On hold until YellowMonkey returns and has a chance to respond to the concerns raised below. |
In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 00:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:09, 8 June 2024 (UTC).
Please note: This template is for listing disputes about actions that are limited to administrators only, specifically these actions:
For all other matters (such as edit wars and page moves), please use the template at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example user.
This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this administrator's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.
YellowMonkey ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is a highly respected administrator, former arbitrator, and functionary who has done a tremendous amount of good for Wikipedia. However, there is a dispute concerning his conduct as an administrator. The issue that lead directly to this Request for Comment concern's YellowMonkey's block of Yogesh Khandke ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). On 30 September 2010, YellowMonkey blocked Yogesh Khandke for two weeks with a log summary of (trolling and pov pushing at British Empire and talk). At no point did YellowMonkey inform Yogesh Khandke of this block on the latter's talk page, as required by the blocking policy. Immediately after the block's expiry, Yogesh Khandke posted to YellowMonkey's talk page requesting "justification and explanation" of the block. YellowMonkey replied scroll down three days later, asserting that he had responded to Yogesh Khandke's emails. After further discussion viewable here, Yogesh Khandke again requests further explanation for the block, at which point three other editors become involved in the discussion.
On 22 October, YellowMonkey removes the entire discussion of the block from his talk page. This is followed by a further request from Yogesh Khandke for an explanation. YellowMonkey made no further comment. On 19 November, Yogesh Khandke requested further input on the matter at WP:ANI oldid. Consensus was eventually established that this was a bad block. YellowMonkey, despite being invited to the thread by Yogesh Khandke, myslef (HJ Mitchell), Seb az86556 and finally Wehwalt, did not participate in the ANI thread nor make any acknowledgement of it on his talk page.
It is my opinion that this conduct is unbecoming a Wikipedia administrator and is a clear violation of WP:ADMIN, the policy governing administrator conduct and the blocking policy.
Poor block and failure to acknowledge community discussion of actions
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
I can see full well that consensus is against my block, and respect that, although I do not necessarily agree. I do not have any intention of doing anything if I think it would not stick unless it was a fluke/luck. I can do the things per the expected procedure. As for No. 6, I won't be taking any notice of that, as it isn't relevant or reliable, as I can think of many "respected" people who were widely "loved" when they were producing stuff that reflected well on their "leaders" but when they got in trouble their "leaders" weren't anywhere to be seen.
Users who endorse this summary:
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.
{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign.}
Users who endorse this summary:
I found and continue to find Yogesh Khandke to be a disruptive editor who just cannot accept consensus. For that reason, I didn't protest when he ended up getting blocked for two weeks by YM and felt very little sympathy. However, I was rather surprised by the length of the block, extremely surprised by YM's failure to notify Yogesh, and even more surprised by his silence in response to Yogesh's requests for an explanation. I should add I find this high-handedness on the part of YM similar to his attitude at WP:FAC as the FA director's helper. There, similarly, he'd make royal decrees and then fail to respond to responses about those decrees, just turning up every now and again to repeat them. I then read about similar things happening in the past WRT other blocks. Remove his admin status, I say. Totally unsuited for the role.
Users who endorse this summary:
Clearly, YMs block left a lot to be desired. I was unaware of YK's existence at that point in time and so am unable to comment on whether the block was justified or not, but not giving an explanation to the user, not responding to questions about the block on the talk page, and not even informing the user of the block on their talk page is not the proper way to block someone. Anyone blocked, for whatever reason, deserves a fair explanation and a response when they raise a question (unless, of course, they are an obvious sock). That said, YellowMonkey is a great resource as an admin and an acknowledgement of these failures and a statement that he/she will respond differently in future would be the ideal outcome of the RfC/U.
Users who endorse this summary:
I am not particularly acquainted with either the admin or the primary editor in this content dispute, nor am I totally sure of which side is "right". My hunch is that the editor is sincere, zealous, and not entirely wrong, but trying to push this beyond where it should be for now. Ganga is what the locals call it, and increasingly that name is getting some currency, but it's too soon to say that it's really the common name [instead of Ganges]. And that's why we have redirects. (The struck-out part need not be "endorsed", it's merely background info.)
This much I do know: An important responsibility of any admin is to communicate properly and thoroughly. If a true troll keeps asking "why was I blocked", that's one thing. But if an editor who appears sincere asks the same question, he deserves a satisfactory answer. If the admin is generally as good as the other testimony indicates, then this just might be a slip. But regardless, he needs to speak to the matter. RFC's against admins shouldn't be necessary.
Users who endorse this summary:
YellowMonkey as evidenced by his many FAs probably has stricter standards than most editors. As an FA delegate he is freer to make definitive judgment calls and not be questioned about it. I think that role of his and his previous role as an arbitrator may be shading his role as a general administrator. I have not looked at the particulars of this particular case, but have seen at
WP:Featured article review/British Empire/archive1 the milieu and kind of behavior YellowMonkey and Yogesh Khandke were likely in the midst of. Yogesh Khandke although correct can probably come on as strongly opinionated and YellowMonkey could understandably have found it a little too much if displayed over many articles. Two weeks does sound a bit much though and not communicating is a concern, but the proper way to deal with this I suspect is simply to revert YellowMonkey quickly in this case and in the future. If the block is as improper as is suggested I don't think he'll make a fuss over it. YellowMonkey may be a good editor and perhaps FA delegate, but the realization that he is not a good admin if he is treated like a junior admin who does not come up to proper standards is likely to do more to get him up to shape up than a protracted public question period.
Users who endorse this summary:
This block concerned Yogesh Khandke’s participation in discussions of a Featured Article, British Empire. This included that article’s Featured Article Review, to which Yogesh Khandke was contributing before and after his two-week block.
