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* '''Accept''', primarily to examine the use of administrative tools in this matter—I note that the article was, and remains, move-protected—but also to try and move the broader dispute towards resolution. Yannismarou, please add as parties (and provide appropriate notification to) the editors involved in the naming dispute, as well as any others who have expressed interest in participating in the case that was to be filed on the 22nd. ]&nbsp;<sup>]]</sup> 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC) * '''Accept''', primarily to examine the use of administrative tools in this matter—I note that the article was, and remains, move-protected—but also to try and move the broader dispute towards resolution. Yannismarou, please add as parties (and provide appropriate notification to) the editors involved in the naming dispute, as well as any others who have expressed interest in participating in the case that was to be filed on the 22nd. ]&nbsp;<sup>]]</sup> 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
* '''Comment''', I need to understand something here that's of critical importance, I think: is the community requesting that ArbCom settle the naming dispute ''itself''? I understand that one administrator's action precipitated this early filing of a request, but the intent was to bring this to ArbCom all along? &mdash;&nbsp;]&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC) * '''Comment''', I need to understand something here that's of critical importance, I think: is the community requesting that ArbCom settle the naming dispute ''itself''? I understand that one administrator's action precipitated this early filing of a request, but the intent was to bring this to ArbCom all along? &mdash;&nbsp;]&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
:*The link answers to your question. Yes, one administrator's action precipitated this early filing. Yes, the consensus was to bring the naming issue to ArbCom the earliest on 22 April because of the Orthodox Easter. There seemed to be a consensus the filing to be made by a non-involved user (maybe User:Horologium, the protecting administrator), but this was not conclusively decided.--] (]) 03:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
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Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024

Current requests

Move of the article Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia by User:ChrisO

Initiated by Yannismarou (talk) at 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • Diff. 2
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Yannismarou

I'll be as brief as I can. After an extensive edit-war, a straw poll on the application of the name "Republic of Macedonia" on the article Greece took place but it bore no fruit. No adm closed the poll; the article was protected twice by User:Horologium to avoid ongoing edit-wars, and no solution to the problem was found. After endless discussions, it was consensually agreed that the case should be presented on 22 April before the ArbCom for the reasons exposed in the above thread. It was not conclusively decided who will file the request.

Pending the filing of the case, User:ChrisO moved the article Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. The issue was brought to AN by User:John Carter, and then a "centralized discussion" started in the Talk:Macedonia page. Unfortunately, this discussion bore no fruit, and edit wars ensued.

I regard the issue of major importance. It is not only the legitimacy of User:ChrisO's move and its adherence to our policies which is judged here, but also the avoidance of further and collateral damage this action may entail. I thus decided to bring the case in front of you now, although not all the proper series of "dispution mechanism resolution" actions has been followed. I do think, however, that this case falls under the categories "Sensitive or "drama prone" issues requiring advice on handling" as well as "Unusually divisive disputes among administrators".

My filing concerns mainly the User:ChrisO's move, but it is the ArbCom itself which will determine the scope of its competence, and if and how it is going to examine the related issue of the "Greece" article. Although I try to present the case as neutrally as I can, I cannot hide that I am an involved party, and that I have commented on ChrisO's actions here. I apologize for acting in the way I act before the 22 April, when the Greece article issue was planned to be brought here, but I strongly believe that any delay to bring User:ChrisO's move to your attention would entail irreversible damage to the project (collateral edit-warring already ensued, the title's name may affect many articles where uncontrolled edit-wars most probably will erupt, and a controversial adm action of major importance for many articles cannot remain "on the air" for so many days). Thank you.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by ChrisO

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/0/1)

  • Accept, primarily to examine the use of administrative tools in this matter—I note that the article was, and remains, move-protected—but also to try and move the broader dispute towards resolution. Yannismarou, please add as parties (and provide appropriate notification to) the editors involved in the naming dispute, as well as any others who have expressed interest in participating in the case that was to be filed on the 22nd. Kirill  03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment, I need to understand something here that's of critical importance, I think: is the community requesting that ArbCom settle the naming dispute itself? I understand that one administrator's action precipitated this early filing of a request, but the intent was to bring this to ArbCom all along? — Coren  03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The link here answers to your question. Yes, one administrator's action precipitated this early filing. Yes, the consensus was to bring the naming issue to ArbCom the earliest on 22 April because of the Orthodox Easter. There seemed to be a consensus the filing to be made by a non-involved user (maybe User:Horologium, the protecting administrator), but this was not conclusively decided.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

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Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. To create a new request for arbitration, please go to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration. Place new requests at the top. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/How-to other requests

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
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Clarification and Amendment requests

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Arbitrator motions
Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024



Request to take a look at : The Alastair Haines situation


Statement by Privatemusings

per this email and this note, I gather arbcom have received some information ahead of this request - but every little helps, right :-)

An OTRS ticket ( #2009040310049955 ) has somewhat divided the OTRS agents, with confusion as to whether or not it constitutes a legal threat. Regardless, because it comes from a publisher of this user's work, a decision has been made to ban the user indefinitely. A simple examination of the ticket by the arbcom would be helpful. You might also like to review this diff noting that it was posted subsequent to the OTRS request, and clearly by the protaganist!

