Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Alkivar

Brief statement by Random832
I was the one who suggested that this should be brought here. If that makes me involved (does it?) I proably should be listed, but I had no part in the dispute leading up to this, until I saw the ANI posting. I will also admit I was unaware of the previous RFC; it just seemed to me his behavior in this incident alone, both in his behavior and in his dismissal (incidentally using the rollback tool) of other users' attempts to engage in discussion, was so egregious that something should be done. As for the dispute itself, I don't really care about pop culture sections, and I don't think it's relevant here. —Random832 22:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. In my opinion, it's not just his use of the tools themselves (if it were a one-time incident, I don't know if he's done this before, I'll be looking more closely at the RFC), but his absolute refusal to even discuss afterwards that he might have stepped over a line. —Random832 22:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Based on User:Lid's statement, I think that User:Burntsauce should be added as a party to this case. —Random832 13:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:B
There are three administrative actions that are points of contention. All three have now been undone:
 * Protection of (undone by B)
 * Block of (undone by Nishkid64)
 * Protection of (undone by Edokter)

There are several other administrative actions I have noticed on a cursory glance of Alkivar's logs that, on the surface, appear questionable and should be explained:
 * Protection of User talk:Phil Sandifer ( logs ) with the message "if i cant have my banner... you cant have your protection... how's them apples?"
 * Two-week block of, apparently in response to . The user has since left Wikipedia.
 * Protection of Talk:Demonoid (logs) - as far as I can tell, there was only one IP vandal, who simply could have been blocked rather than protecting the page. In any event, indef protecting talk pages is usually a bad idea.
 * Deletion of What would Jack do? (logs)

I don't claim that the above is an exhaustive list, and it should be noted that the vast majority of Alkivar's admin actions are unquestionably correct and positive for the encyclopedia. This is merely what I saw on a brief glance that convinced me that it is appropriate for this action to go forward. Respectfully submitted, B  00:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved User:Iamunknown
Earlier I suggested at WP:AN/I that concerned individuals file an admin conduct RfC concerning Alkivar's actions ([ diff 1] [ diff 2]). Problem is, as others pointed out, Alkivar is uncommunicative. [ This section] of his talk page is an example of that. At any rate, I recommend that the Arbitration Committee consider this case, as otherwise it does not seem Alkivar will respond. --Iamunknown 00:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved east718
Being familiar with the history of this dispute, I endorse Iamunknown's summary and propose that Neil be added as a party as he is tangentially involved with the larger issues surrounding the case. '''east . 718 ' at 01:30, 10/10/2007''
 * Neil is on the "trivia deletionist" side and seems to have blocked another user, Wikidemo, on similar grounds as Alkivar did, and it was similarly lifted. See the discussion. This might not be the place to say this but I'm truly unnerved by this behavior coming from admins. Equazcion • argue/improves • 01:38, 10/10/2007
 * Ah, forgive me. I thought Wikidemo was a party to this case too. east . 718  at 02:07, 10/10/2007
 * I don't think that this is related to this case, although I'll point out the (12 minute) block of Wikidemo was to prevent the further misuse of rollback tools while (successful) discussion took place. Neil   ム  11:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * '' response self-refactored by Carcharoth to a named section following clerk request - clerk should feel free to remove this note when no longer needed.
 * '' response self-refactored by Wikidemo to a named section following clerk request - clerk should feel free to remove this note when no longer needed.
 * Precisely. What I'm seeing here is an admin who (1) is exploiting his admin tools as a "competitive advantage" to make articles come out the way he wants; and (2) refusal to discuss the matter with anyone who disagrees with him. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 16:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * moved my comment and one response to my own statement.

Responses to a comment by Neil

 *  NB. This was refactored from the thread that developed in the "Comment by uninvolved east718" section. Clerks, please feel free to refactor further and more cleanly if needed. 

