A story for your guy's thoughts (pardon the length I just want it to be clear):
I am extremely disappointed by wikipedia. I'm a relatively new user (about a year or so). Ive written about 99% of one article, 50% on a dozen or so and minor edits on probably a hundred other pages. Silly me I thought to try and improve the site by taking a turn at stopping vandals. In doing what I always did over a period of weeks I made sure adequate warnings were always given to obvious vandals before notifying the admin vandal board. On one such page, an ip user was frequently testing message templates on an article. They were almost all incorrectly made and usually the same in all of his 10 edits. I was one of four registered users to undo his edits over a short period. Noticing only one warning on his talk page had been given, on my first undo I gave him a second, on my second undo his third and my third his fourth. The user undid it again with a similar nonconstructive edit so I did nothing further to his talk page or the article and ventured over to put a notice on the admin vandal board. I got a conflict edit post. As it turns out, the conflicting editor was someone placing my name on the same list for being a vandal! I didn't think much of it figuring it was a silly mistake the admin would catch. But then I got a block for what I later found out was the 3RR rule and my rollback privs stripped. I had no warnings at all on my talk page until later when the reporting user placed one there after I was already blocked. A little out of order. In an unblock request I said I was stopping vandals and this did nothing. Completely confused, after my block was over and after some reading on the rules, I began having fun (I'll admit it) seeing how best I could get a ban (without vandalizing cause I can't condone that) with the idea that vandals routinely get four warnings, vandalize again and never get a block. These warning edits of mine included "assume good faith" warnings on the admin that didn't undo my block and the person the placed my name on the vandal board to begin with. I even placed my own name on the vandal board for banning recommend twice
Unbanned and even more confused, I got a message from an admin telling me to let it go and stop acting like an idiot. Well idiot or not I wasn't about to be called one by an admin on a site based about supposed neutrality and civility. I reported his name calling as an incident knowing admin would only back him up and they did, however, I got an apology out of the same admin which is more than I ever expected. Back to what I was really concerned with was the block. I eventually found out that the same name calling admin is the same admin that wrote at least part of the very 3RR rule to begin with. Conflict of interest as far as I'm concerned. I found out that the rollback feature takes less bandwidth than regular undos so admin intentionally equips users originally with bandwidth clogging tools. Lastly, I found out written in this bogus 3RR rule that basically you can be not only blocked without warning with the 3RR but you don't even have to have broken it. What kind of absurd rule is that? That explains my block b/c I did not exceed three condecutive redos. As I write this now I just received a message from a different admin a day and a half later stating that perhaps the block was excessive, that the reviewing admin should have looked more closely at the records of my edits, that technically I didnt break the 3RR rule and if anything I should have been given a warning. Again a little out of order and late. So, I guess I thought Id submit for your guy's thoughts the admin name call (cheesy I know but an admin calling names?), the 3RR rule that you don't need to break to still break, the admin refusal to take back a block even in the face of irrefutable vandalism and my history of never having disputes with anyone and admin intentionally hoarding a tool that could save bandwidth. How much bogus blocking is being done?Mike
