwambaugh 14:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Being an editor requires reasonable adult behavior. Jeffrey does not behave like a reasonable adult.  This is fundamentally incompatible with contributing to the project.  Friday (talk) 15:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * --  tariq abjotu  17:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not good at all. --MichaelLinnear 21:45, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia can be a frustrating place to be but that is no reason to be snapping all the time. Anyone this frustrated with wikipedia should probably change the topic of their editing and start in a new area. Or just walk away. David D. (Talk) 05:53, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Unacceptable behaviour. Davnel03 20:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I back when the BJAODN crap came up, he made a few comments that I found were very in-civil, as such, I completely agree (I also had an AN/I thread regarding him). Kwsn (Ni!) 02:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would definitely endorse a inmediate removal of sysop powers, my opinion is mainly based in the civility issues present in edits like these, the first edit is clearly an introduction of spam in a serious conversation that involves him and that could have resulted in a strong punishment wich makes me believe he couldn't care less if he losses his admin or editing priviledges. The second was agressive without any apparent justification, I believe if he wasn't an admin several users would have asked for a block for uncivility by now. - 凶  01:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that's what you meant to post? You do realize that this is not a venue for sanctions of any kind, including de-sysopping, don't you? KillerChihuahua?!? 00:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just expresed my opinion out there if this was a venue for de-sysopping my sentence would have a Support besides it, although I see what you mean it was twelve am so I guess my brain was sleepy and my grammar suffered. - 凶  01:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Have to agree with the general consensus above that such conduct is unacceptable for an administrator.--Jersey Devil 09:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This is frankly unbelievable. How did this guy become an administrator in the first place?  Sala Skan  01:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Per Salaskan. Especially, no administrator should ever speedy-delete anything without quoting a specific speedy deletion criterion which applies. Anyone who does this should be desysopped. WaltonOne 14:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * — Jeff G. (talk&#124;contribs) 15:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Response
''This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.'' ''

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view by Jouster
''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 editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

We allow users broad latitude with their User space. They can put bizarre formatting, POV userboxen, and even go so far as to include themselves in Category:Wikipedians with wikistress level NoPants.

Complaining about J.O.G.'s behavior with regards to his Talk page seems unproductive and backwards. So long as users can communicate meaningfully with him, there is no harm in formatting his Talk page as he sees fit; indeed, see WP:VP for a similar approach as used on a major project page. The issues arise only in two circumstances:
 * When he uses administrator tools to protect his Talk page, preventing discussion, or uses them to delete the revision history that serves as his Talk page's archive.
 * When a new user, concerned about one of his administrative actions, finds themselves unable to "hear" a response from J.O.G. due to the violation of the principle of least astonishment caused by his Talk page response model.

The other issues notwithstanding, any reservations I have about J.O.G.'s approach to Talk page communication would be resolved if he commits to:
 * 1) Not protect his Talk page, as that is fundamentally contrary to the concept of a collaborative project.
 * 2) Not delete his Talk page, as that is contrary to the goal of archived and "reference-able" dialogue in pursuit of a more-perfect Project.
 * 3) Where possible and reasonable (ideally, always) respond to users' queries and comments on his Talk page on that user's Talk page, allowing him to blank his Talk page without forcing a correspondent to understand both how to access historical edit summaries, and that s/he should in order to read J.O.G.'s response.

This is my first time participating in an RFC, so if I have committed a grave error in the format of my response here, please be bold and rearrange or reclassify it as appropriate; you have my explicit blessing to do so.