Now, we are not just dealing with one block here. We are dealing with a wider issue, which has to do with writing articles that do not define NPOV as reflecting Western sources, but reflect points of view across the world. As many editors will be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently engaged in significant outreach efforts to India, including the establishement of an Indian Wikimedia office, the second such office in the world after the one in San Francisco. Given this global context, we cannot write an article like British Empire basing ourselves exclusively on Western sources, without reflecting scholarship and opinion in the former colonies themselves, and call it an FA, representative of the best work Wikipedia is capable of.
YellowMonkey does not seem to share this global vision. He derides the Foundation’s outreach efforts in India. Last month, he appeared to refer to an Indian editor as a “retarded nationalist” in an edit summary. When the editor complained at AN/I, YellowMonkey ignored the thread completely, even though his contributions history shows he was editing throughout the time the thread was active. No action was taken against YellowMonkey as a result of the complaint. That is not good enough.
I don’t agree with every comment that Yogesh Khandke has made. But his underlying points with regard to the British Empire article were valid and should have been taken on board. This was acknowledged by several FAC regulars at the FAR, notably Fifelfoo ( talk · contribs). Treating Yogesh, an editor with 3,000 edits and a clean block log to date, like a common troll with a peremptory two-week block, without prior warning, without talk page notification, is wrong.
I have commented on this case and the wider issues, including the current Ganges/Ganga move proposal mentioned by Baseball Bugs above, at the ongoing Foundation list thread on editor diversity: [3]; responses: [4], [5].
Of course I have seen problematic edits by Indian editors. Some write their telephone numbers into articles. Some delete sourced material they don't like, for blatant POV reasons. Yogesh is not that kind of editor. He is the kind of editor we should welcome; whose points of view we should listen to; whom we should help to make their voices heard, to ensure that Indian Wikipedians have the same rightful level of ownership of Wikipedia as any other English-speaking nation. We go on a lot about how this project exists to make knowledge freely available to kids in nations like India. We fail in that mission if our articles on topics of profound concern to India ignore Indian sources and perspectives, presenting an alien quasi-colonialist viewpoint, and if we lack even the largesse to allow an Indian kid to learn about their country's national river from an article bearing that river's official English name, Ganga.
YellowMonkey's services to the project are beyond doubt. He has made all of 5 edits since the ANI thread started on the 19th, so a little AGF is not uncalled for, despite his completely ignoring the earlier ANI thread I mentioned just as he has failed to comment on this case. But if Yellow Monkey can't see his way clear to make some sort of gesture of apology to Yogesh Khandke, and to reflect on his attitude towards India and Indian Wikipedians, and on the role Indians should and will play in this project, then we should at least ask him to refrain from undertaking admin actions in India-related topics.
Users who endorse this summary:
When the ban was handed out YK had brought up 2-3 different issues simultaneously at British Empire in a single editing session instead of resolving those issues one by one. This made him appear like a troll. However, YK is a patient and mature editor who has not had any major incidents in his several thousand edits over several years. A simple friendly reminder/warning would have sufficed instead of the two week ban. A fact overlooked at ANI and here is that soon after YK was banned, YM fought in favor of YKs position even if it meant taking a lot of heat for doing so. However, YM is wrong in assuming that every Indian editor who is assertive and persistent is a "POV pushing nationalist". Many certainly are but our goal should be to bring them in the fold of policy abiding, long term contributors to boost the numbers of the under-represented India editors. The entire situation was made viable because of a European bias on Wikipedia due to which it was impossible to get consensus on any matter that criticized the British Empire. The main trigger was provided by the handful of British nationalist editors who have twisted and omitted many facts, used inappropriate language and inaccurate maps for glorifying the British Empire. Both YM and YK are passionate editors who improve India related articles in their own way and it is painful to see this here.
Users who endorse this summary:
I’ve had several “interactions” with YellowMonkey ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) over the years, and I must say that I’m not in the least surprised by his attitude over this dispute. The combination of an ex cathedra pronouncement followed by a simple refusal to discuss his actions is, for me, one of his hallmarks.
While it does not involve admin powers, this recent affair concerning WP:OTD is a good example. YM had systematically gone through the OTD templates to ensure that his articles on South Vietnam would appear on the Main Page, to the point that the image of Ngo Dinh Diem (shown right) was scheduled to be shown nineteen times over the course of the year. YM did not contribute to that discussion: when the issue came up again a few days later, YM compared OTD to a “toilet exhibit” and a notorious Mumbai slum. At no point was there any attempt to justify his actions or engage in meaningful discussion. We see the same attitude again in YM’s response to this RFC: no attempt to justify the action or to engage in discussion, merely an unwilling acceptance that consensus went against him.
YM’s apparent allergy to discussion can be seen in his contribution history to the Talk and Wikipedia talk namespaces. A comparison of YM’s contributions history in the User talk namespace with his block log shows that his failure to inform or engage with Yogesh Khandke ( talk · contribs) over the block was not a one-off incident: there are very few signs that YM has ever informed or engaged with users he has blocked over the last year. [EDIT: Serpent's Choice below gives a more detailed analysis on this point]
In the Betacommand case (2007), the Arbitration Committee found the following principle:
Due to the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, proper communication is extremely important, and all editors are expected to respond to messages intended for them in a timely manner and to constructively discuss controversial issues. This is especially true for administrators in regard to administrative actions. Such expected communication includes: giving appropriate (as guided by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines) warnings prior to, and notification messages following, their actions; using accurate and descriptive edit and administrative action summaries; and responding promptly and fully to all good-faith concerns raised about their administrative actions.
