Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Delegable proxy

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This MfD is founded upon multiple errors stated as fact. There were two main proponents of testing delegable proxy here. Contributions for the first user, who made the "proposal," and who changed account names but totally abandoned each account before editing with a new one, are at Contributions/Sarsaparilla, Contributions/Ron Duvall, Contributions/Absidy. While this is odd behavior (it has a reasonable explanation behind it), it violates no policy or guideline, and, when it came up, he was not even warned about it, though it was suggested that he link the accounts. There was no contentious editing, no action, in fact, prohibited even if he had operated the accounts simultaneously for some personal reason, which you can see from Contribs he did not do.

I also participated with the proposal, mostly in Talk. I'm an expert on delegable proxy, I've been working on it for about twenty years. However, I would not have made this proposal at this time, and I only participated because I was asked to do so. The groundwork had not been laid, and most people, coming across these ideas, will get them dead wrong at first, exactly as we see below.

Absidy can't participate in this MfD, even though he was the actual initiator of this proposal, because he has been indef blocked, contrary to blocking policy, with a block wildly out of proportion to the alleged offense (a prank, I've seen major disruption get less of a consequence). From this MfD, the simultaneous AfD for Delegable proxy (which may not be notable, and only the timing is significant, and the identity of the nominator, and the charges made with the AfD), from the immediate placement of a Rejected tag as if this proposal had actually been considered by the community, from the rapid closure of a request for comment on the Village Pump, from the harassment of Absidy with an SSP report and a Checkuser request, even though no editing had taken place that would be a violation of policy on socks, from all these it is pretty obvious that there are quite a few editors (almost all administrators) who really want to make sure that the community doesn't even consider this proposal, and that the details are concealed from view. From what was here, one would get an entirely incorrect view of what was being proposed. No part of the proposal changed Wikipedia practice or policy. It did not establish voting or encourage it. It is beyond me how it could have anything to do with vote stacking, which is irrelevant anyway, right? It was not binding on anyone. It did not establish any bureaucracy or burdensome structures. But ... it did open a door that, if the community were to walk through it, would more evenly distribute power among the editors, all of them, not just admins and very experienced ones. If the community walked through it. Would it have? Probably not now. Maybe next month. Or year. Or never. It really is up to the community, not to me, and not to a very energized cabal of administrators who believe that they are the voice of the community, that they can say that the community has "rejected" a proposal which hasn't actually been made to the community. If one looked at the nuts and bolts, the actual proposal here was only to create a file format for userspace proxy files and for a proxy table that shows the user proxy files transcluded into a single table for easy analysis, and to allow users to list proxies in this way. From my point of view, the proposal wasn'd done, insufficient work had been done on explaining that proxies were not voters on behalf of editors. (The rejected tag was placed almost instantly on the project page, before there had been any significant discussion. And it looks like some admins were willing to edit war to keep it there. A user, Absidy, has been blocked under circumstances that remind me of User:Psychim62, and then the other accounts in the series were blocked by User:Mangojuice even though he was clearly in a dispute with Absidy. Those are some pretty big chips to toss on the table. This is very, very important, obviously, to those participating in trying to crush it immediately. There is more than I've explained here, but it will all come out in the wash. I'll suggest immediate action here in my !vote below. --Abd (talk) 02:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the second time you've brought up those blocks as if there's anything improper about it. The user is blocked indefinitely, therefore all known accounts should be blocked indefinitely, this can be changed if the user is ever unblocked. Completely standard practice, and I explained on User talk:Absidy my reasons, and that this did not represent a judgment of my own. Mangojuice^talk 03:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