Couldn't discussion and/or warning have taken place first? And then the actions undone later if needed? Also, I think it needs to be clarified that what appears to be "rollback tools" is often people using the "undo" link in the edit history. I'd like someone to confirm whether I am right to say that before the undo button was installed as a default, people used tools to do rollbacks? Carcharoth 14:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Neil has brought up a claim that he blocked me during this dispute to stop me from misusing rollback tools in order to allow an ultimately successful discussion to take place. I respond that there was no productive discussion. There was an attempt at discussion at AN/I, that I largely initiated, but while the discussion was going on Burntsauce was busy re-deleting material that had been restored and Alkivar and Neil were helping out with those deletions. My position then, and now, is that out-of-process mass deletions of material should be summarily restored to avoid rewarding rule-breakers for their behavior by letting them have their way. However, I wasn't being so bold. I made an appropriate and reasonable edit to restore deleted "popular culture" sections to three articles, because I believed all three had valuable material that should not be hastily deleted. This was entirely in accordance with WP:TRIVIA and WP:CONSENSUS. Neil then blocked me indefinitely and without warning or discussion, for getting in the way of deletion shenanigans in which he was participating. His use of blocking privileges to furhter his side of an edit war he was fostering is suspect in the same way as Alkivar's. The reason he's not up for arbitration here is that his appears to be an isolated incident and he's been communicative and a lot more civil about it. The outcome was not a success at all. The result of Alkivar's and Neil's abuse of administrative privilege is that we're now stuck halfway, with half the sections deleted and half remaining, and everybody afraid to do anything for fear of getting blocked again. That brought everything to a tense standstill. That is not discussion. I'm not a party to this in a strict sense because I had no direct run-in with Alkivar. However, by adding his administrative weaponry to the rabble of POV-pushing editors he is one of the people behind the larger behavior problem in which I, other editors, and 300+ articles fell victim. Wikidemo 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I just want to add that Wikidemo's assessment seems the most accurate to me. I got similar threats from Neil along the same lines -- see my talk page, where Neil told me not to undo his edits, referred to the block by Alkivar, and implied that it would happen again if I undid his edits. Both Alkivar and Neil seemed to have engaged in the same misuse of admin tools in the interest of following the same agenda; the only reason we're not here requesting the same arbitration for Neil is that this seems to be an isolated incident in his case. Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:24, 10/10/2007

We need to keep an eye on Neil's edits. If he begins to follow the same direction as Alkivar, a case will have to made for him too. Abuse of admin tools should not be tolerated here on Wikipedia (see my statement further down). Davnel03 19:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have only just been made aware a comment relating to my actions was here.


 * It should be pointed out that a) Wikidemo was blocked for one hour, not indefinitely . This was a lie on Wikidemo's part.


 * I just caught that. After I reprimanded Neil for accusing me of lying, he accuses me of lying again.  I've changed my claim to omit the statement "indefinitely", which is immaterial to my point.  An honest mistake is not a lie; an administrator should know better than to make uncivil accusations like that, and before the ArbCom no less.  This behavior has long since passed the point of ridiculousness.  Wikidemo 17:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * So you are complaining about my making "uncivil accusations" immediately below a statement accusing me of "deletion shenanigans", "abuse of administrator privilege", and of being part of a "rabble of POV-pushing editors". I will assume good faith (remember that?), however, and believe your description of a 12 minute block as "indefinite" was an honest mistake.  There are at least five other "honest mistakes" in your above statement.  Neil   ☎  13:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Absolutely, yes. Accusing me of lying - twice - is uncivil.  You should ask yourself is that's how an administrator should be acting,  before the Arbitration Committee no less.  The text about "shenanigans" and "rabble" is only a few paragraphs above so don't misquote it for heaven's sake.  You were using your administrative tools to defend these, which are very mild terms in view of what happened.  You backed up a problem administrator and a likely sockpuppet on the wrong side of a significant dispute.  In doing so you did the very same thing Alkivar is charged with, blocking a user to further your side of a content dispute.  I should remind you that we are in an Arbitration hearing over that now.  If the Committee finds that blocking a user short of 3RR to stop him from reverting a deletion of popular culture material is an improper administrative act, or conversely if the Committee says that's just fine, we have our answer.  That is for the committee to decide, not you.  You can make your argument to the committee, but please don't come to the arbitration hearing to bash me and accuse me of lying.  If you have a point to make this is not the right page.  It's been deprecated in favor of the evidence and workshop pages and I doubt many people are reading this other than you and me.  Should the arbitration committee find the blocks wrong I'll accept in advance that blocking me was an honest mistake on your part, although the attitude, tone, incivility, and accusations all just make it worse.  Honest mistakes plus harsh actions become abuse.Wikidemo 23:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * According to this Neil initially blocked him for an hour and then cut it back to 12 minutes, "to prove a point" (funny, I thought "proving a point" was against wikipedia policy). It appears the dispute was over another deletionist admin (Neil) who, as with Alkivar, is of the slash-and-burn approach, of imposing their personal view that trivia sections are to be deleted on sight, in violation of wikipedia policy, i.e. taking the lazy way, rather than taking the time to judge the usefulness of the info and possibly working it into the article. We had a similar situation with a user called Tecmobowl, who also didn't like trivia sections and also slashed and burned them, similarly hiding behind wikipedia policy to justify deleting what he didn't like. Tecmo was banned from wikipedia. Here's hoping that other deletionists will be joining him, and hopefully soon. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It should also be pointed out that b) I unblocked him after 12 minutes, with an apology, once the purpose of the block was achieved (see c)).


