Wikipedia:Requests for comment/AndyL

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 05:53, 27 April 2024 (UTC).

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  • protecting and unprotecting pages
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Statement of the dispute[edit]

Repeated violations of protection policy on The Matrix.

Description[edit]

User:Mista-X added a number of movie reviews by a Maoist group to the pages of several movie articles a few days ago, including that of The Matrix. When three separate users, including two admins, reverted him, he called in AndyL to help. Far from being an impartial administrator, AndyL protected the page, then edited it to Mista-X's preferred version. The page has been protected for about three days while AndyL argued for Mista-X's version of the page to remain, asking outside users to join in and back him up. In the meantime, Mista-X has completely disappeared from the dispute. (Correction: I originally wrote the RfC before observing his contribution to Talk:The Matrix.)

AndyL has abused his power as an admin, violating a number of policy rules. He abused his ability to protect a page to try to impose his preferred version against a very clear interim consensus.

Apparently figuring that the best defense is a good offense, he is entirely unapologetic and unwisely draws attention to himself by loudly accusing others of doing the very things he himself did. Finally, his talk page comments reveal a strongly partisan motivation for his actions and an unacceptable disregard or ignorance of Wikipedia practice and policy. Particularly troubling is a tendency to invent justifications and rules on the spot and pretend that the product of his imagination is official Wikipedia policy.

Timeline[edit]

  • April 20 2005 2004*
    • A new user, Mista-X (talk · contribs), makes his first edit at Wikipedia.
      * Correction supplied by AndyL. There was a gap in contributions by this user from 22 Apr 2004 to 14 Apr 2005, causing the confusion.
    • It should not be necessary to provide diffs; just scroll to the articles' histories between April 23 and April 25.
    • Mista-X tries to add his links a few more times and is reverted again (by various users listed above).
  • 00:50, 25 Apr 2005
    • Mista-X calls on AndyL to intervene. [1]
  • 00:44 – 04:33, 25 Apr 2005
    • Various messages are exchanged between Mista-X, TheGrza, Curps, Boothy443 at their various talk pages, as could easily be seen by checking Mista-X's contribution history. The discussion is active and quite civil.
  • 14:40
    • AndyL replies to Mista-X, referring him to the mediation and dispute resolution pages. [2]
  • 15:08–15:09
  • 15:31–15:44
    • Mista-X reverts various pages again. In particular, he uses up his third revert in 24 hours at The Matrix [7]
  • 15:48
    • UtherSRG (an admin) reverts Mista-X's latest revert at The Matrix [8]
  • 16:59
  • 17:01
  • 17:35
    • AndyL reverts the now-protected article to Mista-X's version [10] This is a violation of policy: Do not edit or revert a temporarily protected page (Wikipedia:Protection policy, Wikipedia:Protected page). He uses the misleading edit summary "protected"; in fact he had already protected the article at 17:01 — this was a revert.
  • 18:56
  • 18:56
    • Curps edits The Matrix, removing the {{protected}} notice but leaving AndyL's revert intact. [11]
  • 19:22
  • 19:23
  • 20:29
    • In lieu of unprotecting again, Curps restores AndyL's 17:01 version but leaves protection in place. [13]. There are only two ways to undo an improper protect-and-revert; this was the second one. The edit summary clearly explains It was not appropriate for you to revert the article to your preferred version after you protected it.
  • 22:42
    • AndyL again reverts to his 17:35 version [14].
  • 23:11
    • Curps again restores AndyL's 17:01 version, leaving protection in place. [15].

User:Mista-X[edit]

The external links Mista-X placed are to pages of the "Maoist International Movement" website. Mista-X is a self-professed Maoist, and although he claims not to be a member of MIM, he uses their characteristic idiosyncratic spelling and lowercasing ("persynally", "ameriKKKan", etc) [16] [17]. According to Wikipedia's Maoist Internationalist Movement article, this choice of orthography appears to be specific to MIM, not to Maoists in general.