YellowMonkey – under his alternate username, Blnguyen ( talk · contribs) – voted to approve that principle, and to have Betacommand desysopped. This principle has been considered important enough for it to be linked from WP:ADMIN: in short, discussion of admin actions is not optional. If YM does not wish to discuss his admin actions in any meaningful way, then he should voluntarily resign his sysop bit before the community as a whole is forced to decide that, despite his undoubted writing skills, he is is unfit to be trusted with the tools.
Users who endorse this summary:
As a long time editor, I have also noticed the same lack of respect for following due process in blocking editors and not responding when requested to respond. This also is evident when he summarily deletes articles that he does not like with a potential for conflict of interest. He also deletes whole cited sections of articles without any discussion (See this) There is also a lack of respect, assuming good faith when dealing with editors. here. In general I am of the opinion that YM is a good contributor but giving him admin powers is stressing him beyond his capacity to interact with others. He has demonstrated his inability to be nuanced and responsible with his Admin powers over and over again, through many years. YM should be removed of his Admins powers and encouraged to contribute to the project like thousands others do on a daily basis.
Users who endorse this summary:
I have no stake in this issue, merely a desire to analyze available information for the community's benefit. As this is an admin RFC, I have looked exclusively at the YellowMonkey's (hereafter YM) use of the admin tools. Because I am not myself an admin, I have somewhat limited capacity to judge the propriety of certain actions, which I will note when appropriate. In an effort to focus on recent activity, I have examined only the use of tools between 1 June 2010 and current. Other outside views have included comments on editorial activity (edit summaries, incivility), but that is outside the scope of this analysis.
1. Blocking
YM has blocked a reasonably large number of users since 1 June. In examining his adherence to the blocking policy, I have excluded blocks of IP addresses or those blocks citing sockpuppetry. Practice (and, in some cases, policy) regarding IP addresses and sockpuppets of known blocked or banned users differs from "standard" blocking. In addition to the block primarily under discussion in this RFC, and excluding those categories, YM has issued the following blocks:
collapsed list of editors
|
---|
|
Many of these blocks are not, in and of themselves, contentious. YM has blocked a number of serial vandals, obvious spammers, sockpuppets of known banned users, and an unrepentent copyright violator. However. In addition to the YK block at discussion here, several of these blocks deviated from standard practices. Several (although not all) of the indef blocks occurred without any block escalation whatsoever -- often with minimal warning. By means of the most extreme example, Mort247 was certainly not contributing constructively (contribs suggest a student at a private high school), but literally nothing has ever been posted to the user's talk page; it remains a redlink.
As I am not an admin, I cannot view the deleted contributions of Mnlira013 to determine what warranted a "spam" indef without warning or discussion, but a series of links to the History Channel and A&E websites (the visible contributions) are not what I would expect for an immediate spam indef.
Quigley has actually been indef blocked by YM twice. The first indef is not included in my list above because it was a block for sockpuppetry that was overturned following a determination that the user's alternative accounts are compliant with multiple account use policy. The second block, a month later, was for "nothing but hardcore pov pushing", and was an immediate indef. This situation actually went to AN/I at the time and was overturned, in a situation not unlike the one that triggered this RFC. Quigley remains an editor in good standing, albeit one involved in the often contentious topic of Tibet.
By means of summary: as far as I can tell, YM posted a combined total of ZERO times to the talk pages of any users in the box above. Not even a template, not even once. From the blocking policy: "Administrators should also notify users when blocking them by leaving a message on their user talk page unless they have a good reason not to." At least in this regard, none of the blocks examined were compliant with the letter of blocking policy; the case being discussed in this RFC is typical practice, not an isolated incident.
2. Deletion
Because I cannot see deleted content, I am less competent to judge YM's use of the deletion tool. However, YM's deletions have been taken to DRV at least twice recently. The vast majority of his other deletions are G6 to allow for pagemoves or deletion of pages in his own userspace.
YM deleted
Buddhism and violence 22 October 2010 without citing any process whatsoever ("pov essay, most of the article is off topic and about book reivews, or isn't in the content linked"). The
DRV upheld the deletion (despite a very split consensus) as being a problematic article in the state it existed. but YM's explanation at DRV was not particularly illuminating ("essay, OR, copyvio, waste of time"). In particular, the copyvio claim had not been raised previously and was presented without evidence despite a request for clarification from DRV. (Struck in part, based on input from DRV participants; concerns about out of process deletion are still valid.)
YM deleted 1984 ghallooghaaraa after the AFD was closed No Consensus, citing sockpuppet contamination. That decision was upheld at DRV despite agreement that process was not respected.
3. Page protection
YM has not employed page protection during the examined period.
YM has semi-protected over 100 articles since 1 June 2010. In many cases, his use of semi-protection does not appear to be wholly compliant with the semi-protection policy. As with all my analyses, I am unable to view deleted contributions.
partial analysis of page protections
|
---|
...
... |
I will endevour a detailed review of all of the page protection instances. Okay, I've had about enough of that; I see no reason to expect the remaining protections to be any different in the whole than the ones I've already slogged through. With only a few exceptions, YM has used long-duration semi-protection on pages in which only a single editor -- often only a single edit -- has been disruptive. I do not believe this to be in compliance with the semi-protection policy as I understand it.
His 1 year semiprotection of physics is particularly notable in this regard. The log summary ("flagrant vandalism on major page for 40 minutes") is accurate, as far as it goes. A one-edit vandalism of the article by an IP editor went uncorrected for nearly an hour. YM reverted this single disruptive change (ironically, to an IP editor's version), and then applied a one-year semiprotection, which remains in effect at the time of this posting.
His semiprotection of thylacine is even more puzzling; I can see literally nothing in the article history to explain why any admin intervention at all was warranted.
