Requests for comment/-jkb-

The following request for comments is closed. The request was successfully resolved.

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• Speedy deletion declined, we don't delete records of our differences simply because they're inconvenient. If you'd like to request a regular deletion that's up to community discussion, please do. ~Kylu (u|t) 23:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is any reason to do speedy deletion on this page. It is another aspekt of the annoying behaviour of the user White cat. First trying putting blame to well known member of the source community who cares for the wiki where he is bureaucrat. When he sees that most entries here - even from other wikis where he showed the same nearly vandalic behaviour - don't agree with. He simply wants a speedy deletion. Before supporting any deletion of this page, I think there schoud be clear statemant of WC, that he understood the reasons for the problems he causes an that he will adapt his behaviur in positive way for all. --Joergens.mi 08:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How arrogant of you. If there is such a statement of any kind there is no reason to delete this page. I am not your toy. You do not want to upset me any more. -- Cat ^chi? 08:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Who is upsetting whom? You have been upsetting

• cs.wikisource
• de.wikisource
• de.wikinews
• there were also complaints of a japanese wiki-project es far as I know
• and several other, I didn't have the time to go trough the list of wiki where you claim the bot-flag shown on your userpage and where you cause trouble. because this list is outdated you are not adding the wiki's were the bot flag has been refused since the 13. of March.
• You are denying on of the the basic's for a trustfull coworking If there is a local community interested in processing bot applications, bots must obtain community approval on the most relevant local discussion page before editing without a bot flag at high speeds or without human supervision.

--Joergens.mi 10:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Complaint about the conduct of -jkb- on an interwiki level

User -jkb- has been following me around from wiki to wiki interfering with my attempts to get a bot flag and dictating what I can and cannot put on my bot userpage.

• wikisource.org
• cs.wikisource.org
  • User has removed the bot template and protected the page. Serious COI issue in the use of admin tools. In addition this user is the only bcrat in this wiki although I do not see how he was granted this access.
• de.wikisource

Such conduct in my view should not be tolerated. -- Cat ^chi? 15:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Problematic behavior

• I feel -jkb- has onership issues over the entire wiki at cs.wikisouce. This conduct there might be the reason why that wiki is so inactive despite being among the oldest wikisource editions. Mind you cs.wikis is near-dead as there is nearly no activity there aside from two editors - one being -jkb-. A native cs speaker or two should review this.
• User has used basic admin tools inappropriately on cs.wikisource as demonstrated here. I have serious reservations how appropriately is he using the bureaucrat tools. This wiki seems far too small to warrant a bureaucrat.
• User has campaigned interwiki against me getting botflag on multiple wikis. This falls under interwiki stalking/harassment. This also seems to be a systematic attempt to shadow my efforts to simply help out. I can't imagine what new users are put through.

-- Cat ^chi? 01:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Response to below statements

• Is wikisource a special domain that is neither run by Mediawiki software nor the Wikimedia foundation? Just like wikipedia wikisource runs on the ssame software, Mediawiki and is operated by Wikimedia Foundation. Therefore, I do not understand the point of this discussion on "domain".
• I have not seen joergens.mi "beg" to me about anything. If there is something urgent to tell me I am not very hard to reach. For example you can use e-mail or my commons talk page. There is also no reason to beg me for, the bot only made 5 edits to de.wikisource and those were to my own userspace.
• I have given my standard bot request to Michail. He said "I will not grant the bot status because i see no need for a bot" but he added "If your bot can help us in some special taks then your bot is very welcome". Which is perfectly fine. And I can very easily abide by that. All I need to do is help out more. I will be delighted to do so. I will be discussing how I can help best with my peers on wikibooks later on. Particularly after this mess is sorted.
• -jkb- isn't very active on de.wikisource and I seriously doubt his presence on Joergens.mi's talk page was a mere coincidence.
• AndreasPraefcke states that he doesn't know what I want aside from wanting bot flags. That is exactly what I want, bot flags and to preform the three operations (interwiki links, double redirects, commons delinking). If that constitutes as a problem I am sorry. It is not like I go out of my way to find a way to violate bot policies of local wikis. There is NO WAY I can follow bot policies on languages I cannot read. I do my best to follow them and you can simply point out my mistakes to me. If you had not done so, there is no way for me to know the problem.
• Statement by Aphaia. The bot operates with a time delay. I am not going to discuss the details of the bot here. Bot operators that operate on multiple wikis cannot check each and every talk page they have on an hourly basis. If a bot is misfunctioning it can be blocked to prevent damage and the bot operator can be contacted via, talk page msgs on the users local wiki, e-mail, or even IRC. None of which was preformed. I am also having difficulty getting a response from wikinews people on ja.wikinews over this issue. Every attempt of me talking to Aphaia resulted with a new accusation by Aphaia.