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Jouster  (  whisper  ) 05:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Generally agree. Except I'd add that Mr. Gustafson knows all of this and doesn't seem to care. --W.marsh 00:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 3)   — Jeff G. (talk&#124;contribs) 15:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Extremely blunt view by Friday
Jeffrey has been around a long time. For quite some time (call it, a year or more, probably, my memory is imperfect) he's been going out of his way to be difficult to work with. Countless editors have tried, and failed, to get him to treat other editors as colleagues to be collaborated with, rather than as annoying little pests to be swatted away. He apparently believes it's his "right" to behave this way. Well, alright, it probably is. But, I do not accept that it is his right to continue contributing to the project, as long as he's going to act this way. Hence, my ill-fated and much maligned suggestion that he be indefinitely blocked until he exhibits a clue. A collaborative project requires collaboration - there's simply no other way. He can either behave according to basic project expectations, or he can be shown the door. Harsh, yes, but that's how I see it. Friday (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Well, I don't think an indefinite block is justified until something else is tried. But being a long-standing editor does not give you the right to refuse to work with people, or even to make it difficult for people to work with you. Too many people (including people I previously liked) seem to think that they no longer need to be nice. But after all that negativity, Jeffrey, I have to say that I do respect that you are honest about your lack of care for criticism, instead of just getting those who disagree with you burned in witch troll hunts. -Amarkov moo! 21:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Was looking for another RfA when I saw JOG's name, and it rang a bell. I'm going to quote what I said back in May about an episode where JOG substituted his own 2007 Pet Food Recalls article, in it's entirety, for an existing article:
 * Dunno if the next step is AN/I or RfA, but something ought to be done about JOG's high-handedness. It's not remotely believable that he thought the pet food crisis had gone unmentioned on Wikipedia so many weeks after it had hit the headlines. The logical conclusion is that he lied as a way of bypassing the necessity of attempting to reach consensus on substituting his text for the existing article. I don't care to see him blocked from editing articles on pet food, but someone who has so thoroughly undermined the possiblity of assuming that he is telling the truth oughtn't retain admin powers... Andyvphil 16:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[] Andyvphil 23:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * 1)   — Jeff G. (talk&#124;contribs) 15:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by GRBerry
I first learned of this situation when the DRV for his talk page was opened. I have not looked into (and by choice won't) the deletion issues. Jeffrey needs to effectively communicate with the community and receive feedback from them. Wikipedia operates on consensus, and consensus does change over time. We've seen it in sourcing and BLP in my time here, which has been less time then Jeffrey has been an admin. Assuming, for the purpose of discussion, that Jeffrey is perfectly spot on with his current administrative actions, sooner or later changes in consensus will mean that his actions are not in accordance with consensus.

Civility and having ongoing conversations are important to effective communication and feedback. I see some small progress on his talk page at this time, where he has at least replied to one post while leaving both that post and reply visible. I wish the reply had been more civil, and recommend to Jeffrey that he try to improve the civility of both his replies and his edit/log summaries. (Updated And now that conversation is blanked, eliminating the progress I saw. Sigh.  GRBerry 14:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC))

Absent further improvement in communicating with others, I believe that an involuntary desysopping will eventually occur. GRBerry 19:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:
 * I agree. It's a pity that we can't do reconfirmation hearings on admins - in most cases these would be a frivolous waste of time, but for Mr. Gustafson I highly doubt he could garner as much as 50% community support to maintain his sysop access. You become an admin (at least these days) by the approval of the community.  Once you remove yourself from the community by deleting and protecting your user talk page, and by willfully failing to answer questions regarding your administrative actions, the community's past approval from two years ago is undermined, and must be revoked or reexamined. Shalom Hello 19:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds about right. I think the folks who were looking for improvement in recent days are simply unfamiliar with the history here.  That ship has sailed, quite some time ago.  Friday (talk) 19:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * — Jeff G. (talk&#124;contribs) 15:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by Walton
WP:CSD expressly sets out exactly what is, and is not, a valid reason for speedy deletion. It expressly and unequivocally states that WP:NOT cannot be used as a rationale for speedy deletion, and that such deletions should be carried out via the prod or AfD processes. Speedy deletion of userpages under WP:NOT is, therefore, a deliberate abuse of administrative powers. Likewise, deliberately ignoring the requisite notification period for speedy deletion of images is a direct and intentional violation of policy. Administrators who routinely engage in such behaviour should be desysopped. WaltonOne 14:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1)  Sala Skan  20:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 2)   — Jeff G. (talk&#124;contribs) 15:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.