Additionally, there are a few cases in which YM employed semi-protection on pages in which he has a history as an editor. Primarily, these pages relate to cricket (although his history at cricket appears purely administrative) or to Vietnamese political figures. Whether or not his contributions at any or all such pages are sufficient to raise him to the level of an "involved admin" is not a topic I feel competent to opine on.
Users who endorse this summary:
In Redthoreau's request for adminship, YellowMonkey called him a Communist POV pusher [6] and is likely to be more lenient towards pro-communist users than anti-communist users [7] with no real justification. This is a violation of WP:NPA, and an admin should be held to higher standards.
Users who endorse this summary:
Yellowmonkey is one of the most active editors and admins going. A feature of his or her adminship is that they often jump in and take action in circumstances where other admins would sit on the fence - in my view (as a fellow admin) he or she does so wisely and this constitutes an important and valuable contribution. As Yellowmonkey has agreed with the desired outcome and should be taken at their word, I don't see why this is continuing. Many of the issues raised above in this section seem to be only loosely related to the dispute raised at the start of this RfC/U and I don't see how this is very productive.
Users who endorse this summary:
I support desyopping and Recall of this administrator. He has ignored the community and his comments about Indian contributors and his actions in this poor block all show very poor judgment with no sign of any understanding or care of his actions. It would do him good to treat him as he has treated others - make fun of him and then block him for a lengthy period without warning and then ignore him. - retracting this part, wouldn't want to treat him so badly.
Users who endorse this summary:
My case was alluded to above as an example of the silent and excessively long nature of YellowMonkey's blocks, but it also ties into other themes we have heard from the users here: using administrator tools to further a position in a content dispute, McCarthyist accusations and attacks when asked to explain his decisions, and to introduce a new one, unjustified use of the CheckUser tool. His reasons for his first block of me, with no prior discussion and simply the usernames of my supposed alternate accounts connected with "=" as the block reason, remains mysterious. The alternate accounts that YellowMonkey outed were sufficiently removed in time and topics edited from this account that they could not have come from a suspicious connection between the two. So why did YellowMonkey target me for a sockpuppetry block? A likely answer came during the month or so during which I idled, because he disabled my talk page inappropriately along with my block. With reason to believe that he had permanently rid me from Wikipedia, he quietly reverted my edits on an article about a fairly obscure Buddhist succession dispute that I had been editing recently, to remove some of my language that tried to proportion viewpoints, in order to favor his strongly expressed preference for candidate. Eventually I was unblocked by another administrator, who was satisfied to call it a misunderstanding.
But the consequences of letting YellowMonkey hand out unjustified indefinite blocks like this without scrutiny are clear. One month after his previous block, he tried it again, and when asked to explain his second unilateral block of me, accused me of "obvious[ly]" "editing in the equivalent way of a Chinese Communist Party internet policeman". Sandstein and the other editors at ANI, with much less fanfare than in this case, did not find these accusations "obvious", and further found that YellowMonkey did not follow the proper procedure for blocks, and so Sandstein unblocked me. We are here now, so it appears that YellowMonkey has not changed his habits; by either being more careful with the tools, or by improving his communication skills. Whatever the reason, if other administrators have to constantly follow YellowMonkey around and clean up his messes, he should not have the tools to make them.
Users who endorse this summary:
Since it speaks to the key issue of communication, I point out issues with YellowMonkey's use of his alternate account:
Users who endorse this summary:
I support that he should be removed from his administrator position. He at times attacks the editors out of the way. You can have a look on here. Hillcountries ( talk) 09:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
Desysop him NOW. He has a habit of randomly accusing editors. At Redthoreau's RFA he called Redthoreau a communist pov pusher. And there was the retarded nationalist incident. And this terrible block. And he misuses his user talk page. He has such a long header that the talk page took over 8 minutes to load for me. Then the pageload hung and I had o load it all over again. I think heshould be desyssoped; he has clearly misused the tools. Access Denied 17:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
I feel that YellowMonkey's protections, while maybe not ideal, appear to have reasonably significantly improved in my view since I made a complaint (linked at the top) on ANI and since other Administrators followed up these issues. Some of the other comments raised above do seem rather worrying however. I also feel that administrators jumping in can be a positive thing, though you have to discuss the issues when a comment is raised about them. -- Eraserhead1 < talk> 21:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
I have found YellowMonkey to be an extremely unscrupulous and ideological editor. On the Vietnam war article, for example, he reverted edits involving the following sources: Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995; Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995); Heuveline, Patrick (2001), "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia," In Forced Migration and Mortality; Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993), "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia," in Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. He did so repeatedly, without offering any explanation as to why. He rejected my appeal to "avoid edit wars" and instead told me that these sources were "fringe from home-made websites etc." The dispute involved, not if I would delete his estimates of the dead in the Vietnam War (which come from official Vietnamese government propaganda), but if Population and Development Reviews demographic survey was a credible source. Notably, the article currently states that "1.5 to 2 million" Cambodians died in the war--which would make the entire population of Cambodia a casualty when one considers that wounded is three to four times greater than the number of dead. The Pol Pot article, under the "Analysis and Perspectives" section, has two paragraphs copied and pasted from a news article that explicitly blames America for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. In a series of edits, I added an excerpt from President Nixon's speech on Cambodia, Sliwinski's and Kiernan's estimates of the death toll from the bombing, and a rebuttal of the charge from “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives,” in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda. When done, the section looked like this. He told me that Yale University was engaged in an effort to "white-wash US support for Pol Pot". He has engaged in these tactics repeatedly. Accusing Henry Kissinger of war crimes, he asked me "are you kissinger?? lol". He then randomly deleted my edits on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Henry Kissinger, and several other articles back-to-back--without offering any explanation. Some of the editors expressed puzzlement over his apparently vindictive reversions. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 04:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC) reply
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.
