Wikidata:Requests for comment/More people should comment on this rv and block

From Wikidata
Jump to navigation Jump to search


THIS RFC IS CLOSED. Please do NOT vote nor add comments.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I believe that all parties involved have, or will surely learn from what happened here. And please, for future reference, let's not open an RfC for each incident. The administrators' noticeboard is a more suitable place for this. — ΛΧΣ21 22:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Петър Петров (talk • contribs • logs)

Hi all. Recently I got reverted and blocked without much ceremony. I was simply given a blocknotice, like, you know, the people that add penis images to articles. I would like to see the opinions and hopefully some arguments of more people, admins or not. For reference see my recent contribution history and talk page. I will write my POV here below.

I added

and deleted

As simple as that. In simple words Larry is still male because he is now a man, a specific kind of person. But this change gets reverted by Ricordisamoa (talk • contribs • logs) and without communication. Nothing in the resume or talk page. Okay, I think to myself, this guy must have seen a user with red userpage editing something as important as the 185-th item in the database. Not nice judgement but it happens. I redo the change and provide the arguments. I also hint about the talk page, you know, it's for when people have to understand each other. Whoa, it gets rv like a bot! No, a bot at least posts something on the user talk page, that's worse. I don't see what more to do. The guy clearly doesn't want to bother to communicate. So I rv his rv. Maybe that would get the attention. And yes, it gets it. John F. Lewis (talk • contribs • logs) simply states that I do vandalisms and I should not edit wikidata in the next 24h. Jdforrester (talk • contribs • logs) adds his opinion. I'm really not sure if he's saying I should edit wikidata less often because I didn't ask anybody before that. Main point: he says I deserve the block because I didn't communicate. With whom? How? And there's Ajraddatz (talk • contribs • logs) who talks. Awesome, he explains how he sees the events. I don't understand why he thinks something I did is not entirely correct but that's up for discussion with him and I will. And then I look into the log history to see that I'm actually unbanned by John F. Lewis right after Ajraddatz wrote his comment. Again, no communication, no notice, no nothing. And what I'm supposed to do afterwards? Abide from editing anymore without permission? But I have the permission, everybody has, that's an open wiki. Then?

I'd like to get an explanation how my edits were deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikidata, aka vandalism. --Петър Петров (talk) 20:38, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update: What eludes me is why this is not perceived as communication. I asked for a discussion. I clearly gave reason for the edit and asked for counter-reason. --Петър Петров (talk) 14:47, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, it seems the discussion is pretty much over. I will not initiate admin revocation votings. I'd like to hear from Jdforrester as well; if this discussion is closed he can do it on my talk page. Thanks everyone for your opinions. --Петър Петров (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Rschen7754

[edit]

I plan to comment on this, but for now I have notified all parties mentioned above out of courtesy. --Rschen7754 20:46, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, sorry, I should have done that myself. Thank you. --Петър Петров (talk) 20:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Ricordisamoa: [1] was never an appropriate use of rollback; good-faith edits should not be labeled or treated as vandalism. And then using it again [2] to edit war is even more inappropriate. Finally, you should have stopped to discuss the matter with Петър Петров rather than continue to edit war, especially with rollback.

@John F. Lewis: Blocks for not communicating are one thing. Blocks where no attempt was made to communicate with the user before blocking are another. Finally, if you were going to perform [3], then you should have deferred this to another admin; we have no INVOLVED policy here, but it's a general Wikimedia principle.

@Петър Петров: Just because others have behaved poorly in this situation does not mean that you are completely innocent here; it takes two to edit war, and two to not initiate a discussion. --Rschen7754 21:59, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to agree that resignations are overkill, but more caution should be exercised in the future. --Rschen7754 20:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically, attempting to communicate in the edit summary as you continue edit warring does not count as "attempts to communicate". --Rschen7754 16:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Ajraddatz

[edit]

I've already made my position on the block clear on project chat and on Петър Петров's talk page. His actions were certainly not vandalism, and certainly not deserving of any block. He received no notice from any involved admins of what they thought he was doing wrong, only rollback and blank undo messages and a generic block reason of "vandalism".

