User talk:Dragon Guard/Archive/Warnings

Warning

You have been reminded many times about various aspects of editing, mainly "Show Preview". You have said that you will utilize it, but you have shown no sign of doing so. You have made over 400 edits at this point, at least 200 of which need not have been made had you simply used this feature. While the occasional multi-edit of a page happens to even the most experienced user, the sheer amount of edits in such a short time has now become disruptive. This warning also encompasses the many other aspects of your work that are in violation of wiki-policy, such as the plagiarism, adding information based on unreliable sources, and edit warring. As such I encourage you to take a breather, consider the slate wiped, and begin anew your work. I would encourage you to look over some of our Help pages, including the Style Guide, the Quick Editing Guide and the Editing Pages articles. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 17:50, 4 July 2013 (GMT)

Warning (3)

This warning is for continued transgressions that you promised to stop. It includes edit warring, accusing other editors of bad faith, lazily throwing incomplete tables onto pages forcing other editors to tidy up after yourself, and aggressive messages in both edit summaries and talk page posts.

You will stop making disparaging notes about other editors. Just because you are too lazy to make the commitment to do this yourself does not mean that everyone else is obliged to do the work for you. Everyone here has volunteered their personal time and does not deserve the abuse and workload you are forcing on them by your multiple incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate changes. This is not your personal site to do with as you please, there are rules and policies on the style of writing and other things that you must either follow or propose changes to before trying to force through changes. You have been a member of this site for two months now, and it is unacceptable that you still refuse to conform to the rules and style of the site. As such you are a disruption, and you must change your ways if you wish to continue editing on this in the long-term. Your personal attacks on both Jeancey and Velyanthe barely escape a block due to my leniency, and you will not make such edits again. You are free to do what you wish, but refusal to follow the rules again will lead to a block, per our Blocking Policy. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:45, 11 August 2013 (GMT)

Blocked

Dragon Guard, it is time for a break. You have been warned three times and there are TONS of helpful and friendly advice above that you just seem to ignore. Due to your recent actions, and due to consensus between editors and administrators, you are now under the 1RR-rule (see more info here), meaning you can undo ONE edit, one time a day, on one article. Additionally, I’ve decided to give the many helpful editors a break, so you will receive a two-day block from editing the UESP, starting now. Krusty (talk) 16:31, 12 August 2013 (GMT)

Blocked (2)

This user has been blocked from editing the UESPWiki for a period of four weeks. For information about the reason for this block, see below. If you wish to appeal this block, reply on this page. --AKB Talk Cont Mail 19:51, 18 September 2013 (GMT)

Dragon Guard. I remember making a very lengthy, personal appeal to you after your first block. I made it clear that you clearly can be one of the greatest editors on the site, if you would just listen to the already established ones. Having now seen countless more appeals, pointless editing conflicts, and so many other things that break the spirit of what the site has been built on I think it's time to say this: I'm tired of this. Everyone else is. I considered citing specific examples of comments that were a bit impolite, pointless arguments, but I decided against it. I know it's peculiar to not provide examples for the reasons behind the block, but look at your history and talk page. We've done that enough times.

Even after all that; you can still be an amazing contributor, if you would finally listen to us. But we never got to that whole "listening" thing. Just look at your Community Portal discussion about the Bruma Investigator Guard (look at me, giving examples after saying I wouldn't). Don't look at the arguments, they seem to have been entirely ignored. Look at the users who were opposed to it, that you ignored. Patrollers and administrators littered that conversation, not a one supporting your actions. Even users who offered reasonable alternatives, like Legoless suggesting that the proposed article's content be merged with an appropriate page, weren't given a second thought. The simple fact is that sometimes you have to accept content isn't desired. For example, I once spent hours writing out a list of all ingredients in the games for a lore page, only for my suggestion of the addition to be opposed enough for me to drop it. I respected the user who suggested I didn't do it, even after putting much effort into it. Later, my suggested page was in fact made, by an entirely different user. If I had tried to argue for it then, I would imagine that it wouldn't exist today due to the simple bitterness brought on by a pointless fight over content.

That's what it boils down to, respect. No one likes being ignored. When Krusty put you on 1RR, he put you on it with the expectation that you would take the time to discuss your edits if they were reverted, instead of fighting it. And yet, just look at your history. Every revert saw you revert back the one time you could. Why? It didn't get anything done. It was just a completely purposeless move that not only ignored one of the main reasons for your original block, but also created more work for other editors. Yet, you still did it virtually every time. While you may had been within the rules set out for you, you completely violated the spirit of them.

This post could go on for pages, but it comes to me that anything I write has already been written. If you really wish to be the good editor you absolutely can be, take this time, and cool off. Read the reasons behind each editor's post towards you. Hopefully, you'll finally understand why so many users have issues with you. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 19:51, 18 September 2013 (GMT)

Warning (4)

This warning is for repeated violations of the etiquette policy despite being asked repeatedly to stop. Said violations include passive-aggressive remarks to other users, making baseless accusations of bad-faith editing, condescending behavior, and argumentative tendencies.

You've been warned about this before, and yet you clearly haven't paid attention. Since your last block expired, you've shown very little improvement in how you deal with disputes. You've also developed the rather nasty habit of talking back and acting condescendingly towards more senior editors who know how things work significantly better than you do. If you don't make some major improvements fast, you're going to find it harder and harder to escape another block in the near future. Ignorance of the rules does not excuse you from the consequences of breaking them, especially when you've been told what the rules are so many times. Stop making passive-aggressive remarks, stop being so obstinate, and stop being rude to senior editors. ThuumofReason (talk) 23:29, 4 November 2013 (GMT)

Warning (5)

This warning is for a continued failure to follow the etiquette policy. For more information, see below.

The way you conduct yourself in discussions needs to change, and it needs to change now. While the words you use to express yourself in discussions are noticeably more polite than they have been, there have been several notable exceptions that are cause for concern. Furthermore, while the words you use are more polite, the underlying messages they convey are unacceptable. Your recent proposal to change the wording of the style guide was denied, and when consensus was clearly against it, you continued to argue for your position and attempted to needlessly prolong the discussion. Your recent request to have your 0RR removed was similarly denied, largely because instead of bowing out gracefully, you turned it into an argument. Even more recently, you were reminded to use the Show Preview button (which shouldn't have to happen at this point), and instead of accepting it, you made several suggestions as to how you might get around it, without understanding what either of those suggestions entailed. Senior editors know the policies and editing style of this wiki, and second-guessing them on it is not conducive to the kind of discussion we try to have here.

These are only a few of the recent instances in which you've shown that you clearly don't understand etiquette and consensus. I honestly don't believe you mean any harm, which is why I've tried to be patient with you, even when you do things that violate policy (if not the letter of the law, then the spirit). But there comes a point when leniency does more harm than good, and given the fact that you've already been advised, warned and even blocked for things like this multiple times, there is no reason for them to still be happening. If you are to grow as an editor, you need to be held accountable to the same standards as everyone else, and that means being tough on you when we need to be. Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 14:56, 20 January 2015 (GMT)

Blocked

This IP address has been blocked indefinitely from editing UESPWiki due to repeated incidents of tendentious editing and non-productive behavior in discussions. If you wish to appeal the block, you may make your request on your talk page, which you can still edit even while being blocked. – Robin Hood  (talk) 20:35, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

It's always a difficult decision to ban editors who are trying to contribute constructively. At this point, however, I feel that Dragon Guard has shown repeatedly that he cannot engage in constructive discussion with other editors when he disagrees with their opinions. Responses invariably include repetitions of his original points, wikilawyering, reverting others' edits while under a 0RR restriction, using arcane or irrelevant information to try to further his point, and other tendentious/disruptive behaviors. He has been given several chances, with blocks of varying lengths for his infractions. After his recent contributions to the discussion on Empty templates, including telling another user to "knock it off", I don't believe there is any constructive resolution to the behavioral problems. I therefore feel that the only appropriate response at this point is to block Dragon Guard indefinitely. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

When did I use "arcane" information? --Dragon Guard (talk) 23:11, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Dredging up Nephele's original edits with the Empty template is one obvious example. What happened almost five years ago is completely irrelevant to how it's used today. This is another example. Your response is so convoluted as to be nearly incomprehensible, suggests significant over-regulation for something that should be a relatively simple matter, touches on policies from other websites that were only barely related to the discussion, and proposes a hypothetical situation that has no meaningful relation to the conversation. Even reading it again now to highlight what I mean, I'm having a hard time following it. The very first definition of arcane returned by Google is "understood by few", and that response most certainly qualifies.

