User talk:A.Z./Every user should be able to block other users

The talk page of the sandbox redirects here, so the discussion stays in one place.

What problem?

What problem is this trying to solve? Are people running around making bad blocks? We already have means of dealing with this. Friday (talk) 06:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What means do we have of dealing with bad blocks? A.Z. 18:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for an overview of dispute resolution. More specifically, any admin can unblock- this happens quite frequently in the case of bad blocks. I remember reading about one just today. Any user can ask for a block review from another admin by using the {{unblock}} template. Honestly, I think you'd do well to spend lots more time becoming familiar with existing Wikipedia guidelines and practices before suggesting new ones. Friday (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there is a system for dealing with this particular issue, but the administrators are the ones deciding everything. What do you think about the argument by Chris is me that this is a wiki and there's no reason to stop anyone from having the same tools than everyone else?

If you answer that you agree with him and there is nothing stopping me and everyone from becoming an administrator, then I'll answer that I think that the current way of selecting who is going to become an administrator is flawed: the process prevents a lot of good Wikipedians from becoming administrators, the process is biased and it is not likely to let most users become administrators.

I do agree with Chris is me, and the only reason why this essay is not called "Every user should be an administrator" is that there would be too much opposition to this idea and possibly some legal issues due to the fact everyone would be able to see deleted content.

But you seem to understand about the whole issue and maybe you can answer once and for all: would people present objections concerning legal issues if the proposal were that every user should be an administrator? A.Z. 22:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also in favor of making the barrier to adminship lower. I've made the suggestion several times that we should grant the admin tools liberally to reasonable editors who request them, and then only worry about taking them away if they get abused. Blocking is an odd tool to pick tho- it should be used the least frequently of all of them. Not sure that's a good place to start. I'd be in favor of being more careful about granting the ability to block than the ability to delete and undelete. Wrong blocks cause more than their fair share of drama. Friday (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is that wrong blocks will be diminished and editors who are blocked will take it less harshly because they'll know that the community agreed on that and their block wasn't arbitrary. I'm still to think whether I should change the name of the essay. However, I wouldn't like it to be just like the essay by Chris is me. I'd like to actually convince people to support the idea, and his essay is not too convincing to people who don't already think like him.

If you are in favor of making the barrier to adminship lower, how do you explain that you did not support Froth's adminship? Your justification back then was the folowing

I'm not comfortable with this editor's acceptance of policy or his understanding of the purpose of Wikipedia. I suspect what Hipocrite is referring to above about the ref desk is the same behavior I'm uncomfortable with- this editor seems to think Wikipedia is for general forum-like chatting. He does not seem to care about verifiability and presents unsourced assertions as though they're appropriate content for Wikipedia. (Friday)

To me, this sounds just like saying "this guy doesn't think exactly like I do, so I'm not gonna let him be an administrator". You think the barrier should be: "everyone (that understands policies just like Friday does) should be an administrator"? Of course your concept of "reasonable editors" is biased. What I want is for your bias to stop being important. A.Z. 00:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can certainly appreciate that reasonable editors will have differences of opinion. But, I do still have standards- certain things are dealbreakers for me when it comes to adminship. Like many users, I have a little essay explaining my standards, see User:Friday/admin. I want to see a solid acceptance and understanding of the core goals of the project.

It's funny how people tend to see admins as a bloc. If you stick around for a while and keep your eyes open, you'll see that admins disagree with each other all the time. There has been a small handful of admins who over the past couple years have behaved so badly that I don't think they should be admins. In a few of these cases, they no longer are. Friday (talk) 00:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it's helpful to understanding, I consider myself a Wikipedia fundamentalist. Certain things are non-negotiable- see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Friday (talk) 00:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Friday, those are your opinions. I disagree with your view on what is the best for Wikipedia. I disagree with a lot of your views, and yet I wish you were free to use all the administrator tools here, and I wish everyone were.

