Forum:What about Bob?

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I hate having to have this discussion. In the past, I have argued for leniency, tolerance and understanding of Boblipton. But it is now clear that he has zero interest in "fitting in" with us. Most admin have had some sort of run-in with Bob over the last year-and-a-half. We've all read at least one of his posts to a talk or forum posts and raised our eyebrows at the rudeness, the hyperbole, or just the plain old bile.

Because he never responded well to private notices on his talk page, I finally had to step into the middle of a forum discussion and give him a more public warning at forum:IDW Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover.

There, he was told that he needed to be nice — just be nice — to people, and stop using literary quotations as a way to insult people "on the sly". I pointed him in the direction of our no personal attacks policy. He has since responded by saying

"If CzechOut feels that it is rude to point out some of the utter nonsense that is spoken, then the easiest way to deal with it is to urge people not to talk rot."

In other words, it's not his fault he's rude — it's yours, for being so stupid.

That's simply not an acceptable response to being asked to comply with the "no personal attacks" policy, which is one of the very cornerstones of our wiki. I take his response to my warning to be a repudiation of basic wiki etiquette.

If further proof were needed, there's virtually his whole post at this user page in which he:

• again uses a literary quotation to call people here a negative name — in this case anyone trying to enforce wiki standards are "the bastards" who shouldn't get Cyruptsaram down.
• indicates to a new user that the manual of style can be wholly disregarded — not only because it's "unreadable" but because it's "badly intentioned". Suggesting it's "badly intentioned" means he doesn't assume good faith, and it's basically an insult.
• tells a new user that a particular admin — in this case, me, but on other occasions Mini-mitch and Skittles the hog have been his targets — shouldn't be considered
• uses so much hyperbole that he actually lies; at no point did I ever come close to calling Cyruptsaram a "bad boy" or try to get him to "do some damned bureaucratic nonsense"
• specifically violates the "no personal attacks" warning against "I'm better than you" attacks by saying,

"I do know how to edit and clean up text a lot better than -- to put it without false modesty -- anyone else here."

He has been offered adminship, given a chance to edit the manual of style, given multiple warnings about following policy, and been previously blocked. It may be fairly assumed at this point that he just enjoys throwing rocks. And frankly it's time to end that. I, for one, do not want to enter the new season of Doctor Who with him venting all this bile. We need to retain new users, which is made more difficult if he's constantly fighting the rules, policies and guidelines of the wiki.

Because he's been so recently and specifically and publicly warned, and because he's even more recently shown he has no intention of at all following even the most basic rule of just being nice, he's gotta go.

I hate to lose a dedicated copyeditor, but I think on balance his copyeds aren't always of the highest quality, and they certainly aren't worth the bile. I think he is, overall, a bigger negative than a plus. He often edits piles of pages that are rather alike. But if he's doing them all against our usual format — as we have found on many occasions — then his profligacy is actually a net detriment. I know I certainly have had to make dedicated bot runs to clean up his work, so there's a real question as to whether he's doing that much which benefits us.

So go he must, I think. The only question, really, is for how long. This is why I seek your advice. I personally am of the opinion that it should now be a permanent ban. If it were any other editor, he would have had more bans than he's actually received, and he would have been permanently gone some time ago.

But that's just my opinion. Please give your views below. This thread will be kept open for a week, to give all admin of this wiki time to give their views.
czechout ☎ ✍  19:20, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

I don't particularly like joining this discussion, but I feel that it's about time we did discuss Bob's behaviour on the wiki. I've just taken a look at his talk page from boxing day of last year, where he says this to MiniMitch:

"...I will go on my my awful fashion fixing bad grammar, bad writing and filling in gaps that no one else seems interested in filling at all. I will also go on thanking folks like Ottelspy, who is happy to make himself useful by filling in the technical details and whoever was kind enough to tell me how to do simple links. Any time this anti-social behavior on my part becomes unbearable, I understand I can be banned from editing. You're welcome."

Now this seems to me as being just plain rude, there's no need to go on an all-out assault on user's who are simply trying to help, even if it may be simple things that he needs to be corrected on.

I've had a look over the warning CzechOut gave Bob on the IDW Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover page and I was dissapointed when I read his "apology" to the warning; where he apologizes at first before proceeding to call the rules of the wiki "blind, crude" and "unthinking" due to his "right and obligation to point out that nonsense is nonsense." - After a response like that to a simple warning, it does push me towards the view that a punishment for such behaviour must be taken.