  I don't think Aphaia revert wared over my bot username and pursued me on three wikis so I do not see the resemblance of the situation. -- Cat ^chi? 01:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Another admin reverted your bot's maledits. And we have our policy which we comply with and made up for the whole community, its regulars. I find no reason we throw it away only for your convenience. Your preference is your own, not our policy which is based on our project community consensus. And you seemed to complain my commenting on this page, as if I made a bad thing on a bad faith. I would like you remind YOU opened this page, and have called for public comment. You could have open no such RFC - and once after you opened, you have no good reason for anyone just because they made a comment which you are not fond of. It was you who invited the whole community to this issue and a related topic is helpful to review the issue from every possible aspect. --Aphaia 02:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
    • This RfC was filed against -jkb-'s conduct. Weather or not such conduct is what we hold in high regard. Weather or not such conduct is acceptable on any of the WMF projects. Your comments have not addressed this at all. I will not comment any more on issues on ja.wikinews as -jkb- has no edits there. -- Cat ^chi? 01:34, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Overall I sense an elitist tone from multiple wikisource editions. I find it to be quite frustrating and concerning. -- Cat ^chi? 10:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The statement on the above was originally "::Overall I sense an elitist tone from multiple wikinews editions. I find it to be quite frustrating and concerning. -- Cat ^chi? 10:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)". Diff: [1].

Public lynching of the person filing this rfc

This is a complaint filed against -jkb- not me, you are welcome to file an RfC against me if I really am the troll/vandal/whatever you claim me to be. -- Cat ^chi? 20:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Your argument is quite illogical here. People just complains about you. Is it lynching? Then you should have talked to -jkb- before filling this RFC. And it is quite reasonable to bring up the similar incident related to the involved parties for the reference. --Aphaia 01:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I did. He payed no attention to it. He even dictated what I can and cannot put on my bot userpage. I was not allowed to put a non-existent template for example. Don't be so full of yourself. -- Cat ^chi? 03:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

template:Bot

I do not understand the big fuss on this template. Can someone show me one other instance of someone removing the bot template before -jkb- removed the one on my bot userpage. Usage of the bot template for bots without a bot flag is not prohibited.

-- Cat ^chi? 20:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Statement -jkb-

It is more or less shocking to see this page as reaction on my denying his bot flag ([2]) request. I tried to explain the user that his request is in contrary to the bot policy on the domain of Czech Wikisource where there are no flagged bots ([3]). Then he did not requested but demanded it, declaring that he does not care of the rules and conventions on the domain. I really denied to grant him the bot flag on the Czech Wikisource. As a bureaucrat there I am responsible for ongoing events there and so when there is not usual to use templates which have not been created according to our policy so such templates will be deleted. Point, basta.

As for the Oldwikisource: I am an active admin there since 2005. I take part in discussions on different questions there, so I also try to keep the community with many languages clearly arranged. If there will be a discussion on the matter so I will take part in it and will oppose the opinion of the user that wikisource and the work in it (and also in the multilingual wikisource) is quite the same like every other wikipeida, wikibooks etc. I guess this is not a good qualification to work on a wikisource.

