UDWiki talk:Administration/Policy Discussion/Prohibit Sysop Misconduct Self-Punishment
Adminy stuff
With your permission I'd like to move this to "/Prohibit Sysop Misconduct Self-Punishment", both to fix that typo and to make it fit a bit more with the slightly more generic text. Cyberbob Talk 10:40, 6 September 2009 (BST)
- Let me at least comment on the bloody policy before edit conflicting me!! ;P Yes... Move it, please and thanks. --WanYao
Policy Discussion
I am proposing this policy so that, in the future, potentially controversial situations such as this can be avoided. To me it seems common sense that the person being "punished" shouldn't decide what their penalty should be. In effect, that's what the status quo in Misconduct allows -- or potentially allows -- to happen. I propose we close this loophole. --WanYao 10:43, 6 September 2009 (BST)
- I think it's a good-ish idea, though this really could be solved simply by the other sysops dealing out whatever punishment they would have given anyway on top of the self-inflicted stuff. Failing that, though, this is fine. Cyberbob Talk 10:47, 6 September 2009 (BST)
- You're right, in theory. The problem in practice is that, as it stands, if a sysop "pulls a nubis" :) and bans themselves, discussion can be too easily closed just by a 'crat saying something like this...
| boxy said: |
| "Nubis has banned himself for 24hrs, so this case is pretty much closed" |
- This is what made people upset: the immediate shutting down of the discussion. Even if there was nothing official about it, the "power of the suggestion" is too strong, as so it the possibility of abuse -- or perception of abuse. Better to close the loophole, imo. --WanYao 11:02, 6 September 2009 (BST)
- I agree with this. It isn't really much of a punishment if you do it yourself. Also, cutting off a discussion is bad. I must say I like Bob's "on top off" method. This way we can just ignore the self-ban, and we don't need to make a separate misconduct case for it like Jed did.--
Thadeous Oakley 11:38, 6 September 2009 (BST)
- Imo it just makes more sense, and is easier and more straightforward, to disallow the sysop from banning themselves. Although the abuse argument is legit (I made it after all), I don't think it's a necessary argument for this policy to make sense. "Just ignoring" the self-bans, etc. makes things too complicated and has the potential to lead to more drama than just banning self-bans, period. Make sense? --WanYao 17:52, 6 September 2009 (BST)
No contest
Basically what is going on in these cases is that the sysop is pleading "no contest" to the case, and taking a punishment that is over and above what is going to be the likely outcome. This is a good thing. I've done it before, despite disagreeing with the ruling (when I re-banned grim preemptively).
Even if you don't agree that this is what happened in the recent case, it's still not a reason to ban all instances of a sysop agreeing to ban themselves to finish cases without going through days of pointless drama.
If a sysop tries to abuse this, by picking a penalty below what the rest of the team thought was appropriate, they wouldn't be able to get away with it anyway, because the discussion can still continue if anyone thinks they deserve more -- boxy talk • teh rulz 12:09 6 September 2009 (BST)
- This policy isn't intended to affect sysops pleading "no contest" in the manner you outlined. That could still be done. The intent of the policy is simply to disallow a sysop from taking the physical action of banning themselves: another sysop would have to physically implement the agreed upon ban. Would that slow the system down a bit, and allow the opportunity for more debate (or somethimes drama)? Yes, it would: that is part the point. But at least as important is the idea of closing the loophole which can rightly be seen a bit of a non sequitor at best -- a blatant conflict of interest at worst -- i.e. the punishee enacting the punishment themselves.
- Also, to make it perfectly clear, this affects only Misconduct cases -- it is not intended to affect the times when a sysop might ask for a "voluntary ban" via A/VB, for example as I think hagnat and SA(?) have done in the past to force a "break" from the wiki on themselves. --WanYao 17:41, 6 September 2009 (BST)