I should also add that this isn't just about how you respond when you disagree with people, but also about how much time administrators and others have to spend on you. That includes things like:

• opening discussions about specific edits, and the time everyone takes to read and possibly contribute to those discussions;
• the time users have taken in writing complaints to various administrators for reversions, incivility, and similar issues;
• the time administrators take to examine the issues and respond to the above-mentioned users;
• users and administrators warning you about your behaviour on your talk page
• sanctioning you, or discussing sanctions;
• ...and no doubt more.

In the end, while I don't doubt that your intentions are good, we simply cannot be spending this much time on a single user. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:11, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Appeal

I would like to appeal my indefinite block made by RobinHood70. Within the appeal, I will utilize the three questions that have been put on the Blocking Policy page.

Why do you need the ability to edit (not just read) wiki pages?
I consider myself very fortunate indeed to have worked on UESPWiki - editing is a privilege and not a right. The reason I would like to continue editing wiki pages is because I would like to improve them, whether that is improving the wording, adding brand new content, or one of, if not the most important reason to edit - reverting vandalism.

What pages are you considering editing in the near future?
As as editor, you have to expect the unexpected. Vandalism could happen at any moment, and considering that, I am considering all pages. It's not just IPs who vandalize pages. I would like to edit NPC pages in the Morrowind namespace, improving them through adding dialogue, inventories, spells - anything that contributes to the Morrowind Overhaul Project. I am also considering making edits to articles about places, from the modest Seyda Neen to the grand Ebonheart. Edits will include grammar fixes, rewordings, and adding new content.

Can you provide concrete examples of some revisions you would like to make? Provide the actual paragraphs you would like to add, or a rewritten version of any paragraphs that you believe need to be revised.
Morrowind:Yagrum Bagarn - "You may meet him in the main quest when you must collect the Dwemer Boots of Flying for Divayth Fyr. Or, you will meet him for answers during the quest Mystery of the Dwarves." I would change "may" to "will" because speaking to him and therefore meeting him is required to obtain the boots. The second sentence afterwards is poor English, to be brutally honest. I would reword it to say: "You can visit Bagarn during the quest Mystery of the Dwarves to acquire answers for Trebonius.". Other examples include adding content to help with the MWOP. I have recently found that when I edit pages to contribute towards the MWOP, it gives me something to do that won't create issues. And I think this is because I am adding new content and not altering other people's content. It just gives me something to get on with - something which shows I want to keep the readers happy. If they're reading the same old stuff, it's going to get more than a tad boring! I do it for the benefit of our readers and for editors - a positive. I think I work really well when I edit within the Morrowind namespace. --Dragon Guard (talk) 23:11, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

That all sounds good in theory, but the issue is that your idea of "improvement" has repeatedly been shown to differ from what the wiki as a whole considers the term to mean. For at least three years now, your progression as an editor has improved at a snail's pace, and you've been shown an amount of leniency that has never been paralleled in all my time using this site. Clear explanations, warnings, and blocks have been given, all in the hope that you'll finally take to heart the messages that most constructive editors would get after only being warned once. But you never take the time to see things from other people's perspectives. In recent months, you've gone from just being contentious to being ridiculous, with edits like this and the one Robin mentioned earlier making me wonder if you're even being serious about this any more. This is a formally-written encyclopedia, and facetious, informal content like that is not welcome, as you've been told numerous times. What's even more troubling is that you are now actively ignoring the 0RR placed on you for your problematic edits. Think: You just came off a block for violating these sanctions three days ago, and now you've violated them again. Why should we allow you to continue editing when you repeatedly violate sanctions placed on you?

I would like to believe that you'll improve. I really would. But given the consistent pattern of behavior you've demonstrated during your time here, that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness. Robin Hood gave you a very clear warning above, stated in no uncertain terms, that you were facing a permanent block if you continued to cause trouble in that empty template discussion. As with every other warning you've ever been given, you didn't take it to heart. You've had plenty of chances to improve, and to be frank, "I would like to improve pages" isn't enough to get you another one at this point. We're normally pretty lenient about giving people the benefit of the doubt, but as that page says, "If a user has already been blocked numerous times for the same behavior, they've already gotten all the rope they need; the hangman is just asleep at the lever." It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but at this point I don't believe that any other course of action is appropriate. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 23:58, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your appeal has been notified to the Admin board.

I completely disagree with the reasons given for Dragon Guards permanent ban. The ban is extremely harsh for someone who's only crime is not being able to stop beating a dead horse when all the meat is gone, but continuing until the bones have been ground into dust. He has done an awful lot of good work, especially on Morrowind pages, and should be allowed to continue until such time as he commits an offense worthy of a permanent ban.

I feel the community has done a real disservice to DG as many of his questions arise from the network of templates, reasoning, exceptions, exceptions to exceptions, and so on that distinguish each namespace from the other. An awful lot of editors have also shown and said they don't fully comprehend all of the quirks we have and have made, myself included. DG may be prone to certain undesirable tendencies, but other responsible editors don't help the situation with their zealous attitude to making the wiki one of these idiotic 'safe spaces' where discussion is only allowed if it doesn't disagree with the mainstream.

I personally saw a ban of some length coming a few days ago, and that opinion was based, not on DGs behaviour, but on the administrators past reactions to the same situations: shutting down discussion and stopping the editor from being able to challenge them. Considering how events played out, my views on certain things have again borne true. The fact this has happened due to a discussion started by an admin to address a non-issue is beyond a joke in my personal opinion.

As someone who in the past handed this user two warnings, one of which led almost directly to a short ban, I would like to think my defense of DG would be seen in its proper light. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:01, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Your disagreements with the past actions of administrators aside, you are correct that it is very unusual for such a severe punishment to be doled out for something other than the most severe violations of wiki policy. I am personally of the opinion that this is like the death of a thousand cuts; a large number of small problems, when consistent and numerous enough, will still create the same result as a single, more severe problem. I've given Dragon Guard several warnings myself, and each of the things I've said there are things that I feel I could reiterate here with equal relevance. By default, his violation of his 0RR means that he must be blocked for some length of time (presumably longer than a week, mind you, since that was the length of his last 0RR-initiated block), but taken in the wider context of his edit history, I am not opposed to a permanent block. Positive punishment contingencies such as warnings, blocks, and zero-revert rules are intended to discourage undesirable behaviors; we have given Dragon Guard every punishment under the sun save for permanent bans, to no effect. In light of this, I agree with Robin Hood's assessment that this is our only recourse. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 00:14, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The amount of leniency shown to Dragon Guard over the past several years has been extraordinary, and this is due entirely to the fact that his edits all appear to be in good faith. The problem is this user's demonstrable lack of understanding even when things are clearly explained to him. I've personally stepped in on many occasions to prevent clearly disruptive behaviour from continuing, but each time it simply returns in another form. This issue goes beyond obstinately derailing discussions; it extends to his edits, and is the reason this user was placed on a seemingly permanent zero-revert rule. The extent of this problem may not be readily apparent to anyone who hasn't been following Dragon Guard's edits, as he chooses not to archive his talk page and the myriad of advice and unofficial warnings it contains. I'd therefore encourage other editors to check this page's edit history if the community's leniency is in question.

