Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Snowspinner 1

The following was moved from Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

User:The Recycling Troll
This troll is at it again, stalking me and voting the opposite from my votes on VfD. Has been blocked once before for the same behavior. RickK 00:49, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * If I go around and vote opposite you, will you block me too? -- Netoholic @ 00:52, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
 * Dunno. Will you be a new user who follows his every edit and makes it clear from his username that he's a troll? (Snowspinner) 01:11, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * At any given time there are hundreds of open votes on VfD, any one person can only pick a handful of them to vote on. The odds that two people would randomly pick the same handful and consistently vote in the opposite way each time are nearly impossible. If you did this, you would effectively disenfranchise RickK and deny him any right to vote. Yes, I think that would be grounds for blocking someone. If you think it's OK to take away someone's right to vote, you could hardly turn around and complain about someone else taking away your right to edit. -- Curps 08:10, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Honestly, Rick, that's no good if that's what he's doing, but how in the world could we verify his motives? And even if we could, is a blockable offense? I would say just rely on the judgment of those who determine the outcome of the votes to give proper weight to his vote and to yours. Everyking 01:02, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Let's go ahead and call a spade a spade. Snowspinner 01:11, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * Blocked for a week. Snowspinner 01:11, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * 01:13, 2005 Mar 9 Snowspinner blocked "User:The Recycling Troll" with an expiry time of 7 days (Repeating behavior that got him blocked last time.)
 * Snowspinner, the one-man ArbCom. This "Troll" makes some very helpful edits, and just happens to vote opposite of RickK.  You have no grounds, and I hope some more even-tempered admins will take care to unblock him ASAP.  Geez man, you didn't even contact him on his talk page to explain things.   -- Netoholic @ 01:39, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
 * Having discussed this with him previously, I didn't see much need. And let's be clear - this is not an issue of him voting opposite RickK. It is an issue of him systematically editing every article RickK does, down the line. That is stalking and harassment. Snowspinner 02:05, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * systematically editing every article RickK does, down the line. That is stalking and harassment. Really? Then why ain't it stalking and harassment when you do the same to me? -- John Gohde 13:14, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Probably because I haven't touched one of your edits in a few days. You were actually making really good ones. I hope you'll drop this silly crusade and go back to them - Wellness (alternative medicine) is really coming along. Snowspinner 19:05, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Dream on! -- John Gohde 21:53, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Only if RickK let's himself feel harassed.  RickK tends to handle a lot of Recentchanges. He marks them for deletion, pov, cleanup, etc.  It seems reasonable that following RickK's edits in order to find work that needs to be done is a good technique.  The only harrassment I see is on your part, and would happily co-sign an RfC to that effect, if anyone else is inclined. -- Netoholic @ 02:15, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)
 * Well, you have a valid point, but I hesitate to go to bat for someone called "The Recycling Troll." Why not file an RfC on behalf of someone who wasn't trying to provoke a block? Rad Racer 02:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Snowspinner, when dealing with what you consider troll behaviour, it is important to maintain your equanimity and the moral high ground; otherwise your actions as an administrator are apt to become the issue, and distract attention from the behaviour that you were attempting to deal with.   As a result of your action, other administrators now have a more complex situation to deal with.  For one thing, there is nothing in Blocking policy, so far as I can see, that sanctions a block in this case, and if there is, there is nothing that sanctions a 7 day block.    The nearest section that could apply is "Disruptive behaviour", and the policy calls for a 24 Hour block in that case.   It is somewhat a matter of interpretation whether following RickK around even qualifies as disruptive behaviour.    I sypathize with your motivation, but it would have been much better to go through the RfC/RFAr process. You might wish for a less tedious process, but that is the process we have.   If you consider Mr Recycling to be a troll, the prime advice is "Do not feed the trolls", and I'm afraid you have rather transgressed against that advice.  --BM 02:55, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The previous 24 hour block clearly did not penetrate through The Recycling Troll's skull and into his consciousness in any form that affects his behavior. It seems that more force is necessary. If this is against the letter of the blocking policy, I can only say that common sense suggests that when a user shows up, has "troll" in their name (Which, while not in and of itself a reason to block, is still not insignificant), goes straight to the mailing list with his complaint, and follows RickK around, we are not dealing with a good editor. The question is whether to dither around debating the obvious, or to just shoot.