This is not the place to discuss the merits of Mista-X's external links; anyone interested can see the discussion at Talk:The Matrix#MIM_review. In my opinion, up until AndyL's intervention this was a fairly routine case of linkspamming by an overenthusiastic newbie seeking to promote a cause he supports, trying to impose a change against the interim consensus represented by seven other users (including three admins). We see this sort of thing many times every day.

However, I personally did not reject the external links on ideological grounds or merely to "punish" Mista-X for the linkspamming manner in which he tried to introduce them; I believed they were not worthy of inclusion on their own merits, and engaged in discussions with him about this at his talk page well before AndyL got involved.

It is worth noting however, that this content or editing dispute is just that: a content dispute. Deciding whether to keep or include an external link is no different than deciding to keep or include any other edit to a Wikipedia article: a consensus based on good-faith discussion. AndyL, however, makes some extraordinary claims whereby, in effect, the inclusion of almost any external link into any article can almost never be challenged or reverted. This is an example of an invented "Wikipedia policy" that is entirely the product of his own imagination; more on this later.

AndyL's actions[edit]

  • Protecting the page was not even justified in the first place. The claimed justification was "edit war". There had been a total of only four reverts (over two days), and there had been a civil exchange of messages at User talk:Mista-X, User talk:Curps, User talk:TheGrza, hardly the definition of a rapid-fire out-of-control disruptive edit war that requires page protection. Moreover, Mista-X had just used up his third revert; the existing "edit war" was over for the rest of the day. AndyL could have used this time to talk; instead he placed a protect that, objectively, had no justification.
  • AndyL was already effectively a party to the editing dispute. Considering the global editing dispute (across 14 different pages) as a whole, AndyL had already gotten involved nearly two hours before he protected The Matrix, by his reverts to several other pages at 15:08–15:09. His revert of The Matrix after protecting it (a violation of the rules) and his very hotly partisan comments at Talk:The Matrix#MIM_review leave little doubt about his motivation: he wanted to impose his preferred version. It is against protection policy to use protection if your intention is to get your way in an editing dispute (or, as in this case, if you are already involved in one). It's even worse if you try to do this in the face of an evident consensus against you, as was the case here.
  • AndyL reverted a page after he himself protected it. The record leaves absolutely no doubt he did this; he even intentionally used a misleading edit summary ("protected") to describe his revert. Astonishingly, he simply will not admit this, instead complaining bitterly and endlessly about my actions to undo his wrongful action.
  • In doing all of the above, AndyL went against a clear interim consensus. He could see that seven users including three admins had reverted Mista-X's edits across fourteen pages (he must have been aware of this, because he had already reverted some of those fourteen pages earlier). At The Matrix, specifically, he could see that three users including two admins had reverted Mista-X's edits. This should at least have given him pause; rather than re-ignite an edit war he should have taken it to talk (the record shows he had exchanged some messages at User talk:TheGrza just before his 15:08–15:09 reverts, but he had not talked to any of the other six users, and he did not post his first message to Talk:The Matrix until 17:03 [18], after he protected the page). Consensus is not the be-all-and-end-all, but it is a fairly important guideline to prevent chaos in an encyclopedia that anyone can edit (Wikipedia:Consensus). Normally if you see a clear consensus against you, experienced and responsible Wikipedia users will back off gracefully for a time out, taking it to talk and discussing vigorously; otherwise, every single editing disagreement would turn into an edit war. What you don't do is stubbornly persist in continuing to edit against a prevailing consensus. This is a classic newbie mistake, hardly what one would expect from an experienced admin with 16,000+ edits under his belt. (Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits). Thus even a mere revert would have been ill-advised under the circumstances, until a thorough discussion; the combination of protect-and-revert, in order to try to get one's way against a clearly prevailing interim consensus, was simply the action of a rogue admin.

