Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Removal/ShakataGaNai

Case justification
I am Rschen7754, an admin for 2.5 years at the English Wikipedia and a confirmed user here at Wikinews (I did stuff relating to the US election). I indefinitely blocked a user known as Freewayguy at the English Wikipedia. This user has gone to Wikimedia sites that I edit and don't edit and made death threats against me - so much so that my username was added to the new page title blacklist by the stewards. He has been blocked on several wikis indefinitely (including commons, english, simple english, spanish, meta, italian, japanese, korean, chinese, german, whatever nl stands for...). This (NSFW) has the gory details.

That all to say that User:Freewayguy hit here tonight. I went into #wikinews and asked for an admin to indefinitely block this guy. ShakataGaNai was extremely rude and only blocked for 72 hours. I told him to look at the global contributions list, and he blatantly refused to do so several times. I was then blocked from the channel. User:Daniel, another administrator, is able to confirm this (as he talked to this user personally), as may others who can view channel logs of the channel at the time. Those in #wikipedia-en-admins may be able to confirm this as well through secondhand knowledge.

I don't know what the standards here are for adminship; I do know that this may have resulted in loss of sysop status at the English Wikipedia - and we don't even have a page for this. This user was extremely incivil and would not take input. Blocking me from the IRC channel for making the request for the blocking admin to look at global contribs was way out of line. This user has been making death threats against me; the fact that this user could not (and has not) been blocked indefinitely is despicable. --Rschen7754 (talk) 08:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments

 * - I was not on IRC at the time so I cannot speak to what happened there (I am not even sure if we could take formal actions on-wiki based on something that happened on IRC). But perhaps could comment on this. I extended the block on  to indef, based on vandalism, socking, and intimidating behavior/harassment on this project, in addition to this history of cross-wiki intimidation and harassment. I do not think  should be desysopped based on the evidence in front of me, which is only the stuff that has happened on-wiki itself. Cirt (talk) 09:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Death threats should be taken up with civil authorities (i.e. police). en.WP checkusers will generally handle issues like this and pass sensitive information on for you, in some cases their judgement will be to take it up with the abusive user's ISP and get them warned/disconnected.
 * I can make no comment on the IRC discussion, I did not see it, but your comment indicates you persisted in demanding your chosen action be the one taken. If that was seen as being disruptive, I would expect you to be booted/banned. Incidentally, actions on IRC have absolutely zero bearing on the wiki. It is not an official WMF communications channel, and thus calling for de-sysop based on comments or actions there is pointless. de-sysop can only be based upon actions on this wiki. You have shown no evidence to support your crusade. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I was asking him to look at some evidence across Wikimedia - a reasonable request. I don't see the problem with that. --Rschen7754 (talk) 09:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If it amounted to asking for someone to be persecuted for actions elsewhere then it is, in my opinion, a form of vendetta. Many users find they don't fit in on one project but can move to another and be productive. You certainly would not be happy were I to take your actions here as justification to call for you to be desysopped on en.wp, and I see little difference between that and what you're doing here. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:48, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Uh, he (Freewayguy) made death threats against me. Every other wiki he did this on indefinitely blocked him. Also, some (Simple and test) indefinitely banned him even though he did nothing wrong there simply due to what he did on other sites. Considering that he did make threats on Wikinews... --Rschen7754 (talk) 09:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This discussion isn't about Freewayguy, and I'm not going to be distracted by that anymore. I looked at the global contributions and didn't see one credible death threat, just a messed up young kid being a dick. So, state your case against ShakataGaNai or I will delete this RfDA as a waste of the Wikinews community's time. Hint: You're supposed to provide proof of abuse of admin privileges. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Making poor judgment calls can be grounds for desysopping as well. This was a bad call. Admins are supposed to be civil to the community - this one clearly wasn't. I gave the simple request for him to look at global contribs - he said he didn't need to. Nobody has addressed my concern regarding that. --Rschen7754 (talk) 10:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * He didn't need to; he's a volunteer like the rest of us. Doing harm on the project may be grounds for desysopping. Failing to do enough good (not failing to do any good, but doing less than enough good) is not grounds for desysopping. I imagine he didn't feel like investigating any further, and that's okay; you can ask someone who is willing to investigate further. Editors are valued for the work that they do choose to do. You can't force a volunteer to act. Sorry. WODUP  11:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * When you block someone, you take responsibility for the block. Failure to evaluate a block you just made is a serious concern. Being careful when you block and not looking at all the evidence is a serious concern. Moreover, admins are allowed to make mistakes (I've made several!) but not being willing to correct them is a serious concern. --Rschen7754 (talk) 11:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * &larr;When you block, you take responsibility for that block, absolutely. In this situation, it was a good block, but one that should have been set not to expire. Failure to re-evaluate a block is serious, yes, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that ShakataGaNai refused to re-evaluate the situation. I don't know what was said on IRC, but this edit shows me that ShakataGaNai was at least willing to review the user's behavior after the block expired and indef block then if necessary. As for looking at all of the evidence, I don't know what ShakataGaNai saw that made him know that a block was justified, but I assume that when he saw that there was enough to warrant a block, he blocked. That's it. This goes back to ShakataGaNai possibly not doing enough, but he hasn't abused the tools. Thankfully, absolute perfection isn't a requirement to be a sysop as I've made a few mistakes on enwiki, too. Your last sentence implies that ShakataGaNai wasn't willing to correct this mistake of underblocking the user, but doesn't allow for the possibility that he didn't see it as a mistake. If he didn't (absent evidence to the contrary, I'm assuming good faith), given the harassment and threats, I would see that as a lapse in judgement, but this one incident doesn't warrant desysopping; admins are allowed to make mistakes every now and then, but consistently poor judgement is how to lose the bit. Lastly, I'll note that your complaint was that the block wasn't long enough, that the offending user wasn't going to harm anything for three days, and that there would have been plenty of time during those three days to bring it to WN:AAA. From what I've seen, ShakataGaNai should not be desysopped. WODUP  16:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello. Like Rschen7754, I am more of a Wikipedian than a Wikinewsie, but I do have an opinion here. I don't see how the behavior Rschen7754 described (rudeness on IRC and banning from a channel) would result in a desysopping on enwiki like xe says it may. Add to that the fact that actions on IRC usually don't have consequences on wiki and that ShakataGaNai did at least block the user, and I can't conclude that the user should lose the bit. Also, it should at least be noted that User:Freewayguy has now been blocked indef.  WODUP  09:37, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have asked on the checkuser-l mailing list if Rschen7754 has made any effort to get these death threats into the hands of the police, or his ISP. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have sent an email to Mike Godwin directly, as he will need to approve it (from past experience working with him on legal issues involving checkuser). Daniel (talk) 12:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Do the parties in dispute agree that IRC logs should be disclosed to the community? --Brian McNeil / talk 11:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I just spotted all the activity on this page in RC so thought I'd take a look. As others have noted, there isn't a great deal on Wiki to suggest this user should have their admin rights removed. However, I would most definitely strongly disagree with the comments by Brianmc and DragonFire1024 which seem to completely dismiss the behaviour of users on IRC as being relevant to whether they should have admin rights on Wikinews. We don't give users admin rights simply because they can press buttons, we do so because we trust their judgement. If, as is being suggested, this user has simply ignored suggestions and acted inappropriate in booting someone from IRC then this has to be taken into account in assessing their judgement. The removal of admin rights is simply based upon community consensus. There is no requirement that only on Wiki actions have to be taken into account and nor should there be. It is perfectly possible for a Wikinews admin to harm the project by bringing it into disrepute or whatever without doing anything on Wiki. That doesn't mean they shouldn't loose their admin rights. Not having being in the IRC channel however means it isn't possible for me to comment as to whether the users actions should result in their admin rights being removed. I would welcome the publication of any IRC logs that are available though. IRC logs being kept private only serves to protect the guilty, it doesn't benefit the community as whole. I am slightly disappointed at the way in which Rschen7754's concerns have been branded a "crusade". Adambro (talk) 12:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree to some extent. But IRC is not WN, just like WN is not WP. The actions of users in IRC usually does not reflect their actions on Wiki. With that said, we really cannot force anyone on IRC to follow or abide by the policies of WN on IRC. We just have to assume good faith. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 13:03, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * As you note, what people are prepared to say on IRC is different from what they are prepared to say on Wiki. Ultimately though, unless people are trying to claim to not be those chatting on IRC under their Wiki username, they are still the same person and I cannot possibly agree that the community shouldn't be able to judge an admin by their comments on IRC. Whenever and wherever someone identifying themselves as a Wikinews admin comments, there is the potential to bring Wikinews into disrepute and so all Wikinews admins, and other users for that matter, have a responsibility to behave in an appropriate manner elsewhere. If they fail to do so then I don't wish for them to be associated with Wikinews in such an obvious way as adminship. No one should feel untouchable simply because they don't actually behave inappropriate on Wiki. You don't suddenly stop being a Wikinews admin when you're not on Wikinews. Adambro (talk) 13:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * After a session on IRC this morning I expect IRC logs to demonstrate that Rschen7754 was being irritating and pestering about what I consider a perfectly reasonable decision. I note Rschen7754 hasn't given permission for his side of the IRC logs to be released per my request. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If Freewayguy is such a problem across many Wikis and issuing death threats, why wasn't a global block requested? --SVTCobra 15:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Apparently a couple stewards mulled this idea over - but as the user does not have a SUL account, the stewards would have to force merge SUL, and then global block the whole SUL account, and they did not want to do that - but you would have to check with a steward to actually get some hard data on their thought processes on that one. I think it may be a good idea in this situation. Cirt (talk) 15:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Requested at Steward requests/Global. Cirt (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I have never heard of anyone at enwikipedia being desysoped for being rude and/or banning someone from a channel on IRC. That's simply not true.  File a Request for Comment or something else, but this is just ridiculous. Cary Bass (talk) 16:57, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This silly frankly. However, the disturbance on Wikinews started when 75.47.208.145 began removing legitimate edits made by Freeway guy and issuing block warnings and demanding, without explanation, a block of a user who was in good standing on Wikinews. I do not know if that IP was Rschen7754, but the IP was name dropping (see diff). It is no wonder that ShakataGaNai may been a bit impatient or even discourteous on IRC, given the rude way Wikinews was introduced to problems with Freewayguy. There is a right way to notify Wikinews of potential cross-wiki problem users, and the way this was done was not the right way. A simple note on WN:AAA would have sufficed. --SVTCobra 18:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I thought 75.47.208.145 was Rschen at first. It wasn't until much later after much digging that I realized there were 3 IP's from 75.47.X.X involved with this user.  Though at the time, "Rschen" was on (IRC) from another IP address all together (in fact through WebIRC).  I had no way to verify who any of the IP's were (or if they were the same user) other than the IRC IP and the on wiki IP were both EXTREMELY persistent.  In fact the first time I got confirmation that he was _actually_ involved was when he post the request for de-sysop.  (Note: No for defense, just explaining what I saw) -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 18:18, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking at everything, I think it might be best to bring this issue to the Arbitration Committee. There is several issues here: First, several IPs were essentially harassing Freeway. Second, Freeway's comments on Rschen7754. Thirdly, the IRC conversation. Lastly, we have this request, which in my mind is petty and could be a form of harassment on Rschen7754's part. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 18:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is someone I've encountered on en:wiki who has problems with communication skills and is generally difficult to deal with. 72 hours isn't something I'd overturn for a first instance.  If the problem recurs in this manner, wouldn't cut much slack. Durova (talk) 19:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * As a colleague of Rschen7754 on enwp, let me lay out the situation as I understand it:
 * The 75 IP is a persistent anon user that has edited enwp for quite a while. Recently he was blocked by me for a couple months for incivility but has been evading the block and so the timer has been reset several times. As far as is officially known the 75 IP is not related to any other established account on Wikipedia (he has started his own accounts to circumvent the block, though).
 * Freewayguy is an editor on Wikipedia whose poor grammar and carelessness with regard to facts served as a net deficit to enwp. In other words, he didn't officially violate any policy, but we discussed things with some uninvolved admins, and all agreed that the amount of time it takes to clean up after his article-space contributions was too great as to warrant him still being on enwp. Rschen and I asked him to clean up his act and warned him. When Freewayguy persisted in editing and introducing new errors into the encyclopedia, Rschen blocked him. Upon review 3 uninvolved admins upheld the block.
 * Freewayguy then began editing other wikis, starting at commons and expanding to other language Wikipedias, editing his own and Rschen's userpages with the death threats and general nonsense. I personally thought most of it was amusing, but Rschen is treating it more seriously, because he lives in a county neighboring that of Freewayguy. I believe the proximity between the two editors is why Rschen is playing it safe and taking things seriously. Scott5114 (talk) 20:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - After looking at the logs posted by I can understand if SGN got a bit annoyed at  for his lack of patience and over-persistence in IRC. Probably Rschen7754 should have dealt with this more formally instead of IRC - contacting a steward, and privately emailing a local checkuser to this project. I don't see anything blatantly wrong done by SGN, though perhaps he could have just given Rschen7754 advice to do that - seek out a steward or en.wikinews checkuser to email privately about it. But certainly no grounds for desysop based on what is there in the logs. Cirt (talk) 21:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * But a block from the channel and a refusal to check the global contribs? That's what gets me. --Rschen7754 (talk) 21:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - Further, we now have (7) unanimous people weighing in as "Oppose" for this proposal of desysopping - perhaps it would be best at this point in time to close this discussion a bit early? Cirt (talk) 21:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This bullshit has wasted enough of people's time and attracted anonymous trolls from Wikipedia. A block on a /16 had to be instituted because of the fight being imported from Wikipedia. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:41, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Bawolff ☺☻ 21:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow. Some thoughts and opinions on this
 * Actions have a very limited impact on your status on wikinews. If someone is doing something stupid on 'pedia, and comes over here, we'll going to watch them more closely, but it is doubtful we will block them unless they are doing something extremly stupid
 * Death threats are an example of something extremly stupid. It may warrent an automatic block here, but should be investigated before hand and disscussed to make sure that they are the same person, etc. This is something that should be formly brought up with administrators, not casually on irc
 * Actions of admins on other places do affect what happens to them on wikinews, if it relates to wikinews or you're threatening a wikinewsie. (per BP) + It seems common sense if admins are bashing wikinews, etc outside wikinews, thats not good
 * Therefor if you are being extremely stupid outside of wikinews [which includes irc], it will catch up to you here, but you have to so something very very stupid
 * demanding an admin do something is just generally not a good idea. If you believe an admin has not given you proper attention, ask someone else to review
 * We don't de-admin people for not doing enough. We really, as a general rule, do not deadmin people. You'd have a case if the admin was making the death threats, but saying that the admin did not do enough, when your side of the story is disputed, is not going to work unless you have a really good case [which you don't]
 * You have been very agressive in demanding this [based on your comments here] which counts against you.

