Commons:Requests and votes/Gryffindor (de-adminship)

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User:Gryffindor (de-adminship)

This request was initiated at 17:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC), and will run for at least 7 days unless withdrawn.

Per the bureaucrats' discussion following the closure of this request, Gryffindor has been desysoped (log).


Warning This is not a majority vote. If someone brought this page to your attention, or you brought this page to others' attention, please take note:

While widespread participation is encouraged, the primary purpose of this page is to gauge consensus of a representative sample of Commons users; therefore, it's important to know whether someone is actively soliciting others to bias sampling in this discussion. Such contributors are not prohibited from commenting, but it's important for the closing administrator or bureaucrat to know how representative the participants are of Commoners generally.

Links for Gryffindor (talk · contributions (views) · deleted user contributions · recent activity (talk · project · deletion requests) · logs · block log · global contribs · CentralAuth)

Gryffindor was elected in April 2006. Since the beginning of September he has been misusing his sysop rights to tag correctly named painting-images (artist name, correct name of the painting) with rename-tags. The new names follow the scheme artistname_###.jpg, where ### is the number assigned by Gryffindor. This number does not follow any scientific opus number, but just suits Gryffindors personal sorting criteria. Gryffindor declares the original file name a misspelling and uploads or instructs a bot to upload the images with his new file names. Such sorting criteria have not been aggreed upon by the community. Gryffindor violates the issues of other users by edit war. Here he missuses his administrator-rights by making deletions in such edit wars himself (!). In other words he is participator of the edit war, makes the judgement in the edit war and executes all in one person. He also is corrupting the files histories of such images by deleting versions without apparent reason. (Except possibly to shanghai these images to boost his image upload count).

These are only a few examples:


At the talk page of the rename bot it was discussed several times that images should not be renamed without reason. One user (Luigi Chiesa) was even excluded from the trusted users (for renaming) because of exactly the same renaming-behaviour by request of Cecil (18.7.). Gryffindor as an admin can't be removed, but several users (Sir Gawain [1], User:O (26.8.), User:ABF (12.9.), Mutter Erde [2], User:Wuselig (10 .3.) + [3], Herrick [4] + [5], etc.[6]) have talked to him to stop his irritating one-man-crusade. He always ignores these arguments, then he lets pass some time and deletes the images himself!

If his speedy deletion request for the images he has unnecessarily renamed are not fullfilled and his particular version is deleted for being an unnecessary renaming project, he later reverts that admin-action by restoring his image and then he deletes the original one. Several such images where heavily used in diverse projects). Here an example for the truly herculean task that his actions imposes on the system: 689 wikis searched. Herkulaneischer_Meister_002b.jpg is used on 90 pages in 34 projects..

His lacks of community policy and rights are:

  • deleting files created by other users and/or transfered from de.wikpedia.org
  • deleting files in the public domain because of their pseudo misspelling (misspelling beeing just another word for beeing differtent from his version)
  • creating his own rename project by ignoring naming conventions layed down by art history.

Consequences for wikipedia:

  • New user will find it difficult to find a special image if these images can't be searched anymore by their given names in the history of art if they are sorted into categories only by numbers. This is already one of the mayor drawbacks of the Yorck-Project where many of the images have only a number - not a correct title in any language!.
  • He violates the work of other users. And therby discourages them from further participation.


Our conclusions:

  1. There was no need for Gryffindor's immediate action resulting in such a degree of damage.
  2. Gryffindor lacks a sufficient understanding and acceptance of Commons:Licensing, the history of art, other languages, and has strained the good faith and the community policy in general.

Therefore, we request permanent de-admin of Gryffindor on Wikimedia Commons. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Herrick (talk • contribs) {{{2}}} (UTC)


Supporters

  1. --Herrick (talk) 17:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. abf /talk to me/ 20:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. -- Mutter Erde Übrigens, hier sein neuester Streich: 689 wikis searched. Herkulaneischer_Meister_002b.jpg is used on 90 pages in 34 projects.. Das lohnt sich richtig für ihn. In 10 Portal- und Benutzerseiten kam der commons-delinker übrigens gar nicht rein. Also wäre sein Name jetzt eigentlich 100mal zu lesen. Ganz toll, Gryffindor 78.51.131.26 22:51, 29. Nov. 2008 (CET) (actualized: Mutter Erde (talk) 18:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC))[reply]
    Translation: His newest trick: 689 wikis searched. Herkulaneischer_Meister_002b.jpg is used on 90 pages in 34 projects.. That worth a lot for him. 10 portal and user pages the Commons delinker couldn't access at all. In other respects his name could be read 100 times. Huge, Gryffindor --Revolus (talk) 21:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. --Wuselig 16:37, 3. Dez. 2008 (CET) This project is still called Commons. Of course we could consider renaming it Gryfindor's own private project Legitimation of the signatures - not the date/time stampsattisfied?--Wuselig (talk) 20:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then it's better to let them sign that themselves, and not you doing it for them. Also what's with this section and the "votes" section? --Kanonkas(talk) 20:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the difflink again. Do you really think that we are different users at de: and commons? ;-) At de: you'll need two or more supporters to start a de-adminship/request and vote. Earlier requests and votes for de-adminship on commons looks similiar. --Herrick (talk) 20:54, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Commons is not de.wiki and de.wiki is not Commons. All due respect to both projects, of course. Cirt (talk) 21:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supporters for what? For Gryffindor or for removing status?--Anatoliy (talk) 22:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On German Wikipedia it is custom that some kind of votes have supporters before the actual voting starts. Here on Commons we only had two de-admins until now and no rule how to format those requests, so Herrick (being from de.WP) took the format he is accustomed to. -- Cecil (talk) 06:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, supporters are only de.wiki users :)--Anatoliy (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, commons users as well. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 13:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

