Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Discretion blocks by admins

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Contents

[edit] Statement of the dispute

Well-intentioned but hasty, and therefore harmful, interference with Admin tools into the articles when harsh actions were not just unnecessary but harmful and disruptive.

[edit] Description

Unwarranted, unnecessary and harmful blocking over alleged revert warring, especially of the user(s) who were not warring but developing the article. Such actions disrupt the articles and insult the involved editors.

[edit] Disclaimer

Let me start with stating it loud and clear that I have no ill will against these two particular admins, either overall or over the particular actions I want to bring up. Neither I feel personally offended or harmed. Neither I think their actions, caused purely by lack of due diligence (IMO), involved any bias, bad faith or any other foul play (at least on their part). I take this action exclusively to bring a particular practice to a wider attention and seek other editor's feedback.

[edit] Background

Some may remember that about six weeks ago, I wrote a rather elaborate review about the current blocking practices. It was posted to WP:AN board and is now available in the archive. That post was very favorably received. I've got several very positive responses including one from an ArbCom member. I respectfully request the unfamiliar readers to review my original post at WP:AN before continuing to read any further. The main message there was:

  1. Wikipedia culture have only recently evolved to the stage where admins exersize their blocking rights more broadly and per their own judgement (even a year ago it used to be only ArbCom and 3RR). It was a very much useful development.
  2. If the problem user seems to be an established contributor who've done much for the project and seems misbehaving (especially since we have every reason to believe that experienced users know the ground rules and policies, including WP:DICK), than
    1. the past history is not an excuse to save such user from a deserved block.
    2. However, a simple common sense requires that an admin, before pressing a "block user" button, takes it upon him/herself to investigate the issue on his/her own really thoroughly because what may seem like "revert warring" may be something totally legitimate like removal of repeatedly reinserted copyvio, article undergoing WP:BRD and other whatnots. Still do block if the results of a careful investigation call for a block, especially after warning the user.

Unfortunately, despite the warm acceptance of my initial message and follow through discussions with several ArbCom members, admins and non-admins (including in person, during the meetup), the issue remains largely unresolved and unaddressed by our policies. This RfC is an attempt to bring to a broad attention the same issue through an example of two more recent blocks.

I humbly ask the reader to take my word that I am not motivated by personal motives of any kind. I am not one of those "brittle" users who leaves the project or threatens to leave due to "lack of appreciation". I know my weaknesses but personal rancour and/or delusion of grandeur are not among them.

[edit] Case 1

Interestingly, when I wrote my WP:AN message on the issue I had an empty block log in over a year of active Wikipedia editing. But soon after that and in the middle of the totally unrelated article's disagreement it was me this time, who was blocked by Dmcdevit (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) who decided to step in to the article on the subject that was not of his interest (which is good) prompted by an unhappy POV pusher, whose editing to mainspace consisted to that day of about two dozen entries only (and even most of those were pure reverts) while he completed hundreds of edits on wikilawyering his opponents. In his revert warring and wikilawyering, he was assisting a real trouble maker who was blocked many times, including by the ArbCom ruling, for resorting to dirty tricks in his extremist POV pushing.

Prompted by a bad faith report, the admin Dmcdevit stepped in decisively and (IMO) without taking time to investigate the issue in full. He blocked the chief troublemaker for a week and then he blocked me for a day (perhaps to make sure his action looks even-handed). At the same time he did not block the provocateur (whose only activity on the article was revert warring) at all, claiming that the user was "not warned", despite several warnings for edit warring were prominent[1][2][3] at the user's talk page just few sections above the "warning" Dmcdevit chose to use instead of the block.

As for my block, allegedly for "edit warring", Dmcdevit combined 6 of my edits over the time of one week (!) as evidence that I "warred". Not only this was not even close to 3RR (which in is not a full proof defence as 3RR is not an entitlement anyway) but over that week my and others' editing was accompanied by an extensive discussion at talk, the article got further developed, became better referenced and more complete as several users agreed to reasonable compromises (something that may be a result of anything but an edit war).

