Guild Wars Wiki:Arbitration committee/2008-04-06-User:J.Kougar/draft

The issue of bans against J.Kougar
J.Kougar was banned twice, details can be seen above. While the first ban was probably more harsh than many other sysop actions, it was not absolutely outlandish. Since we have different, human, sysops, there will always be a degree of variance in sysop actions. That has to be accepted.

The second ban gave several reasons. Most discussion has centered on the reason referring to Shadowphoenix as pathetic (NPA). However, even if one disregards this reason as invalid, there are several others, most notably various threatening to, and following through on, evading any ban. For circumvention of a ban by using multiple proxies alone, an extension of 5 days is quite lenient - the ban was fully justified.

The issue of sysop behavior
Several sysops did behave less than perfectly during the incident. Aberrant's not fully clear reasoning for the first ban as well as Aiiane's at least quite heated/rude response towards J.Kougar played a part in escalating the situation. While sysops are only human and as such make errors, it would be wise to take two lessons away from this:


 * Sysops should take care to be clear about the reasons for their actions, especially blocks.
 * Everyone (sysops and normal users) should keep in mind that rude behavior and NPA violations by other do not justify the same behavior in response. Apart from not being justified, this case is a perfect example showing that it is not helping the issue either.

Double standards
There has been the accusation of "double standards", sysops acting more harsh towards some users and less harsh towards others. It is important to note that some variance in sysop behavior is inevitable. As such, varying sysop behavior is not a justification for evasion of bans (check here for a longer explanation). That being said, all sysops and the wiki as a whole should strife to make administrative action as neutral as possible. Any sysop acting consistently biased towards/against some users would present a grave problem for us (and would be a case for a reconfirmation or arbitration).

Ruling
Because of J.Kougar's stated willingness to bypass blocks, if he should ever do so again, he is to be immediately and permanently banned. In such a case, all his edits, and all edits carried out by proxy, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop. Further, in such a case, all responses to his talk page edits, by any party, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop.

Due to J.Kougar's repeated trolling, sysops are encouraged to be wary of J.Kougar posting on other users' talk pages. Any post which is generally inflammatory -- to any user, not just the user whose talk page the comment is posted on -- is grounds for an immediate block of no less than a week. Further blocks related to this ruling must be at least one MediaWiki default block length longer than the last one. If repeated blocks of this nature lead to a permanent ban, it should be enforced in the same manner as the case above.