I say that Петър Петров's changes were not entirely correct because of my understand of how Wikidata is currently set up, so that the correct statements would be "instance of -> person" and "sex -> male". However, there seems to be the potential for "instance of -> man" to work in the future, as described on the project chat. It might even work that way already. I would appreciate more input on the PC thread on this topic, to form some sort of consensus over which to use in the future. Ajraddatz (Talk) 20:57, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add a comment here in response to some of the comments below: I don't think that any resignations are needed over this. Just learning from some of the mistakes made so that they aren't repeated in the future :) Ajraddatz (Talk) 17:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Vogone

[edit]

Yes, I agree. This situation could have been handled way better and mistakes were made by several admins here, in my opinion. First of all, I have no understanding for Ricordisamoa's lack of willingness to communicate here, especially since even the revision he rollbacked the edits to were also not correct (P107 shouldn't be used at all, anymore) and he in fact even abused our rollback guidelines. John F. Lewis' action was probably caused by a lack of further investigation before rollbacking again and blocking the account. Secondly, I fail to see what Jdforrester tries to express with his comment. The lack of communication happened on both sides, probably even more on Ricordi's. You cannot expect from a user to stop edits he considers to be right if you do not communicate with him and do not tell him what exactly he did wrong. I think John F. Lewis has understood his mistake and thus unblocked, but an excuse or something similar would of course have led to more clarification in this case. Anyway, what is left to say; making mistakes is human, and I am confident a similar situation will never happen again. This here was caused by a unfortunate series of events and in my opinion we can forget this if the involved admins see their own mistakes and excuse themselves here. Regarding to the content matter itself, I fully agree with Ajraddatz above. Thank you. Vogone talk 21:24, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by John F. Lewis

[edit]

Since the block is the only thing that concerns me, I will comment on that and only on that. Now, my block itself was not just me, I did ask for a second and a third opinion. As you see, James was the second opinion who agreed a block of around 24hrs was appropriate and endorsed it. My third opinion, which is quite shocking was Vogone who, whether honestly or jokingly, said indefinitely block the user and let them appeal it. My actions were innappropriate and therefore I did revert it however one thing I am extremely interested in was why Vogone said to indefinitely block the user when I asked him what he thought of the situation. John F. Lewis (talk) 23:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please provide a rational for the original block? Ajraddatz (Talk) 00:26, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The original rationale was pretty much vandalism and refusing to discuss the matter. As pointed out above by I believe Vogone. My actions were purely incorrect because I failed to look into it more. Once you had pointed out what I had missed, I reverted myself, in the unblock I stated it was because of your talk page comment. I won't be going as far as Ricordi on the matter of resigning because that is way out of question for such a matter and is not a repetitive situation. All I can say is the block was an absolute failure on my behalf and I did revert once told what I did was wrong. Therefore this should be case closed for me as I know what I did wrong and will not be doing such as idiotic action in the future. John F. Lewis (talk) 07:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Ricordisamoa

[edit]

The first time I used rollback, I thought Петър Петров was not aware of Wikidata "old" standard claim structure; the second time, I shouldn't have used rb, but simply forgot writing on that on Петър Петров's talk page. Then, he undid my second rb, and I thought there was some more than obstinacy: so I chose to let the edit there and started a thread on WD:PC to gather the community opinions.

I am now aware of new recommendations on that matter, that are going to change the way we run bot tasks like this.

I did not block Петър Петров at all, and I do not consider myself involved with Петър Петров's block, so I simple didn't care of that.

However, I admit to have acted in wrong way, and I'm ready to resign from sysop rights, if the community decides so. --Ricordisamoa 06:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Stryn

[edit]

First, I don't even know which are the correct properties (but I knew that the GND-type will be deleted). I have nothing special to add. It's clear that both, Ricardisamoa, and John F. Lewis did wrong. Ricardisamoa by reverting Петър Петров's edits using rollback tool wrong, because edits were not vandalism at all, and John F. Lewis by blocking Петър Петров without that it would been needed. In the future, first discuss, then action, if needed. I don't think that you should resign, at least I'm not going to propose it, but if someone else will, it's okay. Just to know, that everyone makes mistakes. --Stryn (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Delusion23

[edit]

Thought I should make a comment as I originally brought up the block being an odd decision at Wikidata:Project_chat#Edit_war_on_Larry_Sanger. I hope that lessons are learned from this, everyone makes mistakes. I hope the user and admins involved can solve this with a simple apology. Ricordi and John F. Lewis have acknowledged that they were at fault with the rollback and block. Hopefully it will lead to the situation not happening again in the future. I'm happy that they now know better. Resignations are not necessary.

It may be a good time for us to create a policy page for WD:Involved and make sure admins are aware of it. Content disputes should never be solved with a block, particularly from an admin who is involved in the dispute. As for the property use, I don't really have an opinion. It's not really the side of Wikidata that I spend much time on :) I'm more of an RfD and merge gnome/imp/whatever. Del♉sion23 (talk) 23:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PS. However, I would also like to hear from Jdforrester, he hardly did any admin actions in 6 months (almost few enough to lose admin rights but not quite), has suddenly come back and done quite a few deletion, though some have been flagged as needing undeletion. Add to this the encouragement of this block that was not needed. I'm not recommending resignation here either, but it would be nice to hear an explanation. Del♉sion23 (talk) 23:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Retrieved from "https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/More_people_should_comment_on_this_rv_and_block&oldid=1102157226"