German Wikisource: I am user there since some three or more years and work there as well. I did not follow the user there, I just found a question of a colleague in Scriptorium ([4]), asking who this user is, so I simply answerded. That is all. The decision of the local bureaucrat (not to grant the flag) has been taken without my voice but I think from the same reasons.

So, the facit: I did not follow the user all over the wiki, I just informed me in the domains where I work who he is as I had to make a decision about is request. I guess that somebody who openly ignores the conventions of a domain forfeited the chance to take part in Work in the domain. See also the talk on the English Wikisource where my reasons seem to be repeated ([5]).

Thanks. -jkb- 22:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Statement Michail

I'm the bureaucrat on german wikisource. I know user -jkb- as a long time user on de-WS and my decision not to grant the bot flag has other reason as the comment of -jkb- in our scriptorium. I have explained my decision in scriptorium [6] and in an individuel chat with WhiteCat. Because this i can't see any reason for this request for comments --Finanzer 22:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC) (User:Michail in german Wikisource)

Statement joergens.mi

I was the guy who saw the new user white cat for the firt time on german language wikisource and sent him a warm welcome. Then I saw that he introduces a bot like machine called user:computer. From his main page i knew that he can't contribute in german so i begged him in english to give some information about himself and the reason for introducing a bot in the german language wikisoure without being aktive at all. But there wasn't any response from him at all. Therefore i gave this information to our bureaucrat Michail.

I worked with -jkb- several times and found that he is a competent and friendly partner --Joergens.mi 22:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC) admin on de.ws and commons.

clarification

Sorry because I'm not an native speaker, I mixed the vocabulary to ask / to request up with to beg. My fault. I simply put this text on the talk page. and there wasn't any response.

Please can you give us some hints on your idea to install a bot here in wikisource? I know that you are not familiar to german, it is no problem when your reply is in english -- Jörgens.Mi Talk 23:44, 15. Mär. 2008 (CET)

From my point of view it is strange, simply trying to install a bot without any communication with the community in advance. And second as far as i know the tools he wants to offer - I don't know anything about them, because he didn't say anything about them to the community - are already done well by other bots.

Normally i would expect this as the natural way

• getting contact to the community by using a community talk page, if i don't know their name, simply ask an active member for it.
• talking to the community, what I want to do
• if the community agree, installing the bot (in this case)
• showing with some testruns that it works fine
• requesting bot-flag

In this way, I think, everybody would be happy

--Joergens.mi 18:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

ADD-ON's

If you make a citation White Cat, please do it complete. The main part ist missing in you're excerpt and therefore it is a misquotation.

This is copied from the scriptorium on de.ws. The bold-face setting is done be me to emphasise the missing parts.

There is no issue. I have said that i will not grant the bot status because i see no need for a bot. I have already in chat said to you: If your bot can help us in some special taks then your bot is very welcome, but please talk before any action with the community. And if you sometimes set interwikis there is no problem with your bot, but i dont want mass edits by a bot, if the bot is not included in the community and gets his task by our community. Greetings --Michail 00:41, 17. Mär. 2008 (CET) (My name is Finanzer in Chat)

The 2 restriction aren't mentioned:

1. but please talk before any action with the community
2. but i dont want mass edits by a bot, if the bot is not included in the community and gets his task by our community

The use of the Bot-template on the german Wikisource is not restricted, but we are used to use it only on accounts with the bot-flag granted.

--Joergens.mi 06:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

• Above you stated, that this is a complaint from you against -jkb-. From the comments of the paticipants here nobody seems to have a direct problem with -jkb- and it seems that there is no problem with his beahviour too.

• On the other hand a bigger group is telling us here, that they seem to have problems with your behaviour and / or your way of acting. I think this is a point you should take into consideration and change your methods of acting.