 * Finally, it needs to be pointed out c) I blocked Wikidemo when he had begun to use the undo button to start reverting good faith edits (the removal of unsourced content) with no edit summary. Wikidemo was reverting to reinclude unsourced content, without providing any references - this is a violation of WP:V.  He was aware this was not acceptable, and I gave a short block to stop him.  Once he had indicated he would cease, he was unblocked.  Neil   ☎  19:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Neil was participating in this conversation at the time - it is a response to his swipe at me. This had been threaded but the committee clerk asked us to de-thread it.  My edits were correct and no policy violation.  Neil admits here that he used his admins tool to shut me down from opposing him in a content dispute, which is exactly what Alkivar is charged with here.  Wikidemo 19:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * One man's "content dispute" is another's "stop mass-using undo to reinsert information that was removed for being unsourced". No point in arguing this any further. Neil   ☎  22:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Any question about the attitude of both Neil and Burntsauce towards wikipedia can be answered by this item that Neil uploaded and Burntsauce posted on his user page: Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 17:17, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The image itself is simply a little childish. Not terribly dignified but no great crime.  It's interesting that Alkivar is helping Burntsauce on Burntsauce's talk page to edit an image uploaded by Neil .  Have the three of them now formed a clique?  That's understandable if they're all on the same side of an ArbCom case.  But someting about the Alkivar / Burntsauce relationship seems peculiar.  We know about the unblocking, and that was about the time of a comparable deletion campaign by Burntsauce (over claimed BLP violations).  Last month, before this all came up, Alkivar edited Burntsauce's talk page to remove a civility warning .  Why would anyone remove a non-contentious civility warning from someone else's page?  Wikidemo 18:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you going to bring up every irrelevant thing that has happened to involve both myself and Burntsauce? What is this smear campaign for?  I created that image for a joke to go on Fundraising redesign.  Suggesting there is some sort of clique between Burntsauce, an editor I have only occasionally crossed paths with as we share a dim view on unsourced trivia sections, and Alkivar, an admin I think I've only encountered once, and that was to argue with him, has crossed this section from the silly into the malicious. Stop it, please. There is some sort of relationship between Alkivar and BS, but not involving me.   Neil   ☎  13:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * One man's "content dispute" is another's "stop mass-using undo to reinsert information that was removed for being unsourced". Let's make no mistake here, material was not being removed for being unsourced. That some of the material that was removed was unsourced does not change that fact. And using WP:V as a weapon against content you happen to personally dislike for some other reason (I don't see anyone removing the whole of Port Vincent, South Australia, the first page that came up for me on clicking Special:Random, despite the lack of sources) violates the spirit of policy —Random832 19:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is nothing stopping you removing such content for being unsourced. Neil   ☎  13:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * There is WP:POINT, the most benign reasonable interpretation of Burntsauce's conduct. As for the comment about the smear campaign, I don't know whether you are referring to me, Baseball Bugs, or both, but a number of things that seemed merely curious at first have on closer examination turned out (according to those who have seen the evidence not shared here) to be part of a web of trolling and fakery.  As of this weekend the circle around this has expanded by one administrator (User:Eyrian), one new sockpuppet (User:JohnEMcLure), and one old puppetmaster (JB196).  So in addition to Alkivar and Burntsauce there are at least five problem accounts.  It is utterly reasonable to suspect anything and everything that looks suspicious here - the most prudent thing would be to screen anybody remotely connected to this case and to the incidents of October 8-10.  Defensiveness doesn't prove much but your hostile, defiant approach to all this (scolding me, accusing me of lying, justifying Alkivar's actions, claiming that it was right to block me and Equazcion) certainly isn't making things any clearer.Wikidemo 14:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * "The events of October 8-10" ... you make it sound like a murder or some other catastrophe took place, rather than your being blocked for 12 minutes for misusing the undo button. Which is the only reason I can see for your trying to drag me into this RFArb.  You've certainly wasted a lot more than 12 minutes of both mine and your own time since.  Neil   ☎  16:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * You may not think it's a serious matter when administrators (including yourself) misbehave. I assure you, others do.  You're certainly downplaying, excusing and denying it.  We will see what the Arbitration Committee thinks.  Wikidemo 18:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Lid
I have previously crossed paths with Alkivar peripherally through his relationship with User:Burntsauce, a user whose recent actions have subsequently lead to this arbitration case due to Alkivar's actions during it. Many months ago Burntsauce was in the habit of blanking professional wrestler biographical articles, citing WP:A, which at the time cause controversy as it was seen as vandalism rather than cleaning as the resulting articles often resulted in stating "X is/was a professional wrestler" and nothing more (references to this can be found here: .)

