Requests for Comment/Review exception to LP ban and reban them

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Amanda's account was compromised, violating the unblock conditions from the previous RfC, as such, they have proven that they cannot prevent disruption of the project from LP. As well, Amanda's account has an unusual overlap over blocked ranges with other locked accounts, which brings into question if they actually were operating only a single account in good faith. I cannot comfortably say that Amanda is not the same user as LP (ILB) based off technical evidence. Even if they are different people, the technical evidence certainly suggests that both Amanda and LP were not editing on this wikifarm in good faith. In other words, Amanda appears to be technically related LP and other locked accounts. Given the community evaluation of their behavior, and the violation of the previous unban agreement, Amanda is banned from Miraheze services for disruption of the project. -- Void ^Whispers 19:25, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

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As the Miraheze community is aware, we had a longtime problem child named Lawrence-Praries who turned out to be a long time troll from Wikipedia who impersonated authority figures, disrupted the day to day operations both here and there, proved to be hungry for power which was then abused to make changes that would compromise the security and privacy of Miraheze for their own personal preferences, sought changes in policy that would effectively insulate them from consequences, and often claimed harassment and personal attacks when they or their sockpuppets were accused and later proven to be abusive, with their final attempt at trying to remain under the alias "Amanda" was defeated and they retired the field before they could definitely punished under that alias as well, at least in any permanent sense.

This previous RFC has all the details. What spurred this RFC can be found here.

It bears mentioning throughout the previous RFC that all actions that defined the abuse of LP and all actions they took under that name and various aliases to deter or avoid consequences have been demonstrated by "Amanda" to date, and thus their stories of being separate people on the same IP range are highly suspect at best.

After that ended in ignominious stalemate, LP launched a sustained campaign of harassment and abuse against the Miraheze service, including repeated and sustained assaults at this wiki, abuse of services like Phabricator and GitHub, and essentially committed digital terrorism to force a rescinding of being made to pay for all the nonsense they pulled under their previous identities.

Eventually, against what appears to be all common sense and reason from my view, the decision to allow the identity of Amanda back was allowed, and since then they have been absolutely nothing but the same pain in the backside to the wikifarm they were under all their previous identities, which contrary to all these protests to the contrary, are entirely consistent with the behavior of LP and their aliases on Wikipedia to date, and they have resumed the same pattern that led to their expulsion before, just with minor attempts to remain slightly more subtle about their previous foolishness, which include:

• Demanding unreasonable changes to security procedures and attempts to compromise security of Miraheze to suit their own paranoid whims.
• Abuse of other people's comments and talk pages, often removing commentary they did not like despite repeated attempts to tell them to stop by both users and staff.
• Open and repeated attempts to seize power at any and all levels and to "backseat moderate", even though this has been met with condemnation from both users and staff.
• Making arbitrary attempts to force changes through Phabricator and Github and reacting capriciously when they were challenged, which included various attempts to weasel around rejected attempts to try again, open contempt for certain users and even staff despite the legitimacy of their concerns.
• Repeated establishment of wikis that appear to be little more than stubs at best which they guarded as jealously from view and arbitrarily blocked users from for personal offenses, and which before their attempts to block myself and other users as deliberate payback for anything they deemed fit (even if it was opposing them on certain measures others reasonably believed harmful to Miraheze), it can be determined they acted in the exact same manner under both previous and current aliases, which is to say paranoid, power hungry, and controlling.
  • It should be further noted some of their wikis here host content that has high overlap with content that got them banned as I Love Bridges, which is now not viewable to me as a direct consequence of my pointing this very fact out with evidence to back up my concerns.
• Desiring to do everything in their power obfuscate their internet protocol address and other technical means of identifying themselves to establish they are not associated with problem users, even though their excuses for doing so have remained inconsistent and have merely served to frustrate any technical analysis of their contributions to prevent malicious use, even though the practical result of the tenures of LP and their aliases and the current one of "Amanda" have a very high overlap in function and intent, despite protests they are separate people, and they have provided no means, even in the strictest of confidence with Miraheze Staff, to allow for a reasonable determination of fact.
• Attempts to restructure the rules and functions of Miraheze have remained consistent between all aliases, all with the goal of effectively rendering this user under all known aliases from immunity to consequence for their actions, especially attempts to deny and undercut the police power of any user or staff who might wish to restrain them for any number of reasonable purposes as determined by policy.