--Joergens.mi 11:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Please take this behaviour of White Cat into consideration de wikinews User Talk white cat, a real strange behaviour for a guy who just simply want to help.

--Joergens.mi 22:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

White Cat has shown three examples of what he believes to be misconduct on -jkb-'s side. I'd like to know -jkb-'s reasons stated in one place, without the need of browsing through all the discussion threads. Wojciech Pędzich Talk 17:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I did browse through the discussion threads, and I am still not sure what User:White_Cat really wants, except gaining bot flags. The user violates all kinds of simplest etiquette rules. How on earth should a project admin give someone a bot flag who does not state clearly the reason for what he wants (or rather demands), who is not interested in any project guidelines, and who goes to court (or rather "Meta:Requests for comments") first thing after being not given what he demands, insted of trying to make himself clear or give arguments. This is childish behaviour of the worst kind, and I for one would block any user who shows such a behaviour on any project that I have responsibility for, if this user didn't have any useful edits to speak for. En.wikipedia says a troll is someone who posts irrelevant messages in an online community to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion. IMHO here you have one. I haven't seen anything on-topic by this user in any of the mentioned wikis. There's nothing good the user cannot do without his bot flag, but there's all kind of bad things that he could do when unnoticed. Collecting botflags for no apparent reason may be a nice hobby, but nothing any admin on any wiki should encourage. --AndreasPraefcke 08:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Statement of Aphaia

While I don't know these incident, recently on Japanese Wikinews we Wikinewdies found some problems this bot and its operator from several reasons and we are going to reject the request for bot flag. The bot caused a problem and even after a sysop made a caution and reverted the problematic edit, it came and repeated the problem manually fixed. Later the operator claimed we could have contacted him or her on IRC, while the community tend to dislike to use it and our bot policy doesn't say the operators will be contacted with such a way, and the operator claimed that Japanese Wikinews had not to contact him or her via its official channel. We rather should have chosen his or her preference way of communications! Hardly acceptable idea in my humble opinion. Also the operator insisted his or her operation was "not inapropriate at all". While he or she seems to think his or her acvity is a help, in reality it is a nuisance which I think small projects can hardly bear. I know -jkb- as a long time editor with experience, and not surprised he thought this bot account so problematic as to pay attention continuously. --Aphaia 04:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. And as for -jkb- statement on Cswikisource, I met the same problem with this user. As said on the above, we followed the rules of our project whichi are given in our project namespace. And when the user came to the talk page of individual sysops, we said he or she should have brought it up to our official request or discussion page. I asked him or her to comply with our policy, but the answer I got is "I do not know Japanese I cannot write in Japanese I cannot even read Japanese hence I do not even know which section to edit.". I think "AGF" doesn't mean we have to accept this kind of people and their demands always. --Aphaia 04:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

As de.WS admin I agree with the position of Praefcke and Aphaia --Histo 11:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

An Answer to Response to below statements by White Cat

Concerning

• your point 2: Joergens is obviously not a native speaker, so to harp on something like that is petty. After all he and the other people always agreed to talk your native language because of you being unable to speak the language of the projects.
• your point 4: Joergens posted his question about who you are also at the Skriptorium which is the main page of our project. Everybody who works in that project has it on its watchlist and checks it regulary. You would know that if you would have been active at that project. Jdk just answered to Joergens itself and not at the Skriptorium. -- Cecil 13:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Eclecticology

This has also become an issue on en:wikisource and oldwikisource. While bureaucrats have the job of setting bot flags doing so on the sole basis of a request on the bureaucrat's talk page would violate the trust that the community has in the bureaucrat. What White Cat seems to ignore is that this is a community decision, and communities do not appreciate having someone who does not normally participate in that community come along and demand that the community adopt rules of another community when the only obvious benefit is the convenience of the person making the demand.