A pattern developed in which Burntsauce would remove most of an article, someone would revert, Burntsauce would revert to his version and Alkivar would fully protect the article on Burntsauce's version. This can be seen in the logs of articles such as Chris Candido, Orville Brown, Bob Saget and Rodney Anoa'i among others, usually Alkivar protecting due to an "edit war" consisting of one revert (see here: )

However the favouritism that Alkivar has for Burntsauce goes beyond this to when he overturned a block, with unanimous support on ANI, of Burntsauce's due to Burntsauce constantly ignoring warnings that prodding articles without edit summaries was damaging to wikipedia (see here:). It was shown that Alkivar had come online only so that he could unblock Burntsauce and immediately logged off again, even though the block was fully supported by all. Alkivar did not reply to requests as to why he unblocked Burntsauce in this situation leaving only his original unblock reason "ten of all trades should remember that blocks must be placed according to blocking policy".

The relationship between Alkivar and Burntsauce, and how Alkivar uses his admin tools to support this particular user specifically, is one I've had an issue with for some time and feel should be more closely looked at. –– Lid(Talk) 12:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Wikidemo
I had no direct confrontation with Alkivar. It started when User:Burntsauce, an editor I had never heard of, deleted "popular culture" sections from a couple pages on my watchlist, giving the cheeky edit summary "popculturectomy." That seemed presumptuous but I thought "no harm done" and went about my business. A little later I ran across User:Baseball Bugs' AN/I notice on User:Alkivar, here. It dawned on me that my two "popculturectomies" were among hundreds of other near-simultaneous deletions, and that Alkivar and others were following behind Burntsauce to re-delete those that people saw fit to restore.

In one instance Alkivar deleted a harmless piece of trivia from a sparsely edited article then immediately semi-protected it with the admonition "next person to readd the trivia section gets a boot upside the head." In another here, Burntsauce had done a "popculturectomy" to the Palatine uvula article. Baseball Bugs disagreed and reverted. Alkivar re-deleted and, having done so, immediately protected the article. That seemed weird. The section arguably falls under WP:TRIVIA, a guideline that says it should be left and integrated into the article rather than deleted. The palatine uvula is the subject of a lot of classic American cartoon imagery, and one can make a case that a discussion of that imagery is encyclopedic - it's that wobbling pink thing at the back of your throat you see in close-up in the Buggs Bunny cartoons when someone is screaming.

