GuildWiki:Requests for arbitration/Not a fifty five vs Karlos

September 11, 2006: Not a fifty five vs. Karlos
Discuss on this arbitration's discussion page.
 * Arbitrator: Tanaric

Original arbitration request
Tho you did say you loved your page when stuff like this happens lol. Anyways, I thought the matter would have been settled with karlos agreeing with any of the 5 reasons why his banning me was not a good idea, but he dismissed them all nonchalantly. I would like for you, when you want some light reading, to look at the bottom half of my now humorous talk page. Following precedent of karlos, I wish to call for about 2 years' worth of bannings for vandalism of build votes, and the temporary release of karlos' administrative powers. You'll find this somewhere in the topic "can we cut the crap now?"

Obviously, I dont believe this should be done. However, I find no alternative given karlos and 99% of the wiki's (one person agreed with me I think) flat denial that banning me was wrong, and the precedent as is must be followed.

Please do not post in this topic unless you are tanaric, I'd like for him to not have to sift through *^$&%$%$# "he did it, she did it" comments that would inevitably arise.(Not a fifty five 16:32, 10 September 2006 (CDT))

Not a fifty five
Not a fifty five has been on the wiki since August, and has contributed almost exclusively within the builds vetting process. Recently, he has begun contributing in policy discussions that relate to builds. Despite his account's relatively short age, he has been an active and worthwhile contributor.

His recent policy arguments have centered around a more thorough, informative vetting process for builds. He is attempting to get rid of commentless votes that do not help the build submitter or the rest of the community see why certain builds become favored/unfavored.

Karlos
Karlos is a long-time contributor, editor, and administrator of the wiki. He has been very active in... well, everything, really, with the exception of build vetting. He is known for being a magnet for user conflict; however, some of the more notable users he's butted heads with still maintain that he's done nothing improper as an administrator. Karlos is the first to admit he's made mistakes, and he's even campaigned for the people that point them out to him. Of all the admins of the GuildWiki, Karlos has the honor of having been asked to step down/be kicked off the team the most.

I was one of the more vocal proponents of making Karlos an admin back when he was first appointed. I have quite a bit of respect for him, but I have not hesitated to disagree with him when I thought he was in the wrong.

Recent related events
The build vetting process is currently undergoing revision, in a process supported by many long-time contributors, including myself. You can read more about this on Builds.

The issue
Not a fifty five sought to prove that the builds vetting process was flawed. Instead of voting as he usually does&mdash;that is, instead of being helpful, informative, and constructive&mdash;he provided commentless/cruel votes instead. More importantly, he then moved the builds in question immediately to the unfavored category, even though one of the builds had only two votes.

Somewhat ironically, one of the users who had previously submitted commentless votes (User:Rapta) had the first vote in this example, and he provided a great summary of why the build in question wasn't that good.

Skuld stated that Not a fifty five's actions were wrong. Not a fifty five replied, stating that he didn't actually feel this way, and was trying to prove a point. Karlos stated that this sort of vandalism is never appropriate. Not a fifty five replied, stating that he did not believe his actions constituted vandalism. Karlos then banned him for three days, on the principle that since the warning given clearly did not have the desired effect, the administration had a responsibility to escalate the situation to the next level.

Not a fifty five emailed me in an attempt to get the ban lifted. I attempted to reply, but learned only today that my message did not go through. My college is performing significant network maintenance, etc. In any case, I did not lift the ban.

Not a fifty five believes that Karlos's actions were inappropriate, and has been attempting to get an apology from him since the incident. No user has stepped up in support of Not a fifty five's actions. Because no apology has been issued, Not a fifty five has called for every user in the past who contributed a commentless vote to also be banned for three days.

In another somewhat ironic twist, he stated that he doesn't actually believe these bans should occur, which is the same sort of misrepresentation that got him banned in the first place.

About the banning of Not a fifty five
You got off easy. I would have banned you for significantly longer, had I seen your actions first and been able to reliably access the Internet. I do not believe Karlos acted inappropriately in the slightest. In fact, I'm somewhat impressed at the restraint he's shown in this case, especially considering his reputation. ;)

About the issue of the builds vetting process
I myself wholeheartedly agree with the push to make the vetting process more wikilike. That said, I think Not a fifty five grossly overestimates his own contribution to this process. His vandalism was not necessary to get people talking. People were already talking!

