Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Removal/Adambro (admin)

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for de-adminship which resulted in admin rights being removed. Please do not modify it.

User:Adambro edit

It is with disappointment and sadness that I feel this is necessary. Adambro has been difficult with other users as far as consensus goes, but words turned into actions with the most recent deletion debate over the Mormon copyright infringement article, and the leaked OTRS ticket that proved such an infringement did occur. Despite journalistic ethics allowing for fair reporting from within an organization, and no other voices coming to Adambro's aid (in fact, the overwhelming consensus is to keep the article), Adambro has vowed to fight on, consensus be damned, even going as far as to war with other admins to do it.

As always, Wikinews relies on contributors who can engage - sometimes spiritedly - in discussion, and it is "no big deal" to have adminship. Yet, there have been proposals in the past to have admins work to 1RR instead of 3RR. Adambro's actions go far beyond this with at least four reverts and a "fingers-in-ears-la-la-la" attitude to advice given by other administrators. Furthermore, he abused administrator rollback twice in reverting administrators, and in total reverted against three different administrators without discussing at all. I ask that the Wikinews community consider whether such behavior is compatible with being an administrator on this site.

I'd be more forgiving and forgetting if this were an isolated incident, but with Adambro's penchant of screeching dialogues to a halt, as well as disrupting Wikinews and article space at the detriment of other writers to "win his case," I feel he's really abused the trust of the community who voted for him to begin with.

His actions do not put Wikinews first. I'm sorry, but this had to be done. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mike Halterman (talk • contribs) 11:31, 15 May 2008‎

I would very much question much of TheCustomOfLife's comments in this nomination. I have not "vowed to fight on". I have made my position clear with regards to the article that material obtained in violation of WMF OTRS rules should not be included and I don't consider "it has been leaked" be be an adequate excuse considering it was us, as Wikinews, that made this information public. Daniel has insisted that I raise my suggestions that OTRS was misused with the Communications Committee and I have done so. I have been discussion on IRC about my recent actions and have accepted that I will not continue to remove the material and am instead awaiting to hear back from ComCom. I do, and will continue to, maintain that the inclusion of this material is inappropriate through appropriate channels and this does not make be unfit to be an admin.

I'd be very irresponsible if I didn't raise legitimate concerns where I feel necessary yet I am being made an outcast for doing so. This can be illustrated by Brianmc raising the issue of me querying his use of CheckUser at Dispute Resolution. Is it really so bad to dare to question Brian's actions? It appears so.

I'd debate whether my use of rollback in reverting the addition of the material from OTRS can really be classed as an abuse of my admin rights. Clicking "undo" instead of "rollback" would have pretty much the same result.

I do not and will not hesitate to question the actions of other editors and raise concerns about articles where I see fit. I fail to see how doing so has impacted negatively on our readers. Rather, it is part of our responsibility to our readers that we ensure that we address internal issues. Whatever I have done has always been done with the best intentions for improving the project and it is a great shame that it would appear that some users have taken a disliking to me for my opposition to some of the things they have done. If this results in the removal of my admin rights then that will be very disappointing but unless I'm banned from contributing then I'm not going to simply agree with anything that is said to keep people happy and will question editors however inconvenient it might be for them to justify or explain what they've done. It is in the interests of the project and our readers that I continue to do so. Adambro (talk) 12:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This drama does not belong here, it belongs in your response to my filing of a WN:DISPUTE. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, it would be appropriate to sign a nomination for de-admin. Also, could you document with diffs where the reverts occurred or at least the page or article name. Thanks. --SVTCobra 14:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I signed under votes. I don't think it's that difficult to assume who filed the report since I said I was the nominator. The article in question is Wikimedia Foundation receives copyright infringement claim from Mormon Church. TheCustomOfLife (talk) 20:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