We're not here to talk content. I'm simply establishing that Baseball Bugs' restoring section is supportable and part of normal WP:CONSENSUS process. There was no problem with behavior, no edit war, nothing to justify taking the article out of the hands of editors. You use short-term page protection when an article is suffering an edit war or extreme vandalism, giving parties a chance to return to the talk page for consensus. That's why Alkivar's indefinite page protection is so surprising. His edit summary reveals his purpose: "...since idiots seem inclined to continuously readd pop trivia to ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES." He wasn't trying to help this article (other than locking-in his preferred version). Instead, he was making the larger WP:POINT that trivia is bad. That may or may not be true but administrators are acting as editors, not administrators, when they take sides in a content dispute. They are no more important than anyone else, and have no special rights and powers. But here he used his power to game an outcome. Alkizar then deleted four successive complaints by Basebal Buggs on the matter, and a fifth complaint by User:Random832 that he was being uncivil.

I posted my summary on AN/I here, concluding that Alkivar should be counseled or sent back to admin school. If he wants to be an admin he needs to learn what admin tools are for and how he should present himself when using them. After that I got swept up in yesterday's incident against my better judgment. An hour after I posted my summary, Alkivar escalated things by blocking User:Equazcion, who was in process of rolling back Burntsauce's many deletions. Equazcion initially thought the block was an innocent overreaction. I pointed out that Alkivar had been warned numerous times on his talk page, and already had an AN/I report on his behavior by the time of the block. I don't know whether or not Alkivar was aware of the full debate on WP:TRIVIA or WP:AN/I at the time, but that's not the point. He should have been aware of the situation before he acted. Blocking shouldn't be done lightly or without having all the facts. I was appalled that two administrators and an editor who apparently had some kind of tool were contentiously deleting and simultaneously edit warring on 300 articles at a time. I warned Burntsauce to quit, and when he didn't I filed an AN/I report. I warned User:Alkivar about the user block. I participated in the WP:TRIVIA discussion on the matter. I butted heads with the other administrator, User:Neil, who blindsided me when he decided to block me for opposing him.

It looks like he Alkivar abused the block privilege for the same reason he abused the page protection feature, to have his way on a content issue. He was thoroughly involved in the dispute for which he blocked Equazcion. I don't know what the arbitration body's current thinking is, but using the block powers against a user simply for contradicting an admin on a valid content dispute is the kind of unambiguous abuse of privilege for which people could lose their adminship on first offense. There's no innocent explanation or excuse for the behavior.

-- Wikidemo 16:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment. Alkivar has blanked his talk page yet again, including information relevant to this dispute while the arbitration is underway, with a comment that this is "stuff thats over and done with that no longer matters." In isolation this is only one cavalier comment, not nearly as aggressive as some of the cursing and insulting ones. But put all these edit summaries together and it demonstrates a contempt for Wikipedia process and for other editors over which he is exerting administrative actions. It does not look like he will moderate his behavior unless forced to do so, hence the need for administrative oversight.Wikidemo 00:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Melsaran
Alkivar has a history of borderline conduct and questionable admin actions, a quick look through his logs reveals this, this, this, not to forget the mass (out of process) BJAODN deletion, and now he blocked a valued good-faith contributor whom he disagrees with indefinitely. This has gone too far, and I think it would be good if arbcom could look into this.  Melsaran  (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Davnel03
I think it is pretty clear from the evidence given above that Alkivar is and has been abusing admin tools. Another example of where he abused admin tools is here. He speedy deleted a subpage within a userspace, despite the fact that there were no votes for delete. Also, Alkivar indef blocked the user just two months earlier, so speedy deleting the page, despite a consensus not to just further heated the argument. In this particular discussion, it is pretty clear that Alkivar is only using admin tools to his clear advantage over other users who are not administrators. Whenever something begins to tremble out of hand, Alkivar has to for no reason resort to admin tools that are not exactly necessary at that point of time (page protection, blocks, image deletions etc.) Personally, I think Alkivar should be punished for his actions; if he isn't then other adminstrators might unfortunately resort to Alkivar's petty decisions. However, saying that, the discussion over at ANI concerning the trivia sections got very heated, and I feel that some of this could of been easily avoided if we co-operated with one another.

