Requests for comment/Croatian Wikipedia - User:Dalibor Bosits case

The following request for comments is closed. The cause for this RfC to be filed, the imminent procedure to desysop Dalibor Bosits clearly is no longer imminent or has failed to archieve consensus and, as the user retains sysop status to this day, 4 years later, and MayaSimFan is currently a bureaucrat. I am glad everything seems to have turned out for the better and that there is nothing for us to act on. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 12:53, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

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Hi. We have serious issue on Croatian wikipedia and we need experts help to clarify some basic principles of wikipedia.

Few days ago, hr-wiki admin Dalibor Bosits proposed Bureaucrat status for MayaSimFan. According to Dalibor, he tried to privately discuss this idea with some high-influence members of admin comunity, but since his idea was refused, he decided to let the community decide: hr:Wikipedija:Administratori/Prijedlozi za administratore/MayaSimFan. Maya won comunity support with 28:1 result.

But, soon after that, 2 exisiting bureaucrats (SpeedyGonsales and Roberta F.) and some admins started to exert serious pressure on Dalibor because of acting alone, and soon after that, admin Suradnik13 filed a request for de-admining Dalibor: hr:Wikipedija:Administratori/Prijedlozi za administratore/Dalibor Bosits. Some arguments used in discussion could be, as I see it, seen as an emotional blackmail to the community, since Suradnik13 threatened to leave wikipedia if Dalibor doesn't loose its adminship (Suradnik13 blocked himself yesterday). Both bureaucrats sides with Suradnik13, along with some other admins. Some other admins, and some users, privately expressed concerns for situation, but none of them decided to act publicly.

It is important to note that none of the admins ever complained to Dalibor's behaviour on his talk page, and I, as a member of admin's mailing list, can testify that I have never heard any complaints on him either on mailing list or in private communication with other admins.

At the moment, there are 9 votes for de-admining and 6 votes for keeping adminship. It is also very important to note that some users voting for de-admining explicitely wrote that they never had any issue with Dalibor, not they are aware that any admin has any issues with him, but that they decided to side with bureaucrats "for the sake of unity".

Some users expresser their support for keeping Dalibor's adminship in comments section, but still decided not to vote.

Yesterday, elected bureaucrat MayaSimFan decided to refuse its candidacy, despite landslide 28:1 victory in pro votes. Today, bureaucrat SpeedyGonsales implicitely called Dalibor to volunteraly give up his admins status, comparing him with Maya who, according to Speedy "has more character".

The question for stuarts here is:

Does this process against Dalibor follows wikipedia's rules and spirit and can Dalibor's adminship be revoked based on the results on this votes?

--Ante Perkovic 09:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

First, there are no general rules on this kind of issues. Every community must manage these things internally. But, from my point of view, the community decided to have MayaSimFan as a bureaucrat, and if the existing bureaucrats refuse to accept that, they should resign rather than the person who proposed MayaSimFan's candidacy. On the other hand, if the community decides that Dalibor should lose his admin buttons, we (as stewards) have to abide by that and to remove it - we can't overrule this voting in any way. So if you don't want him to lose his admin status, you will have to convince the community that he didn't do something too wrong. I think, however, it was not such a good idea to talk to "high-influence members" of the community first. He should have brought the candidacy directly to the community, but that's nothing someone should lose the admin status for. --Thogo (talk) 09:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

You didn't fully understand the absurdity of situation. Regarding "high-influence members" - he proposed the idea to one of the bureaucrats because he didn't wanted to act alone. If he didn't, the problem would be much bigger. Going to the comunity first is basicaly the reason for de-admining!