White Cat refuses to rename his bot to something that includes the term "bot" in accordance with en:ws policy, and he rejects any notice on the proposed bot's user page that the bot status has not yet been approved. Failure to accommodate such simple requests does not build any confidence in the activities of the proposed bot. Eclecticology 20:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Provisory block

I hoped it will not happen but I had to make a provisory block for the Computer account on the Czech Wikisource. I will have more time to clear the matter in the afternoon, but shortly:

• the user made bot contributions without permission although he was adviced to read our policy (s:cs:Wikisource:Boti, partly in English)
• he started to make mass contributions which has not been allowed
• but mainly: all about 50 contributions he made were false and we have to revert them now (wrong links to Bible)

I will make some other notices later on. -jkb- 08:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The provisory block has been confirmed. See here. The reasons are already named: the rules of the domain has not been followed, edits of the account has not been allowed, mass contributions has not been allowed, there was made no try to make an agreement for contributions of a bot, there were made mass contributions without a permission, all contributions have been wrong and must be reverted.
We tried to start a talk with the user but there was no reaction. I am not so free to allow somebody to change the whole domain behaviour and rules after some minutes of the account existence there. We are working hard, although the user means the Czech Wikisource ist sturving and nearly dead (see above - ?????).

Comment by BirgitteSB

I think White Cat's expectations about the usefulness and desirability of his bot have been mistaken and he is having difficulty adjusting to the reality of the situation. His approach has been off-putting to many people and I am not sure that he can understand why. Many of these wiki's do not understand how bots are accustomed to work elsewhere while bot operators from en.WP are not used to having to explain themselves to non-technical people. For example I do not think jkb knows that it normal to require bot operators to undo maledits and it is quite easy for them to have the bot revert a recent run. It would have been better to have had White Cat revert all the maledits with the bot instead of blocking. It is also usual for people wanting a bot flag to have trial runs before being allowed a flag as it helps everyone make more informed decisions about giving the flag or not. So I think alot of the issue is due to White Cat and jkb having very different expectations of what is acceptable.

That said: White Cat is obviously having difficulty conforming to local policies in many places, so this problem is not unique to jkb and I agree with what others have said in support of jkb. It is very premature to be having an RfC on meta over such a disagreement with a cs.WS bcrat. This is something that needs to be settled by conversation between the two of you or else by walking away from cs.WS This is not an issue that was appropriate to bring here in my mind.--BirgitteSB 18:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I do not know what you mean here. The user White Cat is no newbye, he is a admin not only on Commons but on other damains as well, so he should know waht he is writing here. I saw many people who left the project just beeing bothering and accused etc. Let us say, that we should try to talk one to another and then we can solve such problems. But not in such style like this here. -jkb- 19:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that White Cat's current style is not working. When I say you two should have more discussion I don't mean he should continue in the same style. I am just saying he was too quick to make this RFC about you, without trying hard enough to settle the issue with disscussion. And if he was not willing to work with you he should have just walked away from cs.WS instead of coming here and trying get others to overrule you.--BirgitteSB 20:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• I feel -jkb- has onership issues over the entire wiki at cs.wikisouce. This conduct there might be the reason why that wiki is so inactive despite being among the oldest wikisource editions. Mind you cs.wikis is near-dead as there is nearly no activity there aside from two editors - one being -jkb-. A native cs speaker or two should review this.
  • A cursurory look at wikistats proves this wrong. cs.WS was created at the same time as the Hebrew, Serbian, and Galacian WS. It is the second largest of the group after he.WS, and cs.WS is overall the #15 WS in size. It's current activity level is behind he.WS and just above sr.WS. Activity is improving. gl.WS on the other can be much more accurately decribed as near-dead. --BirgitteSB 20:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• This wiki seems far too small to warrant a bureaucrat.
  • More info from wikistats: Only 3 of the fourteen WS larger than cs.WS do not have a b'crat. While 25 WS which are smaller than cs.WS have at least 1 b'crat. And while that comparison is done by article count none of the WS that are smaller by article count than cs.WS have more active editors than cs.WS. So if it were correct that cs.WS doesn't need a b'crat there are 25 WS out there which really don't need a b-crat. --BirgitteSB 21:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• In addition this user is the only bcrat in this wiki although I do not see how he was granted this access.
  • Of the 37 WS with b'rcat 20 (54%) of them only have a single b'crat. I see no issue with jkb being the only b-crat. en.WS which has always been one of the largest and oldest WS has only 1 b'crat until this February. I also cannot imagine there is anything out of order in how he was granted the b'crat bit. jkb has been around a long time and is very helpful in helping WS communities in general, not just his own. I have seen him on oldwikisource on many ocassions offering assitance and I cannot imagine why he would not have been chosen as the b'crat of cs.WS as he has second highest amount of edits and has been editing WS since August of 2004.--BirgitteSB 21:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• User has campaigned interwiki against me getting botflag on multiple wikis. This falls under interwiki stalking/harassment. This also seems to be a systematic attempt to shadow my efforts to simply help out. I can't imagine what new users are put through.
  • Consider jkb's edit history stretching back to the domain split when all WS languages were much more closely tied together. It is not at all surprising that he maintians connections with several subdomains and the people in them. Although WS subdomains have been drifting apart ever since the split, we still maintain much closer connections between languages than most WP subdomains for example. It is not at all unusual to keep tabs on the issues under discussion at multiple subdomains, or even maintain adminship in a few different wikis. I see no reason to hold that jkb's behaiviour was at all suspicious in this. --BirgitteSB 21:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• • I don't think so. -jkb- is a well known guest/friend to de:ws with a real good reputation. We are exchanging guidelines, ideas, information an discussions in the wiki and the chat. The only thing missing is the exchange of artikles and the reason for that is very very simple - it's only the language. --84.159.176.2 22:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC) sorry not logged in --Joergens.mi 22:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

