Forum:Concerning ChristineV and IRC

Forums: Yew Grove > Concerning ChristineV and IRC

This page or section is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. This thread was archived on 22 July 2012 by Ajraddatz.

As many of you are aware, an incident recently occurred in the wiki's IRC channel. ChristineV, who holds the positions of channel manager and channel founder, removed Ty's position as channel operator without community consensus and without the backing of an official policy. That action resulted in a Yew Grove discussion that determined, with overwhelming consensus, that Ty's op status was to be restored. However, I don't think it ends here. There is something else to discuss: Christine's positions as channel manager and founder, and whether she is fit for them.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with IRC, I provide these definitions:

• Channel operator (aka "op" or "+o"): Has the power to kick and ban users, as well as adjust most of the channel's settings. Comparable to a wiki administrator.
• Channel manager (aka "+f"): Has the same powers as an operator, but also controls the access list, which determines which rights are assigned to which users. Comparable to a wiki bureaucrat.
• Channel founder (aka owner): The highest authority for an IRC channel, founders have the powers of operators and managers, but cannot be removed of their positions by other managers. One founder may exist at a time.

With these definitions in place, it should be clear to everyone that these are positions of great power and, to quote a terrible cliche, great responsibility. Much as a rogue bureaucrat could de-sysop administrators and effectively gain control of the wiki, a rogue IRC channel manager can easily misuse the tools granted to them to control the channel. A channel founder has even greater power, and an even greater potential for abuse. To state the obvious, this is why we limit access to these positions to those we deem trustworthy.

This recent incident has greatly shaken my trust in Christine as a channel manager and founder. The fact of the situation is that Christine stripped an established and excellent channel operator of his powers. She did so without the authority of community consensus; in fact, she did so despite strong protests from multiple people in the channel. Although she justified her decision by citing a policy, she knew just as well as everyone else that the policy to which she referred does not exist. I can only conclude that her decision was motivated by personal reasons: She does not like users having voice in the channel, and so she took action to enforce her personal beliefs on the matter.

The fact that she is so willing to go against the community's wishes, the consensus system, and established policy in order to enforce her personal beliefs troubles me greatly. I do not believe that someone who acts in such a manner can be trusted to have powers that are as significant as these. Therefore, I propose that we remove ChristineV from her positions as channel manager and channel founder, until such time as she demonstrates that she may once again be trusted with the responsibilities of these positions. As I have noticed no abuse of her operator privileges, my proposal does not extend to her position as channel operator.

Discuss. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 11:15, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Strong support -- I was actually going to make this exact thread myself when I got back to my computer. I think either Gaz or Andorin should be granted the flags, as they each have a different part of the power at the moment: Gaz has the +f flag, while Andorin has the +sR flags. Also, to correct the OP -- Ops, with the +o flag, don't have the ability to change channel settings. Only people with the +s flag can do that -- at the moment, only wow, Oddlyoko, ChristineV, and Andorin have that flag, and only Gaz and ChristineV have the +f flag, which as Andorin said, allows changing of the channel flags list. Michagogo (talk) 12:10, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - This thread might be useful to read too. It is unrelated to the incident with Zammy, but it is also related to ChristineV and IRC. Just wanted to put that here. JOEYTJE50TALK pull my finger 13:01, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

That thread has nothing to do with Christine, with the exception of her name. Uberfuzzy's banning TLUL was the topic, it just so happens that she was the one be harrassed Atlandy 16:35, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how that has nothing to do with Christine. She was the one to ask Uberfuzzy to do something about it when there was no problem whatsoever after all. bad_fetus^talk 17:27, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

It was Uberfuzzy actions to ban that was the issue. What I am reading, never did Christine ask for a 1 year ban. Atlandy 17:48, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

But she took the issue to wikia staff instead of freenode staff...? User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 17:53, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my proposal is based solely on the incident that occurred yesterday, not anything else that may have happened in the past. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 20:21, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - I feel the need to point out that Ty's op status was restored not by consensus but simply because a discussion was deemed unnecessary. --Henneyj 16:16, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very good point -- see my {{closure}} on there. Michagogo (talk) 18:53, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Even just what was discussed before the closure determined a pretty strong consensus.  a proofreader ▸ 

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23:38, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if there needed to be any consensus at all, it would have existed -- support for returning his ops was unanimous. As it is, this wasn't anything that should have been posted on the Yew Grove, as Ty had earned ops through community consensus, and Christine had no right to remove them without coming here first. Michagogo (talk) 09:44, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - Based on what I've seen of the conversation with a freenode staffer earlier today, there would be no way to compel her to give up her flags even if this thread decided to do so. It's a minor issue that has now been resolved, is it really worth more drama? Raging Bull ^Talk 20:13, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

