Note: This is a page preping and compiling information for a future request for Arbcomm to remove adminship of a user (such an act is, as stated on the Arbcomm page, not needed to of gone thru previous routes). This page is just here to assist in compiling all the overwhelming and spread out evidence. When compiling is near done all involved parties will be notified properly. This page is not an attempt to collect the evidence and throw it on the party unsuspectingly without giving them proper time to respond. They will be notified properly and are welcome to go ahead and post the response they will use here and it will be carried over to the Arbcomm page once ready. If you got here thru a link on your or an article talk page we were not canvassing for support or non-support, but trying to make sure any and all parties who may plausibly be involved are aware of all intentions.
As of now, plans are to send to arbcomm on Saturday, April 26th. If any involved parties would like to speed up or delay process for any particular reason please discuss on sandbox talk page.
Request for Arbitration/User:William M. Connolley
Initiated by Hooper (talk) at 05:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Involved parties
- Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
- [[1]]
- Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
- This is a request for removal of adminiship powers, and as such does not go thru other steps, though examples of his actions being brought up and discussed ([2]) ([3]) ([4]) , and RfCs (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley), (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley 2) have been done. It is also evident that the party is aware of all previous incidents and keeps a link to them in his userspace ([5]).
Statement by User:HooperBandP
The user in question, User:William M. Connolley, is an administrator on Wikipedia. The conduct in question is possible improper protecting of articles, followed by edits that may not be NPOV. ([6]) ([7]) ([8]). Additionaly, it may be possible that he has blocked or threatens to block any objective editors ([9]) ([10]). He has been asked about his faith and intentions when doing this ([11]), even by other administrators([12]). Three administrators have even found him in violation of blocking policy ([13]). History has shown on wikipedia that administers found to have violated the blocking policy less than William was found have lost their Admin privelages ([14]). Even on occasions where the article in question is not protected, he has possibly used excessive force in editing without consulting the talk page discussion which is usually debating edits at the same time ([15]). He has been warned on this issues many times ([16]) but appears to continue to work in the same manner. As an editor, I feel as though William is very knowledgeable in the areas of Wikipedia he spends most his time in, and has the best at heart for articles, but his admin powers have allowed him to improperly circumvent the proper channels in article content disputes. I feel as though if he did not have these powers, and continued to be an editor, he would have to follow procedure and his input in content discussions could lead to much better articles overall.
Statement by User:William M. Connolley
Statements by Involved Parties
Statement by User:I Write Stuff
You can see the current RFC on William Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley_2 this information is a step by step guide through it:
- Violation of Protection Policy
- William protecting State terrorism and the United States now titled Allegations of state terrorism by the United States: [17]
- Removing large instances of content which is not BLP or Copyright violations: 15K in text all together. [18]
- William then reduces the protection to semi-protection: [19]
- Violation of Blocking Policy
- William later removes over 30% of the article [20]
- The information was readded since William never attempted to seek consensus, the revert was by Supergreenred: [21]
- William then blocks Supergreenred: [22]
- To be fair, I will note later Supergreenred was found to be a sockpuppet, however William was not aware of this at the time, making it a blocking violation. The exact reason given is "tendentious editing" and the post on Supergreenred's talk page never mentioned him being a sockpuppet: [23]
- Violation of Blocking Policy #2
- Following Williams removal of over 60K worth of additional text, other editors began reverting in protest
- RedPenOfDoom: [24] with the edit summary: 1 protest reversion -William Connely's edits were not concensus (and were not for POV)
- BernardL: [25] with the edit summary: reverting once, in protest (as per talk)
- Travb\Inclusionist then commited 3 reverts: [26] [27][28] in his third revert he is stating he will seek page protection.
- William then blocks Travb\Inclusionist: [29] which is clearly against the blocking policy. [30]
- Following Williams removal of over 60K worth of additional text, other editors began reverting in protest
Just to add a brief point. In the RfC I was seeking some kind on injunction against William from editing this particular article as his abuses, as far as I knew, were just in relation to this article. Williams reply to the RfC was actually gross misstatements. For instance:
- "Blocking supergreenred, an abusive sockpuppet, was obviously sensible."
- However he did not block Supergreenred for being an abusive sock, nor know Supergreenred was one at the time.
- "And - gasp - I unprotected the page when it was on my "favoured" version. Obviously grossly promoting my own POV by, err, allowing other people to change it."
- However the issue was never protection, it was editing the article while it was protected, and not within the permitted confines, to remove a BLP violation or a copyright violation. He also blocked 2 of the 4 people who later reverted him, apparently not allowing other people to change it.
Statement by User:FellGleaming
Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.