 * Bang. Snowspinner 03:46, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * I think a week is too long. His behaviour is disruptive and he knows it, (there has been discussion on the mailing list, so snowspinner's block hasn't come out of the blue) Also he is not new. So let's not start escalating blocks beyond what policy allows. If one 24 hour block doesn't get the message through, then we try anonther (and another, and another). Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 06:38, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about waiting till s/he does something that is against current policy? Blocking is not supposed to be something that is used against users who simply annoy us, it is supposed to be used to prevent damage to the wiki in cases where mediation or arbitration is not an option. This isn't a new user, and they're not damaging the wiki, in fact, they seem to be making positive edits. Let's let this one go and get on with real issues. Mark Richards 11:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Policy question
I'm very confused by all of this. I know that an admin can, on his or her own, block an obvious vandal, permanently block an account with an inappropriate name, etc. However, I thought that pretty much anything else was supposed to go through the process of RfC, mediation, and arbitration, and that admins were simply supposed to enforce decisions once they have been reached. In practice, it seems to me that a lot of admins are behaving as judge and jury, and&mdash;what really worries me&mdash;doing so in cases in which they are personally involved. I don't know if we have a specific rule about that, but I would expect the same principle to apply to blocks over behevior as the one that says you don't protect an article on which you are an active editor. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:45, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * I very strongly agree with Jmabel that you should not block users in cases where you are personally involved. Rick did the right thing, he could have blocked the RT himself, but that would have been wrong. Instead he brought up the issue here, so it is in the open, and we can form a consensus on the case as a group. We do have the authority to block disruptive users for up to a week month. Let us use this power, where it seems to improve the operation of WP. I do believe that admins dealing out this maximum "court martial" penalty should have some experience of precedent cases, so they can make an estimation whether their block is in line with the practice approved of by other admins. I propose that it should be made binding policy that admins should not use their power in disputes to which they are a party. But as long as the matter is brought up here, in the open, and people decide to act, I see nothing wrong in that. Of course, if there is disagreement and unblocking, the blocking admin should stand down and wait for other opinions. In the present case, I have no problem with the block. If the RT is a bona-fide user, he can discuss and try to explain how his behaviour is motivated. As long as he just stubbornly annoys Rick without arguing that he just happens to have opposite views, and that it's not really to do with Rick at all (go figure), I think we are justified in dealing with him as a troll. dab (&#5839;) 07:55, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * ah, blocking policy on disruption has, "such blocks should initially last 24 hours, but repeat violators may be blocked for a maximum of one month.", so one week is not even the maximum. Arguably, Snowspinner could have gone from one to two days first, but a week does not seem excessive after the user had been blocked for a day already, and did not seem to have reconsidered his behaviour. dab (&#5839;) 08:04, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * If it were a new user, which it's not. Mark Richards 11:21, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This guy is obviously getting on Rick's nerves, which is bad, but he's also going around making (what I understand to be) valid edits after Rick, so I guess he is improving the encyclopedia in his own way. I'm reluctant to condemn that. I don't want Rick to be deliberately irritated by anybody, but this guy's behavior seems so utterly harmless and maybe even beneficial that I really don't see how it warrants a week's block. Surely the two can work out whatever differences they might have. There is no need for punitive measures when honest discussion could produce a better result. Everyking 08:29, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A random check of article edits shows that almost all of his "valid edits" are adding a few wiki links -- most of which, admittedly, lead to actual articles. The only actual editing I came across in my (admittedly incomplete) survey was changing Rickk's "...which had a claimed membership of 15,000" to "...which claimed a membership of 15,000 people". I'm not seeing any real editing here. --Calton | Talk 08:45, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, Calton, I think that's a bit of a harsh claim - there are many users whose primary contribution is to fix links and grammar. They do seem like good changes, and I don't think we can block people for the types of edits they make. Looking at it, I really think that we should probably be able to put up with someone systematically going through our edits and 'checking' them. If the edits s/hes making are constructive, then I really don't think theres any reason to block a user for doing that. Yes, it's annoying, but really, if it were Rick 'checking' this users edits, I don't think there'd be this outcry. As for voting on vfd, I don't think there can be any rule about how people do this. If some wierdo wants to go through my votes and vote against them, they pretty much can (many do in fact!). Let's try to separate being annoyed by it, and what will actually improve the encyclopedia. As far as I can see this user has done nothing but improve it. Mark Richards 11:21, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I think the vfd issue should be delt with by admins simply ignoring his votes. Bad faith voting does not improve wikipedia. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 11:33, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Theresa - how do you know they are bad faith? I really am not sure I see the issue here. Many people frequently vote against me on vfd, and, to be honest, I wouldn't have a particular problem if an editor appeared to vote against me on principle. That's why it is 'votes' for deletion. If someone wants to use their vote to express an opinion that others find strange, then that's how it is. The user seems to be making good edits, and I don't think there is any good reason to discount their votes. Mark Richards 12:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * To butt in, even though I'm not Theresa: Assume good faith is an extremely valuable policy. However, "there is a difference between assuming good faith and ignoring obvious bad faith." If I thought that there was a 50-50 chance an edit was made maliciously, I'd probably assume good faith. If considering the user's history and the context the edits are more likely to be made in bad faith than not, it's not only not helpful but destructive to continue acting as though they have the best interests of Wikipedia in mind. Even if your judgment is in error, being civil and reasonable means you only have to undo your action and apologize in case of a mistake, rather than start a shitstorm. Better to make a few bad calls and have to apologize for them than never take any action and have trolls drive off valued contributors while all the others stand with their hands tied. I think the value of TRT's edits that aren't explicitly disruptive is marginal at best, and since it appears they're only used to further a bad-faith end I think we're better off without them if it means being without his apparent harassment, too. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:19, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * has he even commented on his behaviour in a reasonable way? Valid editors can be expected to communicate and to justify their edits if challenged. People who refuse to negotiate (within reason) should not be considered valid contributors. dab (&#5839;) 11:41, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Erm? That's a novel idea - I don't think any of the people blocking has asked him. I have to tell you, a lot of my irritation around this issue relates to admins simply not following the policies we have in place on blocking. To be honest I think that (this case aside) we create a lot of disgruntled and angry new users through that. Mark Richards 12:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * um, look, I'm not an expert on this case, but it looks like there was some exchange. RickK asked RT on his talk page and apparently got some reply along the lines of "I have to check your edits". There is the disruption policy. Yes, blocks based on that will be controversial, but we need it. We need to be able to use common sense as to who is just trying to take the piss out of people (a.k.a. trolling). Policy allows block ranging up to one month. At the moment we are looking at a week's block. I do not think any admin has violated policy here. It is very important that new users are approached assuming good faith. But it usually becomes clear very soon whether this assumption was justified. New users whose first edits consists of blanking articles or inserting BUSH IS A PRICK should maybe (no, probably!) not even initially be approached with this assumption. dab (&#5839;) 12:31, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with Mark Richards that this sends a very bad message, undermining most of what people keep saying about the status and role of administrators. On Wikipedia there are people being "annoyed" by, and annoying each others, left and right.   Wikipedia is not a venue where people are especially civil to each other (does this news come as a surprise to anyone?), and there are disputes all over the place, including a lot of troll, and troll-like behaviour.    It is an annoying place, and you better have a high threshold for being annoyed.   Almost nothing is done about it.   If one wants to try to do something about it, the process is long and torturous, and many of the people who use the process are the guilty parties gaming the system or semi-trolls (sometimes not so semi-) who like conflict and who are using the dispute resolution process to be even more annoying.   Most people don't bother, and just develop a thick skin.    Now we have a case where someone is doing something which is tame in comparison to a lot of what goes on, and because the "target" is an administrator and has friends who are administrators, the guilty party is blocked for a week, the week being justified apparently because the person in question is a "serial annoyer".   There is no clear rule which even defines what is illegitimate about this behaviour.  Is it policy that you cannot edit the same articles as another member in case you annoy him?   We have many administrators and other volunteers monitoring the edits of newbies, and other suspect individuals, etc, and if the they find this annoying, it is too bad.  Are administrators immune to being monitored?   Can any Wikipedia member who finds another member "annoying" have that person banned for being disruptive?   If you are a regular member, here is the message: develop a thick skin because not much will be done to keep people from annoying you.  But make sure you don't do anything to annoy any administrators who don't have thick skins, because if you do you will be whacked.    How does that square with: administrators are just servants of the community; they are janitors, the mop and bucket brigade?  Etc. Etc. --BM 12:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I think a more productive forum for this discussion would be RfC. That way, we can crystallize the policy issues that are being disputed, and set some type of precedent so admins know how to respond in the future. Rad Racer 14:11, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Look. He's been on the mailing list, howling at the abusive admins, claiming that they think checking other users' edits is harassment, and generally making straw men out of anything that moves. He's adopted an editing style designed to piss people off. And you want to wait for a policy violation? This is clearly not a stupid troll. If we tell him he's allowed to stalk and harass RickK but nothing else, he will be perfectly content to stalk and harass RickK. This is not a reasonable outcome. And just because the arbcom is now capable of closing cases does not mean every piece of disruption and idiocy that we are able to find something to debate about needs to go to them. They are a way of dealing with problem users. They are not the way, and this problem absolutely does not need to escelate to them when we have perfectly reasionable tools like big sticks that we can whack the problem with until it fixes itself.

