Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Reform/Attrition/Study/Reasons for leaving

User:Sarsaparilla
User:Sarsaparilla. Used serial accounts, no charges of actual sock puppetry (simultaneously used accounts), beyond creation of socks for block evasion. Legitimate accounts, after Sarsaparilla, are User:Ron Duvall, User:Absidy, User:Obuibo Mbstpo, and User:Larry E. Jordan. Discussion of this user often referred to sock puppetry, but use was never blocked for sock puppetry (except for block-evading socks, of course, and once in error, unblocked quickly). Sarsaparilla was itself a new account for a prior user, probably not first account, not warned or blocked back to 2005. Sarsaparilla shifted account to Ron Duvall and Absidy. The Ron Duvall shift was a technical violation because the user failed to connect the accounts explicitly, though it was blatantly obvious, but the user immediately corrected that when it was pointed out. Blocks were for various reasons, and all were indef blocks. This user, though clearly a legitimate and active contributor (you can see Newyorkbrad requesting that he keep out of contentious areas because of the value of his other contributions), was never given a formal warning which he then violated, the normal cause of a block, and he was never blocked for a defined period, it was always indef.

(1) First block, of Absidy: was warned for canvassing, though not for any established process or vote or article editing, and not beyond numbers allowed in the past as not being spam. Responded to warning admin with "Too late, I'm done." And incivility. Blocked by warning admin, not for violating warning, but for "trolling." Trolling him, since the original subject of the warning was apparently not considered block-worthy. User has acknowledged that he was attempting wiki-suicide, so, for this project, the question would be "Why?" Why did this user want to make it difficult for himself to edit?

(2) Second block, of Obuibo Mbstpo: User created a hoax article and put questionable, improperly framed joke into an article (The joke was a possibly true statement, but unsourced. Funny. Harmless except for not being serious content.) The joke was promptly reverted ("vandalism") and the article speedied immediately. User defended hoax article on his Talk page with pretense of having source in his hands. Block log reads: 01:17, 17 March 2008 Black Kite (Talk | contribs) blocked "Obuibo Mbstpo (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked, e-mail blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Disruption: Persistent disruption on XfD, apparent hoax articles, vandalism). There was no repetition of the offenses after warning, and no prior history of the behavior. The XfD "disruption" was for placing canned Keep votes, similar to User:Kmweber's RfA votes that have been found acceptable, even though there have been calls to block him for them. There was only one hoax article, Obuibo Mbstpo, not multiple articles. The article itself was entertaining and did not damage the project (beyond the trivial speedy deletion labor and some fuss on his Talk page), but was a fantasy.

(3) Third block, of User:Larry E. Jordan. 00:16, 23 March 2008 Jayron32 (Talk | contribs) blocked "Larry E. Jordan (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Continued problematic editing. RE: Easter Bunny Hotline). The Easter Bunny Hotline really exists. The true guideline violation here is that the Hotline is insufficiently notable for Wikipedia; it is owned by Rejection Hotline, which has had an article on and off, currently off, I think. My opinion is that it is notable, there is RS that discusses it. But the point is that this user was, on the face, blocked for creating a non-notable verifiable article. The user remains blocked at this writing, and is sometimes called "banned," though it is more accurate that the user has not attempted to pursue DR process for unblock, even though assistance was offered.

This user knew he was being watched closely, because his policy suggestions were detested by many, so the actions he took must be seen in the light of wiki-suicide and some level of WP:POINT. Many people are being blocked in violation of block policy, he made himself a visible example.--Abd (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

User:RickK
RickK was blocked for 3RR violation. What actually happened? The history of the article reverted is here:

The block log for RickK shows:
 * 06:05, 20 June 2005 Gamaliel (Talk | contribs) unblocked RickK (Talk | contribs) ‎ (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR)
 * 05:53, 20 June 2005 Silsor (Talk | contribs) blocked "RickK (Talk | contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (3RR violation on GAP Project)

RickK's Talk page for this period is full of obscene vandalism. There is an edit on 19 June where an editor tells RickK that CoolCat has told him he is the author of material on that page (which RickK had been taking out for copyvio). It's pointed out somewhere that anonymous claims to authorship are problematic.

User:Ugen64 notes 4RR violation and page protection by RickK.

"He's back." No block notice in Talk. Some blank edits intervene, I think this is a sign that deletion has been used to remove material from a page, there will be blank edits ascribed to the most recent editor before the deletions.