If you start becoming disruptive because of your opinions, there's nothing I can do, because I am just a simple user without all the powers that you have. If I appeal to the other administrators, I'll find out that they are people just like you: not people who agree with you on everything, but people who had to go through the same RfA process that you have, and have been biasedly selected and are not gonna help me get rid of the bad results of your bad understanding about what is the best for Wikipedia.

Therefore, I choose to appeal to the power of the community to change the entire system of giving tools to people, so no-one can stop anyone from becoming powerful and being able to deal with other disruptive people who have power.

Froth was a damn good candidate, and I don't care about whether he ever read any policy or not. I mean, I would not even take that into account to make him an administrator! And no-one should, because this is an OPEN encyclopedia. First you let people in, first you let people have the tools and the power, then you start asking questions.

And don't tell me that it is the community who chooses the administrators! I bet that most of the people just don't want to take part on the RfAs as we know them, but they would wish that everyone was an administrator (without being able to unblock themselves, 'cause this makes no sense). A.Z. 01:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you think I'm wrong about what's best for Wikipedia? What are you suggesting, that Wikipedia should be a place for people to write whatever they want? No standards on neutrality or verifiability? Keep in mind that there's a whole internet out there besides Wikipedia- we're only trying to be an encyclopedia here. We're not trying to be all things to all people. Friday (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's where you are wrong. The following are Hipocrite's "examples" of "disruptive" behavior by Froth:

"Hipocrite it's about time you just STFU and quit causing trouble." This is no disruptive behavior, this is the MOST LEGITIMATE of opinions in the best interest of Wikipedia. See, I said legitimate, I didn't say agreed upon by everyone, I didn't say kind. You yourself (Friday) already said things like this many times, and you should be able to say them and people should read them and judge it for themselves, without censorship. As I do when I read your suggestions that Lewis should LEAVE Wikipedia, which could be considered worse than telling him to shut the fuck up.

"That's right it's not personal if you disparage the content of another editor's remarks. Exposing bad content is one of the only reasons that wikipedia has its little shred of credibility. And on project pages like the RD you can't very well remove others' comments, you can only disprove them." Well, I really don't know what else to say. It's simple: if someone says something wrong, you are free to go there and write a dozen paragraphs proving the person wrong and convince everyone -if you are able to- that you are right. Just don't censor them!

"Well my problem with macs is idealogical- the fact that you do need "hacks" to run linux on your own computer shows that there's something seriously wrong going on. I like having total control of my computer inside and outside, and knowing what my computer is doing. OS X abstracts everything so far out that there's no hint of what's actually going on, and opening the sealed areas of the computer case voids the warranty so it's impossible to get inside. And crustacean, if one has no qualms about pirating, why use second-best OpenOffice when you have the world's premier office suite at your fingertips? OpenOffice is doing very admirable work but my love for FOSS isn't enough to have me using an inferior product- MS Office is undoubtedly a very good package." You either find this interesting or not, right or wrong. It is not "crap" as Hipocrite said and it doesn't show any kind of desire to disrupt Wikipedia. A.Z. 02:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're pointing out where I'm wrong by critiquing some other editor's statements? I don't understand. Neither Froth nor any other editor should tell another to "STFU"- it's rude. But, suggesting that Wikipedia isn't the place for someone is not always out of line. Some people just aren't well suited to this environment. So anyway I agree that we should generally not try to silence people, but I'm not seeing what this has to do with anything. Friday (talk) 02:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"I suspect what Hipocrite is referring to above about the ref desk is the same behavior I'm uncomfortable with- this editor seems to think Wikipedia is for general forum-like chatting." (Friday) Are there other diffs by Froth that you would like me to evaluate to find out why you are wrong about them? A.Z. 03:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we're understanding each other. If I agreed with Hipocrite one time on one particular issue, this doesn't mean I'm going to always agree with him on everything. Whatever he's said about Froth is just that- something he said about Froth.