I mean, really. How much clearer do you really want this user to be about his bad faith? Did you want to wait until the harassment and stalking actually drives RickK off Wikipedia? Snowspinner 13:09, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * I am currently undecided as to which of you is the bigger drama queen, but making positive edits cannot be seen as harassing. All of the edits he has made, I would too, and so would many people. The only harassment is the constant blocking by you.  If RickK marks tags articles for cleanup, VfD, whatever without even trying to improve them himself (and I know he does), then he should expect that someone will come along and fix them sooner or later.  In this case, sooner seems to be the only reason RickK is whining. -- Netoholic @ 14:20, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

unlike the typical cases you mention, BM, the point is that (a) this isn't part of a content dispute, and (b) the provocation doesn't go both ways. Show me another case where a user's single purpose seems to be to annoy another user, without a background of disputed content, and I'll also support a day's block as a warning, or, show me how RickK has seriously provoked or abused this user, and I'll change my opinion. dab (&#5839;) 14:04, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dab, my point is that even if RT is a troll, which seems very likely to me, the way to deal with trolls is not to let them provoke you into violating your own procedures and policies. In this case Snowspinner has taken a step which makes his own behaviour an issue. His response to provocation is more questionable than the provocation. No matter how sensible a policy is, trolls will find a boundary along which they can tread to be provocative without violating rules or policies. In this case, members monitoring others they find questionable is standard operating procedure on the Wikipedia. RT is doing nothing different from what administrators and others routinely do. The only difference is that he has picked on RickK, who is an administrator and a tad excitable, hoping to provoke an overreaction. In this case, RickK actually has kept his temper pretty well, to his credit. But Snowspinner has stepped in and blown it, giving RT what he wants (presuming that he is a troll). Trolls always go after the administrators, the moderators, etc, and the hot-heads. If they can find a moderator who is a hothead, all the better. The key with trolls, the advice in Wikipedia's article on the subject Trolls is: do not feed the trolls. That is, do not let them provoke you into a reaction that gives them attention and by making you look bad, sets them up for getting more attention. Certainly don't let them provoke you into an action that widens cracks in the community: such as suspicions that the administrators of the site are a "cabal", etc. --BM 14:26, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Exactly. The biggest disruption here is the continual over-reaction from some quarters to something that is annoying, but not damaging or against policy. Please stop feeding the trolls and let's get over it! Mark Richards 15:31, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * how is blocking a troll feeding him? Given that we agree that RT is a troll, why not slap a laconic block on him and forget the matter? That would hardly be 'giving him what he wanted'. Making the admin who happened to issue the block the subject of a drawn-out inquiry, otoh, may be nearer to that. dab (&#5839;) 15:43, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * It's feeding them as it's giving them attention and taking up your time, which is what trolls thrive on. Dan100 15:56, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * If you look at this diff, it seems questionable whether this user is really a troll, especially considering the length of time they have been around. 7 days is a wikieternity. It should have been 24 hours. Rad Racer 16:16, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * There is no question in my mind. Compare his behaviour to that of User:clockwork troll (now User: clockwork soul) harrassing rickK is no way to redeem the word "troll". Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 16:25, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, it is only a 7 day block. He'll be back in 7 days, unless someone unblocks him sooner.  He has already been protesting his blocking on the mailing list, and David Gerard has been provoked into blocking from the list.   When he comes back, he will no doubt continue to protest his blocking and find other ways to be provocative.   Since there is no policy against doing anything that he is doing, it basically looks like administrators are picking on someone who  (1) has the audacity to have "troll" in his username; (2) is "annoying" to some administrators; and (3) protests when administrators single him out for discipline without good justification.    This makes administrators look heavy-handed and more concerned about people who annoy administrators than about other behaviour problems.    Other people who feel victimized have to go through a tedious process to have misbehaviour sanctioned, a process that also exposes their own behaviour to scrutiny.    But administrators don't have to bother with that -- they can just impose a sanction directly, and apparently unilaterally.  It looks like administrators are first-class citizens, and that everybody else is a second-class citizen.     At this point, it would be better to just ban the RT account entirely because administrator mistakes have set this person up to be a real troublemaker when he comes back.   I would suggest that this be done by the Arbitration Committee, however.  It would have been much better to have ignored him and to have maintained the moral high ground until he did something truly objectionable.   --BM 16:11, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I would hardly say Snowspinner's behaviour is not subjected to scrutiny here. Nobody "set up" RT to be a troublemaker. You are responsible for your actions, and if you were treated unfairly, there are decent ways to address the issue. Anyway, I suppose this should either go to an RfC now, or to VP for policy building. dab (&#5839;) 16:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * See Requests for comment/Snowspinner. Rad Racer 16:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BM is completely right. This user has not actually done anything wrong, and the responses to his (albiet annoying) behavior has ranged from blocks that breach policy through abuse and attacks. No one has given a coherent reason for why s/he should be blocked. This is making a mockery of the admins involved since they do look like they are more interested in protecting a cabal from being annoyed than anything else. Had people simply had the common sense to leave well enough alone untill / unless s/he did something actually disruptive, s/he would have got quickly bored with this and moved on. As it is, it has socked up a lot of time and energy, and resulted in the administration looking heavy handed and stupid. Mark Richards 17:08, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * My interest is straightforward. RickK was bothered. RickK was, quite frankly, reasonably bothered. I say this as someone who has been cyberstalked - it is scary, it is unpleasant, and it is upsetting. A reasonable person would be bothered by being stalked. That he was actively disturbing and upsetting another user is sufficient to conclude disruption has taken place. Snowspinner 17:20, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Snow, I don't at all want to take away from how disturbing being stalked might be, but simply going through all of someone's edits on one forum is NOT stalking. If the same user was doing the same things on other forums, that might be different, but there is a legitimate point here about the ability of any user to check anyone elses edits. Yes, it's annoying, but no, it's not an offense. Mark Richards 18:05, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blocking policy on suspected reincarnations of banned users
See Banning_policy. Isn't the policy to ask politely, show evidence, consider, and then block, in situations involving suspected reincarnations of banned users? Rad Racer 17:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah yes. If, after having failed to make a case that your actions fit into any established policy, claim that they are a reincarnation of a previously banned user! There's no need to provide evidence, and no need for the behavior of the two users to be even remotely alike! The fact that they both annoy you is enough to ban them! Mark Richards 18:03, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * It happens more than you'd think. When you have nothing else to offer, lump them with a banned user and appeal to spite or fear. -- Netoholic @ 18:48, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Policy clarification needed
Would I be correct in saying that the main issue for the block was suspected reincarnation of a banned user? That is, would the alleged stalking have been insufficient reason to block unless they were a reincarnation of User:142? If so, I think the main purpose of this RfC should be to clarify the policy on blocking suspected reincarnations of banned users. Is it okay to block a user without asking if they are a reincarnation and showing evidence? If so, when is it okay? Does there have to be outright vandalism, as in Mr. Diaper's case, or is voting against an admin and arguing on the list sufficient? Does their being here five months have any influence on the matter?