Other responses
Admins and involved users, you may leave your own responses here under ====level 4 headings====. This is not a talk page! This is meant only to preserve reactions and responses from those users directly involved in this arbitration, or from other admins who wish to voice their opinion. If you wish to discuss the case with other GuildWikians, please use the talk page!

Not a fifty five's views
Vandalism v.t: vandalized, pt.. pp.; To destroy or damage maliciously.

Simply not true in my case. Vandalism would be like replacing all the text in "armor" with "Hi!!!!" ( much ore severe case of vandalism dont you agree? and did this not only result in, not adding a vote and rightfully placing the build in unfavored. "boasting about it"- Kinda weird to boast about it if you have declined in every statement made about it that its not vandalism.  "innopropriately condemning a build cause of just two votes" I'm sorry but you're wrong on that one tanaric, the policy at the time was to condemn a build to unfavored if it had two, unopposed votes for unfavored (absurd yes, but that's true).  I can quote several instances of this being done, and in fact if you research it further there was a vote for this of either 2 or 3 unopposed votes and at the time it was a tie, and people were generally going for two.  Ther only thing left to be refuted is the vote itself was malicious, to which I think I need to quote something from my user talk page.

Votes that were made with 0 or gibberish comments like "lol", the reason I was banned:

(Note all of these have been checked to see if they wrote something in discusiion to go ith the vote. they didnt. Also not we are still on "A" of Unfavored builds (there should be a few hundred more to be listed, suggesting month long bans for some people)

— Skuld 10:05, 20 August 2006 (CDT) (0 reason) in "a/e Stinging Mist build" — Rapta (talk|contribs) 23:59, 31 July 2006 (CDT) (0comment, casters bane build) — Shady 21.55 1 august 2006 (0 comment, casters bane build) Impracticle — Skuld 10:31, 20 August 2006 (CDT) (says nothing, condition outbreak build) Sir On The Edge (just his name, not even sigm black steel build) --Rapta 21:30, 10 July 2006 (CDT) (Crippling shadow) Bad build. --67.165.22.236 22:15, 22 July 2006 (CDT) (criplling shadow) — Skuld 06:41, 26 August 2006 (CDT) (Displacement of Purity) ...Shady 22.07 1 august 2006 (Holy stonesoul) Getting rid of this... — Rapta (talk|contribs) 21:45, 10 August 2006 (CDT) (Palm mender) — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:31, 27 July 2006 (CDT) (Spirit-assin) — Rapta (talk|contribs) 23:47, 19 July 2006 (CDT) (Siphon Vampire) ... — Rapta (talk|contribs) 01:59, 26 July 2006 (CDT) (Support sin) Useless. — Rapta (talk|contribs) 00:03, 1 August 2006 (CDT) (no real comment, insult as well, anti-melee assasin) — Skuld 07:01, 24 August 2006 (CDT) (critical flash) Horrible... — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:44, 27 July 2006 (CDT) (no real comment, insult as well, falling hammr) — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:37, 27 July 2006 (CDT) (Master assasin) — Skuld 04:38, 21 August 2006 (CDT) (Steel Lotus) — Rapta (talk|contribs) 22:42, 19 August 2006 (CDT) (the critical palm 71.228.190.23 19:53, 28 August 2006 (CDT) (the critical palm) Wow I didnt expect there to be this many... Anyways all this is only from CATEGORY "A" OF UNFAVORED BUILDS. A good estimate would be 200 total."

Which would result in about 2 years' worth of bannings for other people if I were, and have, been banned.

In fact you will find some comments like "horrible..." or "useless" are worse than mine, in that they are both inadequate AND insulting, perhaps a 5 day ban for those?

As to my saying this 2 year banning is what would happen if precedent would follow due to my banning, but that I didn't agree it should be done, I kinda misworded it :(. I meant to say, I agree this should be done, but that I didn't like it.  The admins follow precedent, as karlos has said, and thus, there rly is no reason that 600 days worth of bannings should not take place.

As to why I'm pissed off when I'm normally not that type of guy, theres 2 good reasons. A) people disrupting wikipedia by making this a huge debacle (400 insults or so from them, returned by 400 replies from me), and B) When a web site's admins act like an oligarchy, banning whoever the *&$^ they please just because someone argues with one of their fellow admins, rather than doing the right thing, it REALLY pisses me off. They have every right to be do this anyways, it is their web site to rule, however this is ruling wikipedia in "bad faith" (Not a fifty five 19:33, 11 September 2006 (CDT))