But, since you've asked about him, I will clarify what I meant. Your quote of him talking about OS X refreshed my memory. Froth has given his personal opinions as though they're factual, and when I've asked him for sources (and even showed him sources contradicting his statements), he hasn't seemed very concerned about verifiability. This is not helpful to the reference desk, and it makes me question Froth's acceptance of the goals of the project. As I said before, certain things are showstoppers for me. Friday (talk) 03:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide the diffs? I'm having trouble finding them.

Plus, those are no good reasons to stop him from becoming an administrator. If he writes on the reference desk something that you think is wrong or unverifiable, just write it on the thread and disprove him. Maybe one specific post by him could have been wrong, unverifiable and not helpful to the reference desk. Then again, we should be entitled to write on the reference desk things that are wrong and unverifiable, as long as everyone else is entitled to disprove us. A.Z. 03:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is why different editors with different opinions all can give their thoughts at RFA. For me, a disregard for the core principles of the project is a dealbreaker. Maybe I'm wrong about Froth, but that's how he seemed to me. The reference desk isn't about proving or disproving, or having debates. It's a reference desk. In my view, anyone who doesn't understand (or doesn't agree with) the things in Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia should not be an editor. However, I can't just make an editor go away. But, I can say something about who should or should not be an administrator, so that's what I do. If Wikipedia were a "let's talk it out and solve the world's problems" site, I'd agree with much of what you say. But, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and that's not going to change. Friday (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you and I hope that all the power to stop someone from becoming an administrator is taken away from you, i.e., the RfAs must end as soon as possible!

No-one has to understand nor agree with anything to be an editor. A guy knows something about Pericles, so he goes to the article on Pericles and writes a couple of sentences to improve it. That's it, and the guy can have a thousand thoughts divergent from yours and from official policy about what Wikipedia is and should be: he didn't do anything wrong!

In my view, the reference desk is for debate and disproving, and I don't see how Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia says the contrary! I mean, I just read it. The only thing that you could interpret there to be contrary to my view of the reference desk is "Wikipedia is not a place to publish your opinions". Then you click the word "opinions" and you go the NPOV page. Well, saying "my opinion is X" is NPOV, ain't it? I'm sure what the page means is that you should not use the Wikipedia articles to promote your own opinion by using bad faith and lies, without having proper reliable sources for the statements you make.

Of course, if someone says on the reference desk "I think that the computer Y is better that the computer B because the computer B has its warranty voided when you open it", it's written from a NPOV. If the person doesn't have any sources, shame on them: and, if the subject really requires reliable sources, no-one will take the poor guy seriously and he will soon be disproved.

Well, sources as to whether a computer's warranty is voided or not when you open it are certainly possible to find, but, as to verifiability on the matter of whether the poster really thinks that computer Y is better, I have to agree with you that we appear to have issues here: there's no way to know whether the person is truly saying their opinion or lying about it: this is unverifiable... A.Z. 20:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not remotely suggesting people need to memorize pages of rules, and think exactly what I think on every topic under the sun. But, certainly editors do need to understand what Wikipedia is about. If your editor who knows about Pericles puts his own personal pet theories into the article, he's made Wikipedia worse, not better. Someone will have to fix what he did. If he keeps it up after having the policies explained to him, he may find himself no longer welcome to edit. Friday (talk) 22:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say: it's good to understand what Wikipedia is about because it is likely that, if you don't, you will end up doing something wrong. Anyway, this little particular subject doesn't seem to matter... What does this detail have to do with anything?

You sure don't know what the reference desk is about (in my opinion) and I'm not telling you to go away, I'm just explaining to you my view. Really, I can't figure out why you chose to respond to my last post with that one of yours. A.Z. 22:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you trying to talk about "what the ref desk is about" or what you think it ought to be about? I'm talking about how Wikipedia works, from experience. You appear to be talking about what you would want Wikipedia to be, if it was yours to change. See the key difference? Friday (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Er, no

This is way too easily abusable. >Radiant< 11:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to understand better what are your concerns. However, this idea has now evolved. You can see the new idea here. A.Z. 19:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]