Administrator's aren't perfect(adapted from a post from the proposed decision talk, with segments reposted from my own arbitration case)
As an administrator
I didn't do unblock reviews very often, but
I did tend to address difficult cases. So
I cannot estimate how common these types of mistake are. In both of these cases there were weeks of delay before
I was contacted, although
I had been a blocking admin or principal investigator. No RFC, let alone arbitration, came under consideration in either instance.
* LionheartX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) A tangled situation that had been wrong for two months when
I found it and that
I set right in two weeks. The editor used multiple accounts legitimately, but both of the others were already indeffed. One of the previous indefs had been done by mistake as a WP:SOCK violation and two unblock requests on that other account had been denied.[106][107][108] Full analysis is here.
o What actually happened: an editor got misidentified as a ban-evading sockpuppet, and blocked indefinitely. Actually the editor had started a new account because he lost the password on his old account, and the indef on that old account was just a procedural courtesy. That got mistaken for a ban so his legitimate new account got indeffed too (this is a summary version of the longer analysis linked above).
o Administrators who were mistaken:
o Mackensen
o Bishonen
o Pgk
o Doc glasgow
* Compare the above examples to how
I handled this request from an IP[109][110] who had been blocked by mistake a month earlier by a different administrator[111] and whose two unblock requests had already been denied.
I restored editing privileges and extended apologies on behalf of my fellow administrators for the failure of the normal review system.[112] The editor thanked me for helping.[113]
o What actually happened: a productive editor got swept up in the Joan of Arc vandal sock blocks. He didn't even agree with the Joan of Arc vandal's POV, but he sometimes used edit summaries a little bit like that vandal. He claims to be an Australian medical doctor, and based upon the level of expertise that informs his contributions that looks like a credible assertion. Took him a month to find me and request a third review, and by then he had really soured on Wikipedia.
o Administrators who were mistaken:
o JzG
o Redvers
o Steve block
All of the above administrators are experienced sysops in good standing, and a sitting member of the Committee that weighs this case is among them. Good faith mistakes do happen, especially under unusual circumstances. Given enough time and enough log entries, nearly any sysop who actually uses the tools will accumulate some errors. Wikipedia's traditional response to this has been to weigh the administrator's willingness to learn from mistakes, except in extreme instances such as wheel warring or deleting the main page. While the loss of a potentially productive editor is distressing (
I was particularly disappointed to see the way Cwiki was handled), please balance that concern with respect for volunteers with proven track records of thousands of edits and long service to the project. DurovaCharge! 17:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Notice how 90% of her 'evidence' is basically just bigging herself up and has no relevance to the case.