That said, Dragon Guard's contributions to Morrowind dialogue have been of great benefit to the MWOP. For about a year his edits were almost entirely constructive while the user was focused on this project, and it's only been recently that his disruptive rewordings, deletions, and talk page contributions have made a resurgence. If Dragon Guard was willing to restrict his edits to the Morrowind namespace and vandalism removal, I'd be open to considering support of this appeal. The current behaviour simply cannot continue, and RH was entirely correct in his assessment. —Legoless (talk) 00:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't pay much attention to the MW namespace, but I'll take the word of two admins that his edits are productive in that domain. If his edits were to be restricted EXCLUSIVELY to Morrowind namespaces, I suppose I could also be persuaded to go along with an appeal (for whatever the support of a non-admin is worth). I would contend, however, that any such restriction should NOT allow for the reversion of vandalism, since I feel this would open us up to another debate on how a wiki concept is defined (in this case, vandalism), which would put us right back at square one. Looking at his edit history, he doesn't seem to devote a disproportionately large amount of his time to reverting vandalism anyway. I would also propose that withdrawing this ban should come with a zero-tolerance policy on tendentious or disruptive editing, similarly to how elliot was given a zero-tolerance policy for his own style of disruptive edits. There has to be something that makes it clear that if Dragon Guard is unblocked, this is his final chance, and that any further behavior that could merit a warning or block will be grounds for a non-contestable permaban. Otherwise, the punishment will be no more effective than any of the others. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 00:49, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) Obviously, I have no say in an appeal, since I was the blocking admin. I do think it's appropriate to explain my thinking, however. Thuum captured the gist of it quite well: there is no single incident that warrants an indefinite block, but rather, it results from numerous lesser incidents.

In point of fact, the administrators have had discussions a couple of weeks ago as to whether a block was warranted or not, and at that time, not one of us felt that it was. After that discussion took place, however, DG re-did a reversion in violation of both 0RR and a discussion which had taken place about it. He then received two separate warnings about his behaviour in the Empty template discussion. He did not respond to my warning, nor did his behaviour change; and he bluntly told Legoless to "knock it off" when Legoless reverted an unconstructive edit with a warning. His post after that was unconstructive as well, in that he seemed to think it should shut down any further discussion, but that was problematic only in the sense that it added to my impression of DG's social difficulties.

As someone with my own social difficulties, I sympathize, but as an administrator, I felt I had to make the call at that point. If another administrator feels differently, they already know they have the right to grant the appeal. That's why we have multiple admins, after all—to make sure that none of us are being overzealous in our application of the rules, or to offer a solution that the first admin didn't see. Seeing Legoless' reply when I got the EC notice, I would be fine with that as a remedy. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:50, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) In response to Thuum's comment, all users' views are encouraged when it comes to an appeal. See What happens next, for example. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 00:53, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Building on what Thuum said, wouldn't a 6 month ban (for breaking his 0RR) and a year of editing only the Morrowind namespace (with a zero tolerance policy) be sufficient recourse? (I also need to point out blocks are "indefinite" and not "permanent", and are all contestable) -- MetaCthulhu (talk) 01:03, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 4) I am open to the idea of an appeal if he can put forward a convincing enough argument, but considering his overall actions on the wiki over the last many years, I am entirely supportive of RH70's decision to ban Dragon Guard.

When you look at the whole of his contributions, they are all seemingly in good faith, and I really do want to AGF with everyone when they edit, but when you look at his contributions as a whole, he's been under a 0RR for God knows how long, yet he is quite habitual about trying to sneak in rewords of his edits, which can be construed as reversion 1 2. These two links are two examples recently where, when you look at the edit history he's been trying to revert edits. And, to look at discussions like this one here, the Empty Templates one on the CP, to name a few, he's incredibly prone to rehashing the same argument.

When you look at the link to tendentious editing that was linked to in the above sections, Dragon Guard ticks off many of them. Each of his edits can arguably be considered to be in good faith when you only look at individual edits or a small cluster of edits at a time, but as a whole, his edits have gotten to where they can be considered disrupting, because other people have to stop to clean up after him so periodically or correct his behaviour, and that's time a productive editor could spend being productive.

Legoless and ToR are both correct. We've spent years being incredibly lenient, gently prodding him towards ways to improve his editing and suggesting how he can improve his communication with others on talk page discussions, but it's not sticking very well, and there comes a point where enough is enough.

I am in absolute favour of a block of some length, because his talk page discussions of late can be considered disruptive, and he's been violating 0RR for a very long time with an amount of leniency that's considered far too great in my opinion and (this is speculative) may be encouraging his 0RR violations since he's getting a slap on the wrist at best.

I will give him some positive words and say that I agree that he's been a very good MWOP editor for the most part, and that he's the only editor I am currently aware of who's been trying to work on the namespace in general, and that we'd be missing out on some good edits to a namespace that could use some polishing up. However, he's going to need to give me a very, very thoughtful and convincing argument for why his ban should be appealed successfully. I will credit him for good answers to the generic three questions, but the generic three don't convince me on their own that an outright removal of his ban is warranted, all things considered.

I don't disagree with RH70's judgement that a permanent ban was needed, and it can stay in place, but if not a permanent ban, I'm definitely in favour of a six month to a year ban or so, and maybe with some time to reflect on where he went wrong, he can come back as a hopefully better editor. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 01:06, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 5) I agree with Legoless in that Dragon Guard has been a great help to the MWOP in the past year or so, after some initial growing pains during his initial time editing here. I've noticed that his editing tends to follow a pattern of working on the MWOP without any real issues to then shifting to other types of edits which result in countless reversions and usually lengthy and pointlessly drawn out conversations. I've often thought to myself that it would be great if he would just avoid making these types of edits and focusing on the MWOP only. So I would support the proposal of him only being able to edit in the Morrowind namespace with the further restrictions mentioned by Thuum above. I would even add the restriction that the edits in the Morrowind namespace should only involve adding/checking information for the MWOP and involve no other changes possible to the article to the greatest extent possible (maybe just limit him to adding dialogue since that can be done without touching the rest of the article, at least initially).

At the same time though, I've been around since Dragon Guard has started editing here and as much good as he's done, he has negatively impacted this wiki in many ways as well. His behavior when editing and participating in conversations sometimes makes it very hard to assume good faith as well, particularly with a few of the recent examples provided. Some of his behavior is almost deplorable enough to drive contributors away which cannot be allowed to happen no matter how much good he does. Just looking at the over 500 edit history of his talk page show countless examples of editors having to take time to clean up problems created by him and try to (usually with no success) point him in the right direction. So with all this in mind, I think the block has plenty of justification as well and it may just be best for all parties involved to move on. However, attempting the proposed solution if Dragon Guard is interested may be at least worth a shot before blocking him indefinitely. Forfeit (talk) 01:27, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I am willing to unblock him now with the added restriction that he cannot edit discussion pages and talk pages, preferably being restricted solely to MWOP, but let's see how others feel. If it's still an issue, or he violates the terms of his editing, its not hard to reinstate the block. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 01:40, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Not to derail the conversation here, but rather than immediately unblocking him, wouldn't it be more appropriate to change it to a block of some finite length, since he did just violate his 0RR again? Either way, I've been doing a lot of talking here, so at this point I think I'll wait for Dragon Guard to address the concerns of the community before giving any further thoughts. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 01:48, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

May I ask why we follow Wikipedia policies rather than having our own in regards to things like revert rules and tendentious editing and that?

Why should we allow you to continue editing when you repeatedly violate sanctions placed on you? Because, basically, all of these sanctions and Wikipedia policies and guidelines are, at least to me, red tape - excessive regulation. They do more harm than good, and receiving a permanent block for violating sanctions and rules is wrong. Even a block between fifty and one-hundred years would be better by comparison. If I was unblocked under the condition that I can only edit in the Morrowind namespace and revert vandalism, what about featured image and article nominations - am I unable to support or oppose them because I run the risk of creating problems, I assume? If I was unable to revert vandalism at all if unblocked, that it just wrong. It's like you saying: "If someone vandalises a page, just leave it.". That suggests you want me to condone vandalism because I might not be 100% sure whether it is actually vandalism. I know what is vandalism and what isn't - for example, if someone put on the Ulfric Stormcloak article "Ulfric is gay.", it is obvious why this would need reverting, and would happily do so myself if I was unblocked and I saw someone adding it to the page.