From my experience with Bob I have noticed that on occassion he has commented on the nature of my edits in a way that serves no purpose but to provoke a reaction from me rather than to solve any error in my editing skills. Of my view of Bob in relation to his interaction with other editors, I think that his behaviour holds little regard for the feelings of other users.

On the topic of Bob's actual edits to the wiki I am inclined to agree with CzechOut here. I have often found that the minor changes that Bob makes to articles aren't necessary and it really isn't worth the amount of hassle we recieve as he continues to undermine the community-establish guidelines that the majority have politely enforced for the wiki.

So anyway I'm going to conclude my addition to this discussion. Bob's behaviour simply cannot be tolerated by the wiki, I have myself banned users permanently for behaviour not much worse than his, and if I'd have been aware of Bob's attitude earlier, would probably have banned him before myself. We have to think about the future of the wiki and the fact that as the new series and the anniversary is on the horizon, we cannot allow Bob's attitudes to undermine the wiki and deter new (and existing) editors from contributing to the wiki in what could prove to be its most prosperous few years yet. I think I'm going to have to say that a permanent ban is needed so that we can set an example that anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated on this wiki, especially after the amount of times Bob has been warned for such behaviour. --Revan\Talk 20:10, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

Oh good, I'm not the only one. Bob is one of the reasons why I avoid the discussions (besides laziness); the improvements to the wiki don't seem to be worth the vitriol. I agree that the changes he makes aren't worth keeping him. It just seems like he makes pages shorter, not improving them. A permanent band would seem to be best. -<Azes13 22:44, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

I have been seriously annoyed with my run-ins with Bob. I don't see the point in allowing him to stay if he cannot follow a simple editing guide. I have had a couple of run-ins with him regarding the manual of style, one of which he decides not to answer my question when I asked him 'What the point in the MOS if people don't follow it'. Apart from stating 'it's not my problem', he ended the discussion.

Another thing that I find highly annoying, in fact unacceptable, is that he tells other Users, especially new Users not to listen to admins and not to follow the manual of style. I think the second he did this, he should have been blocked. The worst part is he thinks he can get away with it. You wouldn't say to a police officer "I just killed someone, and I told other people they should kill people as well, because I disagree with the law about murder" then expect to walk way.

I think the MOS does need to be re-written (which is something we can all do as a community, not just one User), but Bob's action cannot be tolerated. A permeate ban is what I think is needed. I don't like having to decide his fate this way, but we're doing what needs to be done. MM/Want to talk? 23:42, July 16, 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm coming in a bit late here, and it looks like I'll be arguing a minority position. I agree that Bob's caustic style and lack of regard for consensus-based decisions are a problem, but I don't see him as having crossed the Rubicon yet. Perhaps it's just because I haven't had to put up with him as long as everybody else (since I only returned to the wiki a few months back), but it seems to me that a) Bob does far more good than ill on the wiki, and b) he's capable of self-correction. He and I had a somewhat harsh exchange in the Infinity Doctors inclusion debate, but after I clarified things slightly he sent me a gracious apology. To me, this shows that he can correct his behavior when necessary. I think that he just expresses his views strongly, and sometimes isn't very sensitive to the way his words might be received.

That's not to say that his "talking rot" response in the IDW Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover discussion doesn't deserve censure. I just don't think that it (or his remarks to Cyruptsaram) meet the standard for a permanent ban.

Here's what I suggest: let Bob be blocked for a finite period (perhaps 2 weeks?), with the understanding that when (if) he returns, he is on civility probation. I'd be willing to take responsibility for him, keeping a close eye on his edits (especially on talk pages), and blocking him myself when he crosses the line. These "electric fence" blocks would initially be for a short period (a day or two), but would increase in duration if needed. And after a set period (perhaps 3 months?) the community could review the set-up, to see whether it's working.

Does that sound like something we'd be willing to try? —Josiah Rowe 03:04, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

In a word, no.

Josiah, you're kinda where I was a year ago. See, his comments at Cyrup's page suggest that we're enemies of some kind, but I don't know where he's getting that from. The truth is, I was the first admin to really notice his work and praise him for it. I've put his name up for adminship. I've tried to get him to be the leader of a team of copyeditors. I've asked him to write a concise guide to proper English. I've unlocked the manual of style so he could go in an do a rewrite. I've been trying to protect him from major blocking for a while both on admin user pages and in chat conversations. So in a real sense, we've already done the "electric fence" thing; he's just not actually been blocked, except for the one time.

