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A long-banned user, Patrick Watt, who also uses the name Dr. Anonymous1, has requested for his permanent ban to end. The request can be found at community:Thread:418036. He was blocked on a number of different occasions at Tardis, as his talk page will make clear. What gave him a permanent ban was the fact that he created the sock puppet, Dr. Anonymous1, in direct violation of not only T:SOCK, but also a personal warning that I gave him on his talk page. As can be seen from reading his talk page sequentially, I warned him that creating a sock puppet would earn him a permanent ban, but he did it anyway. There was therefore no choice but to permanently block him. I should point out, too, that he's one of the few people to be actually chat banned as well as edit banned — and the two incidents were totally unrelated.
This is a guy, in other words, with a widely checkered past with us. And generally, T:SOCK is kinda the one unforgivable sin, not just at Tardis, but also at Wikipedia, Wookieepedia, and lots of other -pedias in between. The fact that he has written a cogent apology and become an admin at another wiki in the intervening months does, however, justify a review of his situation.
I am currently undecided as to whether to remove the ban. On the one hand, Patrick Watt is young, and we all make the mistakes of youth. On the other hand, he has a history of making mistakes, fully apologising for them, then deliberately making them again. So I dunno whether he's actually learned anything or not. I also have to wonder whether he's trying to get unbanned simply because there are certain Wikia functions denied you if you're banned — like trying to adopt other wikis. He claims not to, but it's a response of "not really" instead of a cold "no". Obviously, I'm concerned that he's just trying to get unbanned so that he can have a "clean record". But I have no proof that he's attempting anything so cynical.
A couple of references to look at:
- His contributions in the user talk namespace at Zim Wiki, just to check improvements in the level of social maturity
- the talk page of MarioGalaxy2433g5, an admin at w:c:metroid, with whom Dr. Anonymous1 has had dealings on a number of issues.
So the question is whether we should grant his request for, as he put it, "redemption". Has he done enough bad that we're throwing away the key? Should we let him back on a very tight probation, so that if he commits another offense, he's gone for good? Should we "commute" him to "time-served" and just fully welcome him back into the community? I think there's an argument for all of these responses, so I invite your comments below.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:38: Tue 14 Aug 2012
- I don't like the idea of refusing to give some one a "second" chance if is requested after enough time for them to have been able to alter their behaviour, but I definately don't side with the opinion that a clean slate should be given. If we are to allow this user back onto the wiki then it should be with a very tight probation and his edits should be patrolled thouroughly. --Revan\Talk 22:44, August 14, 2012 (UTC)
Just a point of factual clarification, likely mostly for the benefit of Josiah Rowe, who doesn't know this guy at all. This would in fact be well beyond a "second chance", which is likely why Revan put the word second in quotes. You can see by looking at his talk page how many narrow misses he had with the guillotine. But he's actually been blocked three times. Miraculously, he managed to violate policy even while blocked, so he got blocked while he was blocked. Twice. Here's the rap sheet:
- 05:47, 2011 December 18 CzechOut (Talk | contribs | block) changed block settings for Patrick Watt (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of infinite (account creation disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (sock puppetry attempted with user:Dr. Anonymous1; user warned not to sock puppet on talk page; infinite ban std punishment for this.) (unblock | change block)
- 14:45, 2011 December 9 CzechOut (Talk | contribs | block) changed block settings for Patrick Watt (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 15 January 2012 (account creation disabled) (Adding 15 days to block time for page blanking, violation of T:VAN, see user talk:Patrick Watt#No page blanking) (unblock | change block)
- 13:08, 2011 December 8 CzechOut (Talk | contribs | block) blocked Patrick Watt (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 1 January 2012 (account creation disabled) (Repeated violations of same policy. That policy is -->: tardis:signature policy, tardis:discussion policy, threatened blatant violation of tardis:vandalism policy and tardis:deletion policy at talk:Dalek. See [[user talk:Patrick Watt) (unblock | change block)
- As you say, I don't know this guy at all. If I have a chance to look over the edits on the other wiki, I will, but for now I'm content to go along with whatever you all decide. —Josiah Rowe 02:44, August 15, 2012 (UTC)
- I tend to favour giving anyone a second chance (or fourth chance in this case), especially as much time has passed since the ban.
- Looking at his contributions at other wikis and the language in those contributions he seems matured.
- The fact he's gone to the trouble of requesting an unblock either means he's really desperate to vandalise our wiki or he really wants to edit. If it's the former there's dozens of ways to get around a block if all your want to do is vandalise.
- Unblocking to get a "clean record" doesn't really work as it's still in the logs, and he managed to become an admin even while banned from Tardis.