For the above and other reasons, I contend "Amanda" is but "Lawrence-Praries" under yet another guise and should thus be banned, definitively and irrevocably for the safety of the service and the harmony of the community, and this decision should be final and binding for now and in the future, no matter what terrorism may result from that action as a result, for which it can always be curbed and controlled by Miraheze Staff using current infrastructure.

I further contend all their excuses to the contrary of this belief do not add up for both technical reasons nor for those analysis of data both here and on Wikipedia would argue otherwise, and that their explanations for any discrepancies have been but fabrications and misdirection in order to continue using this service for ends at odds with the general spirit, intent, and purpose of Miraheze as a whole, and they should thus be stripped of any power, even as a regular user, and permanently barred from this service for life.

Their wikis should be closed and removed, and as a courtesy I would be in favor of allowing them to obtain dumps of their content (owing to their small size) for archival and rehosting at other services more willing to suffer their presence, but any largesse past that point should be nothing.

Overall, I believe this user to be nothing but a net and gross negative to the staff, community, and service of Miraheze, and I seek community consensus they should be expelled once more, this time with much more finality than before, and this time it should be made much more binding.

Support

•  Strong support: As creator of the proposal, for reasons outlined in the preamble. GethN7 (talk) 11:45, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
•  Strong support: This is getting excessive with so many RfCs--I'm sure just banning them without having an RfC for each account would be a more plausible approach. Samuel (talk) 13:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It would be, if there was a ban in place. However, there isn't a ban in place and this RfC is requesting to put a ban in place. Though your comment tells me you don't understand what is going on here in the overall context. John (talk) 13:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

This comment is also misleading. LP is already banned, and I had the IT director at our apartment complex ban LP's apartment from Internet access. Therefore, LP won't be coming back very easily, and I think that it's time to move on. I also am getting frustrated with so many RFC's, and at this point I want to just close this on grounds of it being a POINTy request but I know that I'm not allowed to do that. -- Amanda (talk) 13:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

•  Strong support. The way in which the previous RFC was handled by certain members of Miraheze staff I have previously made clear was unethical and wrong, and in particular in regard to the way that private conversations occurred behind the community's back regarding the creation of such. I believe this entire situation has been a farce. LulzKiller (talk) 15:59, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Out of interest, you think a user who is "banned" can't email someone to discuss something? Email conversations were public at the RfC. The only other way would have been unilaterally unbanning the user to have an unban discussion on wiki before an unban proposal was at RfC. Your logic is lacking here. John (talk) 16:02, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

•  Weak support: At this point, all I want is Amanda banned from Phabricator. We've lost customers due to the way they've handled things, and they tend to do crazy things like closing requests that aren't resolved, setting subtasks as parent tasks, deleting comments, removing subscribers, and generally making a mess of things. Right now there are no other vehicles to remove Amanda from Phabricator, so I'll support this request instead. --Labster (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

IMHO, disabling my Phabricator account is a de facto ban from that service/platform. -- Amanda (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Labster refers to this (which lead to this) when he says "lost customers due to the way they've handled things". Although it was handled 100% correctly as per the ToU, we do no allow advertising. John (talk) 20:21, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

•  Strong oppose mostly per my rationale here. The previous RfC sets out clear expectations and is extremely easy to void if deemed necessary. The continued pounding of back and forth RfCs because "I don't like the outcome" is not helpful. Now responses in line with the proposers reasons for a ban:

"Demanding unreasonable changes to security procedures and attempts to compromise security of Miraheze to suit their own paranoid whims." There have been no demands for unreasonable changes to any procedures that related to security or any attempt at all to compromise security. If this was the case, this discussion wouldn't even be happening as a ToS ban would be in place and only reversible by system administrators.

"Open and repeated attempts to seize power at any and all levels" I'm not aware of any of this occurring since the last RfC closed. What I have seen is people from ATT, however, making accusations of this based on zero technical knowledge or even reviewing the changes and then having to apologise after. Also keep in mind things like wiki creator, rollback etc. also known as requests are perfectly acceptable requests to be made. If this is negative, then in the interests of equality anyone asking for these rights should be banned under the same basis.

"Making arbitrary attempts to force changes through Phabricator and Github" This is called volunteering/doing their own work. Requests through these venues are not forceful and if anything is strongly encouraged as it allows us to focus on more important things.