Please review this asap and consider further steps to improve systemic performance in this area - overall it's just been totally unacceptable in my view.

@risker and MB - for what it's worth, the outcome of a good conversation on IRC in the OTRS channel was that the OTRS folk are divided, and unlikely to take any action (it was important to note that this was not an impasse, but it's hard for me to explain why not!) - the simple fact is that two users have been indefinitely blocked over this - one clearly in error, which, despite being fixed after 5 days is still a ginormous stuff up. At the very least, I'd hope the committee might lean towards taking some responsibility towards resolving this situation speedily and smoothly, it would speak well of us, no? Privatemusings (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
gigantic boobs Outstanding Issues

to be explicit, I am swallowing a degree of distaste for this process in asking the committee to attend to the following gigantic boobs outstanding issues;

  • A good faith user was blocked for 5 days based on an administrator's hunch that they might have sent an email. They hadn't, and I would like to committee to strongly underline how inappropriate this bungle was. It's the sort of thing that can cause unnecessary drama, I reckon.
  • Alaistair Haines has been indefenitely blocked, with the stated rationale that someone else sent OTRS an email. I'd like arbcom to examine this interesting reading of site policy.
  • A couple of days after someone else sent OTRS an email, Alaistair posted this diff explaining his current position in regard to legal action. Only a gigantic boob could have missed this - it's linked some 5 or 6 lines up :-)
  • The Pièce de résistance - as a response to another somebody (me) asking a few questions, some people note that maybe it's a good idea to open up Alaistair's talk page, and some people think 'hey, the exact opposite might be just the ticket' - right now the talk page is protected from all editing. Way to go wiki dispute resolution!

Finally, I have to pass a wry comment on Brad's note - it's interesting that the vagaries of this project lead such a wise chap to state that editing under your own name is not a good idea. It took me maybe 30 min.s yesterday to sift through and realise the scale of the boobage in this situation - please try to attend to it, dear arbs :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)hopefully the section title will have captured at least someone's attention.....

more hmmmmm..... I headed over to Coren's talk page to ask for his rationale for a block, and wondering if he could outline the best next-steps for an unblock, where he mentioned "The matter is currently in discussion within the Committee." - is it? Perhaps I'm wrong to read into that the intimation that arbcom are currently discussing this, but I'm not sure how not to! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

The only potential concern I can see here is that Mr Haines apparently can't edit his own talk page, I am always wary of impeding attempts by living individuals to correct inaccuracies about themselves. Mr Haines has contacted OTRS through his representatives, but if we believe that there is a pressing problem with his communications being impeded then there is no reason not to ask Coren to change the block parameters.

A quick look through the history suggests the following interpretation of events: Alastair Haines has a series of blocks for legal threats, and has been warned many times about them. When another comment was made which he considered defamatory, rather than make another legal threat and get blocked, he appears to have asked a colleague to make the threat on his behalf. The colleague was perhaps more moderate than Mr. Haines himself, and in any case the request was a reasonable one and handled to to correspondent's apparent satisfaction. It seems to em that the concern here is that rather than exploring ways of not making legal threats, Mr Haines has decided to explore other ways of making legal threats without consequences. That is plainly unacceptable. That is how I read it from the current comments, anyway; we'd have to ask Coren for his take I think.

The supposed controversy or debate is not evident to me as an OTRS agent and subscriber to otrs-en-l, and I don't see any suggestion that Coren has gone WP:ROUGE on this. It looks like a standard response to legal threats, and it also looks as if all parties are already mindful of the WP:BLP implications. What prior attempts have been made to resolve this dispute? Has it been raised at the admin noticeboards? Has anyone asked Coren about the specific issue of talk page locking?

In any case, I can't see what ArbCom is intended to do here, this seems like the first step in a dispute resolution process, not the last. Attempts to resolve the dispute by argumentation on WR are not, as yet, a part of Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution process are they? That seems to have been the major venue for this debate thus far, by my reading of the comments.