No, my friend, this is not at all about the deletion of dupes. No-one would oppose to such. It is about narrowmindedness on creating significant file names, and about creating insignificant ones, which will burden further WP's generations for years or, possibly, decades, and more such stuff. Amongst it, misuse of power. Wolfgang (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove --Wuselig (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)This is not about right or wrong names, but about the missuse of admin rights while trying to push a personal point of view of how things should be handled.[reply]
  •  Neutral Keep I do not remember when I talked to this user about the issues mentioned by Herrick (there is another user, User:Ö, which uses a similar but completely different character). Furthermore, I do not remember any negativity with the user up for de-adminship, so additional background research is needed. Somehow I was notified of this discussion by a message from Herrick that smells of attempted canvassing. I do not have time to do any research at this time for a decision to remove or keep (though a wee bit leaning to keep), but I will say (perhaps for eternity for pretty much any situation of this sort) to please set up some kind of dispute resolution. --O (谈 • висчвын) 23:10, 04 December 2008 (GMT)
    • After reading this discussion, I am deciding to keep Gryffindor. It looks like the conflict stems from some users not agreeing with or misunderstanding Commons policies and guidelines and the application of them. There has not been enough discussion beforehand about policies/guidelines and/or Gryffindor's actions, and lots of that must occur before a thought of de-adminship can be thought. --O (谈 • висчвын) 05:58, 07 December 2008 (GMT)
  •  Remove - and if only for refusing to explain himself: I hoped to get some explanation for this mysterious renaming-deleting-business on Gryffindors talk page, but apparently he doesn't deign to answer any questions or complaints - not quite my idea of a good administrator. --Janneman (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove
    My vote is in no way intended personally and I hope that it will not be misunderstood as an offence – it is not at all intended that way. I am just taking the liberty as a member of the community to voice my opinion on whether I would prefer that Gryffindor has the power to exercise admin rights or not and I – would prefer that he does not. --UV (talk) 23:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment It was indeed Gryffindor who who asked for a rename of this image. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Has he? I believe it, when he cleans up the mess he created so far all by himself. Just having the elephant say I will not break another plate, won't clean up the porcelain shop.--Wuselig (talk) 00:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why not solve this here within a dispute resolution? I don't get why we're using our last resort when it isn't really needed. --Kanonkas(talk) 00:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove--Olaf2 (talk) 23:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral I haven't analysed this case yet thoroughly but I wonder why this issue was never raised at COM:AN/U or somewhere else to resolve this. In addition, I am not happy with the canvassing that took place here at Commons and on de-wp including even a notice at the Kurier (the signpost at de-wp, see the top message of the right column titled Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the Commons). No, I do not think that mass renamings after some obscure numbering scheme are helpful but I think that such issues can be sorted out by seeking some consensus. --AFBorchert (talk) 00:24, 5 December 2008 (UTC) After having read the apology by Gryffindor (see below) I switch hereby to  Keep. --AFBorchert (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep De-adminship should be undertaken only if dispute resolution fails.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove --Jodo (talk) 02:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove I'm watching Gryffindor now since several month. He ignores discussions and just follows his own concept no matter of other opinions. "Admin" means that you carry out the will of the community and not have your own private agenda. He creates duplicates and requests the longer existing image (which in some cases were used heavily in the projects) to be deleted. When deleting exact duplicates I always check the names and the usage. If the existing image has a good name (no non-ascii-letters, no typos, no misleading name) and is used I do not replace them and just delete the unnecessarily created duplicate. Users with normal rights accept that, since usually the duplicate was just created because that user did not know that the other one already existed. Gryffindor does not accept decisions by other admins. If he sees that somebody did not follow his request he restores the deleted image and then deletes the kept one himself. Over the last few month this topic was discussed with him several times and he did not stop at all. Each time when I work with duplicates there are once again several images with perfectly good names which he renamed to something else. I don't decide in those cases anymore because I know that he will revert the decision anyway if he does not like it. -- Cecil (talk) 06:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, the history is mostly just visible for admins:
  • Image:Kaiser Maximilian 1.jpg. This image shows Kaiser Maximilian. On 20th August Gryffindor requested a rename to Image:Albrecht_Dürer_084b.jpg (the image does not show Albrecht Dürer). Since he is an admin and thus counts as trusted user for the MediaMoveBot, the bot fulfilled his request and created the duplicate at 25th August. We had a few problems with the toolserver (including the CheckUsage-Tool) so replacing was not possible for some time. On September 11th I started the Dupes-Tool to work through the requested deletions of duplicates. The original name was free of any misspelling or other problems which would require a rename. The image was used on over 100 pages (currently 26 pages in 37 projects), the newly created duplicate was not used anywhere. I deleted the unused duplicate and kept the used image with the good name. Three hours later Gryffindor restored the deletion, sent the CommonsDelinker to edit over 100 times in the projects to replace the image and then deleted the good named image with the simple reason duplicated file. For normal users it is now not visible anymore where the file went.
  • Image:Jeanne la folle.jpg shows the woman Jeanne Ire de Castille. She was called Jeanne la Folle back then. The painter also called his image that way. Same history as with the previous image. Gryffindor requested deletion, did not like the decision of the admin, so he reverted them and made his own. No third opinion. Every step was done by him: request for renaming, request for replacement in the projects, deletion. There is now a redirect which is done for images when there are several used versions, both names are ok and it is difficult to replace one of them completly because it is heavily used and in a way which causes problems for the CommonsDelinker.
  • A little different scenario: Image:Jan_van_den_Hoecke01.jpg. It does not show Jan van den Hoecke, but was uploaded that way already beginning of 2007. Deletion reason was User request. This user request was not done by the uploader, but by Gryffindor. The image can be found now under the name Image:Jan van den Hoecke 002.jpg. Don't ask me why we had to create a new version under a new name and replace it in all the projects just for a number. But it is nice to know that Gryffindor also deletes his own user requests, especially since he first had to revert the decision of another admin.
Unlike Gryffindor I am regularly active in this area. He just works there if he has his own requests and also just works on those. -- Cecil (talk) 09:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you have been watching me, then you should know that the work on files is just a fraction of the work I do here on the Commons. I have also renamed files that had a random format such as Image:Peter Paul Rubens25.jpg, Image:Peter Paul Rubens51 kopie.jpg, Image:Peter Paul Rubens49.jpg and Image:Peter Paul Rubens04.jpg, which only consist of the artist's name and with a number. At least I brought them in order to be streamlined with other Yorck images files, something that is not being mentioned in this discussion for whatever reason. So please do not represent my work in this forum completely one-sided without taking other edits into account. Gryffindor (talk) 14:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This has nothing to do with the renaming itself. But by reverting the decision of another admin just because you did not like it, you misused your tools. A normal user would have gone to UNDEL if he was not happy with my decision or would have contacted me, but you decided to ignore the rules and just don't follow the proper procedure. You just pulled through you own thing and to hell with other opinions. Speedy deletion work with the four-eye-principle, one person asks for deletion and one checks that and then deletes, or not. In all those cases the second person was not the opinion of the first person, but instead of following the normal procedure (normal deletion request, undel-request, contact) you just misused your rights and proceeded as if nothing had happened. -- Cecil (talk) 22:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove --Joergens.mi (talk) 07:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC) He is disturbing the project. And his ideas for renaming are simply silly wrong.[reply]