I would not have had a problem if AndyL or anyone else reverted and then protected an article in exceptional circumstances, for instance something similar to the recent Time Cube-related edits to Greenwich Mean Time: a single disruptive anon repeatedly reverting many, many times against a clear consensus and using multiple dynamic IPs and unresponsive after many attempts to engage him in talk page discussion. I would consider that a common sense approach to dealing with a form of vandalism. However, nothing remotely resembling such exceptional circumstances was present here.

  • Imaginary policies and arbitrary self-justification
    • "The reverts, as far as I can see, have been carried out without any discussion in the Talk pages which seems to me to be a violation of wikipedia policy" [19]. First of all, AndyL is knowingly not being truthful here. He himself left messages at User talk:TheGrza beginning at 14:55 [20]; he could not possibly have missed Mista-X's messages just above his own, representing half of a discussion, with the other half being TheGrza's replies at User talk:Mista-X. Had he proceeded to User talk:Mista-X, he would have seen messages from Boothy443 and myself (Curps). Second, there is no such policy. It is a courtesy to explain oneself in talk, or to explain in an edit summary, but the very existence of the "rollback" button (which reverts without explanation) shows there is no such formal policy. This is one of many "policies" AndyL simply invents.
    • "Further, the reversions don't seem to be based on any wikipedia policy..." [21]. "I've yet to see a good argument, based on wikipolicy, for removing the links." [22] AndyL seems to imply that it is necessary to cite some formal Wikipedia policy with every edit or modification that trims something that a previous editor added, particularly if it is an external link. This is nonsense; again, something he has invented. When given the example of a "film review" from Stormfront and asked whether it ought to be added too [23] [24], he replied that "we would not link to the Stormfront review because Stormfront is a hate site with offensive material (which is also illegal in some countries)" [25]. He is contradicting himself here; there is no such Wikipedia policy (and therefore, if we actually needed to cite policy before removing any external link, even links such as these could in fact never be removed). Wikipedia not only links to content that may be illegal in some countries, it hosts it (autofellatio images). And there is no formal policy against links to racist sites, because it would be almost impossible to enforce objectively or sensibly (think of the brouhaha in the 1970s over a UN resolution equating Zionism to racism; think of a link to a work by Mark Twain which uses the "n-word" or to a site that quotes poetry by Rudyard Kipling including "White Man's Burden"... such books have been removed from public school libraries; think of a thousand ethnic conflicts around the world... Turks, Armenians, Kurds, even Germans and Poles, where we would be asked to judge who is being racist to whom). In fact, other than a general admonition at Wikipedia:Copyrights against linking to sites that infringe copyright (on grounds of contributory infringement and making Wikipedia look bad), there is no wikipolicy for links. We simply rely on the collective wisdom and common sense of all of our editors. Thus, taken literally, AndyL's invented claim that no external link can be reverted without citing some "policy" is equivalent to saying practically no external links can be removed, ever.
    • "If agreement cannot be reached than the parties should seek mediation, not enforcement of a majority view through superior firepower." [26] This is simply AndyL's self-serving description of a consensus against him. He is also implying there had been no prior discussion, which is false, as discussed earlier. As for mediation, it works best when it is one-to-one; in a many-versus-few case (or seven-to-two, to be precise), it is much more difficult to reach a mediated settlement acceptable to each of so many different parties (who may have reached the same conclusion from very different viewpoints, and may disagree about appropriate remedies and solutions). However, mediation should not even be necessary in such a case because the very existence of the "many" indicates the presence of a consensus; that is, mediation should not be a ploy to try to avoid acknowledging a consensus against you. I pointed out the above to AndyL [27] [28], and offered instead to go to mediation with him on the specific protect/revert issue between the two of us that is the now the subject of this RfC (and his counter-RfC). He simply ignored my reply (including the latter offer), and in later messages simply kept asking "why do you oppose mediation?" [29] and "Why do you fear mediation?" [30]