And he's not done anything with those opportunities — except get more and more strident that most of what admin do around here is useless and can be ignored.

I know of the apology he gave you, and I have to say that it, too, is actually evidence of insulting behavior. Because he apologized to you — and no one else. As far as I'm aware, that's the only genuine apology that I've ever seen the guy issue. And of course the rest of us deserve an admission that his "lack of careful writing [has] given offense". I thought it more than a little ironic that you, the one guy who'd put up with him the least, was the guy who got the apology.

You're right that neither of these incidents in isolation warrant a permanent ban. But the whole point is that they're not one-off things. This is a pattern of behavior. Seriously, check the logs for his contributions, limit to the forum namespace, and just read. Your jaw will, I'm quite certain, drop to the floor. We're not at first offense, or second or third. We're at like 153. And I think it's primarily me who's stayed people's hands from the block button.

Two weeks is therefore never gonna be sufficient. Two weeks means he gets to be here for the new series. Given that this is our busiest time of year, I just don't feel comfortable with him being here during the time where we typically get a new crop of active editors. If the reaction of the administrators who posted above you had been less swift or less certain, I might be thinking that I was being a tad harsh. But they seem to agree, so I think that a permanent ban is not out of order.

Still, it might be possible to offer him the carrot of return. So here's a counter-proposal:

• Block until 1 January 2013
• After that point, he's under no one's particular wing
• At each offense we'll call another one of these reviews. When an offense produces a simple majority vote that he should be blocked, the block will be permanent.

Basically what I'm saying is that I think we're at the point where he's either gone now, or gone the next time.
czechout ☎ ✍ 05:42: Tue 17 Jul 2012 

That's sounds fairer to me - I'm in. --Revan\Talk 13:28, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

He's been blocked before for this reason and I think it's unfair we given him yet another chance. He never changed his attitude after his first block, so why would he after his second block? He just going to continue. By blocking him permanently straight away, means that he, and other Users, know we are taking this seriously and gets rid of the problem once and for all. MM/Want to talk? 19:16, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

What happened with his first block? I only found out that he had been blocked yesterday. If what he did was as bad as his behaviour yesterday then yes, we should ban him permanently as his behaviour hasn't changed. But did he actually call all of the admin staff "bastards" back then? --Revan\Talk 20:22, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

The block was back in April, which was done by myself after a discussion with CzechOut. The reasons were, failure to follow a number of policies and also for have a very bad attitude toward rules/admins. MM/Want to talk? 20:46, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

How long was the previous block for? And was Bob warned at that time that he would be subject to further blocks if his attitude didn't improve? —Josiah Rowe 01:26, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

He was blocked for three days, after which I reminded him he was unblocked. He was not warned about further blocks, but CzechOut did point out to me that he was now aware that he could get blocked and was aware we would/could in the future. MM/Want to talk? 11:37, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

Well if that is the case and he has been warned, then we are in a position to ban him permanently if we wish. --Revan\Talk 14:43, July 19, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, Josiah. Are you suggesting that he needed to have been told, specifically, that he could be blocked again after his initial block? If so, I strongly disagree. If you're blocked once, a threat of another block is unnecessary. It's probably bad policy to end a block by saying, "Please don't make the same mistake or we'll have to block you again". That makes people feel unduly nervous, like they're on probation or something. The block is itself a warning that, should you make the same mistake again, you're going to be blocked again, and for a longer period of time. That's just inherent in a block.

Nevertheless, he was warned just a week or so ago, quite publicly. I told him in the Star Trek forum thread that if he insulted users again, even if using a literary quote, those insults would be considered personal attacks. In the warning, I linked to tardis:no personal attacks, which plainly says that blocks will be handed out for violations of the policy. That policy strongly states that there just are no excuses for personal attacks. Moreover, it's in my user page that the "no personal attacks" thing is something I will ban for quite swiftly. That text has been there for just about as long as Bob has been a user, and certainly for at least a year. As far as I'm concerned, the warning is given on my user page. So if I'm telling you that you're violating our ban on personal attacks, you're getting one more warning than I at all feel obliged to give.

And you and I both know that the fix was easy. Bob should have just said, "You know, I see your point. I didn't consider that what I said might be insulting other people. I'll try to do better in future." Be nice — that's all he had to do.

Instead he goes completely on the other side of this and says, "Nah, blame the other people for talking rot." Really? Seriously? He's been told he's making personal attacks and his response is that other people's stupidity made him do it? That doesn't fly, and there's no possible way you'll convince me, Josiah, that he hasn't been adequately warned.