Uninvolved admin's (as well as any reasonable editor's) intervention is always welcome in the content conflicts, especially on the articles on difficult topics, especially when things may get hot. But giving users an advice is one thing. Resorting to blocks is quite another. While often useful and needed, the latter demands a thorough investigation which was obviously not done as evidenced by admin's erroneous assertion that he "spared" a wikilawyer from the block because the latter was not warned (while in fact the several warning for past warring was prominent on his page[4][5][6] right above the message left by Dmcdevit himself.

Additionally, as per the Wikipedia:Blocking policy:

  • WP:BP#When_blocking_may_not_be_used: "Generally, caution should be exercised before blocking users who may be acting in good faith.":
    • Dmcdevit did not doubt my good faith but failed to exercise the caution;
  • WP:BP#Controversial blocks: "[Among the controversial blocks are]: blocks of logged-in users with a substantial history of valid contributions, regardless of the reasoning for the block "
  • WP:BP#Controversial blocks: "Once you are convinced that a block is warranted, the recommended procedure for controversial blocks is:
    1. Check the facts with care
      • not done or at least not with enough care
    2. If possible, contact other administrators informally to be sure there are others who agree with your reasoning.
      • was not done while it was most certainly possible as no imminent threat to wikipedia overall or to a given article was taking place
    3. Be willing to discuss the block with other Wikipedians.

After the incident was over we had a useful and cordial discussion at mine and Dmcdevit's talk pages. After the first narrow issue related to a specific incident a broader discussion on the blocking policy followed at his talk. Dmcdevit's message was that same WP:DR procedures apply no matter who one is dealing with while I stated that following the normal steps of DR in certain cases just makes no sense. DR with a vandal, sock, troll or an abusive POV pusher is a totall waste of time, especially after it was tried with patience and for a long time. I specifically stated that "Demanding to file RfCs and ArbCom every time a new troll or an extremist appears just makes no sense." and "We would be all writing RfCs and ArbCom submissions if we followed such advise" and ArbCom would have no time to study real cases.

As such, many incidents should be treated by admin's action and thus be put to an end. I also stated that similar to an admin who decided on their own when to impose the block, the editors also can make a good-faith judgement on how to deal with particular situation and, when acting reasonably, should not be penalized for that, similar to an Admin throwing a non-3RR judgement block, should not automatically be subject to an RfC about the abuse of admin rights. Since the offender left anyway, this saved me and an ArbCom time for that matter. Dmcdevit did not respond to my message and I thought we agreed on that and he had nothing more to say.

I did not make a big deal out of that, I still hold no grudge for the action that opened my, to that day, flawless block log but, also prompted by the event discussed below, I think the issue is worthy of the community attention, if only to raise an awareness of the need to find a reasonable middle ground between allowing Wikipedia to become a trollfest through admin's indecisiveness and hurting the legitimate development of the articles through blocks done in haste. And my message is the same: do block decisively when need to but care to investigate first!

Pity, if instead of addressing this important issue we will now instead resort to the instinctive reaction of self-righteous defence our actions with everyone claiming that he was right and explaining this to others.

[edit] Case 2

Another case for review involves Blnguyen (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights), also a highly regarded Wikipedia administrator, who intervened into an article that was being actively edited and discussed at talk by two editors: user:KPbIC and myself. I am sure Blnguyen intervened with good intentions to stop what might have seemed a revert war at the first sight. What called his attention to the issue that is so outside of his editing interests is a mystery to me as none of the parties saw this as a revert war, both parties welcomed outside attention, both parties saw no need for administrative intervention, no one complained to admins in general at any of the admin boards or to Blnguyen personally (at least at his talk). If Blnguyen was manipulated by someone who contacted him privately by email (my opponent did not do that, I am sure, must be someone else) it should provide an admin some food for thought. To me his intervention that consisted of blocking my opponent and myself while we both were discussing things at talk seems unnecessary, harmful and hurtful.