  •  Keep - Gryffindor's renames are silly and have a negative impact on the effectiveness of Common's search function. Given that, Gryffindor has responded to the complaints and has stopped the renames. Now is a great time to start a community discussion and decide what to do about the image names. Striping Gryffindor is not how to resolve the dispute over the names. --J.smith (talk) 07:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is not about the names but the general damage he has created. It is about him not accepting other opinions and following his own agenda. I think it is more than serious that it is necessary to start a de-admin to make an admin stop doing something for which he was critisized since several month and asked to refrain from. If we withdraw that request now that he finally stoped how long do you think Gryffindor will wait until he starts again? How long until he feels safe that nobody watches him anymore? Should we now really start a de-admin each time to stop him (after all nothing else worked) and then withdraw it because he noticed that he is not unwatched and stops? -- Cecil (talk) 08:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The first edit to this page was on 17:29, 4 December 2008. His last questionable deletion involving his renaming was 20:57, 1 December 2008. Him stopping deletions was not in response to this de-adminship page being created. As far as I can tell Gryffindor's actions have not been done out of malice, and despite all of the hyperbole and straw men being used on this page I don't think Gryffindor is blind to the will of the community. --J.smith (talk) 08:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm saying here is that "De-adminship should be undertaken only if dispute resolution fails" as another put it above me. --J.smith (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This request was created on 28th of November. And don't tell me that if you get complaints on a daily basis that you don't check the users who do that. The discussions on Forum to collect diffs are ongoing since weeks and they all mention his name. Google-translator is really good when it comes to translations between english and german. -- Cecil (talk) 08:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove egregious behavior Wladyslaw (talk) 08:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove This should teach us a lesson not to just vote anyone in without checking him thoroughly. --Voyager (talk) 08:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove -- Abbatissa (talk) 08:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Gryffindor is a selfless, enthusiastic contributor to Commons. Maybe he made a mistake (I'm not sure), but everybody deserves a second chance.--Gothika (talk) 10:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep I have stopped the renaming after the messages left on my page seems enough for me. If that is not true, then please "remove". --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 10:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)The fact that he takes a real break before 1 december isn't true[7] Image:Wilhelm von Schadow Felix 1830.jpg --Herrick (talk) 10:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove --Superbass (talk) 10:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove Despite the renaming itself: The actions taken to do this is a clear abuse of power. So remove. --STBR (talk) 10:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove For abuse of power. Not so much for the renames themselves nor that he used his powers to pursue a pet project, if he had been brazen in what he was doing openly stating that he was trying to reorder the naming scheme then it would merely be a case of being bold. My remove vote comes from the fact that he was trying to be sneaky and underhand, to obscure the histories of the renamed files and that descriptive and accepted names were being replaced by arbitary ones in a way that would not have been possible or tolerated in an ordinary user. It doesn't matter that he has finally stopped, nor that he will not offend in the same way again, nor that he has served Commons well in the past. He has shown us what kind of person he is if he is allowed to use powers unchecked, we give admins the power to hold a whip over us, and it is essential that we trust the character of those who hold the whip. For the regulars here it seems natural to rally around one of their own when a pack of outsiders appear baying for the blood of one of their own, but they should ask themselves this, if this was not a de-admin vote but a RfA and knowing how Gryffindor would abuse his powers, would you give him those powers. For that matter if all us interlopers were to magically disappear and fall silent and you could deal with this in camera, would you be so ready to defend Gryffindor, that he should behave as he did without censure.[[KTo288 (talk) 13:29, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Amended vote with reasoning, in part in answer to ElcobbolaKTo288 (talk) 01:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've seen some of these rename requests recently, and wondered what was really the point... I go with  Remove unless he can provide some cogent and reasoned explanation as to why other images should follow the naming conventions of the "Yorck project", which was a commercial DVD-ROM of art scans (now freely released, and some of them rather dim and blurry) which had filenames which presumably were mainly chosen to be useful internally (i.e. to the proprietary software which was originally distributed on the DVD-ROM)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Because we are mixing up several discussions and problems here which should be kept separately:
    • Renaming of files: there are no absolute file naming rules here at commons, and personally, I feel the name of a file is just a key to the file, the rest is luxury. So, unless the file name is really misleading or plain wrong, I prefer to spend my time to improve the description fields, the Interwiki's and the categories and not overload even more the duplicate/delinker pipeline. Anyway, if there is a disagreement on specific renamings or naming styles, this should be discussed and agreed in a civil manner.
    • When discussing names and categories, I noticed on many occasions, that when proposing something, one tends to have minimal, mostly negative, reactions, and only when doing the real changes, one gets the real reactions. Moreover, several people react only by simply reverting changes, which is clear, but not optimal in terms of communication. The natural reaction in such a case is another revert, and so on ... The latter is sometimes interpreted as abuse of power.
    • I feel that communication with user:Gryffindor is not always easy to follow as he tends to respond to the talk page of the requester: the splintered discussions makes it more difficult to follow and joined by other commonists. Moreover, many discussions here stay open without a real (sort of formal) conclusion, so in many cases, an administrator has to decide and take actions to cleanup things. I think indeed that at that level, administrators in general should be more communicative about their conslusions before engaging in the execution of it.
    • user:Gryffindor is a hard working administrator that is indeed not very talkative, but this is not the same thing of abusive use of power
    • I noticed that user:Gryffindor is one of the more strict defenders of English naming rules, and although I don't always agree with some of his renamings, he renamed quite rightly a great many German category names in English, which is, I feel, might be one of reasons why there are so many German contributors supporting the de-administration request.
    • As a conclusion, before jumping into conclusions, I feel that we should try in the first place to improve communication with user:Gryffindor in both directions. --Foroa (talk) 16:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • You say things here are a mess because several discussions have become tangled together, I agree, and because they are tangled we should drop this debate and avoid coming to a decision, I disagree. However tangled as they are it is not impossible to untangle. For a start ignore how files are named and categorised, that has become totally irrelevant in this debate. Ignore for the moment that the subject of this de-admin is a hard-working and popular admin, ignore for the moment the group of users that feels that they need to recreate a "storming of the Bastille" in order to have their grievances heard.
      • I present to you a simple case, very similar in many respects to ones you have dealt with before. An individual sees what he believes to be an irregularity in the way Commons is ordered and categorised. To his mind this disorder is illogical and offensive and in thinking about it he sees a schme that will rid Commons of this irregularity, there will be a place for eveything and for everything there will be a place. It is beautiful it will make Commons a better place. So he sets about to carry out his vision, only in the process some malcontents object to his scheme, the fools can't they see that his way is better, that it is for the greater good that he is making these changes. They continue to complain, he ignores them. His scheme falls foul of the attentions of an administrator, who reverts his changes.
      • And normally this is were the story ends. How many times have you been this administrator? The one to try and mediate between individuals with a great personal categorisation scheme that no one else agrees with. How many times have you been the one to try and mollify individuals frustrated because if only people could see their plan things would be so much better, and those who say but no tradition is on our side.
      • However the story doesn't end here because you see the plan belongs to an administrator, he has the power and the will to ignore ordinary users, he has the power to revert the changes made by another admin. Not only is he an admin but he is a respected one liked by his colleagues for his hard work and unstinting efforts, so when there are rumblings of discontent they are ignored, ignored until one day a group of angry and discontented users arrange a storming of the citadel believing this the only way that their side of the story will be heard.
      • You have used your moral authority to stand by for someone you consider a friend, for that you have my respect, but once you have used it in this way what happens next time a user goes on a one woman or one man renaming/re-categorisation spree. You should stop because it is against consensus? You should stop because you are not an admin?KTo288 (talk) 15:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)KTo288 (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I stand by the view of User:Kanonkas/Dispute_resolution/Gryffindor's_renaming#Outside_view_by_Elcobbola_.28talk.29. You should not forget that some administrators work most of the time very focused at full speed to finish their job as many regular users do. It is not easy, when suddenly encountering a problem, to halt and take some distance; one has the natural reflex to continue at full speed. It happens from time to time that I have to stop and go for a walk and cooldown period to avoid stupid reactions. In this case, I consider that Gryffindor had such an overshoot, nothing that cannot be repared, and along with the poor reactions (not bringing the discussion at the higher level), clear communication problems, lack of rules, and something that smells like trapping, setup, conspiration, revenge ... makes me feel that the mistakes of Gryffindor are not worse than the other problems. I consider the clear opposition of a part of the German user community to the "English" one a far greater problem as this cannot be undone or arranged with a simple action. --Foroa (talk) 18:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • LOL, so the numbering scheme was some kind of Da Vinci Code. --Wuselig (talk) 20:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • In the Commons system of checks and balances, administrators act as a stop against "stupid reactions" by ordinary users. If an admin is not willing to allow another admin to act to check and balance their actions the only stop is their own internal censor, as you have so clearly articulated. In view of the fact that it failed once, can we continue to trust Gryfindor's internal censor.KTo288 (talk) 06:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove For abuse of power. --Matthias Süßen (talk) 16:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove --Micha L. Rieser (talk) 17:13, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove, per Cecil. Seems to be creating work for others and reducing the utility of Commons to other projects for no clearly-understandable reason. TimVickers (talk) 17:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral - I didn't look in to the case. But i hate canvassing. I was also a victem from a canvassing case. Now i believe there was canvassing involved so that is the reasson i would say keep. Sterkebaktalk 20:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep per SterkeBak. Durova (talk) 20:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    So Durova and SterkeBak are saying that Gryffindor should keep his sysop tools regardless of his actions because Herrick has canvassed? I think that is bad reasoning. One should evaluate this request based upon the merits of the case, namely Gryffindor's actions. Whether they constitute abuse of sysop tools is, I think, an open question. However, the reasoning SterkeBak enunciates and Durova has agreed with here seems incorrect to me. I should point out this applies to several other users; I make this comment here simply because there were two people in a row presenting the same reasoning which I find to be faulty.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 05:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't like canvassing either. I prefer it not happen as it's distortive. But while it's not a useful behaviour, we should not be deciding purely on the fact that there was canvassing. Rather, we should filter out the effect. When the 'crat chat convenes on this, and the crats comment, my evaluation will be based on the strength of the arguments presented by both those wishing to see a removal and those wishing to see retention, and by whether prior steps in dispute resolution were sufficiently well exercised (whether the issue was raised at COM:AN, or with the user directly, for example), and by other factors that relate to how the community here feels about this. Canvassing is fairly easy to filter out, really. So don't worry there. ++Lar: t/c 17:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep pending new process. If Gryffindor has misused the tools, there needs to be repercussions. Those repercussions, however, must be derived from a fair and transparent process. This well has been poisoned and I have no confidence that this vote will produce a fair, impartial outcome. Canvassing and the lack of good faith have both been blatant and unabashed. Something is amiss with the participation here and I'm very much concerned that this is beyond mere coincidence; I wonder what Gryffindor has done to so greatly offend such a disproportionate number of my countrymen? Эlcobbola talk 21:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Many statements i read and i feel very uncomfortable about my "vote". Not only has this request been promoted by disgusting unsocial methods (people can use euphemisms like "canvassing" though), one of the initiators is a notorious troll which has been banned permanently at de-WP above all. Nevertheless, after pondering a while i'm convinced that Gryffindor shouldn't be an administrator any longer. He clearly had/has an agenda on his own making his actions somehow erratic. Overruling decisions of other administrators and ignorant behaviour violates the basic standards of administratorship and causes severe damage to the necessary mutual trust. It might be true that he stopped for now and that some kind of arbitration might be helpful. But i clearly take an utilitarian position here - negotiating the basic conventions requires much more resources than removing the admin-flag while the outcome will be the same in both scenarios.--Wiggum (talk) 21:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove although I did not check all the examples given (only some), the request seems to be valid and therefore I support the de-adminship. --ALE! ¿…? 22:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove per Cecil. --Bubo 容 00:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove per Cecil --Historiograf (talk) 00:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove--Tresckow (talk) 03:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep. No previous attempts at dispute resolution; canvassing on de-wp to get people to vote here. I don't agree with Gryffindor's actions, but this response to them is nothing short of a witch hunt. —Angr 08:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove I agree with Cecil, who - as an admin - was able to make Gryffindor's destructive behaviour crystal clear. Tekstman (talk) 11:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC) (not canvassed, btw).[reply]
  •  Remove per Cecil; Gryffindor is unresponsive to criticism of his actions and refuses to correct them. Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove, unacceptable behavior of an admin--Henristosch (talk) 21:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep this is not the way to solve problems--Istvánka (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Agree with Angr - no previous attempts at resolution and canvassing. It seems very unfair to jump right to de-wp. - Rarelibra (talk) 04:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove See Cecil. Commons is or should be a service project for the other projects. Andim (talk) 08:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • conditional  Keep, I see no reason for removal if Gryffindor and the community can agree to a solution like the one suggested at User:Kanonkas/Dispute resolution/Gryffindor's renaming, we should be working together to solve this problem. Finn Rindahl (talk) 18:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Remove. The Wikimedia Commons is (partially) a service project for other Wikimedia projects. When so many users from a major Wikimedia Project (i.e. the German Wikipedia) distrust an administrator, he or she should not be an administrator. --Kjetil_r 21:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Neutral - As far as it concerns the canvassing, this sheds low light on de.wp, for which as a user of de.wp i feel the need to agologize. Browsing through G. statements below, i believed the problem to be solved by now, and further monitoring of G. actions will be assured, i guess. But coming to the end, G, states that There is nothing written in the policy that specifically says "Do not name/rename files with the format "Name of artist_Number.format". If any admin believes such a thing to be found in policies and if this is the answer to If you have never noticed, the upload form says to choose meaningful names, as search engines use text, not pixels., then i rest unsure about his qualification as admin --Schlendrian (talk) 13:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep. I'm not so sure how this is an abuse of admin rights. Stifle (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Take a minute to think over your words. If you stand by your comment you beleive that it is okay for an admin to go against the consensus of other users because you are an admin. You believe that to discuss and debate your changes with ordinary users is beneath you. You believe it is right to revert the informed changes of another admin because it gets in your way. You believe it is right to falsify and obscure the record of the changes you make to support your own position and undermine that of those who disagree with you. You believe that behaviour which has seen ordinary users banned and threatened with bans is okay because you are an admin and have admin powers. Are you sure you want to continue to stand by your comment.KTo288 (talk) 15:10, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you're putting words in Stifle's mouth. That's not a good approach. ++Lar: t/c 17:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Am I? My apologies I do not wish to put words into Stifle's mouth nor do I believe that Stifle would say that it was okay for an admin to behave in the way that I have outlined. However Stifle has shown support for Gryffindor without seemingly examining the record of events, a record that Gryffindor has not refuted, but merely shown contrition for. If Stifle standbys his words then he is endorsing Gryffindor's behaviour, endorsing a Commons in which it would be okay for other admins to behave in the same way. KTo288 (talk) 18:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you're now making a false dichotomy. Both choices assume your version of events is accurate, and I'm not sure that has been conclusively shown one way or the other, or that there is general consensus about it either. I'm willing to be convinced but polemical rhetoric may not be the best way to do that. ++Lar: t/c 19:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I've made my accusation four or five times in different places, not once has Gryffindor come up to say to me, you are wrong. Next to horse whipping him on the stairs of his club is their anything more that I can do to to force him into challenging him to tell me that I am wrong. If my version of events is wrong, then I dare him to respond and call Cecil a liar, if he does this then I will eat my words and strike all my comments from this page and elsewhere.KTo288 (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, refusal to respond to an aggressively formulated allegation does not automatically equal admittance of guilt... --Dschwen (talk) 13:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    To clarify, I think that Gryffindor has behaved in a manner that is not acceptable, and would not be acceptable from any user. However, he does not appear to have misused sysop rights (deletion, protection, blocking). Certainly some dispute resolution action is appropriate, but he should be treated no different than any other user who did what he did. I post also as a user — I am not a sysop here.