The only question before us now is whether his ban will be permanent, or whether there might be a rehabilitative point to a more lenient "time out" until after the Christmas special.
czechout ☎ ✍ 19:31: Thu 19 Jul 2012 

Oh, and by the way, he's already given his acknowledgement that he understands he runs the risk of banning. From User talk:Boblipton#Actor pages:

"Any time this anti-social behavior on my part becomes unbearable, I understand I can be banned from editing."

So he appears more than adequately warned, to me.
czechout ☎ ✍ 19:45: Thu 19 Jul 2012 

I wasn't necessarily getting at anything. Just trying to see to what extent Bob had been made aware that he was on thin ice. Again, I agree that his "talking rot" response shows an attitude problem. I was just wondering whether it had been made clear to him that it was an attitude problem which could potentially get him banned from the site.

I guess I'm also asking what our goal is here: is it to punish Bob for being abrasive and failing to follow the rules? Or is it to give him an incentive to be more of a team player? I think his copyediting is helpful, though his manner is at times insulting. Wouldn't it be best if we could adjust the latter, without losing the former for all time?

Over at Wikipedia, they distinguish between a block and a ban. Blocks are temporary, designed to say "hold up, this isn't working". But somebody who's blocked is welcome to come back and change the behavior that triggered the block. Bans are permanent; they say "we can't work with this individual at all".

I think Bob deserves a block, not a ban. —Josiah Rowe 01:57, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

See I think I'm at a point where I don't particularly believe his editing is all that helpful. His profligacy is actually working against his net value. If he were right in his editing more often than he is, that'd be one thing. But he believes he is right when he's wrong. His attitude is, "If you don't like the way I'm editing, fix it yourself." And the thing is, I have fixed it. I do entire bot runs just to fix Bob's edits. He edits in such a narrow way that he ends up creating problems. Here are a few things from his hit parade:

• What I consider to be a willful failure on his part to use the imdb template in the way it was intended. I had to spend literally days' ' on a bot run to remove all the asterisks everywhere and then make Template:imdb "Bob proof". I told him in several different messages how to use it, but he never heeded, and he never asked questions. Then he claimed that he was editing as he was because he didn't understand. Meanwhile, his rapid editing pace meant that he had misused the template hundreds of times before we finally got him straightened out.
• Skittles the hog spent the whole of October 2011 trying to get him to understand the concept of removing the placeholder images and adding categories to pages. It's fine to not understand things when you're new, but a whole month on that? Again, the thing one might consider a virtue — his rapid editing speed — might be considered a positive virtue. But if he's not needing admin advice, what's really happening is that he's actually doing at least as much harm as good. As with the imdb situation, I had to step in, do a bot run, and "Bob proof" the article creation process, which took several days of emails back and forth to Wikia staff.
• On another occasion, I spent some time trying to get him to understand some very elementary things about image uploading and layout. In the end, he gave up — or, rather, he never really tried — and I was left having to clean up his work. I still haven't completely gotten that one cleaned up, though.
• Then there's the extra spacing issue that got him MM's block. Again, who was left to clean up? Me.
• Then there's his ornery contention that he's just going to use American English spelling and let the bot clean up after him. Well, the spelling bot is by no means automatic. It's much faster than trying to totally manually edit, but I can't just run it on autopilot. I have to review each and every change. And I can tell you with certainty that, in 2012, he has been the number one cause of American spellings on the wiki. He's just willfully violating our spelling policy. And, again, because he's publishing so many edits, the "best copyeditor on our wiki" is churning out hundreds of spelling errors a month. But I haven't even brought it up with him, because I know, by this point, precisely what he'll say.

Now, of course none of these things, in isolation, is that big a deal. If we had a user making these mistakes individually, we'd help 'em out and that'd be the end of it. But, see, they'd probably work with us, too. Like Cyruptsaram earlier this week, most users would see the point you're trying to make, apologize, and move on. Instead, Bob appears to have little interest in editing to a common standard.

So is he an asset? I dunno. The math is murky for me. It's not enough to just be a copyeditor. You've got to be copyediting in a way that harmonizes with the work of others. He may not like the way the Manual of Style is written, but his unwillingness to conform to it seriously compromises the quality of the work he believes he does so well.  