My Wikipedia interaction with this particular editing opponent has been to this date rather uneven. We had several edit conflicts and, perhaps, said to each other things that were unnecessary at times (I personally went too far at the time by reverting him with "revert trolling" summary, while he had done the same to me earlier on an unrelated matter). At the same time we were discussing our disagreements (not just over that one article) at talk pages extensively and were able to find compromise solutions more often than not. Also, at some articles we totally agreed. I was not particularly pleased with my overall experience with that editor due to several issues that are not relevant to this RfC. But it never ever crossed my mind in any of my edit conflicts with him to go count his edits, check whether there is anything that may be presented like 3RRvio and seek his block. I only approve and seek blocks for real troublemakers and not the users who simply disagree with me.

It seemed like a normal editing disagreement that was leading to the article's expansion via WP:BRD and in the editing cycles we were accepting parts of each other's version as the article was converging to the next stage of the mutual acceptance. All of a sudden and out of the blue appeared an admin carrying a BIG STICK into the middle of the editing disagreement which really takes time to sort out. The admin throws in two blocks (perhaps to look "even-handed", while no blocks were called for at all) and leaves doing neither of the steps prescribed by WP:BP#Controversial blocks that by the policy definition applies to all "logged-in users with a substantial history of valid contributions, regardless of the reasoning for the block". The Policy calls:

  1. to check the facts with care
  2. when there is no imminent threat, to seek other admin's advise, which was not done.
  3. to be willing to discuss the block with other Wikipedians, while the response to the user who was amazed to find himself blocked was dismissive and showed admin's own uncertainly over his action at the same time as Blnguyen preceeded his statement by "If I am correct" disclaimer. I am sorry, but don't block unless you are sure that you are "correct".

And a totally separate issue is Admin's reasoning for the block. The reasons cited for the block[7][8] was specifically 3RRvio rather than revert warring in general. There was neither a revert war, nor 3RRvio by either of the users. In each edit, the user accepted parts of his opponent's version and while he was undoing some of his changes, in all cases except one, the alternative formulation was proposed. At the same time, the editors exchanged with elaborate explanations at article's talk after most each edit. WP:3RR#Detail does state that "Complex partial reverts" do count towards 3RR. This is a good thing as it addresses the issue of sneaky warriors who revert at one place and do some changes elsewhere to attempt staying under 3RR. But at the same time such rule is vague (perhaps this is good as it allows discretion). Invoking the 3RR rule to the article under extensive editing by two good faith users will almost always allow to find 3 edits within 24 hours when some word or part of the sentence was reinserted, re-edited or removed, while in fact the editors where converging to a common ground. The WP:AGF combined with checking up on editor's background is a good rule of thumb if an admin is not willing to spend much time on getting into all details of the article's disagreement.

I know several editors who are nothing but trolls but I know many more editors (including my frequent opponents) who are definitely committed to Wikipedia, not to their agenda, and when we disagree, it never ever cross my mind to take a break from editing and scrutinize the diffs of the conflict to find something that may be presented for 3RR as "complex partial reverts" and, thus, seek the "victory" through an opponent's block. And I also know that those editors would never seek my blocks either (trolls with agendas are a different story, those I would report without hesitation). From my experience of interaction with KPbIC (again, rather mixed) I knew that there was not going to be a sterile edit war and, at the same time, there is never going to be an attempt by him to try to get myself blocked by producing an ill-tempered report based on the "complex partial reverts" policy clause. Someone else was likely looking on and that someone likely alerted Blnguyen privately (by email?); and well-meaning but gullible admin duped by a sneaky onlooker stepped in to "stop the edit war."

His unintentional error was the same. He should have checked the background of involved users, and, prompted by that, take a closer look at the issue before letting the heads roll. IF, OTOH, others find that our behavior in the conflict was indeed disruptive and the block was indeed in order, I will offer Blnguyen my apology.