If unblocked, I would like to be able to edit not just Morrowind pages, but others. Having said that, if I was to be unblocked without restrictions on editing, the community might not approve. And, potentially, people might leave the site because of it. I might want to edit without restrictions, but I certainly wouldn't do so if people had to leave the site. It seems to me that the more editors on a wiki, the more chance of there being masses of rules. And on small wikis where there is only one, two, or three admins, or a wiki where there are hardly any non-admin contributors, it seems that exceptions are more common, as people talk to each other more, establish close bonds, and don't create red tape. It's like villages and cities - in a small village, everybody knows each other. A city, on the other hand, contains much more people who don't know others as well. But that can be triggered by a breakdown in communication. I will allow others to reply now. --Dragon Guard (talk) 17:05, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) To the best of my recollection, we've always followed Wikipedia's policies for anything where we don't have our own. It cuts down on having to make policies that would often just duplicate theirs anyway, leaving us more time for other editing, and has the advantage that if there are any holes in the policy, they're far more likely to be spotted on Wikipedia, where there are over 100,000 active users compared to our typical 100-200 active users. We treat Wikipedia as a fallback, though. That is to say, our policies supersede theirs when we've defined them, but if we haven't, or we need more clarity on a specific aspect of the policy, we'll fall back to their policies in most cases. (The exceptions being when they refer to mechanisms we don't have in place, like ArbCom or what have you.)

As to not reverting vandalism, yes, there are some obvious cases of vandalism which I would trust you to revert if unblocked, your example being one of them. But, there have been other times when your judgement about what constitutes vandalism is clearly incorrect. While it's not clear if that's what happened in that case, newbies especially can often leave a site because of incorrect accusations of vandalism, so we need to be careful not to do that. A simpler solution would be to ask someone else to look at an edit whenever you spot what appears to be vandalism. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:41, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

"Basically, all of these sanctions and Wikipedia policies and guidelines are, at least to me, red tape - excessive regulation. They do more harm than good, and receiving a permanent block for violating sanctions and rules is wrong." This statement is a perfect example of why I support an indefinite block. By your own admission, you view the sanctions placed on you as unwarranted. Is that the reason you violated your 0RR multiple times? Because you think it's a silly rule, so you don't have to follow it? If we restrict your edits to the MWOP, will you eventually start to ignore that sanction as well because you disagree with it? Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you, and by all means feel free to correct me if I am, but that's the message I'm getting out of your reply. If you truly can't acknowledge that your editing patterns are harmful to the wiki, then I cannot in all good conscience support the restoration of your editing rights, in any form. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 20:55, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Until Dragon Guard made this last comment, I was willing to AGF about his intentions were he to have his ban outright removed or just reduced from an infinite to finite ban, although similar to ToR, I am now a lot more firm in my belief that RH70's perma-ban was the right course of action. He made good points in his initial appeal about MWOP work, but I am getting the same message ThuumOfReason got that DG is likely to ignore any restrictions that come with a limited editing privilege in the future. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 23:14, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

The reason I broke the sanction to revert non-vandalism (for the record, an exception exists within the sanction where I can revert vandalism) was because after all that time, the revert rule became a white elephant - causing more trouble than it was worth. I know it wasn't the best thing to do though, and I should have just waited many moons for an administrator to lift it. I remember one time where I removed a note from a Dragonborn namespace page, and although my revert wasn't reverted, ToR told me I was breaking the 0RR and to not make any further reversions. If I got unblocked and did have editing restrictions, will I be trusted not to edit certain pages or is there going to be an intricate and clever feature implemented whereby I will be effectively blocked from editing specific pages? I have always wondered whether it's possible to block a user from editing a specific page, is it? --Dragon Guard (talk) 23:25, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

By default, no, page-specific permissions are not possible. There are extensions that allow page-specific permissions, but that wouldn't be appropriate for a single user. Namespace restrictions are possible "out of the box", but we'd have to create a specific permissions group just for you, which again seems unlikely, since it's not trivial to do that. More than likely, if the sanctions are lifted, you would simply be trusted to follow the rules agreed on. If those rules were breached, an administrator would block you again. Given that that's the case, and that you've just admitted—twice—to ignoring the rules when it suited you, I'm no longer comfortable with you being unblocked based on an expectation of following certain rules. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 01:13, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

“Because you think it's a silly rule, so you don't have to follow it?”

Yeah. If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining the wiki, by all means break it. Every wiki editor should know this, and do this. Sure, DG's judgment may not be up to par, and competence is required, but it's hard to “perma-ban” somebody for an edit both made in good faith and that improves the wiki.

Everybody has said we've all been extremely lenient, but we shouldn't try to make up for all the punishment we've missed. If you want to give DG a chance to improve, we shouldn't spare the rod, but it seems a leap to jump straight to the harshest penalty we can serve. I contend that we've done DG a disservice by being to easy on him, but the solution to this isn't an indefinite block.

Where's the harm in giving DG an actual second chance? If he can't follow the restrictions placed on him, by all means block him. But to go from giving only slaps on the wrist, to suddenly giving an indefinite block is unfair to any editor on the wiki, not just DG. – MetaCthulhu (talk) 01:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) Ignore All Rules isn't a good policy in my opinion, and it isn't a policy that we hold sacred here (I've never even seen it mentioned on this site before now, to be honest). You are also mistaken in how it works: It does not give users free rein to ignore sanctions placed on them, as Dragon Guard has twice now admitted to doing. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 01:43, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's a difference between bending unhelpful policy and breaking basic rules of conduct. He was not blocked for an edit that "improves the wiki", he was blocked due to destructive editing tendencies which can't be remedied by good faith alone. The indefinite timeframe wasn't any sort of leap considering his three previous blocks, as well as the fact that a lesser block is unlikely to address the problem here. There is nothing unfair about this, it's about preventing harmful disruption on the wiki from an editor who has been given countless warnings and pieces of advice to no effect. These aren't "slaps on the wrist", they're a sign of many failed attempts to remedy this issue - attempts which involved significant devotion of time from many editors and ultimately fell on deaf (if well-meaning) ears.

I am similarly unimpressed by the disregard Dragon Guard shows for "rules". The only reason it was necessary to fall back on these measures was because of this user's failure to heed softer advice. I simply don't trust his judgement on when a rule would prevent him from "improving or maintaining the wiki", especially since said rules were probably pointed out to him for a reason. If Dragon Guard's attitude on bending rules extends to the terms of his unblocking, I can't rightly grant this appeal since it would land us back at square one: Dragon Guard's poor judgement disrupting areas of the site.

Also, Thuum, I don't see any violation of 0RR since his last block. Would you mind linking the edit? —Legoless (talk) 01:57, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I was referring to this one, where he re-added a comment removed for being unconstructive. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 02:04, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, he removed it right after, and the comment he re-added wasn't strictly an outright reversion in my opinion. I think the focus of this discussion should be on the wider issues rather than the possibility of another fruitless 0RR auto-block, but that comment certainly is indicative of the sort of negative behaviour displayed by DG in discussions. —Legoless (talk) 02:31, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Edit Break 1

(←) Look - at least I have told the truth about why I made reverts that broke the sanction. I'm not suggesting/implying that if unblocked, I would break potential editing restrictions or break 0RR again. When I broke 0RR in the past, such as removing the note and ToR leaving a message on my talk page, I used common sense vs. policies. I expect common sense to prevail where necessary, and that was, at least to me, one of those times where it seemed stupid to not revert the addition of a pointless note.

About having the indefinite block removed - come on - what is the worst that is going to happen, you unblock or change the block to a duration of months or a possibly a year and the day I can edit again I break the 0RR. I have never said I would start breaking the rules when unblocked, so why the permanent block? --Dragon Guard (talk) 07:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate your being honest about your reasons, though I'm not exactly reassured. I'm not so concerned about the one revert that I discussed with you, for the reasons I gave at the time; what concerns me more is the fact that you seem to be using your own definition of "common sense" to justify edits that the rest of the community agrees are disruptive. The purpose of Wikipedia's "Ignore All Rules" policy is to prevent editors from being bogged down by technicalities when they want to make an improvement that the community as a whole agrees would be constructive. If someone makes a controversial edit like that, they are expected to be able to explain themselves on an article's talk page, where a consensus is established as to the edit's merits. According to this page, "Ignore all rules" does not mean that every action is justifiable. It is neither a trump card nor a carte blanche. Rule ignorers must justify how their actions improve the encyclopedia if challenged. Actually, everyone should be able to do that at all times. In cases of conflict, what counts as an improvement is decided by consensus (emphasis added). My chief concerns in all this are your differing opinions as to what constitute an improvement, and your repeated inability to understand and go along with community consensus. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 10:21, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

So it falls under tendentious editing? If so, I can understand why. Although I am a hypocrite as I have done this following thing many of times, I cannot stand it when people make edits based on their opinion. I'll give you an example: on the Mudcrab Merchant page, I used the consensus that seems to have been formed by the community some time ago - speculation is fine if it is reasonable - to add a speculative note in the strictness definition of the word. The note was: "Presumably, the fact he slurs his dialogue is primarily derived from consuming alcohol." Then Damon came along and removed it because he thought my "comment" wasn't very important to the article. The word "speculation" was not mentioned once. And, of course, my 0RR does not help matters when I want to revert an edit when it is based on personal opinion. But nobody reverted Damon's revert and said: "That's your opinion. Do not remove the note without prior consultation.". Almost twenty-four hours later, I added factual content and fortunately my edit was not reverted. WDYT?