Support as nom. TheCustomOfLife (talk) 11:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am currently in dispute with this user. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:37, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Okay, seriously, I have no idea what any of this OTRS crap is, so I don't know if my vote has any weight, but I strongly oppose de-admining Adambro. He's doing what he thinks is best for Wikinews, even if the rest of you think he's wrong. (I'm starting to think he's wrong, but frankly I never cared much in the first place. Can we get back to writing articles instead of fighting over them, please?) Yeah, I guess we could do without the revert wars, but he naturally feels very strongly about this. Not that I support revert warring, but it's not something to get de-admined over. At least not until it becomes a severe problem, which I honestly don't think it has at this point. Removal of admin rights is a serious thing. It should not be done unless an admin is seriously harming Wikinews. So let's count the number of articles Adambro has disrupted/attempted to delete. I count 1. Now let's count the number of articles Adambro has created: 26. This is not counting the number of times he reverted vandals, protected pages, or otherwise cleaned up the site. He will not be able to do many of these things if he is no longer an admin. I have the feeling that he is being nominated for de-adminship because Wikinewsies consider him an annoyance, an obstacle, someone whose differing opinion always seems to get in the way. Wouldn't it be great if you could just get rid of things that annoy you? Oh wait, you can. This is Wikinews, where an angry mob of angry editors is given more respect than an administrator. The fact that everyone else disagrees with him does not give anyone the right to remove his admin privileges. If anything, THAT would amount to censorship (a word that is passed around too lightly these days). In b4 people proving me wrong. ~Planoneck~ 11:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support; what I saw today was unfortunately an exhibition well below the standards of decorum required to be an administrator. Suggestions that this is just an occasional thing are both without merit and irrelevant; administrators should be judged on all their actions, not just the 90% positive ones, and Adambro has a history of disrupting consensus-building through inappropriate means when participating in disputes. This was one of the worst examples I've seen in a while. He reverted on his lonesome, against expressed consensus, and continued to do so after being reverted with descriptive edit summaries and after suggestions to drop it and let the Communications Committee deal with it. Rather than following this, he continued to revert, this time using administrator rollback, and only stopped when told he would be blocked if he touched that article again. This episode shows two things: i) that Adambro's judgement is fatally flawed and not up to the stanard required; ii) that Adambro thinks and acts for himself and not for Wikinews and consensus of the community. It also strikes me as malicious payback against Brianmc after the CoS checkuser incident, a view not lessened when Adam said "I have a desire to pursue this beyond what has been said/done here on Wikinews". All-in-all, I do not believe Adambro has the consensus support of the community, as a result of ignoring them and going on an anti-consensus rampage of reverts and rollbacks for what has strong undertones of personal gain, as well as some sort of martyrdom against the current consensus forming at WN:DR against his passionate attempts to delete the article entirely. Sorry, and with regret, Daniel (talk) 11:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could you provide a link to the quote you mention please. Adambro (talk) 12:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Er, here. Your quote doesn't make sense in its entirety because you left out an "on Wikinews", after the "rather than". Daniel (talk) 12:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The full quote, which I stand by reads: ":I contacted ComCom on Daniel's insistence that I should take up my suggestion that there has been some misuse of OTRS access here with the Committee rather than because I have a desire to pursue this beyond what has been said/done here on Wikinews". With this additional context it should be clear that, in explaining my reasoning for contact ComCom, was because Daniel insisted that was the correct channel I should be using rather than because I want to pursue this issue. There never was meant to be an "on Wikinews" after the "rather than". It only doesn't make sense because you're trying to read it differently to how I've written it. Adambro (talk) 12:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I seriously cannot understand how it can be read any differently, but whatever. With or without the quote, I stand by every conclusion I came to in my initial comment. Daniel (talk) 12:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is a separation that I think is being missed here. Wikinews <> WMF. Were this someone leaking documents from another site we'd have no problem and be calling on the Foundation to support us. I've already dragged the EFF into this issue over the DR, and our article should stand. Adambro has acted as an agent of the WMF without their request to do so, and in doing so violated WN:3RR. His intentions were good, but the execution and interaction with other editors has displayed an uncompromising and defensive position that is not good for an Admin. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Daniel: Well I would maintain that you are wrong to try to twist my comment by suggesting that there should be additional words in there but I'll go on to address some of the other points you raise. I do not have a history of disruption, I have a history of speaking out when I have concerns and I won't apologise for that. I use appropriate channels to do this but have on this occasion resorted to using revert to try to enforce my position. This is regretful and I've accepted that I might as well wait for the response (if any) from ComCom to clarify this situation. I do however feel that in attempting to enforce the key rule of confidentiality of OTRS tickets that my continued reverting was appropriate but ill judged. As in my previous comments above, I see it irrelevant how I reverted the change, whether or not I used rollback I cannot consider to be important since the end result is pretty much identical to if I was to click "undo".

The link between this incident and the "CoS checkuser incident" is only that the two incidents have two editors common. I have no personal vendetta against Brian. Whether he is the same is perhaps questionable, quickly turning my disagreement about the appropriateness of this article into some kind of personal dispute and highlighting an example where, shock horror, I dared question the actions of Brian. I fail to see on what basis Daniel suggests there is any element of personal gain on my part that might come from any of it.

In response to Brian: I am well aware that whilst we are a WMF project, we have a responsibility to our readers to not suppress stories which could show the Foundation in a bad light or whatever. No I'm not an agent of the office but I, like every other editor, have a responsibility to stick to the rules governing what we do. By including this material in the article we are effectively condoning the disregarding of the key OTRS rule that information is confidential. This is not something I want to see Wikinews doing. We have responsibilities to our readers but we also have responsibilities to the Foundation. Adambro (talk) 12:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My bringing this up on WN:DISPUTE was due to this being another case of you not being a team player. I would rather have seen things played out there than here. This de-admin is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and from comments in IRC it seems you (Adambro) still don't see why so many people are pissed at you. For all the serious contributors it should be "Wikinews before WMF" yet this is what your DR is going against. You are putting the rules of the source from which material has allegedly been leaked above those of this site and its goals.

