Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Lysdexia

Inexplicable behavior

I wanted to flesh out my impressions of this editor. I find his behavior hard to understand; at times he seems to attempt productive edits, or at least productively corrects errors in grammar or formatting. But much of the time his edits seem designed to irritate more than assist. It strikes me as borderline internet troll behavior; appearing to be legitimately disputing or correcting, but truthfully attempting only to disrupt, disquiet, or engage in flame wars. On the other hand, the [sic] behavior, while obnoxious, is not particularly inflammatory, so I wouldn't say this user is at the moment creating any real crises.

At any rate, he currently seems more intent in finding fault than in making productive contributions. It is frustrating and worrying that he seems no longer to respond to complaints at his talk page.

I'm not experienced with these kinds of administrative processes, but just thinking about it off the top of my head, I imagine a brief edit ban could help to discourage further useless meddling and if he ever decides to make useful contributions maybe he will have a second chance. --Chinasaur 20:32, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I must admit I have been irritated by this users edits, and I do find haveing "[sic]" inserted in to my comments on talk pretty inflamatory - esspecially when combined with abuseive edit summaries - but banning seems overly harsh for what would seem to be "only" compulsive talk page grammar corrections (especially as there are good edits mixed in). Ideally, of course, this RFC will bring the user to thier senses! Iain 20:39, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed; if we get any response here (I somewhat doubt it...) then hopefully we can deal with it that way. I also agree a ban is a little drastic, but I think a short one might be prodctive. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself; we have yet to hear the case, so sentencing might be premature :). --Chinasaur 00:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Only the Arbitration Committee or Jimmy Wales can impose a ban for this type of conduct. If lysdexia continues this behavior, a request for arbitration might be in order, but we're not there yet. Rhobite 05:01, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Having been the one to initiate the RfC, I'd like to say that I would not support banning. As noted, there are some productive edits by Lysdexia; they are relatively few, but then again, we have no policy requiring that edits be productive. I've been known to make nitpicky edits when I'm bored (multiple lists to single lists, heading levels, etc.), so I have no complaint about Lysdexia's quality of contribution. It is somewhat frustrating when a user ignores the advice and comments of more experienced users. In this case, it's frustrating to know that we have an intelligent and learned contributor who prefers to waste time with all this [sic] nonsense, changing "blue" to "cyan" and vice-versa, replacing correct – entities to actual en dashes, adding dispute notices to anything slightly questionable, etc. Lysdexia's contributions would become vastly more helpful if s/he only backed off from the know-it-all position and started listening to other users.

If anything, I just think we need to keep an eye on Lysdexia's edits, and continue to fix the new mistakes and belligerent proofreading that result. Maybe eventually s/he'll get the message. -- Wapcaplet 19:55, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To me the big problem is his/her total lack of response to continual warnings. This is what makes me feel like we need to be assertive in order to have any impact, particularly if we get no apparent response to RfC. Anyway, like I said, this administrative side of stuff is not normally my thing, so I'm just getting my feet wet. My personal opinion is that a temporary ban isn't such a big deal; everyone needs a wikivacation sometimes, or we'd all be belligerent :). --Chinasaur 20:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Chinasaur. I'm in favor of a ban. I just sepnt some time going through lysdexia's edit history, and while there are some valid edits, there is also a lot of vandalism. --Ben Brockert 03:56, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

IMO the only actions sufficently serious to justify a ban are the personal attacks, and from Lysdexia's contributions they appear to have declined recently. I must admit, though, that I am running out of ideas of how to deal with the user after reading their intransigent response to the RFC... I had assumed we had frightened them in to better behavior, but obviously not. Iain 10:09, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I reverted or removed the user's edits from 15 articles in the last 24 hours, including User: pages. The behavior has not changed at all, there was merely a slight lull in editing. I think we are going to have to bump this up to arbitration, as this RFC is not going to accomplish anything, and I don't believe mediation would either. --Ben Brockert 00:36, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

The last time the user responded on their own talk pages was 26th october ([1] and earlier in the day a more substantial update: [2]) with a sugestion in the edit summary that they had some computer problem. Though they haven't responded on the talk pages, the abusive edit summaries have declined, possibly in response to the talk page comments. Iain 09:38, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have bad feelings about an editor that claims they can't read their talk page or respond in any other fashion because 'they're too busy' and 'can't get to it until they finish the section of wikipedia they've opened'. Suggesting that the best way to communicate is through Google (!) is rather ... nuts. —Morven 17:13, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Next steps

Ok, so we've all complained on this RFC, yet this user continues this behavior. What are the next steps? Refer to ArbCom? Do we have valid enough reasons to begin performing short blocks? -- Netoholic @ 05:41, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

Rdsmith4 already blocked lysdexia for 24 hours for vandalizing user pages and wikipedia: namespace pages. I tend to agree with this, especially since lysdexia has been "correcting" in a vindictive manner against users who he/she has conflicted with before. Rhobite 05:55, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Can we bump this up to the next level? The user is still doing it, and it takes time to remove the brackets without reverting the page outright, which I'd rather not do. --05:01, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

Like Rhobite and Rdsmith4, I see nothing wrong with admins blocking him for short periods if he's still doing this. It's disruption, pure and simple, and he knows it. If he doesn't get the message after a few blocks, then we can upgrade to Arbitration. -- Netoholic @ 05:57, 2004 Dec 29 (UTC)

Lysdexia is obnoxious, but not stupid. If the ban was for editing user pages, I doubt that will happen again. I'm going to start building an evidence page for the inevitable RfA. I could personally block the user, but I don't want my first block as an admin to be against someone I am conflicting with. --Ben Brockert < 23:49, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)