Alkivar needs to learn how to use admin tools properly and efficiently, not to abuse that at every moment, like he has been doing. Thanks, Davnel03 19:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that the admin in question refuses to participate in the "D" part of BRD. And why should one side "give in" to the other, as you suggest they do? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Understood. Except that the other editors' edit war is peripheral to the issue in question, namely that the admin took sides in the edit war and used admin tools to accomplish that. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Brief statement by uninvolved TJ Spyke
I have had problems with Alkivar several times in the past. The first time was earlier this year when he indef banned me for supposedly willfully ignoring WP:BLP (regarding him letting Burntsause misinterpret BLP by deleting all unsourced info rather than just controversial info). The banning came just 5 minutes after I went through and sourced the entire Brian Adams (wrestler) article. Since I had not violated BLP and had just sourced a article, the ban was overturned a few hours later. The second big incident came a couple of months ago when I got in trouble and my fate was being discussed at WP:ANI, right in the middle of the discussion (where the general consensus looked like it would be a temporary banning followed by probation), he decided to ignore the discussion and indef block me again. Finally, just last week he went ahead and speedy deleted a user subpage I had by claiming it was all OR (ignoring the fact that OR is not a reason to speedy delete a subpage and the page had already survived a previous MFD, meaning it shouldn't have been speedy deleted for that reason either). That deletion was quickly overturned with him admitting he shouldn't have speedy deleted it. TJ Spyke 20:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

new header added below by Nat to maintain format.

Statement by uninvolved The Hybrid
To add to TJ's statement, every single incident after the first indef block was in violation of WP:COI. After the second block, Alkivar protected TJ's talk page citing a "continual removal of block templates", when TJ only removed one of them twice because he thought that more than one wasn't necessary. This on its own is perfectly understandable, but with the addition of his later revocation of TJ's email rights due to apocryphal abuse of the function, it becomes apparent that Alkivar had every intention of effectively banning TJ, which was in direct contradiction of community consensus being determined at WP:CSN (not ANI until much later on), and outside of his jurisdiction as an admin. Even if he didn't have a COI before this incident, he certainly had a COI when he came and deleted TJ's subpage outside of due process for illegitimate reasons. Alkivar is a good admin for the most part, of course, but those who get on his bad side need to be prayed for.  The Hybrid   T /C   03:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Even briefer statement by even less involved Wknight94
This discussion on WP:ANI led to the RFC. The ANI discussion contains a lot of accusations that are troubling at best. It led me to believe an ArbCom case was coming even sooner than this. Criticism from Jimbo Wales was removed as part of "worthless crap" and an editor was told not to involve himself in Alkivar's affairs until he is an administrator. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of Wknight94's statement by Daniel
For the record, the "worthless crap" edit removed all of Alkivar's "recent" messages, not just anyone in particular. Although this is traversing levels of wikilawyering, such an action probably doesn't merit a personal attack towards one user (Wknight94 cited it as the removal of Jimmy Wales' message above), but rather this was a sweeping removal of all messages on his talk page as is his prerogative. Whether Alkivar could have been more civil in doing so, or in general, will probably be discussed if/when this case opens.  Daniel  23:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by totally uninvolved Irpen
Stumbled upon the issue at WP:ANI and was amazed really. So, we have an admin who edit wars over the content. Unhappy with the opponent disagreeing with his version, he indef-blocks a good-standing contributor and protects the article. Can anyone imagine a more text-book example of the abuse of buttons? That is setting aside lack of communication later.