If I were to be unblocked, there is no reason why I cannot edit all the namespaces providing I follow the rules. There is no reason why I cannot fix grammatical errors, there is no reason why I cannot have my say in image and article nominations. Speaking of the nominations, I don't create issues when I support, comment on, or oppose images, in general. It always seems to be when I have to talk to others and discuss their opinions/suggestions; on nominations, you can basically say: "I like/don't like this image.", provide a brief reason, and, quite literally, sit back and wait for the nomination to end. But a discussion on the other hand - I can get tendentious... I think because I can be a narcissist and do not comment on other editors' suggestions and opinions as much as I should do. --Dragon Guard (talk) 16:47, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Your first mudcrab edit added a note which was entirely obvious and therefore unneeded. Of course slurred words imply inebriation, that doesn't need to be said. It was also accompanied by an inane edit summary talking about the crab's size. Your second edit was actually useful as it quoted in-game dialogue about the crab. The content of those edits were not identical, although it was dangerously close to a reversion and is yet another example of poor judgement when editing. Damon did indeed make an opinion call when reverting, but he's a patroller whose judgement on such issues is trusted by the community. The fact that you believe anything opinion-based deserves deletion shows a clear and worrying lack of understanding.

Featured article/image nominations are trivial and your participation in them isn't a concern for me. You do seem to have a habit of tendentiously opposing nominations for no real reason (such as this recent vote), but other than that you haven't caused any issues that I'm aware of. However, for you to say that "there is no reason why you cannot edit all the namespaces providing you follow the rules" is to entirely ignore the purpose of this block and the direction of this appeal. I see no evidence that you have the ability to edit those areas of the site in good judgement, nor do I see a compelling argument to give you another chance at doing so. —Legoless (talk) 17:16, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. I think the edit was bad. At least I was able to add factual content afterwards. Dangerously close to a reversion? Did my edit summary in the second edit suggest this? Did you think I was trying to get around the rule one way or another/dodge the rule and break the spirit of it? I can understand how some people have reason to believe that if unblocked, I will do something sometime after and receive another block: I have a history of disrupting the site, unlike IPs who receive the same punishment as me for making a few bad-faith edits - an indefinite block. And also, the thing with me is I've been blocked more than three times. Based on this discussion, I think it is not certain that my appeal will be successful. It does have a chance to succeed, but what I think is that if I was unblocked, it is likely there will be some harsh editing restrictions in place until further notice.

I do admit that I am honourable fighting for what I believe in to the bitter end. Honorable doesn't necessarily mean I am good either - I carry out tendentious editing which I can get into a pattern of. To be honest, when I watch RC, sometimes I see edits and join in, trying to solve things, such as when information was added about the Archcanon privilege and being able to talk to Ordinators while wearing Ordinator armor. I tested it ingame and wasn't happy about the fact I felt like I'd wasted time (but to be honest, I would have done the Temple quests sooner or later as that was the first time I'd done so). Unfortunately, I did not assume good faith and was told to do so. I think this was because the note about the privilege was not far-fetched; if the person had posted on a page about Vivec's Temple something that was far-fetched (e.g., "If you attempt to unlock the door to the interior of Vivec's Temple by means of lockpicking, the screen will cut to a cinematic scene of a nuke going off, complete with mushroom cloud."), then we wouldn't assume good faith, I presume. About participating in nominations - I do have a real reason for participating in them. But that's not important right now. Right now we need to establish whether I will have my block altered, and if unblocked, what restrictions will be in place (I'm guessing until further notice), if any. --Dragon Guard (talk) 18:13, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I personally would like to edit across all namespaces with a zero-tolerance policy on disruptive/tendentious editing - meaning one bad edit will get me blocked again. If my edits were to be restricted only to the Morrowind namespace and I made a constructive edit towards a Skyrim article for example, would my edit be reverted because I shouldn't be editing other namespaces, no matter how constructive it is? As far as I see, somebody cannot be blocked for making a constructive edit in itself, but sanctions might change things. I would like there to be a vote where people get a yes or no (if allowed) on what editing restrictions (if any) are appropriate. I think the thing about this wiki is that we follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines, meaning there are supposed to be less exceptions and that... In theory. On the other hand, if this was a different wiki where they set their own rules but still may have to follow ToU (e.g., Wikia wikis). That is where there are more problems and people acrimoniously leave over disputes and wikis can 'fall apart' due to rifts.

I'll make something up as an example of what I mean. If someone on here was a really good editor and followed the rules - but their grammar left a lot to be desired - they would be great at expanding pages but would be prone to capitalizing unnecessarily, writing in informal tone, not proofreading edits - things like that, they would probably be told to proofread their edits and use show preview. If they then said they are bad when it comes to grammar, I doubt we would waste our time having someone check their edits afterwards and make any corrections, as that wouldn't be fair on other people. We would likely point them towards the style guide and maybe tell them to get better with grammar before making any further edits. If they then continued editing and showed very little to no improvement, we would probably have to warn or block them from editing to get them to better understand grammar and make productive use the block duration. I think that would qualify as disruptive editing as it would be a terrible disservice to readers and editors. But if that was on another wiki where the admins can set their own rules and probably won't follow Wikipedia's, there would in theory be more chance of an exception forming. See what I mean? The death of a thousand cuts: one edit with poor grammar isn't a massive deal, but dozens or hundreds would be extremely disruptive. I would be sick of having to clean up after others.

Silencer: I know you support the removal of the indefinite block until I commit a crime worthy of one, but you don't think my recent behaviour on the site is appropriate in the slightest, do you? You don't think I should at the least have a three to six-month block to think about my actions? --Dragon Guard (talk) 11:01, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) Considering this edit you just made while being blocked for the exact same behaviour, I would be opposed to unrestricted zero-tolerance editing. I actually happen to agree with your point personally, but accusing Jeancey of being a dictator is exactly the kind of response that would get you blocked again should it have occurred anywhere else. If you truly want your editing rights restored, I would encourage you to accept the proposed limits. Otherwise, it's quite clear at this point that it would be harmful to the wiki to grant this appeal. —Legoless (talk) 23:53, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't think your recent behaviour is deserving of a ban. The example you just gave is horrible, I personally would love to have an editor capable of upgrading 500+ pages with relevant info. Those sort of editors are few and far between, for example I am currently the 13th most active editor of the last year, despite only having the ability to edit for less than 3 weeks of that period. We are overloaded with the kind of editor who is content with fixing grammar, spelling, punctuation, but offers little in the way of new content. While those editors are valuable in their own right, they are simply not worth an editor of the previous kind. I am far more than willing to accept a content editor who can't fully grasp the intricacies of the American English language and grammar system, with its often miniscule but important differences to English.

I don't consider you to be a disruption at this time. When someone wants to change something they must be prepared to explain their proposals. If a question is asked it must be answered, to ignore it or deem it inane is bad faith. Seemingly inane questions usually point to a problem with clarity anyway so refusing to engage with the question is simply wrong. While I don't condone the changes you made to force someone to answer your question, it was brought on by ignoring your questions. The fact you were successful in making people think about a change shows the tactic, however misguided, worked.