    I don't agree with KTo288's assessments above, as if it wasn't already obvious, and I am also a strong believer in giving people a second chance. Stifle (talk) 09:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    You say "However, he does not appear to have misused sysop rights... deletion" yet in his apology below he admits"...however having used the deletion function without further consultation was poor judgement on my part." You say "he should be treated no different than any other user who did what he did", other users have received bans.(Signed retrospectively)KTo288 (talk) 17:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep Let's try dispute resolution first before summarily removing a user's sysop rights. PeterSymonds (talk) 18:02, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep While misuse of sysop-rights isnt acceptable, he apologized and should be given a second chance.--Treublatt (talk) 11:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC) (a de-user, btw)[reply]
 Comment This is only your 2nd edit on commons and you have only 130 edits since october 2006 (less than 30 in the mainspace) on de: But where should be an apology by Gryffindor? --Herrick (talk) 15:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Would you provide links to some discussion with Gryffindor? Done. Look above. --Herrick (talk) 18:28, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I notice that Gryffindor does claim that these renames follow "the scheme of the Yorke project"
  • I also notice you haven't notified Gryffindor about this page. I will do so now.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 18:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Discussion links - wait a moment. But there'll be onesided - if you want to read a answer by him. The York Project does'nt follow a logical schemata and lacks any scientific research issues. You'll be a second quicker with the notification. --Herrick (talk) 18:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I take only one redlink from above: [8] - simply ridiculous. I have asked him , whether he has a source, for example a catalogue of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna or a de:Werkverzeichnis of some painters (Savoldo as here), but I didn't receive an answer. Yesterday the German Bundesarchiv has started a big donation of currently more than 3000 rare pics. I can only hope that commons grows up fast. Mutter Erde (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I hoped it wouldn't come down to it, but what to do. I explained it to the three above mentioned German users Herrick, Mutter Erde and Sir Gawain about why I was cleaning up some categories and trying to streamline the naming of certain paintings following the naming scheme of paintings that already existed on the Commons. My reasoning and logic was posted on the talk pages. Since that did not seem to assuage them I stopped the renaming, which should be enough. Even simple actions like adding a painting template [9] to an art piece that was missing it was removed by User:Herrick, accusing me of "vandalism", as well as readding frames to paintings that were removed [10] by User:Gothika, something that is in clear violation to pd-art [11] rules. I am therefore not surprised by this user's newest moves such as having my rights removed. To User:Mutter Erde's comment I can only say that I don't react to messages that say "I order you.", very simply put. Gryffindor (talk) 19:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You even rename lemmata of 2004 ! Why should anyone understand your actions? In German wikipedia you would be accused of the big no-no of "Begriffsfindung" (sorry, can't translate this). At the latest after the fifth "Begrifffindung" they would say Ciao or Good-bye to you. And if you missuse your admin tools for that they would not wait for a fifth case. That's for sure. Mutter Erde (talk) 20:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From my reading of this discussion, is your reason for renaming images that you rename all images of the same paining to match the oldest file that depicts that painting? Even if this old file has a less-descriptive name than the newer files? TimVickers (talk) 20:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The whole renaming business seems pretty pointless and rather counterproductive to me. We are encouraging our users to choose descriptive filenames. I do not see the added value in replacing the title of a painting with an arbitrary number. Gryffindor seems to have a point concerning the 3D frame in PD-art and suggesting the use of {{Painting}} , but compared to the renaming spree these are minor side shows. --Dschwen (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - the more descriptive the image name the better. I would prefer to see the paintings' titles in the image names. Similarly on the frame issue - PD-art does not apply to 3D objects. And the use of {{Painting}} is preferred, by and large. So, there is a mixture of issues in this dispute, but I don't think we need to remove Gryffindor's admin tools - we will simply ask him to stop using admin tools in disputes where he is involved (including deleting and renaming images), and he will.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 20:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's to easy for him, because he'll never learn from his mistakes. --Herrick (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have we given him a second chance? No need to rush here. --Kanonkas(talk) 21:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(added later, @Kanonkas): 5th and 6th chances are gone. N.O_R.E.M.E.D.Y. Wolfgang (talk) 21:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Gryffindor: at de: we'd laugh if an user tries to vote keep in a process like this. You mixed up several points. First of all (Example) you've tried to "kidnapp" a better (size etc.) and more descriptive image to "rescue" your older image[12], [13] and than you faked the files history by deleting the files you dont like in another case (and they are more examples like this) inspite the fact that you were involved in your so called edit war. But such a shame: ABF has restored the files. It's only the missguided interpretation of simple common standards and you don't understand the point: An image frame is craft (Handwerk) no art at all. Your violation of image history is also an unacceptable missuse of your sysop rights. But the important thing is that your "renaming project" is out of scope and a simple missinterpretation. --Herrick (talk) 20:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is not about "renaming" by-itself, it is about catastrophic narrowmindedness. (POV) Wolfgang (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Added later: Seethis diff, where that user didn't even read before starting to chat. Whilst "communicating" by mail 8[[[ Wolfgang (talk) 21:03, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To KIS: no_need of suchones. Wolfgang (talk) 21:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or a violation of art history. --Herrick (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why start a de-adminship request as a second option? I believe one should try dispute resolution before going into this kind of a situation. --Kanonkas(talk) 21:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At de: we have the solution of "Schiedsgericht", but as he faked file historys and ignore simple issue of adminship there's - sorry - no other solution. --Herrick (talk) 21:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that Herrick has been busy on the German Wikipedia gathering votes [14] and on the Commons [15], I am therefore not surprised of this sudden influx of German users votes here. Thanks. Gryffindor (talk) 21:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So what? Do you want to play a special Germany vs. United Kingdom-Game? You're kidding - because you also have destroyed correct descriptive images in your own language! --Herrick (talk) 21:08, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. File:Caravaggio - Christ mocked.jpg
  2. File:Frans II Francken – An Assembly of Witches.jpg
  3. File:Frans II Francken – The Damned being cast into Hell.jpg
To my point of view you try to start a diversion or red herring - but Hic rhodos - hic salta! --Herrick (talk) 21:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The files that were renamed follow the pattern established by the Yorck Project. Simply because you and a number of other German users did not agree with it, does not mean that I broke any rules, which makes me believe your campaign is more of personal slight. Gryffindor (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my dear! You've already missed the point. There's no establishing by the Yorck Project (for them it was useful and simple for upload - nothing else, no logic, no data) And there are already many other english, italien, french etc. Users who prefer really descriptive names. Please don't play again the naiv bad-germany card again. Then you'll be a case for the stewards. --Herrick (talk) 21:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC) -- Wolfgang (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Stewards are following community consensus, they can't remove Gryffindor's right unless there is community consensus to do so. --Kanonkas(talk) 21:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any Commons rules that state that the way I name or rename files following the Yorck pattern goes against them? There are many files that I do not rename and many files that I upload that are descriptive. By renaming some I tried to streamline with existing files so that viewing them in a category would be easier, you can see an example here Category:Paintings by Albrecht Dürer in the Prado Museum. I already pointed that out in earlier discussions but since that did not seem to convince I stopped renaming files. And now that you User:Herrick are not content but seem slighted and ignore the rest of the work I have done and now canvas for votes in the German Wiki makes me wonder what exactly your problem is? Gryffindor (talk) 21:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This procedure here is not about right or wrong image names. This procedure here is about Gryffindor’s behaivior as a Commons user and as a Commons administrator in particular.
It has been tried to discuss his actions with Gryffindor but his reaction has been to missuse his admin-rights to push through his personal opinion of how things should be handled. And his line of argument in this discussion here so far shows us how he thinks how the clean-up of any mess he has created here or in the past should be handled. „Well, I stopped, haven’t I?“ he says. „Well if you don’t like what I did, why don’t you clean up the mess after me“ he implies.
This blatend disregard of other users has made some of us quite mad and we decided to put a case together. Since we are non-native English speakers we put up a rough draft, tried to put it into understandable English for the benefit of all users here and posted it today. To call this canvassing is just a big joke. --Wuselig (talk) 22:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the canvassing part is obviously to write a very biased article in the Kurier, the much-frequented german equivalent of en-wp's Signpost. I hope that whoever decides this case takes this into account. Can't you solve your problems on commons without annoying campaigning and attempts to play off different Wikipedias against each other? --Tinz (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What? That is just a complaint on a wikipedia about commons. Many ordinary wikipedians are dissatisfied with deletions on commons, often with good reason. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 23:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