That was determined to not be an issue. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 20:21, July 12, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - I seriously dislike the idea of enforcing rules that do not exist. RS:UCS might determine that Christine's actions were perhaps justified, but the IRC tends to have a more... relaxed approach to things that does not seem have been the case here.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature

RS:UCS does not justify such serious action based on something that does not even exist. 222 ^talk 04:09, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

What serious action? Come on, chaps. He lost his powers and now he's got them back. Since the thread Gaz made a while ago about separation of privileges, admins don't have any automatic rights here, so to complain that his admin status was infringed is fallacious. Christine made clear what would happen. Trying to call someone's bluff and having your own bluff called does not inspire too much sympathy. Raging Bull ^Talk 08:31, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

As previously said, administrators who have received their powers prior to the passage of that forum retain automatic rights to the equivalent powers on IRC and the wiki clan. Also, I see no complaints about Ty's admin status being infringed, and yes, admin and operator are separate, and only operator status was affected in prior events. In addition, it does not matter if Christine told Ty "what would happen" if he did not follow her made-up rule. If I warned you in advance that I would ban you for no apparent reason, does that make me immune from any consequences for violating policy? 222 ^talk 07:53, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

It's as much de facto policy that only RuneScript should be voiced as it is that channel managers have to pre-clear all actions here first. Ty disregarded one so Christine had no qualms in disregarding another. Did you know that grandfather clauses were invented to maintain racial segregation? Raging Bull ^Talk 08:31, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

It is not de facto policy in any sense when there are a total of 2 operators (Liquid on ocassion, and Christine) who actually attempt to devoice users. I did not know about the history behind grandfather clauses, it is an interesting fact, even if irrelevant in this discussion. 222 ^talk 08:39, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me? What de facto policy? Neither of those is de facto policy. The first is not at all, there's no policy on voices, and more often than not, a number of people are voiced at the same time. As for the latter, it's simply policy -- #rswiki access-list members are comparable to administrators/bureaucrats here on the wiki. Raging Bull, would you say the same thing if Sacre decided to de-admin TyA, for example? The channel managers don't have any more authority than admins do(n't). Michagogo (talk) 09:44, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and to quote a line from that policy: No statement made by an administrator or other authority can be enforced as if it were a policy purely based on the fact that an administrator said it, and only rules determined by consensus can be enforced. I think this very precisely covers this exact situation. Michagogo (talk) 09:49, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

I've been in the wiki channel for some considerable time now and for the vast majority of that time, RuneScript has been the only voice in the channel. The term de facto signifies something which is not covered by actual policy but has become common practice for one reason or another. This is exactly what having only one voice in the channel became - I don't see this codified in any place on the wiki and so we must assume that voicing is done at the discretion of the ops. If this is the case, then the wiki has nothing to do with the channel and decisions about voicing will be made by the channel hierarchy which has Christine at the top. If not, and we want to pretend that having RuneScript be the only voice is a policy, then Ty was in violation of it and Christine acted fully justifiably in removing his ability to further violate it. Raging Bull ^Talk 12:17, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

I do not accept that Christine is at the top of the channel hierarchy in any form except technically. While she may have founder status, her opinion is no more or less important than that of anyone else's, and she is not entitled to dictate channel policy. Also, there is no policy dictating voicing in the channel, yet Christine acted as though she were enforcing one. De facto, unofficial policies are not acceptable reasons when performing an official act like deopping someone. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 20:33, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Lost track of indents Nor does RS:SNOW say that threads/Rf(tool)s can be closed after a few hours, instead saying all threads should be open for a week. Granted it is not policy, yet it is used as a valid reason every time an outrageous proposal is suggested and unanimously rejected. Nearly everytime I see it used to close such threads I think UCS would be better suited to being the closing reason. Continuing this, as far as I can tell Christine was using common sense to determine that +v is to be used to denote significant users that do not require +o. To me that only really applies to Runescript and maybe bullbot, although it has far less use. The status grants no extra tools as far as I'm aware. Randomly voicing people disrupted the status quo of the channel and whilst there is no actual rule against it, there is no rule allowing it either. Yes, it seemed to only annoy Christine, and perhaps she overreacted, but I don't think this is enough of a reason to lower here status.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature

Do you believe that Ty deserved to lose his ops for "disrupting the status quo"? You agreed that voice is rather harmless. If he were doing something that actually threatened to cause harm, a deopping may have been somewhat more justified, but he wasn't. He was stripped of his ops for cosmetic reasons. Furthermore, you say "there is no rule allowing it" but there doesn't need to be one. We are allowed to do something unless a rule expressly limits or forbids it. There is no rule against voicing users; in fact, there are no concrete rules about voicing at all. Ty was in no violation of any rule and there was no good reason, none whatsoever, to remove his ops. A rogue manager who doesn't listen to the community is very dangerous. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 20:33, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Did anyone explicitly disagree with her prior to the de-opping? As the +v status is purely cosmetic was there any need to give it out? Cosmetic ranks create divides between those with and without, hence the Runescript was the only user with the status. Assuming this is Christine's line of thought, I have no trouble following it and agree with it, although the execution of such thinking was, as we all must admit, flawed. She acted rashly, but let us not forget no one is perfect. As long as she learns from this incident and remembers the community rules the wiki and it's affiliated chats, not her, then I see no reason to punish her over this.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature

"Creates divides", ha ha. Giving someone voice in IRC is about as dividing as changing the colours in my signature to black, getting voice is nothing like getting some chevrons in CC, or getting whatever in the Chat. We give voice for the same reason you and I tell jokes. 222 ^talk 12:58, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

I can liken it to hilites if it gets the point across. Different colours here, different symbols there. Either way the status does nothing quantifiable, and seems to be given out at random to those active/liked in the channel. It can easily create a divide should someone look at it the wrong way.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature

Jokes can be taken the wrong way and create a divide as well. Shall we regulate those too? My point is that something as trivial as a voice does not need regulation and definitely does not require the abuse of power to enforce a personal preference. 222 ^talk 04:39, July 15, 2012 (UTC)

Question - What, exactly, does (+v) powers let you do? I've never quite understood it. If I knew, I might understand why Christine would do such a silly thing (in my opinion, of course). --Cycloneblaze ^{(user - talk)} 10:16, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Nothing important. Voice allows users to speak in the channel when it is moderated (+m), which prevents non-voiced, non-opped users from speaking. +m is set very rarely and even then for only short periods of time. Voice is mostly set for fun. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 10:21, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

As Andorin said, channel mode v, applied to a user, has no relevance here in #rswiki. Basically, it overrides a person's inability to speak -- in addition to the things describes above, a +v can also be used to bypass a broader +q, for example, if an IP address range is quieted, a user can be given +v, allowing them to talk. Michagogo (talk) 10:25, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

I see... so, in the context of #rswiki, (+v) is meaningless... thus (in my eyes) the de-op is also meaningless (or rather for meaningless reasons) and so Christine's behaviour is not. Support some form of reprimand. --Cycloneblaze ^{(user - talk)} 22:58, July 13, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - The rules about voice are muddy in this regard. I think that the message Christine will get from this and not do it again, but I also think that removing manager rights is an overreaction for muddy rules. --Liquid^Talk 12:23, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Stripping his ops in the first place was the overreaction to muddy rules. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 12:25, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Question - Was Tyler simply de-op'd or was his status completely removed? User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 15:59, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Removed from the access list. User:TyA/sig 16:39, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

I don't join IRC anymore, but I used to, and I know what goes on in there. This is clearly a case where someone with significant power wanted to enforce their own personal preference backed up by a non-existent policy. We do things by consensus, not by individual power. I could understand if she got mad because she doesn't want people voiced for whatever reason, but in no way was it right to remove an admin from the access list. Nowhere on the wiki or in the community are we governed like that. So I support. There are people with cooler heads who could do the job. User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 17:15, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Support - Per Urban Cursed Pyres (talk) 23:05, July 14, 2012 (UTC)

Support - Fergie said it very well. Ronan ^Talk 13:26, July 15, 2012 (UTC)

Support - Per Fergles. bad_fetus^talk 23:32, July 15, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - Let me make clear that my reasoning is based not on consensual standards, but rather this case in point. This incidence is clearly not right by any stretch of the imagination. However, there are things to look at. Firstly, people are expected to use their own judgements in IRC matters. It's just the unwritten law of the internet. Yes, Christine overreacted with personal bias in this matter, but the situation in context is very moot. Ty lost his access and regained it later. People make mistakes and we can't bludgeon them for having one "rogue" incident just because it insights our own distrust in another judgement. She cited a policy that may not be real but it was her own interpretation of the policy. We shouldn't cast away those in our community with these kinds of threads, they just lead to more problems than they really solve. Inherently, I propose that we modify the IRC policy to limit voiced users to only bots of the channel (RuneScript, bullbot, etc.) because there really is no reason to NOT have such a thing in place. We really all should quit being butt hurt about things and just revise what is written. We aren't politicians, we're a community. --Lashazior (talk) 04:06, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

I'd support changing the policy to that.