"Repeated establishment of wikis" This entire line isn't even worth a response. We have people who have made a lot more wiki requests than 1 (yes, just 1, this one). Plus 315 pages, with 800 edits is far from a stub. Keep in mind we have 400+ wikis that have zero edits. As such this wiki has a lot more value than over half of Miraheze therefore negatively addressing a user because they have a "stub" wiki will be addressing over half the community.

"Attempts to restructure the rules and functions of Miraheze have remained consistent between all aliases" but isn't this an attempt to restructure the rules over whether one person can be here? Isn't this also an attempt to restructure the rules and functions of Miraheze? Change is good and they incite and invite discussion. Unfortunately, these RfC do the opposite and invite hatred and attacks.

Now onto general comments and statement:

"final and binding for now and in the future" I like this. I only wish I had slipped it into the last RfC though to prevent this problem occurring again though.

"banned, definitively and irrevocably for the safety of the service and the harmony of the community" There is no safety concern for the service, and the only lack of harmony I'm aware of is AllTheTropes who as of late have used this as an excuse to attempt to gain leverage over Miraheze. Amanda has had zero interaction with AllTheTropes yet its the only community who have it out for her.

The above is my view and backs up my reasons against. I fully agree that this should be the final RfC on the matter and whatever the decision should be final.

TL;DR: This is an ongoing witch hunt to find every reason to get rid of a user because one community disagrees with how others and the wider community feel. Double standards are applied where if User A does it, it's great. User B does it, they're killing the world for the exact same action. These RfC do nothing useful but just incite hatred. The previous RfC has clear grounds which are being managed and deployed. John (talk) 12:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Per the wiki establishment point, I believe Geth is referring to the requests that used to bombard us like this. LulzKiller (talk) 16:21, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

But those were never established and don't fit in with his further explanation of "stub wikis". John (talk) 16:22, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

and all we have to go on that they are in error is the word of someone who refuses to conclusively prove they and Lawrence=Prairies are two distinct people in a manner that, if brought before a court, would settle the question. And yes, if they only wanted to share that with staff in confidence, that would be fine, but they refuse to clear this matter up even though it would have ended this charade long before now. - umm, just how do you expect me to do that without disclosing personally identifiable information? Amanda is my real name, but I don't want to disclose any more PI, and obviously LP is not a real name and she does not want her real name published anywhere. -- Amanda (talk) 17:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

And therein lies the rub. Either we get conclusive proof you are two distinct persons so you can clear your name of any doubt, or the doubt will never be cleared up. I provided my IRL ID to staff at Orain to verify my bonafides before I got server access, and they have never released that data, which I submitted in the strictest of confidence. Either you can do the same or this question hangs over people's heads like an eternal cloud, since you pointedly refuse any other means of allowing you and this other party to be distinguished as separate entities, because otherwise all technical data keeps lumping you in with the actions of a known troublemaker otherwise, presuming you actually are innocent. GethN7 (talk) 17:15, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

John, all due respect, but first off, I just want to point out I don't want power and no one at ATT stands to gain more if we expel a known problem child user. Second, to go though your various points:

