Has there ever been anything like it? From a complete nobody to Wikipedia Supreme Court Justice in just 3.75 years. Only to resign in less than ideal circumstances having fulfilled just 14 of their 24 month term.
Although they've racked up 67,000+ edits, in a reflection of their main interest, zapping sockpuppets, only 16% of those were to articles. The rest are distributed across user space and Wikipedia space. For every Wikipedia article they ever created, all 10 of them, they have blocked over 800 users.
As User:Creffet, the General created his Wikipedia account on 28th November 2018, but apparently waited until 22nd March 2019 to make their first edit. He passed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Creffett (T-H-L) (137/31/3) on 17 May 2020, having already racked up 30,000 edits in just fourteen months.
On 16 June 2020 he renamed himself GeneralNotability.
The year 2021 seems to have been a turning point, or rather a long transition, as they changed from regularly hitting 1,500 edits a month to just the low hundreds.
This perhaps reflects the criticism he got at RfA, where he was called out not just for his lack of article edits, but also his editing related policy knowledge. So he headed in a different direction, as he relayed in his own words when he stood as a candidate in the 2022 ArbCom election....
He finished well for a rookie, polling third of eight, only one of three to crack 80% support, beating even his SPI mentor Kevin (L235).I've been an SPI clerk since shortly after I was elected as an admin in May 2020, and I was appointed as a CU a little over a year ago. I've spent a lot of time dealing with abuse – LTAs, spammers, undisclosed paid editing operations. That's the role I've grown into during my time on Wikipedia: keeping the place safe and harassment-free so that other folks can spend their time doing what they enjoy. Joining ArbCom is a natural extension of that; I know the committee does a lot of behind-the-scenes anti-abuse work, and I think my experience will be helpful there. As for the CheckUser tool itself, I've learned a lot about it in the past year and have grown into a pretty confident CU. Since ArbCom is responsible for both handling anti-abuse cases that involve CheckUser and overseeing English Wikipedia CUs, I think my expertise will be quite useful.
And so here we are. Yet another ArbCom member who has failed to complete their first term.....
And while not explicitly stated, the timeline shows quite clearly that this should be viewed as a dishonorable discharge. The General having suffered the indignity of having a bog standard unilateral Admin block overturned by the bog standard Admin Floquenbeam, leading to this unfortunate exchange.....Resignation
I resign my seat on ArbCom with immediate effect. To all those who voted for me - I'm sorry I wasn't the arbitrator either of us hoped I'd be. GeneralNotability (talk) 11:37, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
Particularly cutting will have been the comment by NewYorkBrad, who more than most exemplifies the civilian powers of Wikipedia. Not least because he is a real life lawyer and multi term (but not currently serving) Arb....... I am not obligated to wait for everybody to say their piece at AN/I before I'm allowed to use my administrative powers in a blatantly obvious case of bad behavior". GeneralNotability (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
.......
GeneralNotability, I plan on accepting the unblock request on their talk page, mostly per NYB's comments there. Do you have anything further to say before I do so that I might need to know about? --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:19, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do whatever the floq you want, Floquenbeam. You're an admin. You're trusted by the community to use your judgment. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:25, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully that was an attempted joke, and not frustration that someone disagrees with you. I suppose I'll floq off from your talk page now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The former. Sorry. Been a rough few days. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Credit at least to the General for having the good sense to know he fucked up and that real world events in their life probably played a part in it.I believe the block should be reversed. As reflected in the current AN thread, how our anti-canvassing policy applies to off-wiki postings about on-wiki policy discussions is by no means clear or agreed-upon. But even if one believes that TheSpacebook violated the policy (of which I am not convinced), the context appears to be a good-faith concern about a legitimate BLP issue. Given the importance of good BLP practice for Wikipedia and for our article-subjects, it is understandable that one would wish to draw broad attention to policy discussions in this area. Blocking for doing so should certainly not be done as a first resort. Indeed, in any context, a good-faith editor with no block history should generally be warned before blocking, which was not done here, unless the misconduct was both serious and obvious. I am refraining from granting this unblock request only (1) because there is an ongoing discussion on the noticeboard, and (2) because in light of my past posts to Wikipediocracy, someone might possibly consider me "INVOLVED" with a bias in favor of that website (even though my most recent posts there would hardly support any such interpretation). Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:45, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
I think in a very real way we have just witnessed the issues that arise when Wikipedia essentially operates two largely parallel power structures, a quasi civilian track and a quasi military one. Which both then ultimately feed into their Supreme Authority, seeing judges and generals sit beside each other as equals, notionally elected by the people.
I think we will see the General now quietly return to what he clearly loves to do in the name of Wikipedia, being a General as opposed to a Judge.
Quite. He never did explain how he came to know of this pressing need to use his block button, given he had been away from Wikipedia for some time. It perhaps never even occurred to him that the people have a right to know if he's hanging out over here looking for targets of opportunity, rather than insightful discourse.Just because I'm not talking doesn't mean I'm not listening. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)