    • When challenged point-blank about his revert of the page which he himself had protected, he was evasive and attempted to invent a novel justification: "I didn't "edit" the page. I had meant to protect Mista-X's page in order to ensure that those who objected to it brought their objections to Talk." [31] and "There would have been no incentive for going to the Talk pages had I protected the version you prefer" [32] [33]. This is self-serving and insulting, part of his attempt to portray those who disagree with him as unwilling to discuss, and therefore justifying (in his own mind) his intention to ignore consensus. His intentionally misleading edit summary ("protected") for his 17:35 revert is part of this deception; he is somehow trying to pretend that he applied "protection" to the article at 17:35 (and not 16:59 or 17:01), and goes on to bitterly attack me (Curps) for undoing his illegal protect-and-revert, complaining that I should not edit a protected article while never once admitting he had done so himself.
    • He bitterly complains endlessly I had no right to undo his illegal protect-and-revert. This is simply false. In principle, any admin can undo what any other admin does (whether removing a block or unprotecting a page); indeed, this is an important part of the checks and balances, and serves to prevent a rogue admin from getting away with wrongful actions. However, most of the time that this happens, it takes place in a non-contentious way; after all, one of the important criteria for selecting admins is their ability to work well with other users and other admins, their ability to use their powers wisely... an important part of which is a willingness to work towards, and to respect consensus.
    • Finally, AndyL repeatedly claims that voting is not acceptable: "The suggestion that this should be settled through a vote reveals an ignorance of wikipedia practice and policies." [34] The ignorance is his: one of the recognized steps at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution is "conduct a survey". Voting is routinely done to decide whether to delete an entire article (at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion); it is simply absurd to suggest that it could not be done to decide whether to remove a mere external link. Voting is not a substitute for discussion, and is more of a last resort than a first resort; but if one side will simply not acknowledge a consensus against it, it may be necessary to conduct a vote to numerically demonstrate or determine this consensus.
    • Finally, Wikipedia is not a link repository (Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). There are 281 film reviews of The Matrix at IMDB; not all could possibly be included as external links. Editing is a basic part of how Wikipedia functions; some edits add content and some trim content; external links are no different in this respect. The debate over "nofollow" showed that many editors consider the external links section to represent almost an endorsement of sorts by Wikipedia as to quality or notability or usefulness; many felt that external links included in Wikipedia "deserved" to have their Google rank boosted (I don't necessarily agree with this, but this did reflect the opinions of many who contributed to the "nofollow" debate). When it comes to deciding which external links to include, Wikipedia collectively can be as selective as we wish. While taking into account all opinions and allowing for due discussion, ultimately, if there is a consensus not to include a particular external link, then out it goes; and if a vote is necessary to demonstrate such a consensus, then so be it. No imaginary wikipolicy is needed; no such wikipolicy exists.