BTW, what is requested percentage for this process to be effective? --Ante Perkovic 10:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Are there any specified rules/guidelines/instructions for de-sysop on hr.wiki? Out from those rules, is it possible that votes in favor of desysop just for the "sake of unity" may be disregarded? Personally I can not see that as sufficient arguments for de-sysop, but then again: it's all about the local wiki's rules. My advice would be to read the guidelines thoroughly to see if the wording there can help you in any way. If not, you should point out the lackings in the guidelines, propose changes to them and therefore request that the de-sysop request should be postponed due to guideline discussions. That is my personal opinion (: --EivindJ 10:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

If there is no policy on the needed percentage for desysop votings, we will have to think about if the voting reflects a consensus or not. That would be difficult - given that we are not knowing your community very well, there are no Hrvatskan stewards at the moment. If there is such a policy, the problem will not arise, we will abide by that policy then. And yes, I obviously didn't understand the issue completely... Why should it be any kind of a problem to ask the community for a decision? It is simply the task of the community to decide about things like sysop-/cratship. It is not the bureaucrats who are the leaders of the community and bear the decisions - there are no such leaders, every member of the community has the same right to vote. And if some member of the community wants to be a bureaucrat then nobody else than the whole community should be asked about that. A wiki community is by no means a hierarchical community. Every member (except for blocked users, of course) is equal in decisions to be made. That some members have more userrights than others simply means they have more responsibilities and are trustworthy enough (which is again decided by the community) to handle them. --Thogo (talk) 10:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as I can fully understand the discussions at hand, I'm going to have to be quite honest here: I think Kubura is a major troll who is constantly trying to obstruct the procedures. We've already had the chance to get acquainted with Suradnik 13's behavior, so I'm not going to comment on that. To analyze the request for deadmin: Suradnik 13 claims that Dalibor's behavior on admin list significantly differs from his behavior on wiki. That is irrelevant, because admins shouldn't form a cabal and an executive admin list shouldn't exist in my opinion (only as a means for advice coordination and keeping everyone up to date). Second of all, Dalibor was accused of acting alone, without consulting other members. While consulting others over such a thing as bcrat promotion is a common courtesy, it's by no means a reason for desysopping. I believe he acted in good faith and I really trust MayaSimFan that she would be a good bureaucrat. That, of course, doesn't mean the other bureaucrats are doing a bad job (I've met all three of them, including the inactive one, personally and I can guarantee their good faith). The main reason for desysopping, however, is supposedly the mess caused by Dalibor's self-assuredness and his alleged behavior that has been constantly obstructing the hrwiki community. While I find that hard to believe (I've had only good encounters with the user), I cannot really judge, seeing as I'm not in the community. Anyhow, I find this whole charade unneeded. Kubura's obsessions and phobiae shouldn't be solved in this manner and I'm really saddened that MayaSimFan decided to step out of the procedure and that Dalibor's rights are questioned. I'll repeat that I don't have insights to most of the community's going-ons, so I can't really say whether Dalibor's desysopping procedure is warranted or not, but I can say that this wouldn't have happened if everybody assumed good faith during the RfB procedure. Bottom line, I'll echo Thogo's words. We cannot really interfere and we will obey the community decision that will be set by this request for desysopping procedure, even though one might say that the procedure shouldn't have been started in the first place. --FiliP × 10:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My answer to this personal attack ("major troll", describing me as "permanent obstructor") is here [1]. These remarks weren't OK. Please, don't distract the discussion with things that are neither tangential. Read WP:ETIQ and WP:NPA. Such remarks should not come from a steward. Thank you. Kubura 18:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Thogo, no, we do not have such de-admining rules written explicitely. I'm affraid they will be made "on the fly", by the very same people who are trying to de-admin of Dalibor. Can we argue against 50% rule (for example) here, if someone decides to implement it "on the fly"? --Ante Perkovic 10:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Why should it be any kind of a problem to ask the community for a decision?, the problem lies within hr-admin's community (I'm the second oldest admin on hr-wiki). Most admins are not very keen on accepting new admins before making sure that he/she will not act alone in the community, without gaining support for the their ideas from the majority of other admins.

In last 2 or 3 years, not one single admin just one admin^{See notes} was chosen without being proposed by exisiting admin, and those rare cases when some users independently proposed new admins failed, with high level of stress for unwanted candidates.

I long complained about such way of thinking and this issue with Dalibor, where he proposed burecr. status for respected admin, was really too much for me to keep silent about it. I also had big problems explaining this no-hierarchy idea to the community. Frankly, I'm not sure the majority od users get it.

