UDWiki:Administration/Misconduct
This page is for the reporting of administrator (sysop) misconduct within the Urban Dead wiki. Sysops are trusted with a considerable number of powers, many of which have the capacity to be abused. In many circumstances, it is possible for a sysop to cause considerable havoc. As such, users are provided this page to report misconduct from the System Operators. For consistency and accountability, sysops also adhere to the guidelines listed here.
Guidelines for System Operator Misconduct Reporting
The charge of Administrative Misconduct is a grave charge indeed. If misconduct occurs, it is important that the rest of the sysop team be able to review the charges as necessary. Any charge of administrative misconduct must be backed up with evidence. The clearest evidence that can be provided for administrative misconduct is a clear discrepancy between the relevant action log (deletion, block, or protection log) and the archives of the relevant administration service page, and this is a minimum standard of evidence admitted in such a tribunal.
Misconduct is primarily related to specific Administrator Services, not standards of behavior. As such, situations including verbal attacks by sysops, while frowned upon, do not constitute misconduct. Sysops on a wiki are in theory supposed to have no more authority than a regular user - they merely have a greater scope of power. Personality conflicts between sysops and regular users should be treated just as a personality conflict between two regular users. If, in the course of such a conflict, a sysop abuses their administrative powers by banning a user, blocking or deleting a page without due process, that is misconduct, and should be reported to this page.
There is, however, an exception to this rule - excessive bullying, or attempts to treat the status of sysop as a badge of authority to force a sysop's wishes on the wiki may also come under misconduct. Any accusations of this should come with just as clear evidence, and for such an action to be declared misconduct, there should be a clear pattern of behavior across a considerable period of time.
All discussion of misconduct should occur on this page, not the talk page - any discussion on the talk page will be merged into this page once discovered. Once a misconduct case has been declared closed, a member of the sysop team will mete out the punishment (if deemed necessary), and then move the case to the Archive.
Administrative Abilities
For future reference, the following are sysop specific abilities (ie things that sysops can do that regular users cannot):
- Deletion (ie complete removal, as opposed to blanking) of pages (including Images and any other page-like construct on this wiki), through the delete tab on the top of any deletable construct.
- Undeletion (ie returning a page, complete with page history) of pages (including any other page-like construct on this wiki (Images are not included as deletion of an image is not undoable), through the undelete tab on the top of any undeletable construct
- Protection of pages (ie removing the ability of regular users to edit or move a particular page), through the protect tab on the top of any protectable construct.
- Moving of pages (ie changing a page complete with the page's history to a different namespace).
- Warning users reported in Vandal Banning.
- Banning of Users (ie removing the ability of a specific user to edit the wiki), through the Block User page.
- Editing of Protected pages by any means.
- Research IP activity using the CheckUser extension.
- (Bureaucrats Only) Promotion (providing the above abilities) of User to Sysop/Bureaucrat status.
If none of the above abilities were abused and the case doesn't apply for the exception mentioned above, then this is a case for UDWiki:Administration/Arbitration or UDWiki:Administration/Vandal Banning.
Example of Misconduct Proceedings
Sysop seems to have deleted Bad Page, but I can't find it in the Archives of either the Deletion or Speedy Deletion pages. The Logs show a deletion at 18:06, October 24th 2005 by a System Operator, but this does not seem to be backed up by a request for that deletion. I would like to know why this is the case -- Reporter 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- The deletion was asked through my talk page. I give my Talk page as proof of this. -- Sysop 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- You know the rules, Sysop. All deletion requests have to go through the Speedy Delete page. Next time, please inform the user where they should lodge the request. This is a clear violation, will you accept a one-day ban as punishment? -- Sysop2 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- I'm not liking it, but I clearly broke the rules, I'll accept the ban. I'll certainly remember due process next time... Sysop 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- As punishment for failing to follow due process, Sysop has been banned for a period of 24 hours. This will be moved to the Archive shortly. -- Sysop2 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- I'm not liking it, but I clearly broke the rules, I'll accept the ban. I'll certainly remember due process next time... Sysop 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
- You know the rules, Sysop. All deletion requests have to go through the Speedy Delete page. Next time, please inform the user where they should lodge the request. This is a clear violation, will you accept a one-day ban as punishment? -- Sysop2 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)
Misconduct Cases Currently Under Consideration
Cheese
Protected a page without going through A/PT.
What makes this especially bad is that Karek did exactly the same thing not long ago, meaning that Cheese should have known the effects.