False, it is not "just a complaint about commons" but a complaint about a particular commons administrator. Combined with the timing - a few hours after the beginning of the vote - I think the term "canvassing" is appropiate, regardless of whether the complaints are justified or not. --Tinz (talk) 23:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment Please let this question about possible canvassing not distract our attention from the reasons and the facts brought forward in the statements above. I am confident that the steward who is going to decide on this case will judge based on whether the facts that have been brought forward show the level of well-founded community trust that our administrators should have. --UV (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Stewards will press the button, but only once a bureaucrat has decided the outcome. How do you turn this on (talk) 23:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Correct, Commons has a deadminship process which this particular request isn't following very well... if those bringing this wish to pursue it in the face of advice that they need to try lesser forms of dispute resolution first, someone (probably some crat such as myself) will have to reformat this to make it fit. ++Lar: t/c 03:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment What is going on here? I'm not seeing the clear links to prior discussion on Commons that could possibly justify a desysop... this doesn't seem very mellow to me. That's not how we do things here, we talk first. ++Lar: t/c 03:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a few more links which obviously did not make if from our collection at Forum to this request. And staying mellow no matter what is your way. You are not Commons, you are Lar. And just because you have not contributed in the talking before it does not mean that there was no talking. Maybe we should test how long you stay mellow if I revert your decisions every time I don't like them. -- Cecil (talk) 09:07, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Kanokas: First: dispute resolution isn't an accepted policy of commons and de, if you look at the interwikis. It's similiar to our "Schiedsgericht" which is connected by several trusted users and the better tool for "judgement". At en: and de: we also have the possibilty w:de:Wikipedia:Autorenportal to inform the community about w:de:Wikipedia:Benutzersperrung. It's absolute legal to inform and if your german would be better than you read that I only wrote "look at this crucial issue because it's a problem of the whole community concerning the images, the categories and the principles of sysop misuse". Second: Thank you for en:red herring. --Herrick (talk) 08:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then you might want to take a look at this. There has not been any AN threads I've seen about Gryffindor's deleting/renaming. I am now qouting the policy "Please note this process should only be used for serious offenses in which there seems to be some consensus for removal; for individual grievances, please use Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems". Which in this case has not even happend. --Kanonkas(talk) 14:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding 'Canvassing' and 'Dispute Resolution': Commons is a multilanguage project. To make it more convinient for users we have a Portal which ia accessed by us according to our language-preference settings. So one user might look at a Spanish Portal, I look at a German Portal and a lot of users will look at the English Portal. From there they will go to their respective Village Pumps, called 'Forum' in German. In other words our system leads to a drawing out of discussions about certain topics into differnt platforms that don't intercommunicate. This particular page we are now discussing on will not be obviusly accessable for most people concerned. As noted above we even find it necessary to inform the person concerned, i.e. User:Gryffindor, because it could well happen, that this discussion here could go on without him ever noticing. Therefore a certain amount of sending out invitations in places where this problem has been discussed in the past should be legitimat. There have been other forms used here, which I don't agree with, that is the posting in the German 'Kurier', but that should not distract us from the point of discussion here by trying to draw the fire away from Gryffindor and making the accusor the accused.
This multi language problem also makes it difficult to find a platform where such things could be discussed. The group of supporters listed above did try to find the appropiate forum. Discussions with Gryffindor there were plenty and as I said discussions about him also. I am not going to repeat them here (see above). We could also not find a proper instruction on how a discussion about the missuse of admin rights and a necessary stripping of such should be handled here. If you look at the very top here, this has obviosly never been a consideration here. The only instance for de-admin that was thougt of was self-deadmin as the following quote shows: "You can request removal of your rights at m:Steward requests/Permissions."
On other wikis the discussion after the amount of misconduct shown by Gryffindor would have been to strip him of user-rights. We are only asking to strip him of his special rights because he has been misusing them. And now I am repeating myself: If Gryffindor says he has stopped here, that is not enough, because as past experience showed, he will just start looking for a new sandbox where he can destroy other users sandcastles. --Wuselig (talk) 10:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, going through the list given at the top of this request... I agree that the renames were trivial. It causes unnecessary extra work, and the new names follow some sort of logic agreed somewhere that I have failed to find anywhere on Commons... could Gryffindor point me to that discussion please? That's the source of our problems...
The odd one out on this list is File:RichardIIWestminsterDetail.JPG, that was deleted as a scaled-down version of Image:Richard_II_of_England.jpg, which was uploaded four years ago; we regularly delete duplicates or scaled-down versions of images; was there any particular reason why this image should not have been deleted?
There is no significant discussion on Commons talk:MediaMoveBot/CheckPage (although the strange rename is mentioned). But I realize that there were several attempts to make Gryffindor think about what he was doing. I do not find any discussion whatsoever about a new renaming in Commons talk:10,000 paintings from Directmedia; was this discussed elsewhere?
Nevertheless, I find the absence of previous discussion or complaining to third parties appauling. Are we going to start asking for sysop heads everytime someone disagrees on certains actions, without opening a community discussion? Please think about this for a minute. Without wanting to "take a side" on this dispute, I find a de-adminship request the worst possible way to resolve a problem with an admin. Were there previous complaints that were ignored, or settled, or anything at all? And I don't mean by the few editors involved in this dispute, but by a larger audience. On Commons. Were the above mentined pleas simply ignored? Did Gryffindor act on any of these complaints himself? When did he say he'd stop to rename images? Has he continued with renaming after stating this? With all due respect, but I'd like to see proofs that dialogue has been indeed exhausted. Patrícia msg 15:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with PatríciaR. This is just the wrong way to go, we have more options then just creating unnecessary drama here. As I have proposed many times we should resolve this in another way. --Kanonkas(talk) 15:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tell something new, please Mutter Erde (talk) 15:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I would be Griffyndor I would use his last days as an admin to restore as many of his damages as he can. And then hoping, that the community might be a bit satisfied. But I don't see him anything doing in this way. Mutter Erde (talk) 15:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am concerned about the tendency of commons regulars to regard this as an "ivory tower", where wikipedia users should not have a say in how this place is run. The opposition to "outside interference" now takes the form of "closing ranks" where people are voting against "outsiders", sometimes even without looking at the merits of the case. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 09:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am also concerned about that. I am, really. This is why this poll didn't set anything in stone - everybody's opinion is welcome, regardless of which project you're coming from. I don't want to ignore any arguments, just settle on which are the right courses of action. I don't think we're "creating unnecessary drama", this is a problem that should be discussed and an issue that should be addressed; obviously noone here is endorsing sysop tool abuse, but noone here wants to see heads rolling without good reason either, right?
In the end, we look at arguments and decide what to do with Gryffindor's sysop status, and whichever decision we come up with, it will not be popular with a fraction of the community. Patrícia msg 11:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is unnecessary drama when most of the ones that have voted here is from an response from canvassing, IMO. When this could have been solved in another way at this page, or at AN. --Kanonkas(talk) 13:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that at least something should have been posted on the noticeboard first or a panel be set up when the user thought I did something wrong. Also the tone of the discussion of some German users is not in order. I am not immune to criticism and to suggest that I do not listen is not true. Gryffindor (talk) 14:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I have read thru and thought about the comments left on this page. To some of the users above who voted against me, I can only say please read through the comments left by sysop User:Foroa, User:PatríciaR or User:Kanonkas because I agree 100%. About my way of leaving message on talk pages I just follow the format on the English Wikipedia, but maybe I should change that.