• This is called volunteering/doing their own work. Requests through these venues are not forceful and if anything is strongly encouraged as it allows us to focus on more important things. - Surely you haven't forgotten all the terrorism LP and their aliases have done to those venues, and how Amanda has repeatedly closed requests on Phabricator simply because certain users commented negatively, only to open similar requests later and repeat ad nauseum until they got their way.
• "Attempts to restructure the rules and functions of Miraheze have remained consistent between all aliases" but isn't this an attempt to restructure the rules over whether one person can be here? Isn't this also an attempt to restructure the rules and functions of Miraheze? Change is good and they incite and invite discussion. Unfortunately, these RfC do the opposite and invite hatred and attacks. - There is difference between changes that do not prejudice the whole of Miraheze to the benefit of one party, as LP both past and present have sought, and changes mutually agreed to as a whole by the community, which I agree is acceptable.
• "Repeated establishment of wikis" This entire line isn't even worth a response. - I'd like to point out one of LP's former wikis, the Elements wikis, as my Exhibit A. Same banning people for capricious reasons, paranoid belief they need to have absolute identification of anyone before they could even view their wiki while never feeling the same should or could be applied to them, and same bizarre rationale for doing so. If they simply wanted it to remain private, none of this would be a problem, but they never bothered to exercise that option, even though what they did in practice to effect basically that in practice, especially as payback for anyone crossing them for any reason they deem unreasonable or not.
• "Open and repeated attempts to seize power at any and all levels" I'm not aware of any of this occurring since the last RfC closed. What I have seen is people from ATT, however, making accusations of this based on zero technical knowledge or even reviewing the changes and then having to apologise after. Also keep in mind things like wiki creator, rollback etc. also known as requests are perfectly acceptable requests to be made. If this is negative, then in the interests of equality anyone asking for these rights should be banned under the same basis. - Cute, John. I admit I've made a few mistaken assumptions, but at the same time, since you wish to make this so personal, I must ask, what exactly is your reason for defending someone who has caused you and everyone grief that even people outside of ATT can agree has caused trouble?
• "Demanding unreasonable changes to security procedures and attempts to compromise security of Miraheze to suit their own paranoid whims." There have been no demands for unreasonable changes to any procedures that related to security or any attempt at all to compromise security. If this was the case, this discussion wouldn't even be happening as a ToS ban would be in place and only reversible by system administrators. - I disagree. LP wanted a custom security extension in place that posed a clear security compromise and even caused some brief downtime during its implementation, and while Amanda hasn't been quite as blatant, they have definitely angled at the earliest opportunities possible to gain technical powers that would give them the same level of control, which LP and their aliases both here and on Wikipedia did, and being someone who hailed from there, I'm curious why you are not deferring to their judgment, especially when the available evidence suggests they are correct, and all we have to go on that they are in error is the word of someone who refuses to conclusively prove they and Lawrence=Prairies are two distinct people in a manner that, if brought before a court, would settle the question. And yes, if they only wanted to share that with staff in confidence, that would be fine, but they refuse to clear this matter up even though it would have ended this charade long before now.
• Finally, I'm glad we agree this should be decided with far more finality that the previous decisions, because I can see the following outcomes: (A) Amanda is banned, we are terrorized with vandalism and harassment again, Amanda proves to be LP in another bad disguise. (B) They are banned, harmony is restored as it was before they ever showed up here, we conduct business as normal. (C) They are not banned and this situation continues to fester like a boil and hurt feelings continue to escalate.

In short, I'm getting tired of this run around and want this matter to end permanently because I'm tired of the drama and have no doubt whatsoever "Amanda" is just another LP sock despite their excuses to the contrary and Miraheze would be fools to indulge them because they are nothing but trouble. Past that, I seek nothing else. GethN7 (talk) 16:57, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Separated replies:

• "I just want to point out I don't want power and no one at ATT stands to gain more if we expel a known problem child user." Okay, so then why all the effort? Why the continued back and forth? Why the "we know better than you" attitude from some people? Why do people feel the need to talk down to Miraheze over the matter? See the support by LulzKiller above + the countless times they've called me a "pussy" and "spineless". ATT seems to gain one thing, a sense of power. Whether its a community thing or just one person wanting to step up and get something is irrelevant. A ban does nothing but give more and more ground for people to continue their inappropriate behaviour and further divide Miraheze. Banned or not, it has never affect AllTheTropes yet AllTheTropes likes to make the matter personal against Miraheze and myself it seems. When you then seem to continue addressing it as doing so in the interests of AllTheTropes, I must infer it is a step of the community and not ones own personal desire.
• "Same banning people for capricious reasons, paranoid belief they need to have absolute identification of anyone before they could even view their wiki while never feeling the same should or could be applied to them, and same bizarre rationale for doing so." We provide wikis and as long as it doesn't violate our Content policy or ToS, we let wikis go how they want. There are many wikis that block us for strange and questionable reasons yet no one has an issue with them. It's down the "it's Amanda, therefore its bad" but when others do it, "its their wiki, let them do what they want". Double standards are awful. And also now we're not allowing people to restrict viewing of wikis to users? Better tell that to the wikis that also do that since we seem pretty okay about it. If you have an issue with this sort of stuff, discuss it - don't ban people because you don't like it.
• "what exactly is your reason for defending someone who has caused you and everyone grief that even people outside of ATT can agree has caused trouble?" I have no reasons in regards to Amanda. I'm a strong fan of fair trials as in this case, there's been none. Everyone attacks her and then is shocked when they get a response. Everyone harasses her and then is shocked when they call it out (I refer to real harassment using EU definitions/NL legal definitions not what the Code of Conduct says and not what Amanda judges as such). Innocent until proven guilty is unfortunately a principle of UK law and rather one I agree with. I've been the one mostly involved in technical analysis of the whole Amanda v LP case and I'm still not confident that I can present a case which any court of law would accept as being true beyond a reasonable doubt.
• "I disagree. LP wanted a custom security extension in place that posed a clear security compromise and even caused some brief downtime during its implementation" I need evidence of this as I'm extremely active and I was not aware of this at all. Also if it was a clear security issue then someone needs to fire labster as he clearly didn't do his job correct, which as far as I am aware he's been 100% thorough and accurate with to date and not one extensions has been let past which has then has a security issue.
• "earliest opportunities possible to gain technical powers that would give them the same level of control" Again, I need evidence. I'm not aware of either gaining technical powers and I know this is the case because all requests for technical powers need my approval anyway as an operations member and I've never been asked to look at this.

