Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive 1

This is getting ridiculous.

How long will it be until we see more than 50% of the Wikipedia administrators each having their very own page with complaints about them?

The root cause of this current plague of you did - no I didn't pages is the lack of leadership at present. When we had a problem in the past, if it got bad enough, our benevolent dictator Jimmy stepped in and, right or wrong, made a decision which we all respected. Mostly, he used to get it right.

Now there is supposed to be a new and more democratic system on the way, but whatever it might become in the future, right now it is failing completely and utterly.

Regardless of what plans might have been laid for the future, we need a way to deal with major problems promptly and effectively, and we need it now.

Is Jimbo unwilling to put his dictatator hat back on for as long as it takes to get some sense and reason out of the new system?

Tannin 22:51, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm tempted to delete all of them - and then get my own page of course ;) Secretlondon 22:53, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)


 * Someone needs to either A: ask Jimbo to step in and restore order or B: set ravenous hounds at the heels of the arbitration committee; the current situation -- constant backbiting, sniping, and heated arguments that achieve exactly nothing -- is intolerable and is detracting from the theoretical common goal of building an encyclopedia. Any volunteers? --No-One Jones (talk) 23:01, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On the mailing list, Delierium wrote:


 * Recently, Jimbo has indicated that he wishes to stop making the banning decisions unilaterally, and so has constituted an "arbitration committee" to take over the responsibility of doing so when necessary. However, I do not recall at any time there being a green light given to all 150-something sysops at large (nor the members of the arbitration committee, acting individually) to use their individual discretion in banning logged-in users, but this seems to be what's happening, and not by recently-elevated sysops either.


 * We can't have controversial users being banned without any sort of process at all, at the sole whim of any of the 150-plus sysops, and I'd rather this not generate into a reversion war of sorts where some sysops ban users and others immediately unban them (and the original sysops reban them, and so on...).

This is all good sense, and important stuff. However, having 150-odd admins making individual decisions on urgent and cotroversial matters would, at least, be better than having no-one at all looking after the health of the Wikipeia as a whole and keeping the worst of the disruptors and the trolls from interfering with the real job&mdash;which, if anyone remembers, is making an encyclopedia. Tannin 23:07, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The conflict subpages have just become a joke. No one's going to take real complaints seriously if all we ever see is frivilous ones. Angela. 00:52, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Angela. I've never felt so hesitant about page protection, deleting garbage pages, etc. -- not in a wise, cautious way, but in a "will this get me my own personal troll to haunt me" way. I think there are a couple of very real serious issues to resolve (admins banning logged-in users....haven't even formed an opinion, but it's definitely a serious matter) that are tragically lost in a sea of bizarre "oh yeah? well, your stupid" arguments. But a week or so ago, I started to notice that a lot of fine stuff is happening here when I ignore the trolls. I'm sure it must be tough for the wrongly accused, and don't mean to say that the current state is wise, but I think we should take heart that a lot of good work is continuing, and I've never seen this many people on RfA (and I think almost all of them will become admins and do splendidly) -- good signs. Maybe we're coming out of the woods...but I agree that we need to work for a speedier solution. IMHO, we have at least 3 bannable users here whose removal will make Wikipedia much stronger. Whether or not I'm right, arbitration needs to sort it out soon. I wish they'd had the chance to get set before the abdication of the dictator. Jwrosenzweig 17:03, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, how about this: Anybody can dispute the existence of an entry on the RfC page. A quick poll can be conducted on the RfC page to see if the complaint has merit and that at least two people tried and failed to resolve the conflict via Step 1. If at least 10 people (more than 10 two week old edits) do not vote, then the item is de-listed from the RfC page. That should bring down the noise. But I do think that once all the bugs are worked out of the Conflict resolution process and that the mediation and arbitration committees are functional, that RfC will be an important part of the process. RfC seems broken now because it is part of an emerging process. IMO, it is still a lot better than what it replaced. --mav


 * At present, RFC is a lot worse than what we had before, Mav. But I'm willing to go along with your proposal as at least it offers a way forward. Tannin 22:36, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Saying something is broken does not make it broken. Right now 168... and I are comming to an agreement and this whole thing has taught me a very important point or two: Do not expect others to admit they were wrong, only expect others to say that in the future they will not break rule X. I inflamed the situation by expecting 168... to admit he was wrong. He disagreed based on the context of the situation. That was the major bone of contention. With that gone we are making progress. I think that I will add that to the RfC rulebook. But above all I want everybody to know that this is an evolving process and that this rough spot is teaching us valuable lessons on how to best refine the system. --mav


 * Do not expect others to admit they were wrong, only expect others to say that in the future they will not break rule X. Yes. There is wisdom in that rule. -- T


 * Another thing we've learned is that the people prosecuting these things should try real hard to be dispassionate and objective, and pursue a thorough fact-finding and/or mutual understanding of the facts before calling for a punishment. Also we should respect that most rules here are tentative guidelines only. They were created by whoever took an interest at the time, but more people can take interest any time they wish and so rules can stretch and evolve, if enough people want them to. Oh, and one more thing I've learned at least is not to say someone owes you an apology. I suspect that's how I really ticked Mav off.168... 22:58, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, for those interested in the evolution of Wikipedia rules and custom, so far only Mav has expressed objection to the rule It's O.K. for sysops to use protection or blocking against notoriously, obstinately antisocial and uncompromising users even on pages that you have edited or may care about the wording of. I started a poll here


 * No, IMO it was me that ticked you off. I'm sorry for that. You might be surprised to find out that I have been rather dispationate through most of this conflict. But I understand that me calling for you to be de-sysoped if you did not apologize was not a wise course of action on my part (doing so to begin with may have clouded my objectivity - or at least the appearance of my objectivity). I hope we have all learned something from this process and can move on. --mav


 * O.K.. Thanks. I accept your apology and invitation to move on. That's sort of what I'm doing with the poll, making With the poll I'm attempting to make it a broader discussion about whether we should be a little more liberal about protection and blocking, at least until the arbitration process is going.168... 05:48, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * No point in that since Jimbo is back at his old role until the arbitration committee is set up. --mav

How does it work? How can we tell? Is he considering Lir right now?168... 06:42, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Just the way things were back in December and before that. This will only last until sometime next week. Then the arbitration committee will take over. See Wikipedia:Arbitration policy ratification vote --mav

Jimbo suggested on the mailing list that we drop all the current complaints, set up the arbitration committee and full-fledged conflict-resolution process officially, and give everyone a clean slate starting now. That sounds reasonable to me. Once things are all set up and running, admins who overstep their authority will have much less excuse, and we can discuss those issues as they arise. --Delirium 23:07, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)


 * You mean until then I can go on a rampage and delete Pat Robertson, Christian Coalition, and Creationism? Sweet! ;) --mav


 * Well, if you had yesterday, maybe, but not anymore, 'cause Jimbo has said he'll personally step in until Monday, and the Arbitration Committee will it looks like be officially constituted started Monday. =] --Delirium 23:34, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)


 * Dam! :) Where is Jimbo stating this? The mailing lists seem to be down for over a day now. --mav


 * I've been getting mailing list posts just fine, it seems. In any case, the two posts I had in mind are  and, both from today (on wikien-l). --Delirium 04:11, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)


 * OK. I use and respond to archived posts which have been stuck for a day. --mav