Personal Attack Blocking Time-line

Snowspinner's proposed policy fails to gain consensus

03:29, 13 Aug 2004: Snowspinner writes initial draft of Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks, which would allow users to be blocked for making "personal attacks" by a single sysop acting unilaterally. [1]
On or about 01 Sep 2004: after an extension to the voting period, voting closes on Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks, the proposal having failed to gain consensus. Blocking for "personal attacks" is not a power granted to sysops by the community. [2]

Snowspinner issues a warning

20:04, Sep 9, 2004: Snowspinner warns User:Robert Brookes on User talk:Robert Brookes that "Personal attacks are not allowed on Wikipedia. Please be aware that continued personal attacks on your part can lead to your being blocked from editing Wikipedia." Snowspinner does not make clear that the power to block, as a result of the failure of above policy to gain consensus, resides with the Arbitration Committee alone. [3]

Snowspinner attempts to make controversial changes to policy unilaterally

16:22, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner adds provisions to Wikipedia:No personal attacks, including making "Assertions of negative or malicious intent outside of dispute resolution" a personal attack. [4]
16:38, 10 Sep 2004: Zocky removes Snowspinner's most controversial additions, with the edit summary "rm controversial changes - please take it to talk". (Note that this is not a full revert.) [5]
17:36, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner fully reverts Zocky's version to his own of 16:22, with the edit summary "Your definition of controversy puzzles me." Note that the edit summary does not, as is customary, indicate a full revert was made. [6]
18:01, 10 Sep 2004: orthogonal fully reverts Snowspinnrer's version to Zocky's version of 16:38, with the edit summary "rv: Snowspinner, Zocky politely asked you to discuss your edits, not to revert him with a snide comment. Consensus over haste, please." [7]
18:23, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner fully reverts orthogonal's version to his own version of 16:22, with the edit summary "Zocky reverted some common sense additions on the grounds that they were 'controversial.' If there are objections, raise them and we can discuss them, but lacking objection, there's nothing to discuss". Note that Snowspinner puts the onus on the persons objecting to a change, not the person seeking the change, to open discussion; and again Snowspinner does not indicate that his change is a full revert. [8]
21:53, 10 Sep 2004: Anthere moves Snowspinner's changes under the header "Suggestions of policy changes", with the edit summary "Separate community approved recommandation [sic] from "not yet consensual edits". She allows that they can become part of policy if there are no objections to them in two weeks. [9]

Snowspinner asserts that he will follow "common sense" rather than community consensus

22:14, 10 Sep 2004: Zocky, not proponent Snowspinner, adds Snowspinner's proposed changes to the associated Talk page Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks for community comment. Zocky notes that Snowspinner's additions would make "'You knew this was POV before you inserted it' or 'I think you are a troll', or an edit summary saying 'Reverted - stop inputting false information' [...] personal attacks." [10]
22:46, 10 Sep 2004: orthogonal adds to Zocky's comment references to actual edits made by respected sysops, within the last week, that would, under Snowspinner's additions, now be considered personal attacks. [11]
23:11, 10 Sep 2004 to 23:23, 10 Sep 2004: In six edits, Snowspinner defends his additions and Jwrosenzweig responds, including saying that Jwrosenzweig doesn't "feel they're workable policies". [12]
23:29, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner, in response to Jwrosenzweig, responds, "Fair enough. I'll just return to deciding on a case by case basis. :)" [13]
23:34, 10 Sep 2004: orthogonal asks Snowspinner, "By that, surely you mean you'll follow community consensus, not your own idea of policy [...]?" [14]
23:38, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner responds, "No, I mean that I'm going to apply common sense." [15]
23:40, 10 Sep 2004 Jwrosenzweig admonishes both Snowspinner and orthogonal, "Let's play nicely, shall we?" and asserts that "I expect Snowspinner didn't mean he would ignore" consensus. Jwrosenzweig adds that "The only consequence a non-AC member can impose for a personal attack, as I recall, is to remove it [...]. Even if someone disregards consensus there, it's easily reversible and pretty minor. If there are sterner consequences, I'd like to know about them". [16]
23:43, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner agrees with Jwrosenzweig's interpretation of current policy: "At present, you are correct as to what personal attack policy says, yes." [17]
23:46, 10 Sep 2004: Jwrosenzweig follows up to Snowspinner, "Then I don't see anything wrong at all with you exercising common sense when you remove a personal attack, unless there is clear community consensus against it (in which case it's merely futile to do so, whether or not you think it sensible). If we're talking about banning people for making such attacks, then I think common sense is a less useful guide". [18]

Snowspinner explains his concept of "Common sense"

23:39, 10 Sep 2004 to 05:28, 11 Sep 2004: Snowspinner adds an explanation of common sense to his User page, explaining that consensus, in the form of "codified Wikipedia policy[,] changes at a speed that can generally be outstripped by a VW Bug in park. [...] attempts to slavishly follow the rules when one of the rules is to ignore all rules is an exercise in absurdism." [19]

23:39, 10 Sep 2004: Snowspinner excerpts a discussion from the #Wikipedia IRC channel, adding it to his User page, which quotes user:Raul654 (quoted in full, emphasis orthogonal's): [20]

Raul654: oh, and Snowspinner, I've come to a conclusion
Raul654: making policy on wikipedia is hard
Raul654: because there are people who oppose any common sense measures
JamesF: Raul> Indeed.
Snowspinner: Yes. I came to that conclusion as well.
Raul654: I have decided that it's better to shoot first and ask questions later ;)
Snowspinner: Cool.
Snowspinner: I'm in that camp too now.
Raul654: seriously
Raul654: don't worry about making common sense policy
Raul654: just do things with common sense
Raul654: and wait for policy to catch up

Snowspinner blocks user:Robert Brookes

05:05, 11 Sep 2004 Snowspinner blocked "Robert Brookes" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Disruptive user policy - harassment and personal attacks)

Application of Blocking Policy to Snowspinner's blocking of user:Robert Brookes

Note that above, Snowspinner had agreed with Jwrosenzweig's statement that "The only consequence a non-AC member can impose for a personal attack, as I recall, is to remove it", but one of the reasons given for blocking Robert Brookes is "personal attacks".

The Policy cited, however, is the "Disruptive user policy", or more accurately, Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Disruption. In part this Policy provides that:

Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia. Such disruption is to be objectively defined by specific policies, and may include changing other user's signed comments or making deliberately misleading edits. Users should be warned that they are violating policy before they are blocked. [....]

Sysops may also block new user accounts that make lots of disruptive edits, for any length of time or permanently, at their discretion.

Is the user:Robert Brookes a "new" account? No, it was established 9 Aug 2004, So the "new user" clause cannot apply. [21] (In comparison, Snowspinner first ran for sysop after being here six weeks.)

The Blocking Policy provides that "Users should be warned that they are violating policy before they are blocked.". Did Snowspinner warn user:Robert Brookes? Yes, at 20:04, 9 Sep 2004 (see above for link).

But the Blocking Policy provides that "disruption is to be objectively defined by specific policies"; as demonstrated above, while there is a Policy that provides for the removal of personal attacks, not only is there no policy that allows unilateral sysop banning for personal attacks, and the community has explicitly failed to find a consensus for such actions.

And Snowspinner's warning to User:Robert Brookes was about "personal attacks", for which a sysop cannot block.