UDWiki talk:Administration/De-Escalations/Archive/2013

Archive?

So I try to look at zoomi's old cases and I get error messages for the actual evidence. I didn't try all of them, but I tried a few. Would this be information that was lost to a purge? --_K 02:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Also are there any arbitration cases related to all this? I didn't notice any. --_K 02:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah history purge deleted everything prior to about August 2008. Most of the Izumi stuff was late 2007. I'm not aware of any Arbies cases. It was A/VB at the drop of a hat a lot back then. ~ _{02:50, 19 February 2013 (UTC)}

A/VD sites a lot of the cases, there's obviously no contributions for purge reasons but, there was no arbitration case. On the first case she was editing in false locations for where Mall Tour was going. On the second case she was intentionally falsifying Ridleybank and Barrville danger levels. The third was her editing deleting a users post on their group page, if I recall correctly. The fourth case was her using three different alts to edit the Lockettside Valkaries page. The fourth case is quite self explanatory but for simplicity's sake: she was again editing another groups page in this case to remove her group from a KoS list. The Fifth case is again self explanatory, it's the required escalation for sock puppetry. And the final escalation was again another case of alt abuse. Followed by exactly, now, 100 cases of alts made to circumvent bans. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Ban-Circumvention: Policy?

Hey y'all. Over on A/VB, Thad put up a case reporting Izumi (as Kitakaze) for circumventing the ban to make an account to comment on this case. No verdict has yet been taken; both sitting bureaucrats have agreed to postpone the ruling until after the ongoing vote here at A/DE. As Spiderzed said, it's technically ban avoidance, but we're letting it slide. In my brief sweep of the A/DE archive, I don't see any precedent of someone having made such an account before.

The difficulty arises in that the creation of the Kitakaze account seems to have come up in a couple of the votes against on this page, and has been causing some consternation on behalf of users. I was wondering what people's attitude would be toward a clarification of policy which allows a user up for an unban vote to create a temporary account, which could be used to comment on matters related to the vote but nothing else? How restrictive should it be (the unban case only, its talk page, user talk pages on the subject of the vote?) Presumably if the vote fails, the new account would be banned when voting closes (if it succeeds, it would probably be banned as well as the main account is unbanned).

Comments? Thoughts? Am I wasting time I should be spending on my thesis? Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 05:04, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Work on your thesis Permabans often come with IP bans, which means we'd be forcing people into using proxies to create new accounts. There's a policy for that too. What the sops are doing with Izumi's a/vb case is technically incorrect imo but I don't think anyone cares that much. Make it a policy, however and watch all the perma banned people ask for an appeal just to get their alt account unbanned for two weeks. ~ _{05:31, 19 February 2013 (UTC)}

There is no required time limit for coming to an A/VB verdict. We are just keeping the case on hold, as it might well be that the alt account issue becomes a moot point after a successful appeal. I consider the decision to go-slow on a particular case well within the discretion of the sys-op team. -- Spiderzed█ 06:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The only real precedence that applies, strangely enough, relates to Izumi. We've had "conversations" with his alts before, brief ones, discussing things quickly (ie. "why was i banned" "ur a cunt") before the ban was put in place. I think this is a bit lenient but logical as per Karek's comment on the main page. A ZOMBIE ANT 07:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh also Cornholioo appeared with a fake account once and we asked him to convince us he wasn't cornholioo, which he refused to do. The conversation happened on A/VB and he was eventually banned when he stopped responding to our lines of enquiry regarding his real IP, etc. I'm sure Aichon would remember the case (I might try and find it when i get back into the country later this week) A ZOMBIE ANT 07:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

There's not really any difficulty here. If someone wants to get unbanned, they can find a person to act as their mouthpiece. They've lost the privilege of posting to the wiki, and Vapor is spot-on correct in saying that it's an idea that is ripe for abuse. This case is actually pretty open-and-shut: Izumi's alt deserves to be banned for a few reasons, not least of which is because the alt was created prior to the case, with the case being created in response to the presence of the alt.

That said, I've always preferred to apply common sense that's informed by the spirit of the rules to each situation, rather than parsing policies for specific phrasings that compel us to enforce useless WikiLaw. While we may consider ban evasion a form of vandalism, it's a form of administrative vandalism, rather than acting in bad faith in the typical sense. As such, so long as she doesn't do anything else, I'm willing to extend a little leniency for the time being (the fact that the alternative is dealing with a battle against Izumi's alts may predispose me a bit as well). Even so, Izumi is stretching it, posting on other pages and taking advantage of our leniency. That's balanced out a bit by the fact that Izumi is doing a fine job of inserting her foot into her mouth with each edit. I'd think you guys voting Against would want that to continue. ;) —Aichon— 07:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Common sense for a little used scenario beats massive policy with its own loopholes every time. --Rosslessness 08:52, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

^This. Things not specifically spelled out can, when reasonable, fall under the judgement clause. As this should. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 18:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok, cool. No new policy proposal from me. But I am a little worried if someone in the future creates an alt account and sets up a De-Escalation, then demands not to be banned because of this precedent. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 15:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

They can demand all they want, but precedents only apply in situations that match (not to mention that future sysops can ignore the precedent if they feel we acted inappropriately). No one else has the sort of history with the wiki that Izumi has, which is a factor in my choice to handle it this way. As such, I seriously doubt that we'll have a matching situation later. —Aichon— 17:00, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, it's a pretty unique circumstance. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 18:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Then why have any rules? Is it just so someone gets to be in charge? I love how sysops throw up precedents to ignore policy (see the inability to understand the word within) then claim that precedents mean nothing when they don't like them. Why not save time with a single policy: sysops can do the fuck ever that they want, it's what we are currently using but less wordy. --_K 22:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I like Kirsty. She's my favourite. --Rosslessness 22:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

You lie. You know I'm annoying and asinine. --_K 22:49, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Nup. You're alright, Cotton. And I definitlely think you have a good point here. A ZOMBIE ANT 23:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)