1. REDIRECT User:Cqm/Signature

That's true, but we are a community where decisions are made on policies, not on the whim or personal agenda of someone 'we' voted to power. She needs to be reminded of that fact Cursed Pyres (talk) 21:10, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

I think we should chill with the lynchmob here. What Christine did was not power abuse—she made a judgment call that proved to be a mistake. If she, as a manager, considers an op to be misbehaving, it should be her place to remove the op's flag. In this case it proved that the community did not agree that Ty was misbehaving, he got his flag back, and that should be the end of it. She did not "go against the community's wishes, the consensus system, and established policy". She was simply mistaken on whether the +v may be given out to any Tom, Dick or Harry in IRC some op has a crush on. One mistake does not warrant the loss of a flag. User:(wszx)/sheeeeple 04:34, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

As one who has experience as a manager, I can certainly say that the only reason it would be acceptable to strip an op of his rights without consensus is if that op presented an immediate danger to the channel. For example, I would have instantly de-opped someone who went rogue and started banning as many people as possible, but for something as petty and cosmetic as voice? No, absolutely not. Christine has the right to make judgment calls as an op and a manager, but this was a giant screw-up on her part. She should have come to the Yew Grove and started a discussion about voice policy, but instead, what she did was decide what our voice policy would be and take administrative action to enforce it. That is wholly unacceptable from someone in a position of power such as hers. If she can't be trusted to act within the responsibilities and expectations of her role, she should not have the tools. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 06:34, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - She made a mistake, it was reverted, she was warned not to do it again. It's not like she has a history of acting up, does she? Build a bridge and get over it.

1. REDIRECT User:-Matt/sig 07:23, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - this really is a very minor infraction of a rule that has already been set right. If managers were not supposed to be allowed to remove op flags, they shouldn't have been made managers in the first place - if this really were a serious issue then surely it would have occurred to people to discuss it before something like this happened? It didn't, because it isn't. Coveting a founder flag is no reason to sling mud at someone. Raging Bull ^Talk 13:17, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Bull, what you're missing is that the manager flagset is there for the same reason that the wiki has Bureaucrats -- as a way to carry out community decisions. Just like Sacre can't just deadmin someone because he's annoyed at them, and if he did, there would be a need for an RfB, this is the same type of thing -- not completely equivalent, but approximately. Are you telling me that you would oppose removing Sacre as a 'crat if he de-admined someone? Michagogo (talk) 13:37, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Sure, if the admin were doing something he'd been asked not to and the privilege removal were temporary. Raging Bull ^Talk 17:48, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

How is it temporary to remove someone's op rights? With no consensus whatsoever? User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 18:59, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Ty was in violation of no policies and there was no indication that his op removal was temporary. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 22:11, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations, Bull, you have transformed this from a community discussion into a personal attack contest. I have never stated anywhere that I want to replace Christine as founder (because I don't), and for you to accuse me of having such a motive behind this thread is beyond inappropriate. It is a far worse form of mud-slinging than anything to which you may have alluded. If you want to continue to participate in this discussion you will not make such asinine and disrespectful claims again -- that is your official warning from an administrator. Behave. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 19:20, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

I would just like the record to reflect that it wasn't me this time! User:(wszx)/sheeeeple 19:40, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

I think my assumption was justified given my significant period of observation hitherto and while it might not be correct, that doesn't make it unreasonable and I don't think it justifies that severity of response.