On hold until YellowMonkey returns and has a chance to respond to the concerns raised below. |
In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 00:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:09, 8 June 2024 (UTC).
Please note: This template is for listing disputes about actions that are limited to administrators only, specifically these actions:
For all other matters (such as edit wars and page moves), please use the template at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example user.
This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this administrator's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.
YellowMonkey ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is a highly respected administrator, former arbitrator, and functionary who has done a tremendous amount of good for Wikipedia. However, there is a dispute concerning his conduct as an administrator. The issue that lead directly to this Request for Comment concern's YellowMonkey's block of Yogesh Khandke ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). On 30 September 2010, YellowMonkey blocked Yogesh Khandke for two weeks with a log summary of (trolling and pov pushing at British Empire and talk). At no point did YellowMonkey inform Yogesh Khandke of this block on the latter's talk page, as required by the blocking policy. Immediately after the block's expiry, Yogesh Khandke posted to YellowMonkey's talk page requesting "justification and explanation" of the block. YellowMonkey replied scroll down three days later, asserting that he had responded to Yogesh Khandke's emails. After further discussion viewable here, Yogesh Khandke again requests further explanation for the block, at which point three other editors become involved in the discussion.
On 22 October, YellowMonkey removes the entire discussion of the block from his talk page. This is followed by a further request from Yogesh Khandke for an explanation. YellowMonkey made no further comment. On 19 November, Yogesh Khandke requested further input on the matter at WP:ANI oldid. Consensus was eventually established that this was a bad block. YellowMonkey, despite being invited to the thread by Yogesh Khandke, myslef (HJ Mitchell), Seb az86556 and finally Wehwalt, did not participate in the ANI thread nor make any acknowledgement of it on his talk page.
It is my opinion that this conduct is unbecoming a Wikipedia administrator and is a clear violation of WP:ADMIN, the policy governing administrator conduct and the blocking policy.
Poor block and failure to acknowledge community discussion of actions
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
I can see full well that consensus is against my block, and respect that, although I do not necessarily agree. I do not have any intention of doing anything if I think it would not stick unless it was a fluke/luck. I can do the things per the expected procedure. As for No. 6, I won't be taking any notice of that, as it isn't relevant or reliable, as I can think of many "respected" people who were widely "loved" when they were producing stuff that reflected well on their "leaders" but when they got in trouble their "leaders" weren't anywhere to be seen.
Users who endorse this summary:
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.
{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign.}
Users who endorse this summary:
I found and continue to find Yogesh Khandke to be a disruptive editor who just cannot accept consensus. For that reason, I didn't protest when he ended up getting blocked for two weeks by YM and felt very little sympathy. However, I was rather surprised by the length of the block, extremely surprised by YM's failure to notify Yogesh, and even more surprised by his silence in response to Yogesh's requests for an explanation. I should add I find this high-handedness on the part of YM similar to his attitude at WP:FAC as the FA director's helper. There, similarly, he'd make royal decrees and then fail to respond to responses about those decrees, just turning up every now and again to repeat them. I then read about similar things happening in the past WRT other blocks. Remove his admin status, I say. Totally unsuited for the role.
Users who endorse this summary:
Clearly, YMs block left a lot to be desired. I was unaware of YK's existence at that point in time and so am unable to comment on whether the block was justified or not, but not giving an explanation to the user, not responding to questions about the block on the talk page, and not even informing the user of the block on their talk page is not the proper way to block someone. Anyone blocked, for whatever reason, deserves a fair explanation and a response when they raise a question (unless, of course, they are an obvious sock). That said, YellowMonkey is a great resource as an admin and an acknowledgement of these failures and a statement that he/she will respond differently in future would be the ideal outcome of the RfC/U.
Users who endorse this summary:
I am not particularly acquainted with either the admin or the primary editor in this content dispute, nor am I totally sure of which side is "right". My hunch is that the editor is sincere, zealous, and not entirely wrong, but trying to push this beyond where it should be for now. Ganga is what the locals call it, and increasingly that name is getting some currency, but it's too soon to say that it's really the common name [instead of Ganges]. And that's why we have redirects. (The struck-out part need not be "endorsed", it's merely background info.)
This much I do know: An important responsibility of any admin is to communicate properly and thoroughly. If a true troll keeps asking "why was I blocked", that's one thing. But if an editor who appears sincere asks the same question, he deserves a satisfactory answer. If the admin is generally as good as the other testimony indicates, then this just might be a slip. But regardless, he needs to speak to the matter. RFC's against admins shouldn't be necessary.
Users who endorse this summary:
YellowMonkey as evidenced by his many FAs probably has stricter standards than most editors. As an FA delegate he is freer to make definitive judgment calls and not be questioned about it. I think that role of his and his previous role as an arbitrator may be shading his role as a general administrator. I have not looked at the particulars of this particular case, but have seen at
WP:Featured article review/British Empire/archive1 the milieu and kind of behavior YellowMonkey and Yogesh Khandke were likely in the midst of. Yogesh Khandke although correct can probably come on as strongly opinionated and YellowMonkey could understandably have found it a little too much if displayed over many articles. Two weeks does sound a bit much though and not communicating is a concern, but the proper way to deal with this I suspect is simply to revert YellowMonkey quickly in this case and in the future. If the block is as improper as is suggested I don't think he'll make a fuss over it. YellowMonkey may be a good editor and perhaps FA delegate, but the realization that he is not a good admin if he is treated like a junior admin who does not come up to proper standards is likely to do more to get him up to shape up than a protracted public question period.
Users who endorse this summary:
This block concerned Yogesh Khandke’s participation in discussions of a Featured Article, British Empire. This included that article’s Featured Article Review, to which Yogesh Khandke was contributing before and after his two-week block.
