Forum:NB:Hk's warning

I wasn't perpetuating anything, I was making one supplementary statement and was explicit in my dropping the subject. However, now that I've been threatened with a block for general disruption, in effect for pointing out an honest clerical mistake, I'm bringing this dispute to everyone's attention, officially.

Earlier today, gave  a warning on his talk page, telling him to stop copy/pasting text to write articles. Toprawa and Ralltiir noticed this in an edit Hk 47 made to Infiltration of the Tarkin that Toprawa and Ralltiir subsequently reverted. In this warning, he said that this was an illegitimate way to improve the Wook, against the rules. In truth, it is not. There is no policy on this; the taboo was started on the CAN page with people refusing to vote for articles that were copy/pasted. That's all well and good, but we never made it official, so there was no grounds for that warning&mdash;not against the rules, not punishable. Looking into the matter further in researching this notice shows that Hk 47 did copy from material he did not write: "Tarkin", taken to status by Toprawa and Ralltiir. That was where Hk 47 went wrong. Nonetheless, Hk 47's warning makes no mention of the fact that he copied from an article he did not write, nor did the Administrator mention this after I said that that circumstance would be unacceptable. Instead, Toprawa and Ralltiir berated him for his practice of copy/pasting articles&mdash;which, as stated, is not against the rules. Not having investigated the matter further to see where the words came from, thinking it only had to do with the act of copy/pasting because of the warning Toprawa and Ralltiir left, I pointed out the practice's legitimacy under the warning. I should have looked into the matter further beforehand, but I would have pointed this out either way. I was then rebuffed by the Administrator, who told me I should "mind my own business." His response was, I would say, overly aggressive in reaction to my two sentence remark.

For full disclosure and to provide some context, in the beginning of the CAN, I did a lot of copy/paste work and was there when copy/pasting status articles was unofficially denounced, and I am in the position to know a little something about how we've been handling it considering that I have been making the relevant concession a lot. Namely, an article that is being put up for status should be unique, with an exception for the "Behind the scenes" section. I highly doubt that Hk 47 was thinking of putting "Infiltration of the Tarkin" up for status by taking from an article he did not write. That prospect simply does not make sense to me, though I could be wrong. He had not nominated it yet, and was thus not violating the unofficial agreement he was accused of breaking.

When I wrote a short, probably too curt response back to Toprawa and Ralltiir&mdash;not wanting this to escalate to formality, but not being able to say nothing to that rejoinder&mdash;he proceeded to warn me on my talkpage, this time altogether too harsh, saying that I was being disruptive and saying that if I pursued the matter further, which I said I had no intention to do, without the Noticeboard he would block me. Thus, here we are.

Toprawa and Ralltiir handled this situation in a way that was beneath the attitude the userbase expects of an Administrator. No, Administrators are not required by their position to be nice&mdash;no-one is, regardless of position. However, the position comes with expectations from the people who vote Administrators in. An Administrator enforces policy with official Administrative warnings; moreover, the userbase expects to be listened to. Per Administrators, "Administrators are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility." In this case, it was my editiorial responsibility to point out Toprawa and Ralltiir's misconception, and to say that it was none of my business to point out that another user was being accused of something that is not a crime strikes me as a gross overstep by the acting Administrator. Had Hk 47 responded under the warning, would he have received similar remarks and threats? I would say it is more likely he would have been blocked outright. Toprawa and Raltiir made a simple mistake: he misjudged something as against the rules when it was not and failed to point out the true problem with the edit: Hk 47 copied from an article written by Toprawa and Ralltiir. He decided not to handle this like any other user would have, by telling the offender not to plagiarize. I have done this myself, I've seen other people handle this as well, and it does not take an Administrative threat with a trumped charge to fix the situation.

It is not a sign of weakness to have someone point out your mistake: we all deal with that regularly on the nom pages. It is not a capitol offense to point out something has gone wrong: especially when it pertains to a miscarriage of justice. Toprawa and Ralltiir made an error here, and I'm typing this report out at his request. I don't desire or expect any action taken against someone who has been doing their job correctly for years, with only a few hiccups. Frankly, this incident simply needs to be on record and all I would like is an apology, if at all possible. Nonetheless, I am not a stupid child anymore and any more hiccups henceforth that I feel should be officialized will be officialized. In this case though, two words and this will be behind us both. NaruHina Talk  23:06, September 28, 2012 (UTC)