Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-06/Userbox warring
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Five users de-sysopped by Jimbo Wales
- By Flcelloguy, 6 February 2006
In an unprecedented move, five administrators were de-sysopped by Jimbo Wales following controversy over a userbox. Carnildo was the first to be temporarily de-sysopped, and the other four de-sysoppings came later. Following the incident, Wales asked the Arbitration Committee to review the case, and a request for arbitration was made and quickly accepted.
The userbox was created by User:Paroxysm and stated that the user "identifies as a pedophile". The box was deleted and restored several times; a duplicate userbox was also created and restored several times, before the original box was nominated for deletion (the nomination later being edited to refer to the duplicate userbox). However, Jimbo Wales intervened and deleted the first userbox, saying that it was inappropriate. Both boxes have all now been deleted and protected blank, and a similar template created by Dschor was also speedily deleted.
The de-sysopping of Carnildo stemmed from the debate: after some discussion on the administrators' noticeboard, Carnildo blocked three users indefinitely (El C, Giano, and Carbonite), for "hate speech and inciting attacks on other users". The reaction was immediately negative: most users agreed that none of the blocked users had done anything inappropriate, given that all of them had only participated in the civil discussion. Carnildo was later blocked (but then un-blocked), and El C, Giano, and Carbonite were unblocked.
Jimbo decided to step in at that point, de-sysopping Carnildo. Wales said that he had "desysopped Carnildo for tonight" and would "leave it to the ArbCom to engage in careful thinking and discussion about what should be done in the longer term." He also urged for calm and an end to the wheel-warring.
However, hours later Wales decided to de-sysop another four administrators, bringing the total number of administrators de-adminned to five. Ashibaka, BorgHunter, El C, and Karmafist were all de-adminned for their roles in engaging in the "absurd wheel war that went on tonight over this stupid thing", according to a post by Wales to the Wiki-en-L mailing list. In addition, Wales also commented on the administrators' noticeboard, stating that "after several hours of deliberations and discussions with a variety of people, including several ArbCom members, I have temporarily desysopped everyone who in any way was 'wheel warring' tonight over the stupid trolling template. The ArbCom will be considering the whole thing and handing out a more permanent ruling on the whole thing very soon." He also urged for calm again, saying that he was "desirous that we have peace until morning."
Ashibaka restored and unprotected the templates several times, and BorgHunter also restored the duplicate template; each time. The restored templates were deleted by other administrators (MarkSweep, Doc glasgow, Violetriga, David Gerard, Physchim62) before Jimbo Wales intervened. El C had blocked Carnildo for 24 hours after being unblocked from Carnildo's indefinite block. Karmafist, meanwhile, had unblocked Joeyramoney, the user who had originally placed the controversial userbox on his userpage; Joeyramoney had been blocked for one week by Jimbo himself.
Following the incident and the request by Wales for the Arbitration Committee to handle the case for the long-term, a request for arbitration was made and quickly accepted; after collecting evidence, the case has now moved into the voting phase.
Also this week: From the editor — Userbox warring — Password security — ArbCom update — Cartoon chaos — Politicians and Wikipedia — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — B.R.I.O.N. — T.R.O.L.L.
