User:Blue/RWW/Saloon Bar Putsch

May 15, 2011 started just like many others. Old ladies went to church. The man down the road mowed the lawn, and RationalWikians polished their goats and walked their jerboas. A Arthropleura|rusty-spotted cat sunned itself in the square. But little did these innocents know that this, the fourth anniversary of the Night of the Blunt Knives would bring bloodletting on a scale unheard of in the annals of RW history. Armondikov, in league with the mysterious Nx, removed bureaucrat and sysop rights from everybody.

The Saloon Bar Putsch had its origins in the aftermath of the Trial of Human, a massive dispute which triggered widespread discussion about many fundamental policies of RW. The discussion spread across countless pages and forums, and earned the RationalWikiWiki ranking "HCM Zero," a previously unheard-of level. Immediately precipitating the mass-user-rights removal was an argument over Blue's proposal to have seven bureaucrats who are elected biannually.

After the dust had cleared, and the desysops were complete. Nx raised himself up to be crat, and then passed it on to Pi with the instructions that he were to take over now. Pi then sysoped a few people who were relatively active at the time in order to ensure that a vandal attack could still be thwarted. Pi later passed the lone cratship to Psygremlin and left for sleep, while Psygremlin relatively quickly thrust the power upon Totnesmartin after a joke block. Totnesmartin then held the cratship sysoping only a handful of people, before removing all cratships and then his own under advice from Tmtoulouse. Trent then set about making sure that sysops could make more sysops, but could not demote anyone, to prevent any wheel wars.

However, Eira, being the pedantic bitch she is, proceeded to loudly complain that nothing was solved, and an HCM could totally be forced even after this "fix" of removing all crats. So, she made a sysop out of the well-known troll MarcusCicero, and proceeded to get into a block war with MC, and later Trent using poor innocent RobSmith as a tetherball. All the while complaining that since there was no dispute resolution protocol, they weren't allowed to undo her block. Lo, and it was seen that the database was again torn open, and the Hand of GoatThe Goat Be Praised removed her sysopship for being a totally lame troll. Thus ended the HCM within an HCM, allowing Eira to prove that indeed, she was right, nothing was really fixed yet, and the mob was still in charge.

Aftermath

 * Main article: Moderators

After some normalcy had crept back to the wiki, Blue was granted 'cratship by Nx and proceeded to return bureaucrat rights to several dozens of users. This action precipitated the LANCB of Armondikov, and was both sharply criticized and defended. A few days later, Tmtoulouse|Trent stepped in, instituting a new user rights structure after a period of discussion. The new order of the day saw the elimination of bureaucrats and the creation of seven moderators|moderator positions, elected biannually.