I made great effort at our community portal to make people understand that that we all must learn to work together, even if we do not agree with each other. I asked everyone to stay. Repeatedly.

My proposal was that everyone should keep their position and make a reality-check on basic principles, but bureaucrats and some admins are so far insisting that Dalibor must go.

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ante Perkovic (talk)

I just made a proposal on hr-wiki (here)

1. Dalibor keeps his status, at least for now.
2. During next month, Dalibor will restrain for all potentialy exploding situations and redirect all those problems to other admins. He will use this time to reflect on his action and see is there anything to improve.
3. After the end of this month, Dalibor assumes his role as admin in full. All complaints on his behaviour must go to his talk page, not on email, not on IRC, not on the phone. This will keep things transparent.
4. After 3 more months, anyone may, if find necessary, organise another voting about his de-admining.
5. In those 4 months, hr-cominuty will make special rules about de-admining.

I hope the community will accept this. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ante Perkovic (talk) 11:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Ja sam prekinuo glasovanje i pozvao suradnike da se smire [2]. Andrej Šalov 20:19, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

(Andrej stopped voting and called for peace.)

Ich bitte darum, einen Blick auf die Seite von Benutzer:Ante Perkovic (A.P. at GerWiki) auf der D-Wiki zu werfen. Er ist dort auf Dauer gesperrt. Möglicherweise könnte dies ein Hinweis auf seine Streitbarkeit sein --84.176.247.223 18:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Would Thogo (or anybody else) be so kind and help with translation of comment above (and to what it links)? I got that user is permanently blocked on de wiki, but my knowledge of German is not good enough to understand why. I ask Thogo as he is sysop at de wiki, so he probably can answer question in more detail than some other user of German & English language. Thank you. 82.193.222.2 17:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The last blockreason says: "user account shut down per own request http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer_Diskussion:Ante_Perkovic&diff=prev&oldid=48969031 ". Though I personally find it a bit strange why that would need blocking.

All block reasons:

    * 15:37, 30. Jul. 2008 Seewolf (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) blocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ for the timespan: indefinit (account creation blocked) ‎ (User account shut down per own request.: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer_Diskussion:Ante_Perkovic&diff=prev&oldid=48969031) (Freigeben | Sperre ändern)
    * 17:33, 23. Jun. 2008 Sargoth (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) blocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ for the timespan: 1 month (accountcreation blocked, E-Mail-blocked) ‎ (no will for encyclopedic collaboration visible: Creates only substubs, besides that re-uptake of endless-discussions) (Freigeben | Sperre ändern)
    * 13:13, 4. Jun. 2008 Entlinkt (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) blocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ for the timespan: 2 weeks (account creation blocked) ‎ (Emergency break: Hinders since weeks more and more authors with endless-discussions, on user-talks, project-pages, with cheesiness and actions to disturb, from their work, works himself into a rage.) (Freigeben | Sperre ändern)
    * 00:27, 7. Mai 2008 J budissin (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) blocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ for the timespan: 1 day (account creation blocked) ‎ (block shortening. indefinit was too long. nevertheless time for thinking it about different point of views in different projects.) (Freigeben | Sperre ändern)
    * 00:26, 7. Mai 2008 J budissin (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) unblocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ 
    * 23:55, 6. Mai 2008 J budissin (Diskussion | Beiträge | Sperren) blocked „Ante Perkovic (Diskussion | Beiträge)“ for the timespan: indefinit (account creation blocked) ‎ (no will for encyclopedic collaboration visible: coordination of an intentional breach of regulation; discussion-resistent; editwars.) (Freigeben | Sperre ändern)

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 17:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It is extremely unfair to punish any editor in any way for consulting the community. Do the bureaucrats lack respect for the community? That is an unhealthy situation. ~ R.T.G 00:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Notes

Correction - the last admin elected was proposed for this position by hr:user:Branka France, who is not an admin. He was seen as a potential future admin by admin community at the time. --Ante Perkovic 14:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)