The log for Talk:RickK for this period shows:
 * 04:30, 21 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "User:RickK/Articles I have made significant updates to" ‎ (Goodbye)
 * 04:30, 21 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "User talk:RickK" ‎ (Goodbye)
 * 04:29, 21 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "User talk:RickK" ‎ (Goodbye)
 * 04:29, 21 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "User:RickK/Jimbo's statement" ‎ (Goodbye)
 * 04:29, 21 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "User talk:RickK" ‎ (Goodbye)
 * 05:42, 20 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) protected GAP Project ‎ (repeated reversion to a copyright violation)
 * 05:34, 20 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) blocked "64.105.137.123 (Talk)" with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (recreated vfd'd article for the fourth time)
 * 05:10, 20 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) blocked "SPUI (Talk | contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (restoring block. SPUI has no idea what the status is, he's only reverting me to be a jerk)
 * 05:03, 20 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) deleted "Giles freeman" ‎ (content was: 'nonsenseThere is only One.')
 * 04:41, 20 June 2005 RickK (Talk | contribs) blocked "SPUI (Talk | contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (repeated reversion of copyright violation on GAP Project)

Here is the incident report:

My summary: RickK violated 3RR, however, there was no continuing hazard. He had protected the article, claimed to be a COI conflict on his part, but his involvement was not as an editor of the article, he never otherwise edited it, so the application of "protecting to a preferred version" is obscure. He was pretty clearly intervening ex officio, to remove alleged copyvio. Blocking him was punitive, not protective of the project, and that seems to have been missed in the discussion. Blocks for 3RR exist to stop edit warring, fast. Since the article had been protected, and even though it was then unprotected, there was no showing that RickK apparently intended to revert again. His blocks of other users involved could similarly be justified as police actions, protective of the project (in this case, against a reasonable belief of copyvio). When I read the AN/I report, I see the same massive incivility that often is found in such reports. It burns people out. And then, after people rage for a while, "working on the encyclopedia" goes on, nothing is changed, but we lost a valuable contributor and, from ensuing comment over a long time, widely appreciated. Sure, it was "his decision" to leave. My impression of it is that he found the atmosphere increasingly poisonous, it would not have been just this incident. My impression of this is not to exonerate RickK, he had clearly become, in some ways, whether or not he started out that way, infected by the incivility. When we are constantly subjected to incivility, easily, we become uncivil.

RickK was wheel-warring with the block of SPUI.

One recommendation: blowing the whistle. It should happen easily and routinely that the whistle is blown when serious incivility, edit warring, and wheel warring arises. The whistle means, Everybody Stop! It means that articles are protected, and users who don't heed the whistle are quickly blocked. Temporarily, short period. This isn't a "cool-down" block, it is protective. The whistle never assigns blame. It says that there is a problem here and we need everyone to quiet down and stop fighting so we can sort it out. And then the sorting out takes place under tight watch. I was a prison chaplain. We always carried a whistle. And that's what it meant. When we heard a whistle, *everyone* -- me included -- would stay down, stay still, and, if inside, stay away from the windows. The guards on the catwalks had automatic weapons. Never heard them fired in the areas I worked, though. When the whistle is blown, any admin should be able to protect an article, including someone with a potential conflict. One should not have to be an admin to blow the whistle (I wasn't a guard, and I was really there to assist the inmates), but if anyone, admin or not, is later found to have frivolously blown the whistle, not in good faith, there could be sanctions if there is any concern that it would repeat. A protective block during a whistle incident should have no onus automatically attached to it. If I blow the whistle on an edit war that I'm involved in, and if there is any reasonable appearance that I'm continuting to conduct myself improperly -- whether that is correct or not -- I should easily be blocked, along with anyone else where that appearance exists. We should have a name for it, protective block, or something like that. No judgment of blame is involved. With copy vio allegations, the presumption should be exclusion as long as consensus isn't established, and, just as with BLP violations, 3RR should not necessarily apply. RickK's error in this incident was that he did not seek assistance, apparently, and I read that as another symptom of burnout, of rather desperately trying to make a last effort to protect the project against vandals and trolls. And what did we learn from this incident? We still behave like a lynch mob when someone makes a mistake. Anyway, it's been interesting to see that much of the same stuff was going on then as well as more recently. --Abd (talk) 17:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)