small reply to BirgitteSB

Hi BirgitteSB, I can understand why a community reverts manually. I would also reject especiallay this user to correct his failures himself.

• He is breaking into projects, demanding bot flags.
• He gets asks for his reasons but there is no usefull response.
• He starts editing although he is asked for not to do so.
• He didn't show any testruns
• The edits he made are faulty.
• Would you really allow such a person to revert his actions?

I think if there is a real demand in a projekt for a bot, there are always options to find a trustfull bot operator, or a person who helps to set a bot up by your own. And I'm quite shure if -jkb-/the cs:ws community needs a bot for the cs:ws he would have asked for and I know several people who will help him in such a case. And I know several things which can be solved by a bot and de:ws is operating bots for several tasks. Projects like source projects which are operating on many similar things (all pages of book) have a clear understanding of key benefits of bots but as well of the special risks. Therefore they are requiring a trustfull bot operator --Joergens.mi 20:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

WC behaviour is the same on other wiki's --Joergens.mi 20:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not arguing for him to get a bot flag. In fact I have told him I will not give him a bot flag on en.WS unless he conforms local policy. I just want to point out that some issues are due to people expecting different standards to be acceptable rather than purposefully choosing to ignore standards. I would trust him to revert the maledits in his test run. That is a standard he is used to conforming to. His problems have to do with conforming to standards which are new to him. I just hope to see this RFC end in better understanding than it began in.--BirgitteSB 21:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• I didn't understand your arguments as a vote for getting the bot flag. But you have been arguing, that he could have reverted the maledits himself. that was the reason for me to point out the arguments, why I would have denied to do so. My answer would have ben different, when i would have done the same in the following manner:

1. A small remark, i'll show you the capabilities by a testrun with the following params.
2. waiting for agrement
3. doing the run
4. that tests may fail ist normal (I'm working as a software engineer), therefore nobody would complain about the failure

If WC had done it this way or similar nobody would have any problems reverting the faults himself.

The main point is the want of confidence due to WCs attitude. --84.159.176.2 22:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)