You asked, Josiah, what we were trying to accomplish. Is it wrong to say that I personally just that I mainly want peace on the wiki? I want Azes13 back in the forums. I want discussions between well-intentioned people trying to actually figure out problems, without Bob popping up to gainsay everything. I want to stop trying to figure out whether I've been insulted or merely been handed an irrelevant quote from a book.

I have zero confidence that Bob will ever try to fit into the community. He's just too much of an iconoclast. If the meaning of a ban on Wikipedia is "we can't work with this person", then I think that's where we are. Really read the whole of his talk page archives and forum responses. I think you'll see a definite pattern there of:

• extreme, virulent, unreasoning resistance to change (especially present at tardis:Forum:Can we disable visual editor please?)
• a guy who has to be asked several times to alter his editing behavior
• a basic unwillingness to learn the wiki scripting "language", such that he's unable to perform simple formatting tasks
• sustained attacks on the manual of style and other policies, particularly to new editors

However, because you apparently still hold out hope for him, I'll compromise and go more than halfway between two weeks and, um, eternity. I'll do the six month block. You've not commented on the timing of my counterproposal, so I'm interested to hear what you think.
czechout ☎ ✍ 07:58: Fri 20 Jul 2012 

Well, six months seems like a long time to me, but as you note it's significantly shorter than eternity. For a recent example of what I consider Bob's good copyediting, see this work on Fifth Doctor. Do we have anyone else who's willing to cut through the excess verbiage of edits like these and produce something readable?

If I wanted to haggle on Bob's behalf, I'd suggest a four-month block, which would bring him back around the 49th anniversary. That's probably after the first five-episode run of Season 7 will have finished, but would give him some time to help tidy up the articles which will have been created in connection with those episodes before the show comes back at Christmas. I'll repeat my offer to act as a mentor for him, both in attempting to teach him the niggling bits of wiki formatting to which he seems resistant and in curbing his antisocial tendencies on talk pages and fora. (I agree that there's plenty of incriminating material in his contribs.)

Regardless of whether we're talking about six months or four, it seems that a long block is coming Bob's way. Which raises the question of how we inform him of it. Would it be appropriate to let him know about this conversation? Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but it might help inspire better behavior when and if he returns if he saw how unified all the other admins (excepting me) are about him. —Josiah Rowe 04:16, July 21, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to come into this discussion a week late.

CzechOut and I have had a discussion before about Bob, probably 4-6 months ago and I argued sort of in defence of Bob, that he was a good copy editor.

The word there is was. I get the feeling though of late he's enjoys being obtuse in any discussions that happen and it's become my default of just ignoring 90% of what he says in discussions.

One of the issues that Bob brings isn't (just) that he's extreme and aggressive, it's the frustrating nature of having to deal with him to make the wiki run smoothly and efficiently. Bob makes the wiki a bad place to be, be it discussions or interacting with new users, or just editing around his edits, as others have said they're sometimes not improvements just changes.

These interactions make for frustrating time on the wiki. I can deal with attacks and new users who make mistakes or don't understand. You can explain to those people, reason with them, I think we've all tried, repeatedly with Bob, and he's generally ignored or just ploughed on ahead.

Also his encouragement to ignore our policies makes him somewhat dangerous to new users who sometimes take his high edit count as an indicator of elevated user rights status.

Language wise Josiah Rowe, we use block for everything, I think because when you go to the block menu that's what it is and "infinite" is just one of the options.

Blocking him, for any length of time wouldn't hinder your ability to assist him Josiah, as Bob has also edited on our sister wiki the Faction Paradox Wiki, and may go over there to continue editing if blocked from this one.

I agree that he should be blocked, and given that he's been blocked in the past it should be a lengthy one. I would consider 6 months to be the minimum and at the end of the block any infringements (be they minor or major) of our policies would result in an infinite/permanent block/ban from the wiki. --Tangerineduel / talk 06:53, July 21, 2012 (UTC)

Well, no, he's not actually contributed at w:c:factionparadox. It looks like he has, but that's just an artifact of moving the pages with their contribution histories fully intact. Lots of Tardis members appear to have edited at FP, but they really haven't.

Also, let me very swiftly point to Tardis and FP blocking policies, both of which state that if you've been blocked one place, your block extends to the other. So if we block at Tardis we are blocking at FP, by default. If ya think about it for a second or two, you'll see that it wouldn't make much sense to block someone at one wiki under our control, but not at the other. This would encourage disgruntled editors to go "take revenge" upon the other wiki. It would be especially disastrous not to have this mutual exclusion zone in the case of genuine vandals. Bob's not a vandal, of course, but there's no obvious reason why his anti-social behavior on one wiki wouldn't occur on the other. The rule must pretty logically be that if you're blocked, for any reason, at the one wiki, you're also blocked at the other. It's not like FP wiki is the "kiddie pool" where you go to learn how to behave at the "big boy's table" of Tardis.