Now, we are not just dealing with one block here. We are dealing with a wider issue, which has to do with writing articles that do not define NPOV as reflecting Western sources, but reflect points of view across the world. As many editors will be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently engaged in significant outreach efforts to India, including the establishement of an Indian Wikimedia office, the second such office in the world after the one in San Francisco. Given this global context, we cannot write an article like British Empire basing ourselves exclusively on Western sources, without reflecting scholarship and opinion in the former colonies themselves, and call it an FA, representative of the best work Wikipedia is capable of.
YellowMonkey does not seem to share this global vision. He derides the Foundation’s outreach efforts in India. Last month, he appeared to refer to an Indian editor as a “retarded nationalist” in an edit summary. When the editor complained at AN/I, YellowMonkey ignored the thread completely, even though his contributions history shows he was editing throughout the time the thread was active. No action was taken against YellowMonkey as a result of the complaint. That is not good enough.
I don’t agree with every comment that Yogesh Khandke has made. But his underlying points with regard to the British Empire article were valid and should have been taken on board. This was acknowledged by several FAC regulars at the FAR, notably Fifelfoo ( talk · contribs). Treating Yogesh, an editor with 3,000 edits and a clean block log to date, like a common troll with a peremptory two-week block, without prior warning, without talk page notification, is wrong.
I have commented on this case and the wider issues, including the current Ganges/Ganga move proposal mentioned by Baseball Bugs above, at the ongoing Foundation list thread on editor diversity: [3]; responses: [4], [5].
Of course I have seen problematic edits by Indian editors. Some write their telephone numbers into articles. Some delete sourced material they don't like, for blatant POV reasons. Yogesh is not that kind of editor. He is the kind of editor we should welcome; whose points of view we should listen to; whom we should help to make their voices heard, to ensure that Indian Wikipedians have the same rightful level of ownership of Wikipedia as any other English-speaking nation. We go on a lot about how this project exists to make knowledge freely available to kids in nations like India. We fail in that mission if our articles on topics of profound concern to India ignore Indian sources and perspectives, presenting an alien quasi-colonialist viewpoint, and if we lack even the largesse to allow an Indian kid to learn about their country's national river from an article bearing that river's official English name, Ganga.
YellowMonkey's services to the project are beyond doubt. He has made all of 5 edits since the ANI thread started on the 19th, so a little AGF is not uncalled for, despite his completely ignoring the earlier ANI thread I mentioned just as he has failed to comment on this case. But if Yellow Monkey can't see his way clear to make some sort of gesture of apology to Yogesh Khandke, and to reflect on his attitude towards India and Indian Wikipedians, and on the role Indians should and will play in this project, then we should at least ask him to refrain from undertaking admin actions in India-related topics.
Users who endorse this summary:
When the ban was handed out YK had brought up 2-3 different issues simultaneously at British Empire in a single editing session instead of resolving those issues one by one. This made him appear like a troll. However, YK is a patient and mature editor who has not had any major incidents in his several thousand edits over several years. A simple friendly reminder/warning would have sufficed instead of the two week ban. A fact overlooked at ANI and here is that soon after YK was banned, YM fought in favor of YKs position even if it meant taking a lot of heat for doing so. However, YM is wrong in assuming that every Indian editor who is assertive and persistent is a "POV pushing nationalist". Many certainly are but our goal should be to bring them in the fold of policy abiding, long term contributors to boost the numbers of the under-represented India editors. The entire situation was made viable because of a European bias on Wikipedia due to which it was impossible to get consensus on any matter that criticized the British Empire. The main trigger was provided by the handful of British nationalist editors who have twisted and omitted many facts, used inappropriate language and inaccurate maps for glorifying the British Empire. Both YM and YK are passionate editors who improve India related articles in their own way and it is painful to see this here.
Users who endorse this summary:
I’ve had several “interactions” with YellowMonkey ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) over the years, and I must say that I’m not in the least surprised by his attitude over this dispute. The combination of an ex cathedra pronouncement followed by a simple refusal to discuss his actions is, for me, one of his hallmarks.
While it does not involve admin powers, this recent affair concerning WP:OTD is a good example. YM had systematically gone through the OTD templates to ensure that his articles on South Vietnam would appear on the Main Page, to the point that the image of Ngo Dinh Diem (shown right) was scheduled to be shown nineteen times over the course of the year. YM did not contribute to that discussion: when the issue came up again a few days later, YM compared OTD to a “toilet exhibit” and a notorious Mumbai slum. At no point was there any attempt to justify his actions or engage in meaningful discussion. We see the same attitude again in YM’s response to this RFC: no attempt to justify the action or to engage in discussion, merely an unwilling acceptance that consensus went against him.
YM’s apparent allergy to discussion can be seen in his contribution history to the Talk and Wikipedia talk namespaces. A comparison of YM’s contributions history in the User talk namespace with his block log shows that his failure to inform or engage with Yogesh Khandke ( talk · contribs) over the block was not a one-off incident: there are very few signs that YM has ever informed or engaged with users he has blocked over the last year. [EDIT: Serpent's Choice below gives a more detailed analysis on this point]
In the Betacommand case (2007), the Arbitration Committee found the following principle:
Due to the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, proper communication is extremely important, and all editors are expected to respond to messages intended for them in a timely manner and to constructively discuss controversial issues. This is especially true for administrators in regard to administrative actions. Such expected communication includes: giving appropriate (as guided by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines) warnings prior to, and notification messages following, their actions; using accurate and descriptive edit and administrative action summaries; and responding promptly and fully to all good-faith concerns raised about their administrative actions.