Also, where has the idea that having a strong opinion that differs from what others think become an evil bannable offense (I could probably guess). Tendentious may be a slightly stronger form of 'bias' or 'partisan', but having strong opinions is being normal, only politicians require a lack of them. Being controversial is one of the few ways to get things to change on this wiki anyway. The amount of conversations that have taken place and agreed to change something only for nothing to be done is astounding, and only comparable to the amount of discussions about supposed controversial edits only to have near 100% unamity that it in fact wasn't. At the end of this paragraph we turn the term back on those who are using it. Anyone who came to this page already of a mind that DG should not be unblocked and made a comment to that effect, made that edit tendentiously.

There is simply too much emphasis put on the way or the words somebody used and not nearly enough on what point they were making. If someone is dictating something, does that not make them a dictator? If an edit is idiotic that does not mean the editor is being called an idiot. If someone is enforcing consensus, rules, or policy, they should be prepared to be questioned about it (lest we forget that consensus can change, and rules and policies can become outdated). Too many times people enforce something they don't understand or even agree with. Those who immediatly jump to and link policies to defend a position they are taking really have no interest in dispute resolution; I too can point to policies that support my words, but I refuse to do so because I would rather talk and listen to someone and come to an solution than fob them off to another website.

We don't punish for cumulative grammar/spelling mistakes, breaking templates, or other serious errors, otherwise every editor with more than 100 edits would have a warning. We don't punish people for making edits they believe to be correct, we revert and explain. I wouldn't consider 6 pages to be a disruption, especially when the editor in question stopped once they saw the edits being undone, then went and explained their actions on the appropriate discussion. Punishment is reserved for personal attacks and vandalising. Even plagiarisng isn't a punishable offence in itself. Blocking is a last resort mechanism to stop disruption, but only for cases where the user is actively being a disruption and not stopping. Each time DG is told he is being disruptive (in terms of making content edits), he stops. When questioned he answers. When he doesn't understand something he asks questions, presumably in an attempt to understand. I'm not sure what definition of a disruptive editor is being used to support this block, but it isn't our definition or wikipedia's. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:39, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, you yourself have previously voiced your disapproval on many of the behaviors that the rest of us find fault with, and those behaviors, while not nearly as severe as they were back then, are still persisting today, in one form or another. And, yes, we do, in fact, punish users for cumulative grammar and spelling mistakes. You have made very clear in the past your opinion of certain administrative decisions and community procedures, and this is neither the time nor the place to bring those up again. Suffice it to say, there are many other editors in this discussion who do find Dragon Guard's edits to be disruptive, myself among them, and do not believe that he has demonstrated trustworthiness or good judgment to justify a full restoration of his editing privileges. If he can provide a convincing enough reason as to why he should get that last chance, then I'd be willing to give it to him, but so far his comments in this discussion have only convinced me further that Robin Hood made the right call. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 02:52, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can only answer for my own reasoning, not that of others who have spoken in favour of the block. The definitions I used are outlined on Wikipedia's Disruptive editing page. The examples listed there are what I was using as my criteria. DG fulfils more than half the points listed on the tendentious editing page linked to there, does not engage in consensus building (in the sense that while he engages, he often refuses to acknowledge other people's points and keeps arguing his points repeatedly), and he has frequently rejected or ignored community input as can be seen from his talk page history and from edits like the "5th time lucky" edit mentioned elsewhere. Finally, he has had several civility issues, including shaming people, reverting an edit of gramatically and factually correct text with "edit quality is abysmal", telling Lego to "knock it off", and more, and a few users had contacted admins to complain about his behaviour. That's four out of six points. In addition, he has repeatedly failed to "get the point" (next section on the same Wikipedia page). With all of that, I felt that a block was warranted. Given that this was his fourth block, I made it indefinite.

Since the block, he has twice admitted to ignoring rules whenever he felt they shouldn't apply, and resurrected a year-old discussion to call Jeancey a dictator. His responses in this appeal have not only failed to convince most people he should be unblocked (which requires a consensus if there's any question about the block), but changed some people's opinions towards leaving him blocked.

According to both our own blocking policy and Wikipedia's, blocks are intended to be used when editors become disruptive. I agree, they should be a last resort. DG is currently under 0RR and has had three previous blocks for various concerns without showing any significant signs of improvement. I don't think it was unreasonable to say that this was a last resort, nor was it unreasonable to say that he wasn't stopping. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:02, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Silencer, however you may feel, this is about what is best for the wiki. It isn't about whether you think he's more valuable than other editors, it isn't about what's best for DG or what's easiest for the Admins, it's about what's best for the wiki. DG's edits have become tendentious (“behavior that tends to frustrate proper editorial processes and discussions”) and disruptive, at least in my view. He's been warned multiple times, even blocked a few, and while he has shown signs of improvement, he still too often rails against obvious consensus and shows a lack of understanding of how decisions are reached.

I agree with you that an indefinite block is excessive, but I also believe a mess created in sincerity, or to make a point, is still a mess. DG is disruptive right now, and while I believe with time he will correct this issue, right now I think he needs a break from the wiki, forcibly if required. I don't support a perma-ban, but I do think he has earned himself a block of some sort. – MetaCthulhu (talk) 03:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

The indefinite block was made according to our Blocking Policy, but I'm a firm believer that any policy should be subject to the specifics of the situation. I won't argue against a finite block, but with these issues extending back for three years now (I didn't realize it had been that long until this discussion), I won't argue for it, either. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 03:54, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Thuum, you should not be taking opinions from 3 years ago out of context. The issues back then have all cleared up and are not the same as the ones people seem concerned with now. The warnings I issued were not for making 100 mistakes over a year, but over 200 unneeded edits in 1 month. They were not for grammar or spelling as you imply but for non-use of the show-preview button which DG had agreed to start using, edit-warring, plagiarism, and a catch-all intended clean slate to allow him room to make the occasional mistake from that point without immediately being slapped with a warning (official or unofficial) to clean up his act. Neither he nor anyone else I know of has ever been given an official warning for bad grammar or spelling.

Maybe I'm just too old school, too liberal, but I fail to see how telling someone to 'knock it off' is offensive. Everyone should be entitled to express their feelings, and not feel they could get banned for having the temerity to have a different opinion.

(edit conflict) Actually I am allowed to express my feelings that whatever disruption he may cause from time-to-time is worth letting him be free to edit. You of course differ in that opinion, in that you feel the disruption is not worth it. I don't spend my time browsing wikipedia's policies to know their exact wording, all I know is the dictionary definition and common sense. Of course publicly we don't want to drive away any editor, but when it comes down to it I'd rather the prolific editors than a few anonymous complainers (as Thuum linked above, any editor can appeal publicly on the Admin Board about another user). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 04:01, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) As I said in one of my first posts in this discussion, I believe that the comments made in the past are still applicable to a large degree now. I also do not believe that I was quoting anything out of context, but I'm not about to get bogged down in a tangentially-related argument about the line between policy and pedantics. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 05:01, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

There is a difference between acceptable and correct. It seems that if the community have a discussion about something, and the consensus is <whatever>, the consensus, whatever it may be, acceptable. Calling Jeancey or anybody on the site a dictator is apparently punishable by a block, but to call Kim Jong-un, another human, a dictator is acceptable; I've never heard of someone getting punished for saying the person in charge of North Korea is a dictator on the internet or in real life. That's because lots of people agree that he is one. I have been blocked for tendentious editing and non-productive behaviour; does that mean if somebody commented "VOTE RIGHT NOW" in a featured article/image nomination they would be warned/blocked? Because that's what non-productive behaviour seems like to me. I would happily take an unblock with editing restrictions over a permanent block, and would happily take a twenty-five year block over a permanent block. Not being able to revert pointless edits isn't good, and in those cases when I have broke the 0RR such as that time in September last year is when I thought the 0RR was silly to have in place. The request I lost to have the 0RR lifted didn't exactly help things. At least my reversion wasn't reverted; that would be like reverting constructive edits made by a sock-puppet, and even we wouldn't go that far. As far as I see, the point isn't whether I made the site better by reverting other people, but solely that I am breaking the 0RR when I do so. --Dragon Guard (talk) 08:02, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with The Silencer regarding the value of content editors and that indefinite block is a harsh punishment. I would support Dragon Guard being able to edit MW pages, if he was actively contributing to and improving Morrowind namespace. However, that doesn't seem to be the case? Regarding block, I would support a limited one. A permanent block effectively removes Dragon Guard from a community where he has belonged to for several years; that is quite extreme. Maybe this is the only/best solution, but I just wanted to voice my opinion.. Despite the fact that I have previously lashed out at Dragon Guard (twice, I believe), I still think we need to be fair, and careful when deciding things like this. (Not to imply that RobinHood is not fair or careful, but rather asking you to consider once more) Tib (talk) 11:34, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Edit Break 2

It seems that the people who haven't been around during a majority of my time on the site oppose an indefinite block. But people who have been in some of the same situations as me - getting blocked and warned and that do not think a block is appropriate. --Dragon Guard (talk) 11:53, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be drawing to a close, so if I don't give a good argument soon about why I should be allowed to be unblocked, I will unfortunately have to admit defeat. And on that note, I shall begin my argument.

