Vermont

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Voting or rules? An interesting dilemma

Good afternoon! I noticed that you have revoked my administrator rights on Wikipedia in Esperanto. I said from the very beginning that this was not a problem for me and therefore I simply watched with research interest the progress of this campaign, launched solely for political reasons, as its initiator openly stated. I just want to draw your attention to something that you may not have noticed or understood, since it is unlikely that you know Esperanto. Over the course of a month, the initiator of the campaign attracted his like-minded people to vote (some of them had not appeared on Wikipedia for years), securing the votes he needed. But none of them could provide evidence that I abused the rights of administrators - although, according to the rules of Esperanto-Wikipedia, only this can serve as grounds for deprivation of administrator status. A number of discussion participants drew attention to this. Two administrators who left comments on December 20 and 21 also noted that I have never abused my administrator rights, and therefore the voting itself and this entire campaign are a violation of the rules and are completely invalid. That is why the discussion page has not yet summarized its results and no decision has been made to deprive me of administrator rights. Thus, we are faced with an interesting dilemma: what is more important - voting (organized against the rules of Wikipedia) or the rules on which the entire work of the wiki community is based? This could set a precedent for Wikipedia as a whole. RG72 (talk) 05:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment wiki wiktionary Please see also Steward_requests/Miscellaneous#Please_help_to_remedy_piracy_and_harassment. Taylor 49 (talk) 18:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

RG72: I was elected to implement community consensus. The rules of Wikipedia are based on community consensus, and your adminship was removed by community consensus. If you'd like your adminship back, the community will need to demonstrate their trust in you via another election. There is no dilemma as you describe it. Regards, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:02, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

You don't understand again. I repeat more briefly. The Esperanto Wikipedia rules clearly state the reasons on which an administrator can be removed. Among them are not the reasons "I don't like his political views." That is why the administrators Marek Blahuš (Blahma) and Narvalo, whom the stewards asked to sum up the discussion, stated that the entire removal procedure was a violation of the rules, and the vote was invalid. You can read their arguments, or ask them directly about it. So the dilemma I wrote about remains. At the moment, Wikipedia's rules are being grossly violated to please a bunch of politically motivated fanatics and xenophobes. RG72 (talk) 04:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

RG72: I do understand your perspective; this is far from the first time I've heard this argument. I'll try to address it more clearly.

First...past community consensus cannot justify ignoring present community consensus. In your case, the "past community consensus" is this edit from 2008 adding the de-adminship process after minimal discussion among three users. On the other hand, your de-adminship request had 15 votes, with another 8 users who edited the page but did not vote. With 10 users in support of removal and 5 in opposition, there was clear consensus to remove your adminship.

In terms of whether the request itself was within policy...I understand that the local policy requires that adminship removals be predicated on abuse of adminship, and your argument that no abuse was alleged. The policy definition, however, does not necessarily require abuse using the tools of adminship. Being an admin requires a certain level of community trust, and making edits or actions against community standards (which was alleged) is an abuse of the trust given to you as part of that right. I don't think you would be arguing for such a narrow interpretation of this policy if it was another user who had abused community trust but not technically used an admin tool in doing so.

Regardless, that point is irrelevant. You used rollback in one of the edits described in the de-adminship request as propagandist/non-neutral editing, which is a right you had from your admin toolkit. There was, thus, an allegation that you abused the tools of adminship.

There was an open vote, with 66% of participants voting for removal. Local policy sets a threshold of 50%, and thus I removed your local adminship. There is no policy basis to override the consensus expressed in that discussion.

TL;DR: this is not a court, you cannot win on a technicality. Community consensus is the primary consideration. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 22:31, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, now I understand that voting is more important than the rules and it is enough to gather a bunch of your supporters to launch a campaign and break the rules. Wikimedia's position is now very clear. It would be good to explain this to the administrators of Esperanto Wikipedia, who have clearly expressed their position - and it is directly opposite to yours.

I could do the same as the initiators of this campaign did, trying to turn Wikipedia into a platform for propaganda, but, alas, I cannot stoop to their level - neither education, nor the profession of a historian, nor 15 years of work at Wikipedia allow me to become like a bunch of fanatics and xenophobes who achieve success by intimidating other users and endless hysterics and accusations.

A little clarification about the alleged abuse of administrator rights. I did undo the deletion of a piece of the article by the initiator of this campaign and recently did it again because it does not require administrator rights. I will add that, regardless of whether I have administrator status, I have done and will continue to do everything for 15 years to ensure that Wikipedia remains an encyclopedia and not a propaganda platform. Fortunately, most active editors share my position and therefore none of the edits I canceled were restored. RG72 (talk) 04:25, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

"voting is more important than the rules" is not accurate, nor is it accurate to say that the people who voted for your removal were somehow breaking "the rules" by doing so.

Adminship is based on community trust. A community discussion indicated that you had lost that trust. It truly is that simple.

As an addendum: the "rules" are expressions of community consensus, which can and do change. This particular rule originates from a short discussion almost 16 years ago among three people. Your de-adminship discussion had 23 participants, and 2/3 of those who voted were in favor of your removal. There is no justification to override the outcome of that discussion on some barely-evident technicality. If you want your adminship back, you will need to RfA again. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 16:38, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Your arguments have two major flaws.