YellowMonkey – under his alternate username, Blnguyen ( talk · contribs) – voted to approve that principle, and to have Betacommand desysopped. This principle has been considered important enough for it to be linked from WP:ADMIN: in short, discussion of admin actions is not optional. If YM does not wish to discuss his admin actions in any meaningful way, then he should voluntarily resign his sysop bit before the community as a whole is forced to decide that, despite his undoubted writing skills, he is is unfit to be trusted with the tools.
Users who endorse this summary:
As a long time editor, I have also noticed the same lack of respect for following due process in blocking editors and not responding when requested to respond. This also is evident when he summarily deletes articles that he does not like with a potential for conflict of interest. He also deletes whole cited sections of articles without any discussion (See this) There is also a lack of respect, assuming good faith when dealing with editors. here. In general I am of the opinion that YM is a good contributor but giving him admin powers is stressing him beyond his capacity to interact with others. He has demonstrated his inability to be nuanced and responsible with his Admin powers over and over again, through many years. YM should be removed of his Admins powers and encouraged to contribute to the project like thousands others do on a daily basis.
Users who endorse this summary:
I have no stake in this issue, merely a desire to analyze available information for the community's benefit. As this is an admin RFC, I have looked exclusively at the YellowMonkey's (hereafter YM) use of the admin tools. Because I am not myself an admin, I have somewhat limited capacity to judge the propriety of certain actions, which I will note when appropriate. In an effort to focus on recent activity, I have examined only the use of tools between 1 June 2010 and current. Other outside views have included comments on editorial activity (edit summaries, incivility), but that is outside the scope of this analysis.
1. Blocking
YM has blocked a reasonably large number of users since 1 June. In examining his adherence to the blocking policy, I have excluded blocks of IP addresses or those blocks citing sockpuppetry. Practice (and, in some cases, policy) regarding IP addresses and sockpuppets of known blocked or banned users differs from "standard" blocking. In addition to the block primarily under discussion in this RFC, and excluding those categories, YM has issued the following blocks:
collapsed list of editors
|
---|
|
Many of these blocks are not, in and of themselves, contentious. YM has blocked a number of serial vandals, obvious spammers, sockpuppets of known banned users, and an unrepentent copyright violator. However. In addition to the YK block at discussion here, several of these blocks deviated from standard practices. Several (although not all) of the indef blocks occurred without any block escalation whatsoever -- often with minimal warning. By means of the most extreme example, Mort247 was certainly not contributing constructively (contribs suggest a student at a private high school), but literally nothing has ever been posted to the user's talk page; it remains a redlink.
As I am not an admin, I cannot view the deleted contributions of Mnlira013 to determine what warranted a "spam" indef without warning or discussion, but a series of links to the History Channel and A&E websites (the visible contributions) are not what I would expect for an immediate spam indef.
Quigley has actually been indef blocked by YM twice. The first indef is not included in my list above because it was a block for sockpuppetry that was overturned following a determination that the user's alternative accounts are compliant with multiple account use policy. The second block, a month later, was for "nothing but hardcore pov pushing", and was an immediate indef. This situation actually went to AN/I at the time and was overturned, in a situation not unlike the one that triggered this RFC. Quigley remains an editor in good standing, albeit one involved in the often contentious topic of Tibet.
By means of summary: as far as I can tell, YM posted a combined total of ZERO times to the talk pages of any users in the box above. Not even a template, not even once. From the blocking policy: "Administrators should also notify users when blocking them by leaving a message on their user talk page unless they have a good reason not to." At least in this regard, none of the blocks examined were compliant with the letter of blocking policy; the case being discussed in this RFC is typical practice, not an isolated incident.
2. Deletion
Because I cannot see deleted content, I am less competent to judge YM's use of the deletion tool. However, YM's deletions have been taken to DRV at least twice recently. The vast majority of his other deletions are G6 to allow for pagemoves or deletion of pages in his own userspace.
YM deleted
Buddhism and violence 22 October 2010 without citing any process whatsoever ("pov essay, most of the article is off topic and about book reivews, or isn't in the content linked"). The
DRV upheld the deletion (despite a very split consensus) as being a problematic article in the state it existed. but YM's explanation at DRV was not particularly illuminating ("essay, OR, copyvio, waste of time"). In particular, the copyvio claim had not been raised previously and was presented without evidence despite a request for clarification from DRV. (Struck in part, based on input from DRV participants; concerns about out of process deletion are still valid.)
YM deleted 1984 ghallooghaaraa after the AFD was closed No Consensus, citing sockpuppet contamination. That decision was upheld at DRV despite agreement that process was not respected.
3. Page protection
YM has not employed page protection during the examined period.
YM has semi-protected over 100 articles since 1 June 2010. In many cases, his use of semi-protection does not appear to be wholly compliant with the semi-protection policy. As with all my analyses, I am unable to view deleted contributions.
partial analysis of page protections
|
---|
...
... |
I will endevour a detailed review of all of the page protection instances. Okay, I've had about enough of that; I see no reason to expect the remaining protections to be any different in the whole than the ones I've already slogged through. With only a few exceptions, YM has used long-duration semi-protection on pages in which only a single editor -- often only a single edit -- has been disruptive. I do not believe this to be in compliance with the semi-protection policy as I understand it.
His 1 year semiprotection of physics is particularly notable in this regard. The log summary ("flagrant vandalism on major page for 40 minutes") is accurate, as far as it goes. A one-edit vandalism of the article by an IP editor went uncorrected for nearly an hour. YM reverted this single disruptive change (ironically, to an IP editor's version), and then applied a one-year semiprotection, which remains in effect at the time of this posting.
His semiprotection of thylacine is even more puzzling; I can see literally nothing in the article history to explain why any admin intervention at all was warranted.