Far more iniquitous than any mud I may or may not have slung, in my view, is this baying for blood over what is apparently a serious event. I genuinely do not understand this. OK, she put a foot over the line because ops are meant to only be removed via a thread here rather than summarily. But to immediately strike someone down from their position for such a minor overstepping of bounds? Some users might interpret the use of the word "asinine" as mildly offensive and therefore a violation of UTP. Am I going to go and make a desysop thread? Of course not. Raging Bull ^Talk 21:52, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

So the argument you are making is that Christine's rogue action is not severe enough to warrant a reexamination of her positions as manager and founder. That's just where we're going to have to disagree. We must be able to trust that our managers will exercise their powers and authority responsibly, and within the expectations of their roles as managers. Channel founders must be held to even higher standards than managers because of the unmatched power they hold. As I have said before multiple times, Christine used her authority to enforce her personal agenda by making an official, highly serious move against one of our ops. She did not attempt to start a discussion, she did not attempt to establish or clarify voice policy... she just decided it for us. As Fergie has said, we are by no means governed that way. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 22:11, July 18, 2012 (UTC)

Is the solution to every policy infringement instant punishment? The wiki might not be a democracy but that shouldn't automatically make it North Korea. She did one thing wrong and it simply does not deserve this level of reprisal, certainly not first time round. Are you willing to accept a wiki block for calling me asinine? Raging Bull ^Talk 00:48, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

No. Not every policy infringement. The point here is that completely removing ty's channel status is not just "a policy infringement". What Christine did is completely unacceptable -- removing a person's status, unilaterally, with tools that she has for (what I understand is) a purely technical reason, and that are there for community decisions only. Michagogo (talk) 00:53, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Flagrantly insulting another user is also wholly unacceptable on a forum for measured discussions such as this. I don't see much fuss being made about that blatant UTP violation. Raging Bull ^Talk 01:02, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about Andorin's use of the word "asinine"? As you said yourself (emphasis mine), "Some users might interpret the use of the word "asinine" as mildly offensive...". Also, he wasn't "flagrantly insulting" anyone. The word was used to refer to the claims that this thread exists because Andorin wants founder status, which is ridiculous. Michagogo (talk) 01:08, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

You're really grasping at straws here. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 01:13, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - It is clear from the result of my action that the community disagrees with what I felt was a common sense rule. Let me explain my reasoning for not approving of voicing in the channel for non-bots. In the past several months, whenever I was asked why I was against voicing users, this was always my answer: In all IRC clients, unless the user has made certain customizations, users with any sort of status (op, voice, half-op on some networks) are denoted with a special character, symbol, color, etc. Typically, these users are also placed at the top of the user list. In the past, RuneScript has been the only nick in our channel that has consistently been voiced. In fact, in over 4 years, its status has never changed (see here in case the access list gets modified). The original reasoning for granting auto-voice to the bot was so that when new users came into our channel, they would notice something different about it and realize it was not a typical user. Some people here are trying to make the argument that voice gives no power, and therefore voicing users should not be a big deal. I understand that it grants no power and am not trying to contest that. However, my opposition to granting voice stems from this: granting voice to a user indicates that there is something different about them, and that was just not the case with the users that some ops (Ty included) were voicing. I do not believe that it is fair to new users to carelessly voice some channel-goers without reason. Just as the average RuneScape player will go into the CC and note that a symbol indicates someone of power or distinction, the same metaphor carries over to new IRC users. They see the symbol and will equate it to what they see in the CC, and make a connection and assumption about what it means. When explaining this to some IRC users in the past, they seemed to think that it wasn't really a big deal to do this since we don't often have new users. I disagree with that reasoning, and think we ought to make things easiest for the new users. This is why I consistently devoiced users who were voiced. I explained myself multiple times, and I did give warning that I would deop ops who voiced a user. If the other users had disagreed with my reasoning, then I feel they should have made a Yew Grove thread about voicing, rather than deciding to ignore our channel's standard practice regarding voice and attempting to see if I was bluffing. While I see now that the users disagreed with my interpretation of this, I felt that I was taking appropriate action against an op who was disregarding de facto policy. Christine (talk) 01:29, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

From what I've understood, it seemed like it was de facto to voice random people for fun. Now I'm confused and would like clarification from others. User:Urbancowgurl777/Signature 01:34, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Precisely -- from my experience, voicing people and stuff like that has always been very random and not regulated. Also, when Christine says that RuneScript is the only one consistently voiced, showing the access list -- that just means RuneScript is the only fixed voice -- everyone else is transient, etc. And, to respond to Christine, specifically this: "I felt that I was taking appropriate action against an op who was disregarding de facto policy." There is no "de facto policy" that justified removing his access. None at all. Devoicing is one thing, but taking this sort of action based on a "de facto policy" that many people agree does not exist is simply unacceptable. It's that simple. Michagogo (talk) 01:41, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

The existence of a de facto policy is debatable. However, I do think that a justification can be made for her actions (I'm not saying that I'd like to try to make that justification, only that an enterprising lawyer can make a case out of this). The issue at hand here is what to do with her manager and founder flags.

