UDWiki:Administration/Misconduct

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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 other than the sysop named in the case 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)
It looks like the page that was deleted did not belong to the requesting user, so you were in no position to delete it on sight. -- Reporter 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)

Before Reporting Misconduct

Due to a the growing number of Non-Misconduct cases popping up on this page the Administration Staff has decided to compile a basic summary of what has been viewed as Not Misconduct in the past. Please read over UDWiki:Misconduct and make sure that what you are reporting is in fact misconduct before filing a report here.

Cases made to further personal disputes should never be made here, harassment of any user through administration pages may result in vandal escalations. Despite their unique status this basic protection does still apply to Sysops.

Misconduct Cases Currently Under Consideration

Boxy, Rosslessness, DanceDanceRevolution, Spiderzed, Yonnua Koponen

For the vandalism case Here.

Specifically, for ruling vandalism on a case against existing policy. Specifically, the relevant signatures policy which was brought up in the report itself.

For reference, the signature in question that was being considered was:

--Laughing Man [Date and time stuff]

I would like to quote the relevant portions of the policy concerning what is illegal in a signature:

Signature policy
*Signatures which have images higher than 14 pixels high.
  • Signatures which generally break the wiki in some way either through formatting or other means.
  • Signatures which impersonate another user.
  • Signatures which link to any of the following special pages: Special:Userlogout or Special:BlockIP.
  • Signatures which link to external links that perform malicious actions (closing the browser for example).
  • Signatures which contain images larger than 50kb.

Laughing Mans signature did not violate any of these.

  1. There was no image more than 14 pixels high.
  2. There was no attempt to impersonate another person. It was his username.
  3. There were no links to any special pages in his signature.
  4. There were no malicious code or links in his signature at all
  5. Since there were no images in his signature so nothing greater than 50kb.

So under the policy there was no reason to prosecute him. But what about spirit of the rules?

Well... Unfortunately you added the next section to the policy:

Signature policy.
What would be allowed

*Anything that doesn't come under what isn't allowed.

So the policy used to condemn Laughing Man for his signature in the case this misconduct case is about explicitly permits everything that is not prohibited by the policy. There is no requirement of a link in a persons signature in any extant policy.

No. What we have here is a case of tribalism. Where responding to the "threat" of another large organized group the existing sysops of this wiki threw policy out the window to oppose them and their behavior, which they did not like, but was still legal. They assumed bad faith without evidence, and they did exactly the wrong thing. What they should have done is what is going on now: If they didn't like the behavior, they should have started work on an amendment to the signatures policy to prohibit it. They did not, and engaged in mass misconduct. Naturally, this has not ended well and resulted in a confrontation between groups. It is a shame that the group in power failed to retain the moral and legal high ground. but then again, corruption is sort of a sysop and crat hobby on this wiki, and whenever the goons show up tribalism goes amok among them (My own final misconduct case when I was here is a pure example, being convicted of misconduct based on what was, at worst, a vandalism charge).

Get rid of this retarded us versus them mentality and do your fucking jobs like you are supposed to instead of trumping up baseless charges and convicting people in a kangaroo court. If you had any credibility at all, you destroyed it with this case. Of course, the sad thing is you never had any credibility.

So, in summary:

  • No policy prohibited Laughing Mans signature
  • The policy expressly permitted anything not prohibited by it.
  • The misconduct in question was for ruling the case as vandalism.
  • The sysops could have tried to change policy and then dealt with the "problem". They did not.
  • Mistergame was excluded from this as he only brought the case, he did not rule on it as a sysop.
  • Vapor was also excluded from this as he did not bring a ruling of out and out vandalism, instead trying a meaningless "soft warning".

This is a fairly open and shut case. Remember: Sysops are not moderators. We even have a policy saying that. You cannot go around persecuting a group you do not like in an official capacity. --The Grimch U! E! 11:25, 6 May 2011 (BST)

Required Link

The handle portion of your signature must link to your user page or one of its subpages so that it is easy for readers to learn more about the person behind the signature. Superscript adornments, images and other parts of your signature may link to other locations provided that such links do not violate the rules below. Um, where's the link grim? --Rosslessness 12:00, 6 May 2011 (BST)

Seems I'm not the only one who thinks this is how the policy works --Rosslessness 12:05, 6 May 2011 (BST)
Please refrain from breaking the case with a level 2 header. I have converted it to a level 4 one to put it beneath the level 3 one this misconduct case has been filed with. The wording of the what is allowed section supersedes that as it explicitly allows anything that is not covered under what is not permitted. Furthermore, it is obvious that the community at large agrees with my interpretation, or this very subject would not be under a policy vote right now. --The Grimch U! E! 12:10, 6 May 2011 (BST)
Thanks for the fix. --Rosslessness 12:20, 6 May 2011 (BST)
What Ross says. The need for a linked handle is part of the policy and noted separately from the acts that constitute vandalism (and the catchall element to say what isn't vandalism). But I'll gladly leave this to decide for Axe, Cheese, Rev, RHO, Thad and Vapor as the only ops allowed to vote on this (and potentially Karek if he makes it through and the case is still open by the time of his promotion). -- Spiderzed 12:28, 6 May 2011 (BST)
Seems SA, Hagnat and Karek agreed with me as well.--Rosslessness 12:32, 6 May 2011 (BST)
The open language of that "What is allowed" section more clearly supports my interpretation. As does the fact, as I mentioned before, that the wiki sees it this way based on the policy being voted on at this moment. You should have done a better job when writing that policy. As it stands, what it says runs contrary to how you wish it and renders that entire section pointless. As for that, it is not my fault if you perpetually failed to enforce a rule correctly. --The Grimch U! E! 12:37, 6 May 2011 (BST)

This is a fairly open and shut case - if you say so, it must be true... let us all bow to your superior intellectual power, oh mighty grim --People's Commissar Hagnat [talk] [wcdz] 12:29, 6 May 2011 (BST)

Oh wow. I totally never saw this coming. I am going to go cry in a corner over my hurt feelings. No really. Honest. --The Grimch U! E! 12:37, 6 May 2011 (BST)