I have no intention of voting in this RfdA, I made that clear early on with my statement that I had raised a dispute item. That was not intended to influence things here, but it may well have. I'd be happy to see this RfdA closed as "disruptive and unlikely to reach a consensus", but that ain't going to happen. And, seriously, you need to take a long, hard look at how some people in the community view you. Are you too conservative? Are you forgetting to park the Commons mindset when you log in here? Seriously. Seriously, I used the nickname "Dr No" (per Ian Paisley) on IRC because it is something everyone can laugh off, but there's also the hope that it will sink in as a, "do people really think of me like that?" thing. Yes, there are those who do. They don't hate you, I can't say it isn't personal, and they usually have other users they wish would be more "with it" and receptive to input, we all have a vision for the site and some aspects are more worth pursuing. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I still believe in de-admining only for abuse of privileges. Yes, technically, using rollback for edit warring constitutes such abuse but as he rightly pointed out, using the "undo"-button would have the same result. --+Deprifry+ 13:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to see you stepping in here and having an old man raise his voice. :-P I'd like to wistfully think this means you might sustain a higher level of involvement with the project. Wikinews has - to my mind - just started to hit puberty; we need all the words of wisdom we can get. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support strongly. Dosen't matter if he could do the same thing if he wasn't an admin. He still overstepped his powers. He has continued to show why he should not be an admin.--Ryan524 (talk) 14:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see this as a wake-up call to Adambro. As mentioned above, if you're logged in here it is "Wikinews before WMF". --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- Per Daniel (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Adambro, I would request that you as an admin step down from your position. Admit you made a mistake, and take the consiquences. I would be up to support a future Rfa IF you did the right thing here and stepped down instead of letting the rfda finish, and you makde good edits for a few months to show you have learned from your mistake and it won't happen again.--Ryan524 (talk) 17:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I'm not going to do so. As I've discussed with you on IRC, the message that will be sent out if this de-adminship request is successful will be that it is acceptable to to violate OTRS rules to obtain information and that it is not acceptable to question the actions of other editors; if you want to make it on Wikinews you keep your mouth shut apart from to say you agree with everyone else. If that is the situation then the chance of me every wishing to become an administrator again would probably be slim. I am simply not prepared to keep quiet about concerns to keep everyone happy. It would be irresponsible and unethical of me to do so. This whole de-adminship is nonsensical. The problem that people have with me is not my use of admin rights, it is that I dare to question their actions. The only thing that will change if/when my rights are removed is that I'll be in a poorer position to contribute my time to maintaining Wikinews. You loose one slightly irritating user who likes to know why things have been done the way they have but contributes a great deal of time using their admin rights towards trying to maintain the project and are left with one slightly irritating user who likes to know why things have been done the way they have but perhaps feel better for giving me a kicking. It is however ultimately the project that will suffer, not simply because we're going to loose one of our more active admins, but more importantly because we'd be encouraging this attitude of patting each over on the back regardless. As Planoneck notes, this whole de-adminship requests smells like an attempt to shut me up because people disagree with what I've said rather than there being any real evidence that I'm not capable of being an admin. Adambro (talk) 18:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I am not sure if this little skirmish is enough to de-admin anyone. There have been worse fights and actions and I am not sure if this is one of them that merits a de-admin. Yes adambro broke 3rr but so have others. If this de-admin request is somewhat based on the 3rr then he should have been blocked when it happened. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support; while I believe that the OTRS leak is a serious issue that should be forwarded to ComCom, Adambro has made far too big a deal out of this situation in inappropriate venues, causing unnecessary drama. His shocking inability to adhere to consensus, and use of rollback (yes, rollback is a significant tool, because it tells other users that their edits were so patently offensive or vandalous that an edit summary was unnecessary) are extremely unbecoming an administrator. I had considered weighing in on this request earlier, but wasn't really sure until this edit. Even if Adambro was just trying to let me know about the situation, it was extremely inappropriate to do so on-wiki, causing even more drama. A private e-mail (I have e-mail enabled on Wikinews and Wikipedia) would have been sufficient. In short, I don't believe these actions are becoming of an administrator, and I believe he should be desysopped. Ral315 (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deadminship strongly. Adambro is one of the few editors who are willing to follow policy even when it is controversial. Anonymous101 :) 19:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of the Admin's page or the talk page of the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.