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 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)

Misconduct Cases Currently Under Consideration

Hagnat and Cheese

I'm grouping both of these together as they are implicated in the same misconduct, and given Hagnat's history of stealth ruling it'd be better if doesn't have the opportunity to influence his own case by ruling on Cheese's.

These sysops cooperated to justify the removal of a deserved permanent ban of proven liar and persistent vandal.

User:Kerkel had four contributions before recieving his perma-ban. Three to group pages even when his edits had been reverted and one to a user page. For these edits, two vandalism cases were filed, he first receieved a warning, and then under the terms set out in the Administration Guidelines he was issued with a permanent ban under the following clause: "In all but the fourth of the above instances, and the fifth should the system operator believe that the case doesn't merit the permaban laid out by standing policy, he/she should impose an infinite ban without a warning."

What we have here is a user with four edits, all vandalism, and therefore receiving their justly deserved permanent ban (technically according to policy it's an infinite ban, the technical perma comes next).

This user then returned with a new account, User:Rayols. This account made three edits, all contributing to a single response on Cheese's talk page. According to the Vandal Escalations Reduction policy, "Attempting to circumvent a ban will result in an escalation without any warning, for each attempted circumvention. If this takes the user beyond 12 months, then they are automatically permabanned." By circumventing his first infinite ban to edit this wiki, the user's contributions are automatically vandalism. As the next escalation would place him above a 12 month ban (he was already above 12 months with an infinite ban) he was permabanned.

Just for Hagnat's benefit, we know he has trouble with words:

Permanent - Adjective

permanent (comparative more permanent, superlative most permanent)

Positive permanent

Comparative more permanent

Superlative most permanent

1. Without end, eternal.

Nothing in this world is truly permanent.

1. Lasting for an indefinitely long time.

The countries are now locked in a permanent state of conflict.

A permaban, is quite obviously, a ban that is without end.

Now, skip forward to yesterday, and Cheese's character is shot at in the game as shown Image:Cheesescreen.jpg, because of this Hagnat and Cheese decide to unban this user. The user that has seven contributions over two accounts and has had a warning, an infinite ban and permaban in less than two hours, and these two sysops decide to accept this user's word over and override the policy voted and put in place to protect this wiki and the resources on it from vandalism.

There is no way in policy to de-escalate a permaban.

There is no justifiable reason to unban a user with 100% vandalism contributions, even with the sysop override clause.

We must also consider if this user would have been unbanned if it was Hagnat or Cheese's group pages or user pages this individual had vandalised. I think not.

Hagnat and Cheese have actively abused their position and opened up this wiki to continued vandalism because in Hagnat's words "i have to give credit to this guy". This also sets the dangerous precedent that actions towards sysops' characters in the game can cause responses on the wiki that override basic policy.

This user should have his permaban reinstated, the other accounts he edits with also permabanned and Cheese and Hagnat should be subject to demotion for their flagrant disregard and dereliction to their duty of using their sysop abilities to protect this wiki from vandals. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 10:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Help:Vandalism From UDWiki:Vandalism#Penalties_for_Vandalism

I don't know why more would need to be said but, this could easily be classed as overruling another sysop and misconduct would only come in with the lack of showing their decision on A/VB. The point remains though, the wiki doesn't exist to ban users and nothing is gained from losing members of the community because they weren't given the benefit of the doubt. No harm, no foul, drop it.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 11:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to assume you haven't read any of iscariot's edits anywhere if you assume good faith on anything he does here. Not misconduct in each case. The ban system doesn't exist to punish users. But iscariot isn't here to contribute. He's just trolling constantly. The edit in question was in bad faith. And he was warned accordingly.--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 12:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Then please rule to that effect to clarify it. That's really all I need on my part, it won't change my ruling below but it does validate the escalation more.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 12:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

How can you possibly say (aside from the fact that it's written there) that this system is one against punishment when it is clearly stated (as Iscariot pointed out) that less than 3 edits, all vandalism is a permaban. That system allows no compromise, no benefit of the doubt, no nothing. It is punishment and nothing else. While i agree that guy should be given another chance, i don't agree that what hag and cheese did was right. If you want the policy changed either a) make sysops mods again, which is exactly what they have become in the last 6 months or (even better) b) write a fucking policy! --xoxo 12:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Nobody gives a shit what you think, and that comment just proved them right. The three-edit-ban rule is operating under the reasonable assumption that if someone uses their first three edits purely for vandalism they're less than likely to be after making good-faith contributions. --Cyberbob 12:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Nubis

Ruled on a case that he was part of.

But how is he a part of this case? It was brought by Hagnat. Well, if we look at this edit we see that Nubis adds a link to a preformed case. Then, in both their rulings, Karek and Cheese both reference Nubis' case, however obliquely. This makes Nubis a de facto part of this case and his ruling on it, and swiftly after it gets tied, proves that he knew it was wrong.

You'll notice that he was quite happy to swiftly change the verdict to Vandalism on the page, and add that verdict to the Vandal Data page, but he seemed to 'forget' the required warning on my userpage. Instead four and half hours pass until Cheese comes and issues the warning. The reason is obvious, Nubis was hoping that his contribution to the case would go unnoticed.

If a non-connected sysop wished to support Hagnat and Nubis' baseless case then we wouldn't be here. However ruling on a case you have brought or contributed to is misconduct and has been ruled so previously.

I'm wanting the warning retracted, deleted from Vandal Data and the template on A/VB reverting until a non-connected sysop adds their ruling to the case. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 10:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This, however, would in my book qualify as Misconduct on Nubis' part. He shouldn't have been ruling on the case and was, for all intents and purposes, a co-reporter.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 12:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Hagnat

For this edit. Hagnat has abuse his sysop powers to make an edit on a protected page.

This change effects every user on this wiki, by changing the sidebar to our left. I can find no record of Hagnat attempting to consult with the community before making this sweeping change that effects everyone, nor is there any good reason. We do not have links to A/VB or A/MR on the sidebar as they are covered by the Administration entry, the cities are already covered by the prominent links on the main page.

Hagnat has abused his position as a sysop to further his own goals and this project, founded by him. This a a selfish edit made with no consideration or consultation with the rest of the community.

I'm wanting the appropriate warning corncerning such changes and the appropriate reversion of the sidebar. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 10:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This portion right here is not gonna happen without Kevan stepping in. This is how these things have always been changed, however it would be an issue for A/VB if you wish to argue about the nature of the edits. It certainly doesn't help your case that MediaWiki pages aren't protected, editing is limited to Sysop by the wiki software itself.--Judge Karke, self-proclaimed Decider of Everything and Ruler of All 11:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)