In summary, AndyL has shown several disturbing tendencies: he broke a couple of basic principles of protection policy: he reverted a page he himself protected, and he protected the page without justification as a partisan abuse of admin powers, in a global editing dispute (across 14 articles) he was arguably already a party to, in order to try to impose his view against an evident 7-2 interim consensus against him. Furthermore, besides breaking existing policies, he invents non-existent policies and accuses those who disagree with him of not following these imaginary policies; he falsely states that there had been no discussion prior to his protecting the page, when he knew this not to be true. He shows a complete disregard and contempt for consensus; he simply will not settle for anything less than getting his own way. These are not the actions of a mature and responsible admin. Wikipedia does not operate according to his arbitrary desires and wishful thinking. He should be admonished to conduct himself more responsibly in the future, in a manner more appropriate for an admin. Otherwise, he will not be worthy to wield the powers he has abused in this incident.

-- Curps 18:23, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Powers misused[edit]

  • Protection (log]):
  1. The Matrix

Applicable policies[edit]

  1. Do not edit or revert a temporarily protected page except to add a protected page notice, a link to Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute or Wikipedia:NPOV dispute, or a similar disclaimer about the current state of an article, unless there is widespread agreement that the page was protected in violation of these policies.--Reverted to Mista-X's version of the article after protection.
  2. Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over--Became involved in edit dispute on Mista-X's behalf after protecting it; far from being an impartial administrator.
  3. Consider encouraging a resolution between the disputing parties--Instead of doing this, he took the side of Mista-X. This is unsurprising, since he came to the article at the request of Mista-X, showing a far from impartial orientation.
  4. Remove {{protected}} from the top of an unprotected page and make mention of the removal in the edit summary--after three days, protection remains (clarification: AndyL has failed to remove the protection tag after three days of continuous protection. Protection is considered harmful.)
  5. In addition, admins should avoid favoring one version of the article over another, unless one version is vandalism.--Neither version was vandalism, and AndyL clearly favored Mista-X's version over the version favored by Curps, UtherSRG, and TheGrza.

The protection policy broadly states that administrators who protect a page should be neutral parties in any of the editing disputes taking place. AndyL has failed this. Instead, he has abused his sysop power to intervene in this dispute on one side, at that side's request. He has acted in continuously bad faith in an organized attempt to promote a particular POV on Wikipedia.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute[edit]

(provide diffs and links)

  1. Talk:The Matrix
  2. User talk:AndyL

Users certifying the basis for this dispute[edit]

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. — Phil Welch 18:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC), recertified 20:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. — TheGrza 19:34, 28 Apr 2005, recertified 21:15, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  3. — Curps 18:23, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"Recertification" indicated assent to Curps' edits to this page, and was not strictly required, as certification is only necessary for the basis of the dispute, not the wording of the RfC. After updating the timestamps on my signature and that of TheGrza to indicate this assent, AndyL made the false claim that this RfC had not been certified in time. In response, I returned the original timestamps of the certifications while noting when each editor assented to Curps' addendum. — Phil Welch 22:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this statement[edit]

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. — ugen64 01:00, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. AndyL shouldn't have edited while The Matrix was protected and shouldn't have later protected it one minute after posting his preferred version. -- Netoholic @ 14:22, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Response[edit]

I object to Philwelch changing the complaint after it's already been certified and after I've already written a response. It's absurd to now have two "versions" to contend with. I don't believe this is appropriate, acceptable, or that such an act has been accepted in the past in RFCs and I suggest that, in essence, the RFC has been invalidated. Accordingly, I am removing my response.AndyL 20:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Phil has posted the following on my talk page:

"The dispute's been settled and I've backed off. Get over yourself. — Phil Welch 21:57, 1 May 2005 (UTC)"

I assume this means the RFC is being withdrawn. AndyL 22:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Phil now says:

"I don't believe it's useful to continue this dispute. The matter has certainly not been resolved. However, I am no longer interested in *actively* pursuing the issue. My certification of the RfC remains, and even if I removed it, I wouldn't have the power to withdraw it because it's been certified by two other users. This is my last word on the issue: do not bother responding."

Phil initiated the dispute. He now says he does not believe it's useful to continue it but he's not going to remove certification. What a mess!AndyL 22:14, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The top of this page reads: "The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted."

According to the certification section this RFC was certified at 20:06 on May 1st which is more than 48 hours after the complaint was initiated (almost 74 hours, actually). That would mean the RFC has, in fact, *not* been certified within the required time and should be deleted. AndyL 22:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

After I made the comment above someone played around with the certification times and invented the concept of "recertification" in an attempt to falsify this page in order to deal with my criticism.AndyL 21:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

" After updating the timestamps on my signature and that of TheGrza to indicate this assent, AndyL made the false claim that this RfC had not been certified in time"

Phil removed the original certification timestamps and added new ones which were dated after the required 48 hour certification period. Of course he also removed the original complaint after it had been certified. I think editors would do well to famiairise themselves with how to conduct an RFC in order to avoid botched jobs such as this one. I'm sorry Phil but there is no such thing as "recertification" - you plain made it up in a post facto attempt to legitimise what happened here - just as it's not acceptable practice to rewrite and RFC after its been certified. AndyL 02:00, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view[edit]

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign.}

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Discussion[edit]

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.

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