Statement by administrator in question

 * from the prisoner Hey! I have to say for the record, for all the crazy things I've done - I never thought the first time someone actually filled a request for de-sysop would be because I _didn't_ block long enough.  But what the hey, amusing either way.  As for IRC logs... publish away!  In fact I have a copy from my buffer.  I even want to release the part after where I talk to DanielB about it and drop my fascade of being nice.  -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 17:01, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Logs of the first section have been posted. User:ShakataGaNai/IRC Logs 2008-11-20  -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 21:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Votes
Note that support indicates you agree the administrator should lose their privileges. Oppose means you believe they should retain them.


 * Frivolous case that should be speedily removed from this page. No evidence of abuse of administrative privileges. Appeals to take into consideration IRC not accepted on Wikinews. Based on standards of Wikipedia, this is not Wikipedia. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:22, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with brianmc on this one. IRC is not enforceable in terms of WN policy. If it was, then we'd all be in a lot of trouble. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 12:24, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - Per my comment, above. Cirt (talk) 14:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - Per my comment, above. Cary Bass (talk) 16:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * see my comments. --SVTCobra 18:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't appear that ShakataGaNai did anything wrong or broke policy. Seems to be a baseless request. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If it's so bad Rschen7754, allow the log to be posted. The fact that you are not OK with the log being posted, while SGN, gives me a good idea of who might be at fault. Anonymous101talk 18:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Give the guy a chance. He hasn't responded to the thread since Brian asked for the logs. It is early morning for the user (PST), so they could be at school/job/etc. -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 18:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I do give permission for my part to be posted; you'll have to ask Daniel about the rest. --Rschen7754 (talk) 21:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - riiiiight. -- Sken   my talk 21:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * - there is not anywhere enough evidence to support deadmin. at most, an investigation into conduct of admins might be warrented (but at first glance i do not feel you have enough for even that). Bawolff ☺☻ 21:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)