An administrator should not block a user with whom the administrator is involved in a dispute. The original blocking administrator was aware of the other accounts and chose not to block them. Now, in fact, the additional blocks were moot, because Absidy had scrambled the password for them. However, my interest here is the procedure and what this situation reveals about the community: should an administrator block a user with whom the admin is having a dispute? Is "standard practice" an exception? Yes, it's standard practice, when blocking a user, to block known socks. However, the block against Absidy was an unusual one, and practically nothing about this is "standard." Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Physchim62 and WP:BLOCK; in particular, see the sections Disruption Disputes and, also the sections on duration of blocks and indefinite blocks. What we see is that one warning was issued to this user about canvassing. The canvassing had stopped five hours before the warning was issued. In response to the warning, Absidy posted to the warning administrator's Talk page, something like "too late, I've done all I wanted to do," and then the image of a finger. Now, there was no reason to expect further canvassing (if indeed it was canvassing, that's quite questionable itself), and, apparently, the canvassing was, itself, only worthy of a warning. (Certainly this warning could not have been faulted, even if it wasn't canvassing, it was sufficiently like it that Jehochman was quite safe in it.) So what was the additional offense that shoved the situation into, not merely a block, but an indef block? An image, a picture of a finger. What does that mean? Is it an attack? Certainly it is rude and, in context, incivil. Who decides? If I tell an admin that he doesn't know his belly button from his block button, or that he is an arrogant big frog in a small pond and I'm not afraid to confront him, can he block me for it? Really, since you are an administrator, I'd like to know. I'd really like to ask all admins this question, but there are far too many, so I'm only going to ask a few. At a time.

In the discussion in the Physchim62 case, it was pointed out that users, when administrators interfere with what they want to do, will often react with anger, and that administrators should develop a thick skin. Anger does not make for good administrative decisions. What happened with Physchim62 is that he perceived that he was personally attacked, when he was merely subjected to an uncivil comment, the famous your argument is a "steaming pile of crap" That finger image is, quite arguably, uncivil. However, there is also a meaning to it, and the meaning is that "I really don't care what you think," in this case because Absidy had already decided to leave. Yes, it was suicide by administrator, but... if a perpetrator decides to commit suicide by police officer, he has to actually show a threat of force or harm, it's not enough to, say, dare the police to shoot him. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, you haven't the balls to shoot me! What would we do with a police officer who said, "You asked for it," and shot the perp? And, I'm asking, what do we do with an adminstrator who blocks a user who displays a finger to him? If the finger was accompanied with, "I'm going to trash your favorite articles," fine. Even though it would still be better to call in another admin, it would also be justifiable to go ahead and block. For 24 hours for a first offense. Any prior offenses for Absidy? Any prior blocks? (I've looked back, including looking back at the prior known account -- which was not his first account, he has told me and it's obvious from contribs), and there was only one block in late 2007, made in error and rapidly reversed by the same admin. Nothing else back to December 2005. I haven't reviewed all the Talk, but I've sen no sign of warnings, either. This was a long-term Wikipedian, very active, a user in very good standing, suddenly indef blocked for .... tell me, what was the real reason? I think there are two obvious reasons and both are true. He was blocked for giving Jehochman the finger and it was made indefinite because he is considered a threat to the project. Dangerous, disruptive ideas. Ideas he happened to get from me. I hope you have read the parting comment ("to the community," he made on his talk page. Absolutely, the most eloquent such I've seen. I have a real question: would it be uncivil for me to say that, from at least one immediate response (but not some others), it was "pearls before swine"? --Abd (talk) 07:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

That would be a personal attack. If you think I've done something improper, post about it at WP:ANI, I stand by my blocks 100% and am very sure I would have the support of the administrative community. Jehochman's initial block is up to him to defend, but you've seen it explicitly endorsed by others. You need to stop pushing about Absidy's block: it's really none of your business any more: his block is between him, the blocking admin, and whatever uninvolved admin reviews his unblock request, if he makes one. Mangojuice^talk 14:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

If I'm correct, the above indicates that you no longer wish to discuss my views on the propriety of what you did, which is your right at this point, and you are inviting taking this to WP:ANI as the next step in any dispute. Is that correct? This would, of course, cover as well whether or not I have any standing to object. True? (It may be unlikely that Absidy will request unblock; he may prefer to be blocked at this time, because it inhibits his ability to edit compulsively, and he has other work to do.) Please understand that my concern is, here, about the use of blocks as a matter of policy, and, if it's true that you will have the support of the admin community, and to me, it is all the more important that the issues be reviewed. This is not in any way a personal attack on you; if your expectation of support is correct, you would largely be protected against any personal consequences of what you did, even if I turn out to be correct. But if it is not true, then consequences could follow, but not at my urging. I'm not trying to punish anyone, nor to disrupt the project to make a point. I don't believe that anything I've done so far is disruptive, nor do I have any plans to change that, nor would I condone others doing it.--Abd (talk) 04:41, 28 February 2008 (UTC)