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

User:Misanthropy

This has just been brought to my attention. Since when do we accept off-site requests for deletion? The added bit for crit 7 states: If a user leaves a sysop a note on their (i.e the sysop's) talk page requesting deletion of a page that falls under Crit 7, the Sysop may delete the page on sight, making clear in the edit summary that the user requested it via talk page. Off-site is definitely not the sysop's talk page and even with the newest part (As of January 2010, this scheduling now includes pages that the author has blanked or replaced with text indicating a desire to be deleted. However, pages used as inclusions (such as many templates) are excluded from this criterion.) it doesn't come close. If Iscariot wishes the page deleted, he can come request it in person or someone can provide a screenshot of his request.

This could easily be incorporated into the existing scheduled deletions but until it is, it's a breach of the guidelines for deletion and as a result I believe this is misconduct. -- Cheese 17:17, 6 May 2010 (BST)

For Relevancy, also look here. --Thadeous Oakley 17:26, 6 May 2010 (BST)

this is some serious hairsplitting even for you cheese Cyberbob  Talk  17:38, 6 May 2010 (BST)

People have been brought here for less. =/ I don't like the idea of things being requested "off-site" and there being no record here of it. Not saying I don't trust Mis, but I don't like the precedent that it would set. -- Cheese 17:49, 6 May 2010 (BST)

Gah, I hate cases like this since it really shouldn't have been brought up at all and just makes things more difficult. The way I see it, Misanthropy did exceed his authority technically (if someone wants to cite precedent to the contrary, I'd love seeing it), but he was most certainly acting in good faith in doing so. I have no doubt that Iscariot requested this deletion, and that had Iscariot been forced to request it officially, more drama would have ensued. There's no way Misanthropy should be getting a warning or worse out of this, since he was acting in the best interests of the wiki and its users in doing what he did. But Cheese is right that it could create a dangerous precedent, so establishing that it's not the right thing to do is still a good idea. Thus, Misconduct with no punishment. —Aichon— 21:05, 6 May 2010 (BST)

You know what? No. This could be a dangerous precedent, but only when it's abused, and we have this page for those situations. Misanthropy didn't abuse it at all, so I'm changing my mind. Not Misconduct. —Aichon— 22:04, 7 May 2010 (BST)

Sorta... But you can always ignore precedents, and I think ross summed it up pretty well too; I'd agree if Iscariot hadn't had every single other page in his userspace deleted, but given that, its totally feasible that Izzy, an IRC regular, asked Mis, another IRC regular, to delete it. Izzy never made a contribution after getting said pages deleted since he's publivly left, doesn't want to come back just to get page deleted. There's no (incredibly) bad blood between the two, etc, etc. I mean, I agree that Izzy should have had to come here to have the page deleted, but IMO that's a different story to whether Mis should be punished for it. --

 

 

 

 

00:50, 8 May 2010 (BST)

dude he said not misconduct, dunno why you're arguing with him Cyberbob  Talk  16:34, 8 May 2010 (BST)

What do you reckon then bob? -- Cheese 16:49, 8 May 2010 (BST)

This is pathetic. I guess you should Misconduct Link for unbanning me before my self-ban was up, because I asked him via IRC, and take Suicidalangel to A/VB because he edited my userpage and my talk page rules to say I was away cause I was homeless, because I asked him via IRC. Go on, consistency please Cheese. Nah, that's cool, those two don't annoy iscariot so why would you bother?

Another fine example of going by the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, when the user in question was just trying to help out. Can't wait for more cases like this to weed out the new op's "ignore the rules to help" attitude so they become butthurt rule-nazies like the rest of us ops became. --

 

 

 

 

01:16, 7 May 2010 (BST)

Jesus H Christ, I'm grouchy when I've just woken up. I still maintain the first paragraph though >=[ --

 

 

 

 

09:56, 7 May 2010 (BST)

WHAT THE FUCK IF YOU ASKED I'D HAVE GOTTEN ONSITE NOTICE. I don't have IRC access right now but hold this case for a day or two and I'll have Iz come on and formally request the deletion here. 13:20, 7 May 2010 (BST)

I've typically always been against claiming petty bias, but when its something as totally uncalled for and irrational as this case, it has to be made. Bias about enforcing the scheduled deleting that he personally passed, much? There I said it. Lols. Either way, does Izz still go on IRC? I could get such confirmation if you'd like. --

 

 

 

 

13:31, 7 May 2010 (BST)

The reason I didn't ask for an onsite notice at the time was because I didn't know about it. The first I heard about the user page going was when Thad posted on Undeletions. I fail to see how this is petty bias. =/ Mis deleted a page without a proper request being filed. This is nothing personal again him and like I said it's not that I don't trust him, I just don't like the idea that someone could swan onto IRC pretending to be that user and ask for a page to be deleted. At least here we have checkuser and the like to confirm that person is who they say they are. I don't want Mis to get a punishment, I just want it to be made clear that deleting something because you got asked offsite is not on. If they want it deleted, they should come here and post it like everyone else, it only takes about 30 seconds. -- Cheese 14:06, 8 May 2010 (BST)

Sent him a message on another forum to ask him to come round. If/when he does, drop his useless piece of piss plz? 16:18, 8 May 2010 (BST)

No...=/ I don't see us dropping vandal cases if the vandal goes back and undoes it all. You really can't see my problem with this can you? -- Cheese 16:48, 8 May 2010 (BST)

Your problem is that a deletion was done without an onsite request, which you see as misconduct, while I see it as falling completely within Crit 7. If the original deletion is backed up with the author returning to verify that he did in fact place the request, puts down a formal request to have the page deleted again, I fail to see what's wrong. 16:53, 8 May 2010 (BST)

Not Misconduct Iscariot had publicly requested the deletions of a great many pages and made it abundantly clear he was removing himself from the community. Of course if we get a comment from iscariot saying he didn't request it then its misconduct in my opinion. Meh. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:35, 7 May 2010 (BST)

Misconduct - no punishment, keep the page unless it's requested properly. We can't have user's pages being requested for deletion off site -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 06:33 8 May 2010 (BST)