As for how he shall be blocked, it'll come from me in the form of a standard block announcement on his user talk page, which will be delivered on 23 July, as the first post to this thread indicated.
czechout ☎ ✍ 20:49: Sat 21 Jul 2012 

I do agree that Fifth Doctor is an excellent example of his copyediting skills. It's work like this that has engendered my support of him. The essential problem Bob presents is that he's a great copy editor but a bad wiki editor. So while we can all find examples of the better angels of his nature, I can point to hundreds, if not thousands, of the lesser devils. And his factory-line approach to editing means, as I've said before, that he propagates these errors to hundreds and thousands of pages.

So the way my math is working is, yes, Fifth Doctor has benefited from him, but there's just tons of lesser pages the have been made worse by his presence. Worse, he projects an air of entitlement to the cleanup service of others, as if his good work excuses his bad work and bad attitude. And that don't fly.

Moving on to another point, I did want to clarify something with you, Josiah. You say, "how unified the admin are (excepting me) about [Bob]". You're not saying you don't believe he should be blocked, right? I mean, you do believe he should be blocked for some length, right? Or are you arguing that you completely do not want him blocked at all?
czechout ☎ ✍ 20:49: Sat 21 Jul 2012 

Oh, I do think that he should be blocked for a while. I just feel like everyone else has a much stronger sense of Bob as a problem on the wiki than I do. And as I indicated in my first post, that may just be because I haven't been putting up with him for as long as the rest of you have (since I just came back a few months ago). —Josiah Rowe 03:00, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

Closing

Well, the deadline rapidly approaches, so it's time to come to some conclusions. The way I see it we have Azes13, Mini-mitch, Revanvolatrelundar, Tangerineduel and I being basically okay with a permanent ban. Only Josiah Rowe is absolutely against this. As the admin who is charged with handing out the block — since it is my warning Bob defied — I am swayed by Josiah's argument for some sort of less-than-permanent block, and find that the majority can go along with that position.

In order to incorporate Josiah's optimism, and out of recognition of the good work that Boblipton has actually done on the wiki, I find that there is cause to give him a shorter block — and one more chance.

The issue then becomes how long should that block be? Revan has agreed with me on a 1 January 2013 date. TD has said he thinks a six-month minimum (that is, 23 January 2013) is more appropriate. Josiah thinks a four-month ban, ending on 23 November, would work out well. A good compromise between all these figures would seem to be a five-month block, ending on 23 December 2012.

This will, I think, roundly include Josiah's minority opinion in the ruling. However, one aspect of Josiah's comments is specifically rejected. When and if Bob does return, he is not to be treated as Josiah's "special project". He'll be welcomed back by us all and simply allowed to carry on with his work.

Let's be very clear: a lot of what we've talked about is not directly relevant to the block. This isn't really about his failure to follow MOS guidelines or to understand basic wikitext. That's a problem, to be sure, but if he were just nice about it, we'd be more forgiving. The Librarian, for instance, makes tons of formatting errors all the time. But he's nice. He's trying to figure it all out. And as far as I know, he's never been blocked for violating the MOS or not understanding how a template worked.

Maintenance of this block after Bob's theoretical return simply does not require Josiah's personal oversight — though the offer is appreciated. Remember, Bob is being blocked at this time for violation of tardis:no personal attacks. If he's rude, we're all capable of calling a meeting to determine whether he's been rude enough to warrant the permanent block. If he can't avoid insulting people, then he will simply be gone on the first offense — regardless of the admin who notices it.
czechout ☎ ✍ 22:55: Sun 22 Jul 2012  22:55, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

I think that's fair. —Josiah Rowe 03:14, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --Revan\Talk 08:43, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

That's fine with me. MM/Want to talk? 10:17, July 23, 2012 (UTC)

Archivist's note

The above discussion requires no additional comment, so this thread is not only being archived, but locked against future editing.
czechout ☎ ✍ 17:58: Mon 23 Jul 2012 

Block enacted a few hours ago at user talk:Boblipton#Block.
czechout ☎ ✍ 20:22: Mon 23 Jul 2012