Forum:NB: An appeal to the administration

Havac is a good editor. He is a prolific writer on the wiki, bringing an impressive number of articles to Featured and Good status. He has been an administrator for over a year now, and has won Wookieepedian of the month. He if often the voice of reason, as demonstrated by his ops behavior on IRC and as a moderator of the Jedi Council Forums. However, I have noticed a certain quality in Havac that I consider to be unbecoming of a user, let alone an administrator, which has grown for some time now, and I would like to call this to the attention of the administration at large, as well as to request that Havac cease all behaviors related to this quality.

I've come to notice a trend of abusiveness towards other editors, proprietary and entitled attitude towards articles and the wiki, and a general lack of consideration for the policies and guidelines that make the Wookieepedia community stable and constructive.

Definition of policy
It is a commonly held belief that civility is not a policy on Wookieepedia, as the page outlining civil behavior is officially a guideline and not a policy. However, this belief is incorrect. The wording on What Wookieepedia is not, an official policy of the site, contains this phrase:


 * "In addition, when discussing articles with other users, it is important to be civil and respectful."

Furthermore, when it comes to administrators, a higher standard of conduct is indeed policy, as stated in the requirements for adminship:


 * "They have dealings with other users on a regular basis in a fair, restrained, and constructive manner."

No personal attacks describes not only direct insults on pages, but a general sense of combativeness that is unacceptable for the wiki and its community:


 * "Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded."


 * "Negative personal comments and 'I'm better than you' attacks, such as 'You have no life. ' "


 * "Profanity directed against another contributor."

Examples of infractions
This current consensus thread is a good example of the "debatable" sort of personal attack I've seen Havac engage in on the wiki. The author of the CT is dismissed as a "random user," his ideas as "thrown together," and the vote format presented as "horrible." And sure, while No personal attacks describes the two latter slurs as more debatable instances of a personal attack, the first one is incontrovertible. Instead of disagreeing with the author's ideas, voting against the proposal and stating his reasons for disagreement, Havac took it that one extra step of insulting another user, implying that he is not one of the "good article writers" that would implicitly be better at creating policy.

This is another example of a CT in which Havac refers to the arguments of others as the "height of idiocy" and "utter bullshit." Again, there is no real need to deal out insults (or imply than anyone is an idiot or a bullshitter), but Havac just had to take that extra step. Soon thereafter in the same forum he tells another user their ideas have no merit. Sure, while that may not in itself be a personal attack, as defined by the policy page, it certainly is in violation of civility.

Yet another example of Havac calling into question the notion that others might have different ideas from him.

This is an example of an assumption of bad faith, and an implied insult to the target of his comments.

Kol Skywalker, an article which Havac brought to Featured status, provides good examples of Havac (albeit using anonymous IPs to edit due to his login problems) using abusive language including profanity in edit summaries, as part of an edit war (shit and damn, this one wasn't very civil either). A brief talk page discussion further demonstrates a proprietary attitude towards the article an an unwillingness to compromise with other editors who have different ideas for the page.

In this trash compactor forum, it seems like Havac cannot refrain from abusive language and belligerence towards all who disagree with him.

And in this other TC thread he makes personal remarks about another user, accusing them of bad-faith practices. This was apparently some sort of cross-article, multiple-process edit war in which I can't see any intentional wrongdoing on the other user's part.

And finally, but certainly not the utter limit of this sort of behavior on Havac's part in regards to the wiki and its articles, yet another edit war against multiple users showing possessiveness toward an article.

Purpose for this forum
I didn't want to make this forum; I don't want to create or escalate conflicts with any user on the wiki. But I saw something going on that I believe is wrong and felt I had to do something. I don't want to see Havac, or anyone, have his adminship removed, or suffer any other kind of censure for his proclivity towards conflict on the wiki. This is not a "witch hunt" where a list of imagined infractions is used to condemn an individual. These are simply things I've noticed, part of a greater trend that I disagree with on a very basic level. They are not situations in which Havac has been "provoked" by other users, as far as I can tell. I have seen such situations arise, and have left any mention them out of this forum because I understand the position of defensiveness.

I really don't want to lawyer the finer points of policy or the situations laid out above in this forum. I'm sure there are plenty of extenuating circumstances for everything; there always are and I am always objective and compassionate in my weighing of such. I just want this sort of behavior to stop. I find it counterproductive, divisive, and very frustrating towards any user who finds himself on the business end of Havac's temper. I'd like to think that all policies of the site can indeed be considered by Havac or any other user before commenting on forums or making edits. Furthermore, I believe all administrators should take into consideration the fact that they are endowed with greater responsibility, and therefore held to a higher standard, than regular users. Graestan ( Talk ) 20:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)