1. You can argue as much as you like that the rules can change and the number of their creators can be recalculated. But the fact remains: the Esperanto Wikipedia rules regarding deprivation of administrator status exist and for 16 years the community has not considered it necessary to change them. You may not like the rules, you may suggest changing them - but until then you are obliged to follow them. This is how all the rules and laws in the world work. And it doesn’t matter if they were proposed by 3 people or 33 - a community of hundreds and thousands of users accepted them and followed them for 16 years. You will be surprised, but the laws by which you live are often proposed by one person and bear his name. However, that doesn't mean you can break them, does it?

2. You claim that it is about the will of the “community”. Let's face reality.

The campaign was launched by Fenikals, who barely speaks Esperanto and whose contribution to Wikipedia is negligible. A political fanatic, intolerant of dissidents, a few months ago he demanded in the liberal journalistic project Global Voices that they expel me from the team because of my political views. The project administration turned out to be more resistant to manipulation than Wikimedia, and responded that the political views of the participants are their personal matter and the basis for exclusion can only be a violation of the rules - and I did not break any rules.

Since then, he found my phone number somewhere and has been flooding me with spam on Telegram. In some messages he demanded to explain my political views, in others he provoked controversy, and others were simply strange. Before this, I canceled several of his edits that violated the principle of neutrality, which, apparently, provoked an attack of aggression from him (they still remain canceled). He tracked me and my family on social media and the day he launched this campaign, he wrote to me: “Have you finally moved to Cuba yet?” (my wife is black Cuban).

He invited fellow fanatic Vale Lokesbarn, who last appeared on Wikipedia three years ago and edited his own page almost exclusively, to vote.

They called LaPingvino, who also last appeared on Wikipedia three years ago and, as an argument, could only babble that I was publishing “revisionist news” in the Telegram group that he administers.

They were joined by Goren, an obsessive xenophobe and political fanatic who had previously called me out publicly rusaĉo (the Esperanto equivalent of nigger for Russians).

They were happily joined by Taylor 49, a former Wiktionary administrator who had been stripped of that status by the stewards due to endless quarrels with members. I had encountered them years earlier in Wiktionary, and was surprised to discover that he reacted to any remark with hysterical statements, spewing out a sea of political fantasies about pri Putin, political assassinations, the KGB and even Russian kindergartens. At the same time, he constantly talks about his sexual identity and shouts that he is being persecuted, although I explained to him many times that we are working on a dictionary and his sex life is of no interest to anyone here. Etc. etc.

And this is what you call “community”? If this bunch of fanatics and xenophobes really represented the Esperanto-Wikipedia “community”, I would be the first to leave the project. Fortunately, this is not the case. The community is those who make the encyclopedia, and do not try to turn it into a platform for promoting bigotry and racial hatred. Here is a link where you can see the real community - the most active members who have contributed the most to Esperanto Wikipedia. You can easily find my name there, as well as the names of those who voted against it, but the names of the initiators of this shameful political campaign are not there. But there are the names of both administrators, who concluded that this entire campaign is a violation of the rules and therefore there can be no talk of any removal.

Now you have all the facts in your hands and you decide what you will do with it. We live in difficult times and the future of Wikipedia depends on whether we can preserve it as a universal encyclopedia, or whether it will turn into a propaganda platform where fanatics and xenophobes will be in charge - as just happened in Esperanto Wikipedia.RG72 (talk) 07:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I had explained to "Vami"/"RG72" that I am not male many times before. So it's ultimately "RG72", not me, who always mixes in (wrong) sex (when boasting about others). Taylor 49 (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Taylor 49, just curious, do you have a diff where you have previously asked RG72 to stop using masculine pronouns for you? That would be quite helpful in resolving this. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:41, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Here: the lower one of two sections, adressing "RG72"

Mi jam plurfoje klarigis al vi ke mi ne estas maskla.

I have already several times explained for you that I am not male.

There are presumably more. Taylor 49 (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Taylor 49, thank you for the link. What pronouns should we use for you in English? I don't see it on your userpage, I generally recommend listing them there if you're comfortable. Best regards, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 22:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Another one: account "Vami".

And here: [1].

I - ME - MY - MINE - MYSELF -> EY - EM - EIR - EIRS - EMSELF (also acceptable: "they", "she"). I have two global userboxes: "This user has created a global account. Eir main account is on meta.wikimedia.org." and "This user is genderless.". I also have the (general and somewhat lousy) section far below User:Taylor_49#Pronouns_--_Pronomoj_--_Pronomina_AKA_Kata_pengganti_--_Pronomen. Taylor 49 (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the info. RG72, please note Taylor 49's preferred pronouns here. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 22:24, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

RG72, you're barking up the wrong tree here. Let's review:

• A de-adminship request was opened against you.
• 10 users voted in favor of your removal, 5 opposed.
• Local policy defines a threshold for 50%.
• Your removal was requested on SRP, and I made the action.

