Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-09-11/Carnildo resysopped

After being desysopped by the Arbitration Committee in February for his actions in a wheel war, Carnildo was "provisionally sysopped" for two months, after a successful request for adminship. The high amount of opposition raised controversy among those who were opposed to his adminship.

During the course of a wheel war over a userbox indicating a user's status as a pedophile, Carnildo indefinitely blocked three established users for "hate speech". Carnildo was temporarily desysopped, along with four other admins, by Jimbo Wales while the Arbitration Committee decided appropriate remedies in the case. Three of the admins (El C, BorgHunter, and Ashibaka) had their adminship restored automatically within two weeks or less; Carnildo and Karmafist did not have their adminship restored.

Carnildo was nominated for adminship in March by Johnleemk; the request failed, garnering only 53.3% support. In his latest request, Carnildo received 61.2% support, still well below the usual 75% approval guideline that has been cited in many borderline RFAs. In a statement explaining their decision, bureaucrats Taxman, Danny and Rdsmith4 said:

Carnildo was an admin who was caught up in an unfortunate argument for which he was deadmined. Based on statements from members of the arbcom, we believe that this was meant as a temporary measure, a cooling off period, and in that time Carnildo has proved his loyalty and value to the project. While we recognize that there are many users who are opposed to his adminship, we believe that special consideration should be given to the extenuating circumstances of this case and that we should act in the spirit of forgiveness and reconcilliation which is integral to the success of our community. Carnildo has shown good will to the project despite his desysoping, and continues to contribute. We therefore reinstate Carnildo's adminship, on a probationary basis, for a period of two months, after which his activities will be reviewed by the arbcom.

According to a later comment by Rdsmith4, "this particular RFA contained several votes from users of questionable legitimacy, as well as votes from legitimate users which were themselves spurious, including some which admitted complete unfamiliarity with Carnildo with the exception of a brief skimming of his arbitration case." Phil Boswell also pointed out a proxy vote made by R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) on behalf of banned user Karmafist.

Oppose voters and others argued that consensus had not been met. Ligulem said "It seems like our voices are not needed here anymore. A pure waste of our time." Chacor, who voted in support of Carnildo, said "I voiced support for Carnildo, but to blatantly disregard many long-standing good-faith editors opposing with concerns just isn't right."

During discussion, many users noted that the "75% guideline" was first introduced by Cecropia, and that prior to this guideline, bureaucrats did not rely on percentages.

Carnildo will be re-evaluated in two months, at which time the Arbitration Committee can choose to allow him to keep his adminship, or to desysop him.