This is exactly the kind of fuckup that most likely would have been avoided if a request had been lodged in A/PT and another sysop had reviewed it. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 19:17, 14 October 2008 (BST)
- I didn't actually realise that protecting it would make the edit links disappear for regular folk. I just thought someone had overlooked it, rather than there being a reason for it. Since the page has been accidentally edited a few times now, I thought the best course of action would be to protect it and stick a note on it to let folk know how to add a report. After you posted in Protections, I realised that I'd got it wrong and corrected it. Just proves I need to learn to read. =P -- Cheese 19:34, 14 October 2008 (BST)
- No, it proves you should have posted a request and let someone else look at it and point the error out to you, and the whole thing would've been avoided. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 19:39, 14 October 2008 (BST)
- Are you seriously trying to claim you weren't aware that protecting a page makes it uneditable? Because that is just ridiculous...--xoxo 09:08, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- This is a little more complicated than that. The A/VB page doesn't actually have much content on it, it is made up of a header and an inclusion (template like call) of the current VB archive page. Cheese didn't protect the archive page, and assumed (wrongly) that the protection of A/VB would leave the inclusion edit links. Unfortunately, for sysops, everything looks normal because we can edit protected pages, so while Cheese wouldn't have noticed the problem, no one else can edit any of the sections of A/VB. It's happened before. This is the reason that a "fuck the rules" policy, as advocated by many here, is problematic. If you choose to ignore the rules, then you've got to be willing to accept the consequences when you fuck up. I'd like to see Cheese admit that he stuffed up here, and "do penitence", rather than have something forced upon him -- boxy talk • teh rulz 10:40 15 October 2008 (BST)
- What sort of thing do you mean by penitence? -- Cheese 11:11, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- I don't really want him punished either. I just want to avoid things like this altogether, and the easiest way to achieve that is if the sysops make requests on the administration pages when appropriate. The rules are not there to make your life difficult, they're there for a reason. People are in a way blind to their own errors and showing things and discussing them with others are the easiest ways to expose them. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 11:16, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- Did you try to bring it up with him before coming here? --HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS 11:28, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- This is a little more complicated than that. The A/VB page doesn't actually have much content on it, it is made up of a header and an inclusion (template like call) of the current VB archive page. Cheese didn't protect the archive page, and assumed (wrongly) that the protection of A/VB would leave the inclusion edit links. Unfortunately, for sysops, everything looks normal because we can edit protected pages, so while Cheese wouldn't have noticed the problem, no one else can edit any of the sections of A/VB. It's happened before. This is the reason that a "fuck the rules" policy, as advocated by many here, is problematic. If you choose to ignore the rules, then you've got to be willing to accept the consequences when you fuck up. I'd like to see Cheese admit that he stuffed up here, and "do penitence", rather than have something forced upon him -- boxy talk • teh rulz 10:40 15 October 2008 (BST)
- Are you seriously trying to claim you weren't aware that protecting a page makes it uneditable? Because that is just ridiculous...--xoxo 09:08, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- No, it proves you should have posted a request and let someone else look at it and point the error out to you, and the whole thing would've been avoided. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 19:39, 14 October 2008 (BST)
meh. no harm done, easily fixed. cheese knows better now, so... move along... --People's Commissar Hagnat talk 19:38, 14 October 2008 (BST)
- It doesn't matter whether or not it did any harm, it was the incorrect and improper thing to do, hence misconduct. -
.
. <== DDR Approved Editor 09:45, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- You do realize that Grim's coup did just as little harm and was fixed faster than this? --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 12:28, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- grim's case was a cummulative case, and he only got punished because he was a constant pain in the ass, using his status as a sysop to make his decisions the "right" ones. Cheese, on the other hand, already admited that he dir err but without knowing. Now he knows better, so why continue this (and add to the red tape) ? --People's Commissar Hagnat talk 12:56, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- Because every new sysops who comes across this problem, and hasn't seen Kareks original mistake, is destined to make the same mistake over and over again if they take it on themselves to "fix the problem" without consultation -- boxy talk • teh rulz 13:17 15 October 2008 (BST)
- So, if it's a problem every new sysop (and some old too) will eventually come about, why punish them for it ? It's a simple mistake, made with good intentions. If cheese (or anyone else) refused to acknowledge the mistake and kept yelling at the users as it was their fault, then yes it would be misconduct. Cheese already admited he didnt knew and was only trying to improve the place. A simple slap in the wrist and call it a day. --People's Commissar Hagnat talk 13:43, 15 October 2008 (BST)
- Because every new sysops who comes across this problem, and hasn't seen Kareks original mistake, is destined to make the same mistake over and over again if they take it on themselves to "fix the problem" without consultation -- boxy talk • teh rulz 13:17 15 October 2008 (BST)
- grim's case was a cummulative case, and he only got punished because he was a constant pain in the ass, using his status as a sysop to make his decisions the "right" ones. Cheese, on the other hand, already admited that he dir err but without knowing. Now he knows better, so why continue this (and add to the red tape) ? --People's Commissar Hagnat talk 12:56, 15 October 2008 (BST)
/facepalm --HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKS 10:25, 15 October 2008 (BST)
User:Grim s
Moved to Archive
Cheese
Moved to archive
User:A Helpful Little Gnome
Moved to archives.
User:Grim_s
Moved to a new archive, seeing as it was too big to go onto grim's existing misconduct archive page -- boxy talk • i 22:25 10 October 2008 (BST)