It is a sad sight that such a blatant abuse cannot be dealt quickly and decisively by efficient means. Blatant editing abuse gets quickly addressed by blocking the wrongdoers but blatant admin abuse (much more potentially dangerous) requires putting together an ArbCom case, waiting for a week or two for it to get accepted and waiting for two months or so to get decided. The process is deeply in trouble because Wikipedia does not have an efficient way to deal with rogue admins. I urge arbitrators to decide this on the spot without procedural delays of going through a full-blown case and recommend the community to hammer out the community deadmninng process safe from troll-abuse but efficient. --Irpen 22:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * update: 48-hours passed and nothing changed. Not a single more arbitrator cared enough to move forward this what seems like an open and shut case, even to vote accept or reject. Alkivar does not even bother to respond and seems like my prediction about the timeline above was correct or even optimistic. I believe something needs to be done to address the ArbCom's inability to perform its function responsibly. Arbitrators who are "away" or inactive for, say, over three weeks in row or over a total of 30 days out of any three months should step down and allow replacement to be appointed. ArbCom's inability to handle even the most trivial cases in an efficient way is untenable. --Irpen 21:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by non-involved Acalamari
For the most part, Alkivar is an efficient administrator. A look through his admin logs shows that he does very decent work, especially with images. Unfortunately, mixed in with that work, there's also a bit of, possible out-of-process deletions, and also unnecessary e-mail blocks. I strongly suggest that Alkivar re-familiarize himself with certain policies and advice, such as WP:CIVIL and WP:ADMIN, possibly even WP:WAIN; and be more careful with, and put more thinking into, his admin actions in future (such as not using them in disputes). Better explanations of his actions would be helpful as well. Acalamari 23:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by relatively uninvolved Amarkov
Remember, please, that very few people are actively bad during every edit they make. So please don't do something like "oh, well we would give him a sanction, but since he sometimes does the right thing we won't". -Amarkov moo! 23:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Rockpocket
I note User:B, above, lists Alkivar's deletion of What would Jack do? as "questionable". I, too, had concerns over Alkivar's use of the tools on that occasion. This is an essay that was mostly my work, and I noted it had been deleted by Alkivar without any justification in the deletion summary. Puzzled, I politely asked him on his talk page if he would mind explaining his reasoning. Five days later Alkivar deleted my request without providing an answer, his edit summary was nothing in this section is needed anymore. I could find no community discussion on why the essay should be deleted, and since no CSD criterion was provided and the deleting editor declined to justify the deletion, I decided to restore the essay. Alkivar's use of the deletion button appears be a somewhere beyond our accepted process, and it was compounded by the refusal to engage when asked for clarification. Normally I would have let it go with a shrug, except from the statements provided here it appears it is not a one-off incident. Perhaps its time ArbCom took a look. Rockpock e  t  00:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Durova
My first interaction with Alkivar came shortly after I completed an investigation in which I concluded that Burntsauce was a sockpuppet or meatpuppet of JB196, one of the site's most destructive vandals. I invited concerned Wikipedians to contact me offline for the evidence - I didn't want to teach a prolific sockpuppeteer how to become better at what he did. Roughly half a dozen Wikipedians did request that evidence and support for the indef was unanimous until Alkivar overturned it without looking at the investigation. In order to avoid a wheel war I avoided intervention afterward. At Alkivar's RFC I commented to this effect and withdrew the comments in good faith after Alkivar claimed not to have received my earlier offer to present evidence and discuss it. At the time when I struck through my RFC comments I expected Alkivar to answer my concerns. He never did. It appears to me that Alkivar has been overusing the tools to protect someone who, in all likelihood, has already been banned from editing on another account. For several months I've regarded this arbitration proposal as inevitable and I urge the Committee to accept it. Community based solutions aren't feasible under these circumstances.  Durova Charge! 15:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved R.Baley
This is a clear case of a sysop abusing the extra buttons. I am puzzled at what appears to be reluctance by members of the arbitration committee in taking up this matter. It has been 4 days since the case was filed and only one has voted to accept. Inaction or 'slow-action' by the Arbcom has far-reaching consequences, including an increased threshold for approval of new admins at RfA (imo). I urge the arbitration committee to take on and resolve this complaint. R. Baley 22:13, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved AuburnPilot
As much as I believe Alkivar has repeatedly abused his admin tools, I choose not to get involved until he wheel warred today over the block of. Alkivar has deleted dozens of images within hours of their upload, rather than giving editors the prescribed 7 days or 48 hours after notification, as expected. He then blocked G2bambino without explanation. I unblocked the user, explained to them the situation, and how to avoid image problems in the future. Alkivar has now re-blocked G2bambino, without discussion. Alkivar has repeatedly abused the tools granted to him, and I fully support them being taken away. Despicable. - auburn pilot  talk  19:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Maxim
I've been watching this unfold for the past week. Alkivar does valuable work, of course, but he has made many questionable actions. Today, when I looked over AN/I, I felt his actions were completely inappropriate. He abused his blocking powers, and he proceeded to wheel war. I feel that he has betrayed the community's trust, and it would be best if Alkivar were no longer an administrator. Also, I suggest adding G2bambino to the case parties, as he quite involved, in my opinion, with the proceeding of this case. Thank you. Maxim (talk) (contributions)  20:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion below Equazcion's statement