- We have to accept that young and new users are going to make mistakes when editing and when editing something you're passionate about you're going to feel your temper rise on occasion and make big mistakes when that happens.
- So I would favour return and on a tight probation. Let's watch his edits when he returns and if there's another stream of bad / policy violating edits then I think we should block him permanently. --Tangerineduel / talk 16:11, August 15, 2012 (UTC)
- Again, just as a matter of semantic clarity, "clean record" means here that he would not be currently blocked on Wikia, making him eligible for "goodies" within the Wikia network, such as the ability to adopt other wikis. It might be in the record — it's in the record that Skittles, Mini-mitch and I were blocked at Doctor Who Answers — but we're now considered "clean" by the Wikia Staff. I wasn't speaking, in other words, about an expunged record.
- That bit of minutiae out of the way, I wonder if you could clarify your point, TD. You're saying "a string of errors" would end up in him being truly permabanned, and my original suggestion was that any single violation would result in the same. If we do bring 'im back, it's gotta be clear what the terms are. My suggestion is easier to administrate, but it may be too harsh. Your way would seem to require too much of a judgement call — what, precisely, is a "string"? So maybe we can tighten up the language to be "any violation of anything about which he's been warned at least once, or whose policy page he's been pointed to?" At the core of his misbehaviour is that he was told not to do something, yet he did it anyway. That's what needs to stop, not necessarily ignorance of a relatively minor part of the MOS. Maybe we should just let him back, but immediately point his attention to the policies of greatest import: no personal attacks, image policy, video policy, chat policy, spoiler policy, and a few others. Then he'll have been adequately warned about "the biggies" and we'll be very clear what's going on.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 17:02: Wed 15 Aug 2012
- That bit of minutiae out of the way, I wonder if you could clarify your point, TD. You're saying "a string of errors" would end up in him being truly permabanned, and my original suggestion was that any single violation would result in the same. If we do bring 'im back, it's gotta be clear what the terms are. My suggestion is easier to administrate, but it may be too harsh. Your way would seem to require too much of a judgement call — what, precisely, is a "string"? So maybe we can tighten up the language to be "any violation of anything about which he's been warned at least once, or whose policy page he's been pointed to?" At the core of his misbehaviour is that he was told not to do something, yet he did it anyway. That's what needs to stop, not necessarily ignorance of a relatively minor part of the MOS. Maybe we should just let him back, but immediately point his attention to the policies of greatest import: no personal attacks, image policy, video policy, chat policy, spoiler policy, and a few others. Then he'll have been adequately warned about "the biggies" and we'll be very clear what's going on.
- Yes, let him back and inform him that if he violates the big policies; spoiler, image, video and the communication and interaction ones user/talk/discussion/no personal attacks. Then he'll be blocked.
- Any of the other policies and the MoS he'll get a single warning and then a block. Also, just to be clear, he can't get warnings for all the other policies and the MoS individually and then be blocked. He will be warned about say an MoS issue and then if he violates the plagiarism policy he'll still get blocked.
- If he's eager to return then I think he should understand a majority of the policies. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:52, August 16, 2012 (UTC)
- Seems fair enough. -<Azes13 20:10, August 16, 2012 (UTC)
As we head into the final two days of this discussion, it seems to me that a clear consensus for alloing his return, under tight monitoring, is emerging. I've no objection to that. However, I'm placing the additional stipulation that he request the disabling of user:Patrick Watt, since the dual accounts earned him the block in the first place. He has submitted such a request already. Once it becomes apparent that Wikia have globally blocked him, I'll unblock him and write the "terms of re-entry" on his talk page. If they do not suspend the Patrick Watt account by Tuesday — which is possible because Wikia staff are pretty swamped at the moment with the MW 1.19 upgrade — he'll have to wait for unblocking until they do.
If anyone has any lingering doubts about this plan, they have until Tuesday to make their opposition known.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 03:38: Sun 19 Aug 2012
- Wikia have disabled this account so, barring any late objections, this user will have his editing powers restored sometime soon after 19:38 Tuesday (UTC).
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 17:26: Sun 19 Aug 2012
Closing[[edit source]]
Hearing no objection by the appointed hour, I note that, by a vote of 5-0, and the abstention of others who were invited but decided not to participate, Dr. Anonymous1 is ordered returned to the community of editors under the strict guidelines which shall be set forth at user talk:Dr. Anonymous1. Patrick Watt shall remain locally blocked, even though the account is globally blocked, because there are extraordinary cases in which Wikia have re-enabled accounts that have been closed.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:38: Tue 21 Aug 2012