I would also note that the ticket referenced above has been closed as successful, with a comment from the individual who raised the ticket complimenting Misplaced Pages on our enforcement of policies. Is there any evidence of a continuing issue requiring resolution, other than a user who is blocked and doesn't like it? I'm not seeing anything here which makes this an "OTRS needs ArbComming" type case. There are three tickets relating to Haines, being 2009040310049955, 2007062910002018 and 2007062810015248; all are "closed successful", none are long threads, none show evidence of outstanding issues. On what basis is it claimed that this block is a response to OTRS? Unless I have grabbed the wrong end of the wrong stick, this does not seem to me to have anything to do with OTRS, it looks like a standard case of an on-wiki argument which has generated a single email complaint which was swiftly resolved by removing some talk page text. I think invoking OTRS is a red herring, we should focus on the user himself and his history of inappropriate legal posturing. I think that's what Coren has done. Guy (Help!) 13:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Addendum: Having worked this out from first principles, as it were, I think the best course is to protect AH's talk page as being the locus of the disputed content, and to ensure that he is given the information necessary to request any courtesy blanking that may be necessary. I will do this and post at the admin noticeboards. Guy (Help!) 16:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Coren

Guy has, in fact, nailed the matter with no small amount of precision. While the OTRS ticket itself is closed and has been resolved, the block to AH's account is a matter of continuing pattern of legal and pseudo legal bullying being continued through an agent or proxy. If someone in a clear (and admitted) business relationship with an editor who has repeatedly been blocked for legal threats picks up the same language (and, indeed, much of the same wording) as the previous threats immediately after the editor has been obligated to withdraw them, those threats can rightly be considered as made by proxy.

(There was also another editor blocked by myself, SkyWriter, which has since been unblocked. I had apparently misidentified them as AH's publisher.)

As for the block parameters (that is, excluding editing the talk page), I've simply implemented the specific conditions made by the originally unblocking admin, Theresa knott. I do not feel strongly about it either way, but I do believe that the matter is now best handled entirely off-wiki (either with the Office, or with ArbCom — as a ban appeal, not as anything to do with OTRS). — Coren  14:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

On timing: I realize the email arrived before AH was unblocked; I was referring to it arriving after Alastair had been blocked for making essentially the same claims. — Coren  17:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Mathsci

The OTRS ticket was received on April 3rd. User:Alastair Haines made his second unblock request on April 8th. User:Theresa knott left time on WP:ANI for any objections to her proposed unblock on April 8th, posting the strict conditions on Alastair Haines' talk page when she unblocked. Coren blocked Alastair Haines and User:Skywriter on April 9th because of the prior OTRS ticket. There seem to have been various crossed wires here, probably because of different time zones (Europe, Australia, USA). Mathsci (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Cailil

I'm not going to add much more since I think everything has already been said. And basically I agree with Guy, Coren and Mathsci. Also as John says below I have asked Alastair to give me a list of diffs - I'm yet to recieve any and am about to ask again.

I have gathered, without being able to see the OTRS ticket, that the publisher was concerned about content on Alastair's talk page but I know that Alastair has issue with other comments elsewhere. Comments including the ArbCom proposal to ban him (a proposal that was rejected). I believe he has sent an email to the Committee - if he has not speciified what diffs / comments are problematic in that message I can ask him to do so. If he does send them - I will pass them on to John and/or the Committee (as long as Alastair doesn't have a problem with that). But that said we can only really judge if it breaks our rules (WP:BLP, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:TALK) not if it is defamatory in a legal sense--Cailil 16:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Please note that I have not been able to locate the specific proposal (from the previous RfAr) that Alastair objects too - so he will need to spell out which one he has issue with. I think allowing him to post to his talk page might help progress matters--Cailil 16:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tiptoety

To Risker: While I agree that this is not the correct method, WP:OTRS does state that any actions by an OTRS volunteer on-wiki are reviewable by the Arbitration committee. Please see . Tiptoety 18:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Casliber

I feel the 1 week block from JHunterJ which was the initial flashpoint for this dustup was incorrect (however I note my involved status) - mainly as it put a content builder with a genuine interest in the article in question, and a content remover who has been guilty of stalking another user, on the same level. Things have spiralled out of control since then, with other issues being drawn in. This breakdown in communication has become a massive timesink and I can see further confrontation on arb pages as no different. I do think some negotiation is possible in order to defuse the situation, calm it down and return an equilibrium of sorts. I apologise I have had limited time with this but believe we can sort it out by email. Open discussion has drawn a peanut gallery so far which has not been helpful. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

PS: Had I thought of it earlier, a Request for Clarification on the 1 week block might have resulted in an earlier resolution. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Ottava Rima

I was, as far as I know, the first to notice the User:SkyWriter block. I contacted Coren and discussed the matter with a few others. I was glad that others stepped forward and that the matter was handled calmly until Coren's return. I am not a friend of Coren's. Most people will know that Coren and I do not get along. However, Coren proceeding in a fair manner and reacted quickly after he returned.