I don't have anything against Snowspinner; I just wanted to help resolve the dispute and prevent this type of ambiguity from arising again. Rad Racer 18:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * No, it's bad all around. Snowspinner refuses to grant any assumption of good faith, and would much rather wave his "big stick" around and knock heads.  Policy, procedure, consensus, and civility are not top priorities of him.  The worst part is that he has lots of friends.  He probably means well, but is certainly too burned out on this project to rationally handle situations. -- Netoholic @ 18:58, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)


 * It was David Gerard who brought forward the suspicion that RT is banned user 142. There was no mention of that by Snowspinner.  I don't think that had anything to do with the 7 Day block by Snowspinner.   It is being brought up now as an additional justification by David, after the fact.    What evidence there is for that, David did not say.   He seems to detect a similar modus operandi, but he didn't say what was similar about it.  --BM 19:10, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * OK. Well, is there anything useful we can accomplish by this RfC? Snowspinner was saying we should have a RfC on RT or on the policy. Rad Racer 19:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * To clarify, if that's what you wanted to find out, yeah, that would have been a better RfC. Since this one's started, though, the train, she done left the station. Snowspinner 20:11, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
 * All right, well, we could've put together a real nice article with all the energy spent on this. Ultimately, we'll just have to wait until the block expires and RT starts editing again to find out for sure if they're a troll or not, so it's kinda pointless to speculate. Rad Racer 20:29, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Right now, RT's block will not expire (see block log). Carrp | Talk 20:39, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to unblock that account. The idea that you can keep on blocking someone, have it overturned because there is no policy backing or no evidence is provided, then move on to another, more flimsy reason is ridiculous and brings the whole project into disrepute. No evidence has been presented that this is a reincarnated banned user. Mark Richards 20:57, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) For reference, this is the policy on blocking suspected reincarnations:

Reincarnations

A reincarnation is where a banned user has returned to Wikipedia under a false identity. This is a difficult issue, where we have to try to take account of all the competing concerns above. Blatant reincarnations are easily dealt with — accounts can simply be blocked and reverted, as discussed above.

The issue normally arises where a few users start to suspect that some new account is being run by a returned banned user. The first thing to do in this situation is to ask. Where there's been a case of mistaken identity, the victim of the mistake will normally make efforts to prove to you, by a whole series of means, that they're not the person you're looking for. This invariably sorts the issue out, and everyone can mutually apologise and carry on working on the encyclopedia together, in a renewed spirit of trust. This slight inconvenience is much better than working in a climate of suspicion, so it's a good thing.

Sometimes, the suspected reincarnation doesn't give a straight answer to the question, and instead comes out with a rant about the right to privacy, or a rant about being innocent until proven guilty, or just stony silence. This is clearly not very helpful, and tends to be good evidence that the suspected reincarnation is a reincarnation. This evidence, together with a few paragraphs of explanation by the user(s) who have suspicions, is normally sufficient evidence to justify blocking the account, though there will always be edge cases that provoke discussion.

To our knowledge, this rough policy of ask politely, show evidence, consider, block, does not appear to have caused any collateral damage. The closest Wikipedia has got to making a mistake on this issue, and blocking someone who wasn't in fact banned, was when one banned user tried to impersonate another banned user, and was blocked as a result. If it causes collateral damage in the future, naturally that's something we'll have to review.

If Wikipedia does make any mistakes on this issue, they can be appealed following the appeals process noted above.

Opinion
I don't think Phil is a bad guy, or a bad editor at all, but frankly, he's a bad admin. He's a bad admin because he takes the law into his hands and does this not just sporadically according to individual circumstances, but actually as part of what is apparently a broader theory of his that policy is more or less useless and he therefore can and should just do what he wants with his powers according to his own "common sense". As someone who believes that the strict observation of policy is extremely important, I think he should either give up acting according to his "common sense" in admin matters or should otherwise give up his admin powers. I simply do not believe that his philosophy is consistent with what an admin should be, and I think that as long as he is an admin and does not change, he will provoke endless conflicts of this sort, based on the question of how common his common sense is. Everyking 09:12, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Policy is created by the community, and administered by admins for a reason - to protect the broader community from a bunch of rapacious Judge Dredds appearing and blocking anyone they disagree with. Mark Richards 17:34, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is about the most absurd thing I've ever seen in my life: "To that, all I can say is that Everyking should probably avoid trolling for bans." It was Snowspinner who threatened me with a 100 day ban; I responded with "go ahead" because I wasn't about to meekly beg him not to do it. The guy seems to have an incredible ego problem; he even expects another administrator to bow before him and plead not to be banned even when the threatened ban is an absurd violation of policy, as if he has some supreme power to throw down bans unilaterally according to his whims. Everyking 04:57, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Transcript of IRC session, from Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

00:10 if that's the case, i've reverted about a hundred times in the last few hours 00:10  EK: On Ashlee articles? 00:10  Because I can ban for 100 days if you want. 00:10 go ahead 00:10  Well, I mean, if they were all on Ashlee articles. 00:11 sure they were, add on those 99 days already 00:11  OK. If you say so. 00:12  Done.

Clearly a case of "ask, and ye shall receive." --Calton | Talk 07:14, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Right, so if I ask Snowspinner to go vandalize some article I wrote, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, it would be OK for him to do that too. Clearly he was goading me with a deliberately outrageous threat, and I responded by calling his bluff instead of whimpering and curling up into a ball. Everyking 07:19, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't really matter if the articles were articles you wrote, because we have a policy of no article ownership. So you couldn't really give meaningful permission for that. Snowspinner 17:04, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that addresses the issue at hand at all. The issue is your abuse of the blocking ability and aggressive, renegade tactics, which make it appear that you believe yourself to be above all others, including other admins. Everyking 18:08, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)