Thread:RRabbit42/@comment-4751060-20150405210758/@comment-961279-20150712152028

I just saw another example of the heavy-handedness I was speaking of. A user made an edit where he took out one carriage return and moved the opening paragraph up to right after the closing braces in a template. That user was blocked for six months for "removing content" and when that user tried to talk to him, Buckimon was very hostile towards him.

If this had been a case where TPIRFanSteve had been consistently mucking up formatting over a period of time and the preferred formatting was clearly defined in a style guide, I could understand this. But the closest I can see to anything like that without spending hours trying to hunt through the entire wiki is in the Editing Policy where it says "We encourage new information, not picking over past entries with a thesaurus". There is a "Page Layout" page that gives an overview what kind of info goes on a page, but not specifics on the details of how to put that info on the page, which is what this block was about. In addition, it's not tagged with a Policy or Policies category and the only way you'll know it even exists is if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the Editing Policy page where it's kind of a hidden and misleading link inside the "Categories" section.

If you're going to block someone for minor infractions of a manual of style, you need to have a clearly-defined policy that shows examples of every style you want on a wiki. You also need to make that manual of style easier to find. This was kind of like that Monty Python "beware of the leopard" sketch.

In addition, it helps to have a block policy so that everyone can see what the consequences are for violations of certain types of behavior. Many wikis go for a series of escalating blocks to account for the fact that someone may have been "playing around" to test what they could get away with versus the people who are deliberately committing vandalism. It's not required to do that and sometimes it's a bit of a hassle to deal with several rounds of a person causing problems, but the benefit is that when you get to the point where it requires a long block, you have it on record that they were clearly and deliberately causing problems and that behavior can be taken into account by Wikia when dealing with their problems on other wikis.

The Cleveland Show Wiki, the American Dad! Wiki and the Family Guy Wiki do not have a block policy, so it's up to the whim of the administrator as to how long of a block they will set. Right now, that's Buckimon. It's been over six months since any other admin made an edit on either wiki.

There is a difference between having "a very low tolerance for BS" and behaving in ways that drive away new editors. In this case, what I see is that Buckimon was expecting TPIRFanSteve to instantly know how to do everything right even though it was not clearly-defined, and then punished him harshly because he didn't. Even though TPIRFanSteve did try to have the "civil discussion" that Buckimon's page, Buckimon dug in his heels, repeating "you shouldn't be adjusting formatting and should instead put in new information", even though that was not clearly defined as forbidden. And when TPIRFanSteve continued to ask for a better explanation of this, or maybe even the "oops, sorry" that Buckimon says is often all that's needed to resolve an issue, Buckimon erased the discussion, claiming "This is going nowhere".

So to wrap this up, I agree with what Buckimon said in March to your suggestion that he help out here: "I'd don't think they are ready for my type of editing." Until I see a change in his attitude and behavior, I would not want him here because those would chase away new editors that might make an honest mistake. Five years ago, we had admins who were just as heavy-handed and put in some really restrictive and draconian policies. I have no desire to go back to that kind of mentality.