John (talk) 17:25, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother with an extended retread of my own thesis, so I'll give you the short version: As the guy who founded ATT, I'm tired of the drama because it leaks over into my community one way or the other and I want it to end now and for all time, and as someone who doesn't like stress I'll bet we can agree it would be nice to put this decisively behind us forever. Second, I believe in innocent until proven guilty too, and based on all the evidence here, they are guilty, which only begs the question why they have yet to be permanently punished now and for all time. Third, I'm not even going to bother reciting chapter and verse of all the bad security decisions LP has advocated that have led to issues, those records are archived and frankly, you seem intent on explaining everything away, and it's a secondary issue, the primary one is that this user is causing such a stink with their divisiveness on top of the technical crap that has people in a tizzy they should be handed their walking papers to restore harmony to this wikifarm, hence my entire line of thought for this RFC. Even shorter version is that any of their actions separately, even if we accept the ludicrous idea they aren't LP, would not be an issue in and of themselves, but when you combine them with all the drama and divisiveness they have sown, and the only logical thing to do is toss the millstone overboard so it doesn't sink the boat, and that's what I'm trying to finally get settled one way or the other so this drama ends now and forever so we can all get on with our lives. GethN7 (talk) 17:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

"I'm tired of the drama because it leaks over into my community one way or the other and I want it to end now and for all time" Based on my experience, the drama is leaking out of your community. At least as of late anyway.

"Third, I'm not even going to bother reciting chapter and verse of all the bad security decisions LP has advocated that have led to issues" I'm not say there aren't ones, but when you accuse Miraheze of installing said decisions, you're putting the blame on labster. Without any evidence, I'm going to ignore the entire security part of the debate as unsubstantiated claims and therefore null and void.

I also want to add, they're not causing divisiveness - AllTheTropes is. When you find a golden goose you take it but it doesn't distract from the original intent. To me, this isn't an RfC about Amanda - it's an RfC of AllTheTropes V Miraheze or at the very least, AllTheTropes V Me based on several comments. This wasn't an issue until you guys made it an issue. I strongly suggest you all walk way to restore harmony. The unban passed against the wishes of AllTheTropes so now you all want to jump back on the band wagon. Block Amanda on the wiki and move on. It will restore harmony. I say this because Amanda/LP have done nothing on your wiki and have done nothing to affect your wiki - yet you all want to claim Amanda/LP is harming your wiki. Plus I've asked for evidence countless times and several times you've ignored it. As such, I strongly advise zero weight be given to your comments in this section until any evidence is given to support your strong-bordering propaganda-views. John (talk) 18:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I've presented all I've had to say, and frankly, I just want whatever decision made here to be permanent and binding, even if I disagree with it. I think we can at least agree to that. Past that, I'll let the community decide if this passes or, and you have my word I will never raise this issue again regardless of the outcome. GethN7 (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I do accept the olive branch. I have presented all I have too. Let the outcome be whatever it is and let it be binding. John (talk) 18:28, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments

•  Comment: I'm trying to stay out of this discussion, but I just have to point out that the title of this RFC is misleading. The current title is "Review exception to LP ban and reban them", however LP is still banned. LP was never unbanned, so there is no meaning in this title. -- Amanda (talk) 13:21, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section