I find it really unfortunate that my actions were apparently able to generate so much ill-feeling, although I thought I was improving navigation on the Commons that way. When doing a lot of work communication can sometimes be tedious and time-consuming. I have tried explaining myself with Herrick and Mutter Erde for example, however after the bizarre and sometimes insulting comments I had enough and decided to just drop the whole thing. Apparently that was not enough. There should have been a panel or post on a discussion page before calling for my resignation. That would have avoided a lot of ill-feelings.

What surprises me the most is this seemingly pent-up frustration that some German users seem to have about English sysops. Some of the votes seem to be from single-purpose accounts, users I have never even dealt with or heard of before. The fact that vote-canvassing by Herrick was able to generate such a response is really concerning. I get the impression that many seem to resent the fact that categories are in English, but I find the compromise that articles may be in native language good enough. Maybe there needs to be a separate discussion to them about that. What's going on guys? I also never would have thought that to me, this trivial renaming of a select number of painting files would generate such a debate, that was certainly not my intention.

As Foroa pointed out, there is no strict rule for naming files. I followed the format of files that already existed on the Commons since the start. And the more work one does, the more attention it gathers obviously. I am dissapointed about the fact that my work is being portrayed one-sided by some as if I only rename and delete images in my two years as sysop, when in reality I do plenty of other work, upload hundreds of self-taken images, categorise and clean-up, add templates and descriptions, etc.. I am utterly dedicated to the Commons and the proper functioning of it.