I can understand Christine's position; let me use the clan chat as an example. Let's take the clan logo as an example. It's a purely aesthetic feature of the clan, and let's ignore Forum:Clan Chat and pretend for the sake of argument that there is no difference between the clan logo and voice in the IRC. Let's also pretend that whenever someone changes the logo I know who it is, analogous to the IRC logs showing who's giving +v. In this argument, there is no official policy governing the clan logo, but it is more or less de facto that our current logo is going to be our logo. If a clan chat administrator constantly changes the logo to something else, even after repeated warnings to stop and that continuing to do so will result in a deranking, there is a case to be made for unilaterally deranking the CC admin. I am unlikely to take such a course of action myself, but if someone else did I would not push for punitive action.

The reason is that our policies are not all-inclusive; ranks have to use their judgment to fill in the gray areas. As the first instance in which Christine has taken a somewhat controversial action, I do not think that it's prudent to penalize her for this. She was simply using her judgment in this case after clearly stating her intentions. The fact that people may not agree with her may warrant this review, but the fact that she has clearly stated her intended actions and that this is not clearly in violation of any policy means that I believe taking punitive action after one case is an overreaction. --Liquid^Talk 02:51, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

I cannot pretend they are one and the same. For starters, the Clan Chat flag can be publicly seen by a significant chunk of the RuneScape population assuming the Clan Vexillum is stuck in the ground somewhere like the GE. In comparison, the fact that someone is voiced can be seen by perhaps 80 people during busy hours. Clearly this is not the same thing, the CC flag is close to an advertisement for the clan, while voice is like giving someone a chevron if you insist on using the clan chat. 222 ^talk 08:07, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

The issue here is not that you have a different opinion of how voices should be governed. The issue is the action you took in enforcing that opinion. At best you are able to justify your action on a "de facto" policy that, as Fergie points out, is confusing and subjective. It does not fall within your mandate as channel manager (or founder!) to enforce confusingly subjective "de facto" policies with official actions such as op removal. You should have come to the Yew Grove and started a discussion if you felt as though your idea of the voice policy should be officially established. What you did with your manager tools was entirely unacceptable. If you truly believe that you were doing the right thing in deopping Ty, how can I trust that you will responsibly use your powers in future situations? --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 03:06, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

So you gave ty a warning first? Oh wait... Cursed Pyres (talk) 06:24, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - this doesn't seem to be getting through to some people, but this is the first time this has been an issue. I do not understand how anyone can think it right and proper to take such drastic action in the first instance of an already murky policy infringement. If she had arbitrarily and capriciously banned half the users in the channel I might be more bloodthirsty but what she did had no effect on any channel users' ability to communicate with other users. There have been statements that my earlier assertions about motivations were ridiculous, but I don't know how else to explain the wholly inappropriate severity of the suggested response to her actions. Nobody was actually inconvenienced by this episode and so there is absolutely no need to make an example of her. Raging Bull ^Talk 07:37, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Actually there have been "warnings" directed at users including myself on one occasion over a period of time which haven't been acted upon, mainly because we didn't want to cause any dramas at the time. Logs should be somewhere but I'm not going to Ctrl+F 600 days worth. 222 ^talk 08:07, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Then you clearly don't think it that important a point. I'm not quite sure what kind of warnings you're even talking about - if you think they're relevant, let's have a bit more info. Raging Bull ^Talk 10:54, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

They are relevant because it was in reply to a statement. What more info would you want, I have said there will be no logs. 222 ^talk 10:59, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

It would be useful to know e.g. what kind of behaviour the warnings were for, how often they were issued and so forth. Without any logs I question the relevance of even bringing up these warnings. Raging Bull ^Talk 12:29, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - Maybe we could use this to actually establish a formal voicing policy?  @Gaz#7521 08:48, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I think that discussion should take place separately. --Andorin (Talk) (Contribs) 08:48, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Closed - After spending a while looking over the entire discussion, and looking over it again, I can find no consensus to remove ChristineV's manager flags. In general, there is consensus that removing operator rights from someone just for voicing people isn't a productive use of time, so I'd caution all managers and operators that - until some sort of voicing policy is made up - to not go deopping and otherwise creating drama around it. Some people want to discuss making a voicing policy, but I agree with what Andorin said above and will leave that to another forum (which I will create a couple of minutes after closing this). Also, I just remembered that I'm not currently an admin, so if people have issues with this closure go ahead and scream at me.

1. REDIRECT User:C886553/sig 21:48, July 22, 2012 (UTC)