Amid all this talk of conflict of interest, nobody on Wikipedia bats an eyelid when the blocking admin says something like this about the person they blocked (indefinitely, as a first offence, to boot).....
Have you ever read his column? I need to check the article to see if "opinionated" is actually his baptismal middle name. Guy (Help!) 19:14, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
The problem here was not Hitchins, it's having Administrators like Guy Chapman around, and a community too scared (and tbf, too powerless) to clip their wings, if only to just remind them what the role of an Admin is, and is not. Blocking people you have strong opinions about, it is not. Having the integrity to realise you are biased as fuck, and as JP Gordon said (but didn't follow himself even), you can always call on any one of 1,210 colleagues to take an action you think is warranted, as a completely neutral party. There will be hundreds of Admins who have never even heard of Hitchins, and barely heard of the Mail.
Not surprising to see Fram weigh in either. If being an overly opinionated Administrator who cops a bad case of deaf ear whenever it was convenient was ever deemed a bad thing by the Wikipedians, he'd be up against the wall, right alongside Guy.
And since we're discussing the optics of Wikipedia Administration, this isn't a good look either (said to Hitchins' self appointed public defender Kingsindian).....
If you are, as you state in the edit summary, tearing your hair out, you are too invested in this matter. 331dot (talk) 07:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
This comment doesn't come from a disinterested party of course. It came from one of the Administrators who declined an appeal. He was so invested in this issue, that contrary to his claims about users having lives, he was on hand to make several pointedly personal comments about reviewers throughout, was the first to jump in and oppose Hitchins being unmuted, and was one of the first to endorse the original block (a rather pointless exercise, his ongoing support for a block he had declined to lift a day earlier is surely implicit).
331dot is a really great person to look at in this farce, as someone supposedly trusted for their judgement and clue. He stepped in to decline an appeal well past the point it had become clear Hitchins didn't have a clue what he was up against, what he was being accused of, or what he was being asked to do. Like the useless fuck he is, 331dot was just another mindless cog in a mindless machine. I suspect that is why he was being so passive aggressive toward those who find the collective outcome of how things turned out a little unpalatable, even if they agree the initial edit was blockworthy.
This was 331dot's decline, my bolding.....
You have not addressed the reason for your block. As this is a privately run website, it can allow or keep people from editing it as it sees fit. If you decide to address the reason for your block, you may make another request. Looking at it, I must agree with the assessment of the original admin, and in order to be unblocked we will need to be assured that-even if you don't agree that what you did was wrong- your behavior will be different in the future. I am declining this request. 331dot (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
There isn't a sensible person in this world who would be able to guess what Hitchins was being asked to do by this drone, since anyone with eyes can see that by then, Guy's reason for blocking had changed multiple times......
1. "adding commentary and your personal analysis into articles"
2. Not making a single edit that wasn't related to himself (COI)
3. Not making a single edit that "comes close to meeting Wikipedia policy"
4. editing like a Daily Mail columnist ( "adding that the complaint might as well have been made to the fire brigade or Tesco." )
Even after 331dot's mindless intervention, it changed further, presented by Guy at AN as an alphabetsoup, summarised as "Overall: WP:NOTHERE. Very definitely."
So what exactly what 331st asking of Hitchins here? I doubt even he really knows, and if he claims he does, who is to know he isn't just making it up now? He didn't seem to think of was important to clarify it for Hitchins.
Other declining admins up to the point 331dot got involved, had at least been consistent in arguing the block was for "inserting opinion as fact and heavily editorialising in articles related to controversial figures", even though they were quite disingenuously pretending this was Hitchins editing normally, and he posed a continuing risk. Hence his belief they seek to cast him as a fucking idiot.
Even before he explained it fifty times, to no avail, it was already clear for all reviewers, that the edits were not meant as serious edits that should stick, they were attempts to draw community attention to an editorial impasse, caused by Charles being like every other Wikipedian in history, a monumental dick. He wasn't to know the only attention it would draw, was a block. And a ridiculously punitive indefinite one at that.
In his own way, as a little dimwitted coward who is apparently in awe of his more senior colleagues and blind to everything else, 331dot was every bit an integral part of the mindless bureaucracy and kangaroo court Hitchins says he experienced, as Guy Chapman and Charles were.
And as a Hasten The Dayer, I take some comfort in that. Because it destroys any notion that reformers and idealists like Kingsindian might have, that the Wikipedia community is learning, evolving. This fucktick was promoted in March 2018, by a whopping landslide. He was identified a good candidate by none other than Ritchie.
The Wikipedia community is literally as blind as ever, as to what will ultimately destroy it. Hitchins writing about his experiences will merely Hasten The Day.