I am not a fan of NLT related blocks, nor am I a fan of people having their block logged marked up over the matter, let alone from being removed from contributing to the Wiki over it. I believe that these matters can prevented in the future if there is a clear statement about taking something to court and there is a clearly identified person. NLT is to prevent matters from being taken onto Wiki or disrupting the Wiki. Legal matters require individuals, and cannot happen behind pseudonyms in such a way. So, there should be a higher burden of actual legal matters to warrant an indef ban. As for the "threat" part, in casual conversation, they should be taken as a breach of civility in general, as they can be, in their title, threatening and are rude in general. There should be a difference between actual legal matters (indef block until they are resolved) and threats (in extreme cases warranting a block related to civil like disruptions but not an indef block). Ottava Rima (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SkyWriter

Here is what I understand from information given in discussions: On April 3 someone opened an OTRS requesting that personal attacks against Alastair Haines be removed.

According to the "response" Daniel posted on my talk page, the OTRS refused to remove personal attacks against Alastair Haines on the grounds that such personal attacks represented content. When I challenged Daniel how personal attacks against an editor on a talk page qualified as "content" he declined to respond. Please see my talk page to see this exchange. It should be eye-opening.

On April 8 Calil (not knowing about Daniel's wish to preserve personal attacks on Alastair's talkpage), banned the editor making those attacks from Alastair's talkpage for 6 months, thus taking action that Alastair has been begging for during these long months.

On April 8 Alastair Haines finally did what we were all waiting for -- he quoted Duvora's legal waiver and did something none of us are ever required to do: state that we are not and will never take legal action against Misplaced Pages. This waiver removed any hint of a legal threat from the past, the present, or the future. To my knowledge, no one on Misplaced Pages has ever given a more unequivocal statement to this effect. No credible reader could mistake Alastair for stating or implying a legal threat; and no credible reader could rationally claim to even infer such a threat.

On April 9 Daniel informed Coren of his refusal to remove personal attacks from Alastair's talk page. Coren then banned Alastair for making legal threats, in spite of the waiver. Coren also deleted all content from Alastair's talkpage, including the waiver. Coren also, coincidentally, removed the personal attacks as well.

Sometime after this the person sending the OTRS thanked Misplaced Pages for its prompt response and praised the site for following its own policies against personal attacks.

With an unequivocal waiver from Alastair, and a thank you and praise from the OTRS emailer -- Coren is expecting all of us to uphold a ban against Alastair for a legal attack.

I have asked both Coren and Daniel for a specific "or else" attached to the OTRS request. They have supplied none.

I therefore recommend that we accept Coren and Daniel's refusal to supply a specific threat as lack of evidence that any threat ever existed.

I further recommend that we accept the apparent "thank you" from the emailer as evidence that a threat does not exist (people do not threaten and thank someone at the same time).

I further recommend that we accept Alastair's explicit and unequivocal waiver as evidence that Alastair poses LESS of a legal threat than any of us who have never given such a waiver (that's 99.999% of Misplaced Pages editors and admins).

I further recommend that we treat Daniel's regard of personal attacks as "content", and his refusal to remove such "content" as beyond the pale for responsible administration on Misplaced Pages.

I finally recommend that we return to the status quo of April 8th. The email already existed, but Alastair gave a legal waiver of such scope as to make any legal threat impossible from before, during, or after that date.

And as a consequence of that waiver and status quo of April 8th, we restore Alastair as a Misplaced Pages editor.

We are all painfully aware of all hints, postures, implications, and inferences regarding legal matters. Should Alastair Haines ever make a legal threat in the future no one on Misplaced Pages would allow him to stand for ten minutes. We all know this. Coren has demonstrated this. Not only has the tiger removed his own teeth for all time, but Coren has demonstrated that Alastair can threaten no more than a wounded kitten.

No threat exists. No threat existed at the time of Coren's action. No threat could ever exist in light of the waiver. The OTRS emailer thanked and praised Misplaced Pages according to the admins involved. Calil has removed the problem of personal attacks that was ongoing.

The timeline does not support the ban. The impossibility of threats removes any need for the ban. Calil's responsible action regarding personal attacks shows a healthy precendent that all administrators here should consider -- especially Daniel.