I admit that my mistake was that I was too convinced I was doing the right thing. I should have explained my actions maybe even more or ceased my edits earlier, or post a discussion about my renaming efforts on the respective discussion pages. I still believe that the format is good, however having used the deletion function without further consultation was poor judgement on my part.

So to all those that felt slighted or misunderstood my actions, I can only offer my sincere apologies. Please calm down and assume good faith, even if it may be difficult to accept. We all make mistakes and for all those who care to listen I can only say (either way) it won't happen again. Gryffindor (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My dissaffection with you is not that you renamed files with good names with arbitary ones. My dissaffection with you is not that you ignored the requests of informed and interested users to stop. My dissafection with you is that you used your powers as an admin to over-ride the actions of another admins to continue a course of action, something that would not be possible to an ordinary user. My dissafection with you is that you used your powers as an admin to falsify the histories of replaced files to support your own changes, suggesting to me that you knew that your changes were contentious. Ordinary users with a history of good contributions have been permanantly banned (Juiced Lemon) and threatened with bans (Carol Spears) for pursuing personally logical renaming schemes which were at odds with established use. Except that in their cases as non admins they could not over ride the actions of other users leading to an escalation of uncivility which in one case was the reason for his ultimate ban. When your deadmin fails then one message being given to community is that there is one rule for admins and another for ordinary users.
If it happens that you win or if it happens that you lose you will have irrevocably damaged Commons, and for this I despise you even more. Unlike the instigators of this deadmin I have no illusions as to the result of this deadmin, that the support of trusted and respected admins will see you through this episode, but don't think that such a result as a victory for yourself or for Commons. If you lose I fear a tyranny of the masses, if you win then the moral authority of all admins on Commons will have been damaged. If you are as committed to Commons as you say and if you have any honour at all you will save Commons from the damage that allowing this deadmin to run its course will cause and voluntarily relinquish your powers, a promise not to reoffend is just not enough to permit you to escape without consequences. To my mind your behaviour is as if a small town cop has been beating up on suspects and then using his powers to hide the matter. No matter that the intentions were good, nor how much good work has gone before or may follow, nothing can hide the stain of the abuse of power.KTo288 (talk) 22:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gryffindor, thank you for your message above. You said, “having used the deletion function without further consultation was poor judgement on my part.” Does this mean that in future cases you would explain and discuss your plans more thoroughly before proceeding with them nevertheless, or does this mean that in future cases you would refrain from using admin functions in disputes to which you are a party? If you mean the latter, then I will happily change my vote from “remove” to “neutral.” --UV (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I meant the latter, thank you for asking. Gryffindor (talk) 12:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This here is not about User:Gryffindor, but about the Administrator Gryffindor. And the granting of admin-privileges isn't a barnstar for the number of edits or uploads a user has provided to Commons. The privileges of an administrator are awarded to trusted users into whom the community puts the trust to serve for the common good. In my eyes you have breeched that trust by using your admin privileges to push a personal project, even after beeing notified that this is not in the common interest. You even overruled any objections to your doings by using the powers entrusted to you as an admin: You acted, you judged and you executed all in one person and to your own personal favor. That is why I don't trust you and why I don't believe that the admin privileges are well kept in your hands. I have also observed in the past, that when you come to the ends of your arguments, you say "well okay, so let it be, but this is as far as I will go and no further". And I see the same kind of reaction in this case now. But there is a lot of cleaning up that needs to be done in this latest renaming scheme and if all what I see from you now is a "Well, I am sorry", and the clean up is still left to others you will not have earned my trust as an administrator.
I regret that this procedure has boiled down to some kind of proxy-war between national wikipedias. For me it is not. For me it is just a personal thing about the way a single user has acted and wether this single user should have the privileges of an admin. For a lot of other contribution you have made to Commons you earn my full respect - as a user. --Wuselig (talk) 00:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note: It's kind of strange to read now boiled down to some kind of proxy-war between national wikipedias - Wasn't it meant that way from the very beginning, at least by some of its supporters?
  • Commons:Forum (November 27): „Ist auch eine gute Gelegenheit mal das UK-Netz abzuspecken.“ [16]
  • Commons:Forum (November 27): „Dann muss sich das Vereinigte Königreich erstmal setzen.“ [17]
  • de-Wikipedia-Kurier (December 4): ‘’ Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the Commons’’ Entlich ist Zeit für die Revanche für '66. Wir gegen die Tommies, Hunnen gegen Inselaffen.[18]
:( Túrelio (talk) 09:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
re Túrelio:That is why I put down my personal reasons for helping (translations) and supporting in this action. I am especially unhappy about the Kurier-part, which I didn't endorse and which I think was a dumb and foolish thing to do, because it hurts the cause, since it is counterproductive. A lot of the keep-votes are now merrily on the basis "We don't like canvassing, so let's keep him regardless of what he did."
to all:It has been said that there has not been suficcient arbitration beforehand. This is a misconception from both sides and I believe it is a problem of the system of Commons. By having Village pumps and Forums in the different user languages we do have long discussions about topics that the others never get a hint about. So one side might believe the discussion has been gone on too long already, while others observe that they have not seen a discussion at all. Also this system of user-language-village-pumps is a source for the "Clash of Civilisations" we observe here, because all the supporters from one village pump suddendly pour into a discussion for outsiders al at once. Also this makes a moderate amount of canvassing necessary because certain discussions will never be observed by the people concered if they are not informed where that discussion is taking place. So we shouldn't call it canvasssing if involved users are informed individually that a certain discussion/procedure has now been opened at another location. Or if a discussion in a national village pump includes a link to such a new location. What should not be done, and which I too call blatant canvassing is to use new forums, for example the "Kurier" to invite previously uninvolved users to a discussion, because as happened here, it is difficult to observe to others where exactly this person is comming from. Also there are different discussion styles in national wikis. The User-hopping discussion style (You answer on my page, I answer on your page) is regarded as bad style in some language wikis, because it tends to draw out discussions to different user-pages and makes the following of such a discussion for outsiders difficult even when only two people are having an argument, let alone more than three. So we do have to find a way to channel matters of grievance to a common forum, regardless of language abillities and we should set this down as a rule of conduct understandable by all and findable by all. But this is a new thread of discussion that schould be followed somewhere else.
Here we are discussing the fact that User:Gryffindor has blatently misused his admin privileges and somebody has to decide if this misuse was grave enough to strip him of these privileges. In my personal opinion it cannot be "Let the school bully get away with bullying, just because he has been called a bully."--Wuselig (talk) 10:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There exists a location to raise user problems including problems with admins or abuse of admin privileges: COM:AN/U. --AFBorchert (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at the (pre-)history of this (see User:Kanonkas/Dispute resolution/Gryffindor's renaming/Evidence). Gryffindor was there extremely terse in his response to three users objecting to his renaming, and that cannot be due to language problems. He did not even react to the argument that his actions went against naming policy. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 11:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does the renaming go against naming policy? There are 10,000 images that follow the format that I continued. As I pointed out earlier, there is no strict naming policy. Gryffindor (talk) 12:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite simply, many of your renames do not fall under the cases mentioned here. --AFBorchert (talk) 12:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you have never noticed, the upload form says to choose meaningful names, as search engines use text, not pixels. Also COM:NAME: "Titles of media files should be meaningful, helpful and correct in the language chosen. e.g. DSC123456.jpg or K0l0sm_nite.JPEG is no good. Try Colosseum_by_night.jpg." But the real problem is that you did not even answer. Administrators must account for their actions. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing written in the policy that specifically says "Do not name/rename files with the format "Name of artist_Number.format". I didn't invent the format. I continued what I thought was good. That there were subsequent disagreements to it finally led me to stop it. Files that were self-made by me I upload as descriptive as possible. Gryffindor (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was a joke, or? Image:Viktor_Tilgner_001.jpg, uploaded Nov 30, probably preparing a new rename session of his other works. btw. The pic depicts Hans Makart.
This might be a gallery you will like. Count from 1-50 and you have a gallery within 2 minutes. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adolph_von_Menzel&action=edit. And all others who want to give a description have a problem. But that's not your business, of course. Mutter Erde (talk) 13:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing written in the policy that specifically says "Do not name/rename files with the format "Name of artist_Number.format", true, but a) neither is there anything that says, "do it", b) this argument is pretty much unconstructive and useless as obviously not every tiny case is explicitly covered in our policies (and neither should it), c) Titles of media files should be meaningful should be enough to realize that the numberin scheme is not an improvement. Bottom line: If it is not an improvement do not fumble with the names. Renaming can be disruptive to sisterprojects. The filename does matter. When you're editing an article, the filenames are the only cue to what is visible on the images. The more descriptive, the better. --Dschwen (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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