In the dialogue discussion above, I did imply that Jeancey was a dictator, but I can prove it. First, I have yet to set eyes on a sentence unequivocally stating: "Jeancey is in complete control of the MWOP.". Really, he should have left my edit alone so as not to run the risk of forming cracks in the collaboration. What is wrong with having dialogue with no quest or lore implications? It seems fine to me. And it also means we will be unable to get the best possible result. The dialogue I added shows that the NPC is relevant.

I think discussing my violations of policies has helped me understand what I have done to disrupt the site - primarily being a complete narcissist supposed to be me consensus-building, and getting a little cranky when my edits are destroyed and restoring them, breaking the 0RR. I have also been making good edits as well and was reverted for doing so. I'll give you an example: on the page about differences between MW, OB, and SR, I change the "have" after "Shivering Isles" to "has", amending a mistake. Then ToR came along and reverted my edit because "Isles" is a plural. True, it is a plural, but in this sentence you use "has". You just do... It's a bit complicated to explain exactly why, but you just do.

I feel as though there are many, many edits I could discuss, but if I did, we would be here all day. Plus, as I have said, I believe this discussion is drawing to a close. --Dragon Guard (talk) 15:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure how this is going to go at the moment, I do not see a clear consensus right now. But do note I had said I would have been fine with you being unblocked a while ago. If you had basically said nothing, you would have probably convinced more people. I was speaking about to start discussing getting you unblocked with my fellow administrators, before you started posting replies to this conversation, after that, well, it became a lot more improbable for this block to just go away. If you are serious about getting unblocked, calling admins dictators and basically everything else is not how you do it. Your first post was how you did it, you successfully explained why you should be allowed to edit. Everything after that has strengthened the support against you.

So here is what I will suggest. A near total ban for posting on any discussion page, as you seem to have the most trouble there. Along with zero tolerance for more incidents like this in the future. While I would have been fine with lifting the ban earlier, out of principle really, I believe some cooling off is in order on everyone's part now. So I would like to move this discussion towards hashing out what exactly the editing restrictions must be if we are to get this to work, if we can at all, along with a discussion towards a length of the attached block to allow everyone to cool down from this. I do not believe just lifting the block is on the table anymore as a serious possibility.

I will open the discussion of the block by saying a month, but I'm willing to accept any other time. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 16:14, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

The reason I failed to say nothing was because I wanted to negotiate a better deal in regards to editing restrictions. I have a question: 1) As far as I see, the editing restrictions and the block are two different things. Are you saying that the editing restrictions will be discussed now, and you plan to discuss the block in a month? --Dragon Guard (talk) 16:34, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Dragon Guard: Yes, AKB is talking about a cool-down block as a separate thing to edit restrictions.

AKB/All: I like the wording of "near total ban". If DG is to return to editing at some point, there will, I assume, be times where he'll need advice or confirmation of something in-game or what have you, and he'll obviously need to post on a talk page for that sort of thing. I don't have any particular suggestions on the allowances/limitations we should place on talk page discussions, as the potential solutions I can see all come up short, but it's something to think about. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:05, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, let's recap. We will discuss potential edit restrictions and not discuss the block until approximately one month has passed and it is 17 August 2016. I was going to suggest that in discussions on the CP or wherever else, I could state my opinion in a friendly manner and then not participate in the discussion again. This means I won't be getting obstinate. For example, in the "Weekly FA and FI" discussion, I could simply say: "I suggest we leave it as-is.", then not participate in the discussion again, because it's not when I first give my opinion that problems arise - it's in subsequent posts where I show signs of tendentious editing. Does that sound okay? I'll have some more ideas later. --Dragon Guard (talk) 19:40, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) I'm still not comfortable with the idea of restoring Dragon Guard's editing rights at all, but if we truly do decide that he deserves one last chance, then I think the most important thing is to clearly establish what is meant by "zero tolerance". To me, zero tolerance means that if he violates the restrictions or if he engages in the problem behaviors at all, his indefinite block should be reinstated. This is how I define "zero tolerance", and although some people may wish to put forth different definitions, I think it's important that we agree on a single definition to use so that the terms of the sanctions are clear.

I am fully aware that my definition makes for very severe sanctions, and that they are unusual in how harshly they punish even minor violations, but I think it's justified considering that A) Dragon Guard has actively and intentionally ignored lesser sanctions, B) it's the only way to hold him accountable for his actions at this point, and C) he has had three years to make use of the leniency and guidance shown to him. The aforementioned restriction solely to MWOP edits and discussions is just something I would like to see, but a strict and clearly-defined zero tolerance policy on the aforementioned problem behaviors is, to my mind, a non-negotiable issue if we are to uphold the standards that our readers expect from the UESPWiki. Zul do onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 21:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

"I am fully aware that my definition makes for very severe sanctions, and that they are unusual in how harshly they punish even minor violations". So if I edit war again, even once, I assume that it would get blocked indefinitely again? That wouldn't be appropriate, because every editor on this wiki is prone to edit warring; therefore, enforcing the edit warring policy on this wiki would mean all of its editors receiving an official warning or block.

Not heard any suggestions for three days, I'm keeping this discussion open, though. --Dragon Guard (talk) 17:52, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

This isn't about "every editor". From your responses, I don't feel I can grant this appeal. Consensus appears to be leaning favourably towards giving you another chance but it's clear you don't understand the proposed restrictions. Unless you have any more points to bring up to sway AKB or another admin, I would suggest you restrain from needlessly bumping the discussion. —Legoless (talk) 18:24, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

A "zero tolerance policy" on edits would be ideal - I don't think we need to go so far as to put restrictions on what I can and cannot edit. AKB: you are willing to accept any other time, and just this morning I was thinking that the 17th is just a little too far away. Would you be willing to accept the 5th of August? --Dragon Guard (talk) 16:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Without a reason why AKB should consider anything about your appeal before the 17th -- and by the way I think you're the only one throwing the 17th around as far as I can tell -- then there's really no reason to plead and barter for a new time. The point of a punishment is to be a punishment, and if you can negotiate it away without making a case for yourself, then it's not a punishment at all. -damon  ^{talk ♥ contribs} 20:35, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I'll look at it from another person's point of view - if editing restrictions are to be imposed, it will prevent me from receiving additional punishments and allow me to contribute productively to the site. ToR, shouldn't that be D)? I mean, the last thing we would want to do is unblock me without restrictions on edits, as that could (from how you may see it) lead to me being unproductive in discussions and that. I do feel as though talking about things here have helped to understand what I've done to get a permanent block, and all the other blocks, and the warnings. Seeing as how several editors have stated their thoughts about my edits being to the Morrowind namespace and all that, am I correct in assuming that if the same people give their thoughts on "editing restrictions" here, they would be carrying out tendentious editing - repeating the same point? Now, this is my interpretation of "repeating the same point" - providing thoughts containing the same information in a previous post or previous posts. To elaborate further on their thoughts is providing new information; therefore, that would not be "repeating the same point". --Dragon Guard (talk) 22:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) "I will open the discussion of the block by saying a month". That was said by AKB on the 17th of July. The reason why I am - as you put it, Damon - "throwing the 17th around", is because I took what AKB said to mean "a period of time between the same dates in successive calendar months" (i.e., the 17th of July and the 17th of August). Then again, he may not mean it literally; it might just be an expression (i.e., in about a month). --Dragon Guard (talk) 22:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

That means he suggested a month-long block rather than an indefinite one. Nothing to do with postponing discussion. —Legoless (talk) 17:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) Legoless: "If Dragon Guard was willing to restrict his edits to the Morrowind namespace and vandalism removal, I'd be open to considering support of this appeal." I think that restricting my edits to the Morrowind namespace is a bit of an extreme sanction, as that disallows me from fixing grammatical errors on Skyrim and Oblivion pages, amongst adding the type of content to the that I would add to contribute to the MWOP. If I can contribute to Morrowind pages and not have any problems, why can't I edit pages that belong to another namespace for the same reason - to add useful content? They're just different games. I do completely agree with you about the "vandalism removal" part - I definitely would like to be able to remove vandalism.