Additionally, there are a few cases in which YM employed semi-protection on pages in which he has a history as an editor. Primarily, these pages relate to cricket (although his history at cricket appears purely administrative) or to Vietnamese political figures. Whether or not his contributions at any or all such pages are sufficient to raise him to the level of an "involved admin" is not a topic I feel competent to opine on.
Users who endorse this summary:
In Redthoreau's request for adminship, YellowMonkey called him a Communist POV pusher [6] and is likely to be more lenient towards pro-communist users than anti-communist users [7] with no real justification. This is a violation of WP:NPA, and an admin should be held to higher standards.
Users who endorse this summary:
Yellowmonkey is one of the most active editors and admins going. A feature of his or her adminship is that they often jump in and take action in circumstances where other admins would sit on the fence - in my view (as a fellow admin) he or she does so wisely and this constitutes an important and valuable contribution. As Yellowmonkey has agreed with the desired outcome and should be taken at their word, I don't see why this is continuing. Many of the issues raised above in this section seem to be only loosely related to the dispute raised at the start of this RfC/U and I don't see how this is very productive.
Users who endorse this summary:
I support desyopping and Recall of this administrator. He has ignored the community and his comments about Indian contributors and his actions in this poor block all show very poor judgment with no sign of any understanding or care of his actions. It would do him good to treat him as he has treated others - make fun of him and then block him for a lengthy period without warning and then ignore him. - retracting this part, wouldn't want to treat him so badly.
Users who endorse this summary:
My case was alluded to above as an example of the silent and excessively long nature of YellowMonkey's blocks, but it also ties into other themes we have heard from the users here: using administrator tools to further a position in a content dispute, McCarthyist accusations and attacks when asked to explain his decisions, and to introduce a new one, unjustified use of the CheckUser tool. His reasons for his first block of me, with no prior discussion and simply the usernames of my supposed alternate accounts connected with "=" as the block reason, remains mysterious. The alternate accounts that YellowMonkey outed were sufficiently removed in time and topics edited from this account that they could not have come from a suspicious connection between the two. So why did YellowMonkey target me for a sockpuppetry block? A likely answer came during the month or so during which I idled, because he disabled my talk page inappropriately along with my block. With reason to believe that he had permanently rid me from Wikipedia, he quietly reverted my edits on an article about a fairly obscure Buddhist succession dispute that I had been editing recently, to remove some of my language that tried to proportion viewpoints, in order to favor his strongly expressed preference for candidate. Eventually I was unblocked by another administrator, who was satisfied to call it a misunderstanding.
But the consequences of letting YellowMonkey hand out unjustified indefinite blocks like this without scrutiny are clear. One month after his previous block, he tried it again, and when asked to explain his second unilateral block of me, accused me of "obvious[ly]" "editing in the equivalent way of a Chinese Communist Party internet policeman". Sandstein and the other editors at ANI, with much less fanfare than in this case, did not find these accusations "obvious", and further found that YellowMonkey did not follow the proper procedure for blocks, and so Sandstein unblocked me. We are here now, so it appears that YellowMonkey has not changed his habits; by either being more careful with the tools, or by improving his communication skills. Whatever the reason, if other administrators have to constantly follow YellowMonkey around and clean up his messes, he should not have the tools to make them.
Users who endorse this summary:
Since it speaks to the key issue of communication, I point out issues with YellowMonkey's use of his alternate account:
Users who endorse this summary:
I support that he should be removed from his administrator position. He at times attacks the editors out of the way. You can have a look on here. Hillcountries ( talk) 09:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
Desysop him NOW. He has a habit of randomly accusing editors. At Redthoreau's RFA he called Redthoreau a communist pov pusher. And there was the retarded nationalist incident. And this terrible block. And he misuses his user talk page. He has such a long header that the talk page took over 8 minutes to load for me. Then the pageload hung and I had o load it all over again. I think heshould be desyssoped; he has clearly misused the tools. Access Denied 17:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
I feel that YellowMonkey's protections, while maybe not ideal, appear to have reasonably significantly improved in my view since I made a complaint (linked at the top) on ANI and since other Administrators followed up these issues. Some of the other comments raised above do seem rather worrying however. I also feel that administrators jumping in can be a positive thing, though you have to discuss the issues when a comment is raised about them. -- Eraserhead1 < talk> 21:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC) reply
I have found YellowMonkey to be an extremely unscrupulous and ideological editor. On the Vietnam war article, for example, he reverted edits involving the following sources: Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995; Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995); Heuveline, Patrick (2001), "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia," In Forced Migration and Mortality; Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993), "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia," in Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. He did so repeatedly, without offering any explanation as to why. He rejected my appeal to "avoid edit wars" and instead told me that these sources were "fringe from home-made websites etc." The dispute involved, not if I would delete his estimates of the dead in the Vietnam War (which come from official Vietnamese government propaganda), but if Population and Development Reviews demographic survey was a credible source. Notably, the article currently states that "1.5 to 2 million" Cambodians died in the war--which would make the entire population of Cambodia a casualty when one considers that wounded is three to four times greater than the number of dead. The Pol Pot article, under the "Analysis and Perspectives" section, has two paragraphs copied and pasted from a news article that explicitly blames America for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. In a series of edits, I added an excerpt from President Nixon's speech on Cambodia, Sliwinski's and Kiernan's estimates of the death toll from the bombing, and a rebuttal of the charge from “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives,” in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda. When done, the section looked like this. He told me that Yale University was engaged in an effort to "white-wash US support for Pol Pot". He has engaged in these tactics repeatedly. Accusing Henry Kissinger of war crimes, he asked me "are you kissinger?? lol". He then randomly deleted my edits on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Henry Kissinger, and several other articles back-to-back--without offering any explanation. Some of the editors expressed puzzlement over his apparently vindictive reversions. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 04:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC) reply
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.