[edit] Conclusion

We have two more examples of the controversial "admin discretion blocks" in addition to several I listed earlier. The problem with them was not their being "discretion blocks" per se. Admins being allowed to block on their own saves Wikipedia much hassle and saves us all lots of time that does not need to be spent on writing hundreds of ArbCom cases and allowing the ArbCom to spend its much needed time on really complex cases.

At the same time, errors may happen and they will happen and the reason is that the decision to block may simply be a not fully informed one. Also, different people have different judgements. The number of errors may, however, be brought to a minimum if admins make it a habit to investigate the issues very thoroughly in cases when the past history of involved users could easily tell that there may be a good reason for what's going on, that users are acting in good faith, that a friendly warning might suffice. Often, in such cases, leaving things to their own course is the best thing to do.

It is very important to be able to edit/co-edit complex articles on difficult topics together with other editors who don't necessarily agree with you. Such articles by their nature require extensive work in order to converge towards the common ground even when (especially when) there is both a complex and controversial subject and a good faith on both sides. With some care it is easy to distinguish such process from sterile edit war. Editors should not be in fear of their work being disrupted by someone walking in out of nowhere with no real clue of what's going on but with the case of admin tools (like "protect", "block", "delete") and eagerness to use them just because he can. Blocks are hard to bear for many editors and, especially, blocks provoked by trolls' frivolous calling for admin's help. Some editors choose to not be admins because all they want is to write content and prefer to leave cleanup to other more tidy ones.

I am looking forward to receive more outside opinions on the issue.

[edit] Powers misused

  • Blocking (log):
  1. user:Irpen
  2. user:KPbIC

[edit] Applicable policies


[edit] Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

  1. [9]
  2. [10]
  3. [11]
  4. [12]


[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. Irpen 22:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  2. Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 22:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  3. `'mikka (t) 23:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this statement

(sign with ~~~~)

[edit] Response

This is a summary written by the sysop whose actions are disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the sysop's actions did not violate policy. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.

[edit] Response by Dmcdevit

(Apologies for the length, the last paragraph is the most important to me.) In case there is any doubt: I did indeed investigate the case closely before blocking. I appreciate Irpen's diplomatic wording, however it appears to me that despite our previous discussion regarding the block, he hasn't gotten my intention or purpose right. Irpen's description of the events contains quite a lot of ad hominem arguments which are irrelevant. AndriyK's actions have been more disruptive than Irpen's, I'm sure there is widespread agreement for that, and, incidentally, his block was one week, taking prior blocks into account; I'm not sure why that's relevant, since the claim clearly isn't that I was one-sided. In fact, others' misconduct does not excuse one's own. Edit warring is unacceptable always, even if you think you are right, even if you are right, it is a harmful attitude. Something which I said to both parties in a warning before they were blocked. (I also find Irpen's "Prompted by a bad faith report..." troubling: the editor in question has certainly been disruptive in warring, but such accusations of bad faith rather than bad behavior should not be tossed around lightly.) If you are interested why Mbuk was only warned, read my warning, which says why, and I think speaks for itself: [13].

Irpen repeats the, frankly demeaning, claim that I blocked him "perhaps to make sure his action looks even-handed". The fact is that I blocked him based on the merits of the case, and should not have to be accused otherwise especially after voluminous previous discussion on the matter. "Dmcdevit combined 6 of my edits over the time of one week (!) as evidence that I "warred"" is misleading: he had three reverts in that day, plus a number of others recently. Two other comments I made at the time are pertinent:

Look at this: that's Irpen reverting AndriyK in May (notice an OR tag?), and that's AndriyK putting in the OR tag again, in May. That's AndriyK's first edit to the article in October, 2005, and that's Irpen reverting it 10 minutes later. There is no way I can believe this is stale, after a few hours without edit warring. [14]
To me, it looks like you are trying to tag a specific revert number to a specific time frame, when it seems like the sensible thing to do is look at the situation, especially as it has developed over time, and conclude that this will continue unabated over time if the participants are allowed to continue edit warring like nothing is wrong. [15]

[16], [17], [18], [19], [20], and [21] are the specific reverts I cited, by the way. There is no basis to the claim at all that Irpen wasn't edit warring. I am also concerned that he has referred to the others' edits as vandalism, which is wrong.