ThuumofReason: "If his edits were to be restricted EXCLUSIVELY to Morrowind namespaces, I suppose I could also be persuaded to go along with an appeal (for whatever the support of a non-admin is worth). I would contend, however, that any such restriction should NOT allow for the reversion of vandalism, since I feel this would open us up to another debate on how a wiki concept is defined (in this case, vandalism), which would put us right back at square one." Again, I think that the restriction of my edits to the Morrowind namespace is a bit extreme for the same reason I have told Legoless - see above. About reverting vandalism, I completely disagree with you. I know what vandalism is on this wiki - compromising the integrity of an article. This means that any edit which does improve the wiki, and reverts the main goal of the project of the site - generally, all bad-faith edits qualify as vandalism. Is adding bogus information vandalism? Well, that can depend on a few things. If somebody added content to an article that was in actual fact bogus, and said something in the edit summary such as "bogus info hahaha!", then we have definite proof of a bad-faith edit. We would treat the contribution as vandalism and deal with the person accordingly. If it's their first edit, they would generally get a warning. It may even be on a case-by-case basis. Some people might be adding information derived from a mod without realising it breaks the rules. In this case, they would not get a warning, but just a message on their talk page to say that we don't document content to do with user-created mods and that.

MetaCthulhu: "Building on what Thuum said, wouldn't a 6 month ban (for breaking his 0RR) and a year of editing only the Morrowind namespace (with a zero tolerance policy) be sufficient recourse?" I'm not embarrassed to admit it, but I really feel like I need time off from editing to think about my actions. I really do. Just for about four weeks. Because I've already learned lots from talking with others since my recent block, and will know what to do in the future with reversions - go straight to the talk page and ask why the edit was reverted if I'm not sure. To sum it all up, there is no dictating/power struggle; there is consensus and the rules. I'm assuming the year of editing in the Morrowind namespace is following an unblock, do you mean that on the same day of the same month, the following year, I will be able to edit in other namespaces as well?

Forfeit: "So I would support the proposal of him only being able to edit in the Morrowind namespace with the further restrictions mentioned by Thuum above. I would even add the restriction that the edits in the Morrowind namespace should only involve adding/checking information for the MWOP and involve no other changes possible to the article to the greatest extent possible (maybe just limit him to adding dialogue since that can be done without touching the rest of the article, at least initially)." I completely disagree with the restriction you have added; see my response to Legoless as to why.

AKB: "I am willing to unblock him now with the added restriction that he cannot edit discussion pages and talk pages, preferably being restricted solely to MWOP, but let's see how others feel." So I can edit, providing each edit contributes to the MWOP in one way or another? I still disagree with being restricted solely to the MWOP; see my response to Legoless. Using my common sense, I do know that, of course, that by discussion and talk pages, you're not saying I can't use my talk page to reply to people, as that would be ethically wrong. I understand why you do not want me to contribute to discussions - because I might get into a habit of non-productive behaviour again, but let me tell you something: there is so much I have learned from participating in this discussion about my block, the appeal, and editing restrictions. Additionally, please can you give me a detailed explanation of this "near total ban for posting on any discussion page"? It would be very helpful to sorting out this discussion about editing restrictions

I would provide an example of an edit I would make to a discussion page when unblocked, but that would be editing "by proxy". --Dragon Guard (talk) 23:24, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

This entire discussion is a prime example of the reasoning behind your block. If you had basically said NOTHING, you would had almost definitely already been unblocked, as I had planned to. I had to go back on that and say you will at least be blocked for a month for sure. So here is what I will agree to: You will be unlocked in a month, to this day. Once unblocked, you will not edit anything excluding MWOP. All current editing restrictions remain in place. Additionally, you will not contribute to site discussions not pertaining to MWOP for a period of three months. So on August 24th, you may return to editing MWOP alone. Upon successful completion of the three month restricted editing period, all editing restrictions will be lifted from your account (November 24th, to cut you off from demanding to know the exact date). If you violate your restrictions, you will be blocked indefinitely. If Legoless and Robin agree with this, then we will try this as a final attempt, out of good faith. Failing that, I am open to suggestions from one of those two for an alternative, if we want an alternative. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 13:56, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

All current editing restrictions will remain in place? What do you mean by that?

Anyway, let's recap: on August 24, I will be unblocked. Until November 24, I can only make edits if they contribute to the MWOP in some form, and may only contribute to site discussions if they pertain to the MWOP (may I 'create' discussions relating to the MWOP; for example, bring the MWOP dialogue discussion above to the CP where we can establish a consensus to resolve the dialogue issue?).

Not to sound demanding or anything, but may I ask a question? If I successfully complete the three months of restricted editing, would you consider changing my 0RR to a 1RR? --Dragon Guard (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Please read the first two sentences of my previous post again, and base your decision to continue replying to this instead of waiting for my fellow administrators to make a decision on that. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 15:10, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what you mean by the second part of your reply ("base your decision to continue replying to this instead of waiting for my fellow administrators to make a decision on that."). For the record, I am happy with your suggestion, AKB. --Dragon Guard (talk) 15:34, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

AKB: I'm okay with those restrictions.

Dragon Guard: What AKB was trying to imply was that you should probably stop replying to this discussion altogether, as many of your posts have reinforced why the block was originally put in place, rather than helping your case. As for 0RR vs. 1RR, while it's difficult to prove that you can revert reasonably when you're not supposed to be reverting at all, I think the community would need to be able to have confidence in your ability to judge what needs to be reverted and what doesn't. Given your history, I doubt if that's going to happen in as little as a few months. Your best bet to prove that you might be ready for it is to approach an experienced editor by posting on their talk page whenever you think something might need to be reverted, explaining what you feel needs reverting and why. If people generally agree with your judgement over a period of time, then we can entertain the idea of moving you from 0RR to 1RR. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 21:31, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes. As much as I would like to suggest stuff for the editing restrictions, I think I should reply only when necessary to this discussion and leave it in your capable hands now. There's just some things I would like to ask about the editing restrictions and unblock.

1. Without sounding confrontational, you haven't responded to my question about creating MWOP-related discussions and editing my talk page if I need to respond to somebody's post(s).

2. When unblocked (and the editing restrictions are in place) can I leave a message on an editor's talk page if I need clarification about something or if I need to ask a question?

3. When unblocked (and the editing restrictions are in place) can I edit my userpage?

4. So I will be unblocked on August 24 - what time zone/time will that be at?

5. So the editing restrictions will be lifted on November 24 - what time zone/time will that be at?

Thanka in advance for clarifying. --Dragon Guard (talk) 22:22, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

(←) Editing your own user page and talk page are always allowed (with the obvious exception that if you're blocked, you should only be discussing your appeal on your talk page). As far as MWOP edits, I would say that yes, you could start discussions if you need clarification or have a question. Given your difficulties with talk page discussion, however, I'd like to suggest that you avoid doing so as much as possible, or approach experienced editors whenever possible. As for specific times and time zones, that's usually not something people are too concerned with. A few hours either way is of little importance when you're talking about restrictions lasting months. I'll be adjusting the block to end exactly one month from AKB's post, including the time: 13:56, 24 August 2016 (GMT). That reflects what would have happened had he reblocked you himself at that time and given a duration of "1 month". As far as editing restrictions, as long as the wiki says it's Nov. 24 or later, you're fine.

This will be my final reply in this discussion, and I strongly recommend that it be your final post in this discussion as well. I think it's fair to say that people are tired of talking about this. If there are any further questions, you can raise them on Aug. 24 when you're unblocked. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 17:57, 26 July 2016 (UTC)