 * That was an accident, I was unaware I had clicked it until it had been undone by Nishkid. ALKIVAR &trade; &#x2622; 03:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I assume you mean the email block was an accident, not the indefinite IP block? Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:25, 10/10/2007
 * Yes. <font color="#FA8605">ALKIVAR &trade; &#x2622; 06:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In all fairness to Alkivar, I believe that there is no abuse of tools there with his user page. Some admins do semi/fully-protect their user pages to avoid vandalism; and others do delete revisions from their user page, normally to remove grotesque vandalism. As for the other admin unprotecting the user page, that wasn't an appropriate unprotection anyway. If Alkivar, however, had fully-protected his talk page permanently, rather than his user page, that would be inappropriate. Acalamari 22:36, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah. We offer wide latitude on userpages, and I certainly don't see anything wrong with protecting one's userpage or removing vandalism from the history, in and of themselves... Grand  master  ka  02:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

(Response to Durova's comment below) Wow. when Alkivar blocked me it was for reverting Burntsauce's edits. I had no idea Alkivar and Burntsauce had previously been "involved" with each other. No wonder we haven't heard from either of them yet. This is a rather appalling development. <div style="font:bold 10px Arial;display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 6px 2px 7px;white-space:nowrap;">Equazcion • argue/improves • 01:40, 10/14/2007


 * (Response to Baseball Bugs) Just in case there was any question, I'm one of those editors skirting around the S-word. I agree this should be looked into. <div style="font:bold 10px Arial;display:inline;border:#009 1px dashed;padding:1px 6px 2px 7px;white-space:nowrap;">Equazcion • argue/improves • 02:03, 10/14/2007

Statement by uninvolved tiZom
I apologize that I don't have the time to read this entire page, so I hope I'm not addressing any problem that is already being addressed. But I'd just like to say that I was completely offended by this edit. I am a frequent contributor, I know and understand the policies, and I felt that this user acted completely out of line. I consulted a co-editor of the page in question, and we decided not to do anything about it. But now that I see that this sort of thing is still going on, I'd just like to bring it to light. Hope this helps in your decision. <font color="#08457E" vlink="#08457E">tiZom <sub style="color:black;">(2¢) 08:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Rhetorical question by completely uninvolved User:Zunaid
Given the exact same history of edits and dealing with conflict on Wikipedia that he currently has, if Alkivar were to apply for adminship today, do you think he would be trusted with the tools and be passed at RfA? Just some food for thought. Ponder it for a while and I think we'll all realise therein lies the answer.  Zun aid  ©  ®  13:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That isn't really a great standard, though. An active admin who deletes lots of images will annoy people who hold views that don't conform with our non-free content policy.  But that doesn't mean they should be desysopped. The question is whether Alkivar abused the tools, not whether or not he is popular. -- B  13:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Good grief, so you're saying that RfA is just a popularity contest? What, so it's not decided by the editor's contributions, behaviour, ability to deal with conflict in a courteous manner and whether or not they're likely to abuse the tools given their history? (hmmm...I wonder how I'd do in RfA?)  Zun aid  ©  ®  15:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * He just barely passed his RfA in the first place, meeting concerns about -- you guessed it -- civility. Enough users were convinced that he "wouldn't do it again" that he passed. If he was up for RfA now, he would fail because it would be perfectly clear that he would keep being uncivil again, and again, and again.  r speer  / ɹəəds ɹ  18:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding effect on case of blocking Melsaran
As per this Melsaran was blocked for sockpuppeting or being a sockpuppet. How does this affect the proceedings? His/her evidence list on the evidence page is useful and completely fact-based so I would hate to delete that. However, it's awkward to continue discussion on the Workshop page based on proposals and comments made by a banned user Melsaran proposed the first five "principles." There's also an implication that he/she is here for a reason. What could that be? Is there a relation to one of the parties? How is that to be handled? Wikidemo 17:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The evidence can stay; the ban (which I executed as a block) was not connected to this matter.
 * James F. (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The workshop proposals might as well stay as well; most of them are adapted from proposals or decisions in other cases anyway, and are labelled as such, and the arbitrators can "consider the source" to the extent necessary. Newyorkbrad 17:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)