Aside from the tedious specifics though, what I really want to tell everyone is this. The case at hand demnstrates failure of dispute resolution (a subject I feel have at least a passing familiarity with). At the time of the block, Irpen went on at length, as he did above, about the disruptive nature of AndriyK's edits. My response was (in a nutshell): this is what dispute reolution, and not edit warring, is for. I even recommended arbitration, and am sure that a case would have been accepted at that time, but Irpen never followed through. AndriyK has since left in any case. Rather, as I am dismayed to find out in reading the second case, Irpen has continued to edit war at the very same article he was blocked before. The important message is this: Edit warring is the poorest alternative to dispute resolution available; those who demonstrate a preference for fighting rather than pursuing dispute resolution, should not be surprised to find themselves blocked as a result. Dmcdevit·t 03:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Tony Sidaway 09:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Particularly "others' misconduct does not excuse one's own" and "those who demonstrate a preference for fighting rather than pursuing dispute resolution, should not be surprised to find themselves blocked as a result."
  2. Mackensen (talk) 14:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  3. Lkinkade 14:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  4. Reichenbach 16:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Some skewed logic on Irpen's behalf along the whole line. Quite audacious (cocky?) to request a comment for an old case where Administrators are obviously right?
  5. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 22:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  6. Daniel.Bryant 09:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  7. Shell babelfish 03:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC) Edit wars aren't ever the solution.
  8. The last sentence in particular is, I think, absolutely persuasive. Guy 16:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response by Blnguyen

Firstly let me begin by saying that I am sure that my block was not discretionary under WP:3RR policy as I clearly identified four reverts within 24 hours, so I am not exercising discretion to call for a block, unless the reference to discretion is in the fact that I chose to not turn a blind eye to what was happening. Secondly, during the course of the reverts, one of the edits was marked with the edit summary "rv trolling" [22] and [ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ukrainization&diff=72549264&oldid=72546793], which indicated a sense of hostility was present, which also gave me an indication that perhaps the environment needed to clear a little, which is why I felt that a block was not out of order. With reference to the diff cited above where Irpen questions my knowledge of the 3RR policy, the "If I am correct" disclaimer is a reference to the fact that I am not infallible, rather than that I am not sure of the policy. I have blocked people before for 4 non-identical reverts, without subsequent incident. I do not feel that my response here was dismissive, as it explains my basis for the four non-identical reverts and block, as I was pointing the user to the necessary policy documents. Finally, with regards to the fact that Irpen and KPbIC are serious, productive and committed editors to Wikipedia, I am well aware of this prior to the blocking, which is why I only used a 6 and 9hr (2nd offence) block respectively, to try and retain productivity rather than the usual 24hr block. Although there was discussion on the talk page that was described as promising, I feel that when talks are promising, that courtesy to refrain from reverting is a good thing. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 22:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Daniel.Bryant 09:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.

[edit] Outside view by abakharev

I completely agree that when dealing with users with a long clean history of positive contributions the admins should be triple extra careful not to harm when blocking. The Ukrainization article is on my watchlist and I mostly agree with Irpen's assessments. For me the second case is particular worrying. While the first reverts of the blocked users were sterile reverts from the long lasting edit war over tagging of this article (against the consensus), the later edits were certainly productive, with an active search for a compromise from both parties and intensive dialogue on the talk pages. While these edits might be technically qualified as reverts they were positive development that might even solve the lasting conflict over the article. I do not see the point in interrupting the work. I do not want to somehow single out dmcdevit and blinguen, I believe that anybody (me, certainly, included) who actually uses the admin tools sometimes use them erroneously, but it would be better if we all be more careful next time abakharev 01:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. abakharev 01:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  2. Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 01:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  3. Yury Tarasievich 06:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.