You then came to my talk page to argue that the request did not technically allege abuse of rights. I clarified why a) such a strict reading is not relevant to this discussion, and b) the request did clearly allege abuse of rights. You are now arguing that I should discount the votes of the people who supported your removal because they are...political fanatics?

What you're asking me to do is out of the scope of steward work. I am not here to define who your community is, I am here to implement community consensus. There was consensus, achieved through proper processes as defined by local policy, to remove your adminship. I did so. That is the extent of my role.

I cannot restore it without another RfA. If you RfA again and there is consensus to grant adminship to you, local bureaucrats can of course restore your rights without prejudice. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 22:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, that was a predictable answer, I just wanted to keep the experiment pure and see it through to the end. So, you have received comprehensive information and know that you have grossly violated the community rules, but you chose to insist on your violation - contrary to the opinions of all the Esperanto-Wikipedia administrators who took part in the discussion.

It's your decision and your responsibility.

You also know that you have been used as a tool to achieve their goals by a bunch of bigots and xenophobes who do not take any significant part in the community, and many do not participate in its activities at all. Nevertheless, you chose to act as their tool and helped them deprive Esperanto-Wikipedia of its politically neutral status.

Congratulations! RG72 (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Latest change in filter 161

May I ask why you think exempting users with 500 edits was necessary? I'm asking because recently my user page was vandalized by such a user as the direct result of that. I'm not requesting a block at M:RfH because this is an one-off, but I do want a satisfying answer from the admin who made the change. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 16:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh, sorry for the delay in response. If I remember correctly, an experienced user (without the autopatrolled right) was prevented by the filter from tagging a spam/vandalism userpage for deletion. I thus added an exemption for users with more than 500 edits.

Edit filters are a trade-off. There are very few (though evidently not zero) users with 500+ edits who would disruptively edit another contributor's user page. Allowing experienced users without patroller/admin rights to edit userpages is a net positive, in terms of those users now being able to mark vandalism/spam userpages for deletion or other patrolling-type edits that may be necessary. As far as I'm aware, this is the only complaint in 7 months, and is for an edit that was self-reverted the minute after and seems to have been unintentionally published.

Regardless: if there is a user with 500 or more edits who is intentionally vandalizing the project, they can be blocked regardless of whether they're editing user pages. And, if that happens, I would be happy to make that action. Best regards, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:53, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

@NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh I'm one who did it, sorry for annoying you but, I'm clearly not vandalizing your user page. You're misunderstanding me, I just only "publish" mathematical function (which is known as sum of factorials I inadvertently discovered) there. I thought it was my artistic ability, hope you will excuse me :( ☀DefenderTienMinh⛤☯☽ (talk) 08:15, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Your feedback is requested

Hello Vermont, We are conducting a poll of global renamers and stewards regarding some future toolings related to some rename requests. Your feedback is requested at the poll on VRT WIKI. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 00:18, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

A technical question

Hello, Vermont, is it possible to add a 2FA for logging wikimedia mailing list? I've searched it a while, but nothing found. I remember VRT has such a 2FA system. Lemonaka (talk) 01:06, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure, my knowledge of that platform is limited, sorry. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:09, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Bureaucrat abuse of vote in Belarusian Classical Wikipedia

Hello, dear Vermont! How are you? I would like to draw your attention to the request for comment that I made in July, 2023. As the situation has deteriorated since then towards the open vote fraud by the bureaucrat, a timely consensus on the part of stewards has become even more essential for the implemention of rules in Belarusian Classical Wikipedia. Best wishes,—W (talk) 11:17, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Quick question

I have decided not to oppose Sakretsu's confirmation based on what you said. The only thing that bugs me is that I'm not 100% sure that I've understood you. I've assumed that you are saying non-it.wp stewards were involved in the initial glock decision, not only at the appeal stage... is that correct? SashiRolls (talk) 12:41, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

YGM

Sorry for bother you, I was pinged in a case. However, this is a case on meta though I didn't want to discuss on wiki. Lemonaka (talk) 15:21, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Please renew the block

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=gblblock&user=&page=72.212.64.192&wpdate=&tagfilter=&subtype=&wpFormIdentifier=logeventslist 𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 👤💬 18:51, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks like EPIC blocked it :) Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 20:39, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

U4C candidacy

Thank you, yes I supposed to do that but not so early. So I have to withdraw my candidature. Ilario (talk) 17:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Ilario: Are you employed as staff (like a payed working contract) or are you a volonteer in WMCH's board? The charter says "...cannot be employed as staff or contractors by the Wikimedia Foundation or Foundation-affiliated organizations..." Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 12:31, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I am as staff. Ilario (talk) 17:53, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

U4C vote CN

Hi Vermont, when you have time, would you be able to take a look at the request? Thanks :) RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Troublesome Bloke

Kia ora. It's hard to say, but I've been through some tough times, being a victim of rape. Now, there's this bloke here who's taking the mickey out of me. Any chance you could help me out? Aisha8787 (talk) 11:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Ajraddatz has responded on your talk page, and I think that's sufficient. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 15:08, 21 April 2024 (UTC)