Wikinews:Dispute resolution/Brianmc and Adambro

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Statement of dispute by Brianmc

User:Brianmc and User:Adambro

I am raising this because I believe, and have acted accordingly, in a belief that Adambro has questioned my actions and interfered with what I see as the good running of a news site. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questioning use of Checkuser.

Checkuser is required to keep the bad guys out, and when you see an account called User:Churchofscientologyint, you pretty much know they're a potential source of trouble. I am reliably informed were this any other wiki the user would not have been CU'd but blocked on sight as an inappropriate username. I chose to CU, which revealed an effectively shared account. This, plus my blanking of the user's "advertisment" on their user/talk pages led to the following berating comments from Adambro:

Second up is this bloody ridiculous WN:DR for an article about Wikinews' first legal threats.

I speedy closed this and it has been reopened,

This is a self-imposed "chilling effect", and I believe that anyone who supports such action is not acting in the best interests of the project. It has nothing to do with being listed on Slashdot, it has to do with reporting factually accurate news in a professional manner and - as a result - being seen as a credible source elsewhere. I've had lengthy conversations with several people on this issue (Including Cary) and the opinion is they would prefer it not have been done, but it is news, it is accurate.

The BBC News covers their parent organisation all the time, and I'd put pounds for pennies that the senior non-news staff wish to hell they didn't in an awful lot of cases. We have a duty; we are amongst the few collections of people who can cover issues surrounding the WMF and get it right. We know how to read the history, and do quality research. Some of us have built up relationships with WMF board and employees that should help get quotes, we are the best placed to cover the WMF - both good and bad.

Response by Adambro

Statement of dispute by Adambro

Response by Brianmc

Mediator

If necessary. I will be willing to act as the Mediator. I am netural as I have not been involved and feel that this needs resolving. Brian | (Talk) | ^{New Zealand Portal} 19:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I do not see a legitimate reason to delete it myself, and have voted as such while the original DR was open, there were plety others after me who also voted keep before it was closed. I support the speedy keep decision myself.--Ryan524 (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My reason for escalating this is precisely that, there is no legitimate reason to delete. Adambro is acting as an unwanted proxy for WMF staff and trying to second-guess what they wish to have done. Yes, sure, let's just go back to writing Labrador gives birth to six puppies, one is black. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't speedy keep because someone thinks it is newsworthy. Adambro clearly thought it wasn't newsworthy so we should let the DR run. In addition I think that the diffs showing Adambros actions show no actions which appear to be against policy in any way. I think Adambro actually stayed calm. I also think that Brianmc should have discussed the issues with Adambro before bringing it to dispute resolution.

Both Adambro and Brianmc are excellent contributors to this site.

Anonymous101 :) 19:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by SVTCobra

As this melodrama has reached epic heights, I cannot seem to avoid comment, despite my earlier reservations against doing so. So I will just say that:

the checkuser questions seemed valid given that the account made no malicious edits; on the other hand it might be a biased account/unacceptable user name. To this I say that was six weeks ago ... this is not really the dispute between the two of you, is it?
the OTRS issue seems to be the real issue here. It seems Adambro was grounded in some policy when removing text from the article in question. The confidentiality of OTRS, the undermining of which could undo the entire trust of the OTRS system, seemed to be at stake. While researching this question, I found in the OTRS introduction this code of conduct, which I will quote:

Protect the privacy of the customer and the confidentiality of the ticket. The requests that come through OTRS can contain very sensitive information. NEVER (EVER) give out (in the IRC-channel, on the wiki or anywhere else) any personal information (names, email address, specific places etc.). If for obvious reasons (i.e. the person who complains is the subject of the article) you need to give personal information, please do so in a private IRC-window to the person you think can take care of the problem.

Given that I only know of the OTRS system from the pages at Meta, and the discussions here, I think there is a legitimate concern that information was inappropriately disseminated from an OTRS ticket. However, once made public, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. Therefore, while Adambro attempted to put the "lid" back on, it cannot be done since it is out. I'd guess, whomever, unveiled this confidential information might face consequences where they obtained it (OTRS). To put this in journalistic perspective, it is like a government employee revealing a state secret to a newspaper. The employee will likely get fired, but once printed, the government can't really do anything to retract it.

In summary, there is nothing to be done to resolve this dispute. What is done is done. The leak may face repercussions at the source (OTRS), but as far as Brianmc and Adambro as wikinewsies are concerned, they'll just have to live with eachother. [I am aware that Adambro requested his admin-rights be removed, but I just had to give this evaluation regardless.] --SVTCobra 00:39, 16 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 current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.