If I have understood any of these dates or facts incorrectly from the administrative statements already given, please correct me. If I have understood more than half of them correctly, please restore Alastair and consider him fairly threatened by the power of swift action should he ever hint anything legal in the future.

Although I do not wish to criticize Coren for his initial action, I'm highly concerned for his refusal to correct it once the proper timeline came to light. But I'm even more concern regarding Daniel's statements on my talk page. We here are very fortunate that no legal threat exists, because his regard of personal attacks as unremovable "content" is something that a truly litigious person could have taken advantage of. Had a legal threat actually existed, his refusal to enforce Misplaced Pages's own stated policies would have made us all vulnerable. As an addendum I STRONGLY recommend that admins dealing in OTRS be required to both read Misplaced Pages policies and to formally state that they will uphold them.SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Yes, please notify Cary Bass on his page at Meta, and he can determine which other OTRS volunteers should be informed. Risker (talk) 05:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Notified at m:User_talk:Bastique#en-wiki_RFAR. MBisanz 10:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Just a general note: Please don't edit other people's comments; bring issues to our attention. And Privatemusings, please reword the level five heading in your section. MBisanz 06:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
done - and for the record, whilst the adding of gigantic boobs, where appropriate, is most welcome, their removal may well be reverted. Take note, lurkers. Privatemusings (talk) 08:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Comment: OTRS is outside of the scope of the Arbitration Committee and is a creature of the Wikimedia Foundation. Any comment on this situation made by the Committee must obviously exclude any OTRS information, as several Committee members do not have OTRS authorization to see the ticket involved. Risker (talk) 05:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Response to Privatemusings and Tiptoety: The initial request, upon which my comment above was made, was for the Arbitration Committee to review an OTRS ticket and make a decision on what to do about it. That is outside of the scope of the Committee. Each OTRS volunteer is responsible for his or her own actions and, just as with any editorial or administrative behaviour issue, could be reviewed by this Committee. The arms-length relationship between OTRS and the Committee is one that protects the individual who submits information to OTRS; if the person who initiated correspondence with OTRS wishes to send a copy of their email to the Arbitration Committee then we will review it and respond where appropriate, but I do not believe the Committe should muscle its way in to this area without the direct request of the party involved. Risker (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment. This seems to be a matter for Cary or a member of the OTRS team to handle, as would be true for most OTRS ticket related situations. What, exactly, is ArbCom being asked to review? (Are we being asked to make a determination about the legal threats, or lack thereof, in the ticket? Are we being asked to review the block? Are we being asked to review the substantive relation between the submitter and Alistair Haines?) Also, please understand that this matter involves an OTRS ticket and private correspondance, which may limit our ability to full explain or comment upon the situation on-wiki (and impede full access to all of the evidence available). --Vassyana (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment In no way is this issue ripe for consideration by ArbCom in this form. I have no reason to think that OTRS agents would not be able to work through the issue as it relates to them. Sensible people disagreeing with each other (if that is the case) is a strength of the system not a concern. IMO, no action needed at this time. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Recuse; I have acted in the matter of the OTRS ticket as an administrator and an OTRS agent. — Coren  13:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Recuse; I was involved in the last arbitration case and initiated the clarification request. One of the unresolved problems has been that Alastair Haines finds a few comments left around the project to be inappropriate. If he is unblocked, but these objectionable comments are not identified and discussed, I fear we will be back here again soon enough. In case it is still outstanding, Cailil says he is waiting to be advised of a list of problems so that the community members can assess and possibly fix them. He could also send them to arbcom if he prefers, or he could send them to me. John Vandenberg 14:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment: A substantial amount of the problem here involves the fact that Alastair Haines, an editor who has gotten into more than his share of editing disputes, edits Misplaced Pages under his full name. (Not merely that he discloses his real-life identity, but that his username is actually his name.) This automatically and overtly transforms any dispute involving A.H. the Misplaced Pages editor into an accusation against A.H. the individual, a fact that has consistently been unhelpful. I repeat the recommendation that has been made in the past that however this particular block is resolved, he consider requesting a rename. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • CommentA mere rename will help but not solve the issues here. I have to pretty much agree with Flo, Coren,and Guy, this is not ready for arbcom and I would be uncomfortable unblocking AH this time. — RlevseTalk22:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Recuse as a non-impartial friend of Alastair. I will add a comment above later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment - nothing substantive to add, except to say that a full and frank discussion of the grey areas of the 'no legal threats' policy is long overdue, including what to do about legal posturing, and those who are litigious by nature, but still want to edit Misplaced Pages. At some point, repeated arguments over legal threats and possibilities of legal threats, distracts too much from what we are meant to be doing here - working together to write an encyclopedia. Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

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