Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:28, 28 April 2011

Arbitrators active on this case

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Proposed decision

I'm waiting for the principles to settle (with, I expect, some alternatives) before I proceed with remedies. As I've stated previously, the aspect I've concentrated on is the core matter of the block-unblock interaction; but my understanding is that Risker has some proposals pending examining the Ludwigs2/Quackguru incident that precipitated that incident. — Coren  16:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I've added a couple of principles, and renumbered them Hope this is ok. PhilKnight (talk) 18:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Administrator discretion

This tweak to the Administrator discretion section makes the second clause practically meaningless. Everything in the sentence beginning with "and to" ought to be eliminated unless the Committee feels that they need to place limits on enforcement, in which case the tweak should be reverted and the proposal passed as originally written. Best regards, TRANSPORTERMAN (TALK) 17:31, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The whole point of discretionary sanctions is to empower admins to use their discretion. A demand (or de facto demand) that they first engage in a lengthy consensus-finding or support-gauging process basically cuts the heart out of the idea of discretionary sanctions. In fact, with this requirement, it will actually be more difficult, bureaucratic, wikilawyerable, and time-consuming for admins to levy sanctions in the affected areas than it would be if there were no discretionary sanctions in the first place. MastCell  17:45, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the way discretionary sanctions currently function is that they presume admins are perfect - i.e., that they are neutral and unbiased, far-thinking, unsusceptible to the fits and fervors that the rest of the human race is subject to. Discretionary sanctions allow admins who are perfect in this way to be graciously benevolent dictators (shades of polisci 101, for those of you who remember), and do a lot of good for the project. Unfortunately, admins are not perfect, and an imperfect admin who thinks of himself as a benevolent dictator can do a hell of a lot of pointless damage to editors and to the project in the wink of an eye. I agree this should be put back to the original version - the point of this is that we need to put limits that prevent admins from acting out their imperfections, and if that dilutes the purity of perfect unilateral discretion that's only right and natural.

Seriously, trotting out the 'admins are not perfect' rubric only after-the-fact - to excuse some admin when s/he screws something up royally - is fatuous. If we know admins are not perfect, we need to put some guards and limits on the execution of their powers to keep their imperfections in check. --Ludwigs2 18:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions don't assume that admins are perfect, only that they have been selected, in part, for their good judgment. This is perhaps overly charitable, given the realities of our admin-selection process, but that's a separate can of worms. Anyhow, I think a lot of this is misguided - of all of the harm caused by shortsighted or incompetent admins to "the project", vanishingly little of it has come through WP:AE, at least in my estimation. MastCell  19:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with that last, but I don't really think it's relevant. closing off potentialities of abuse does very little to inhibit the proper use of discretionary sanctions, and precludes the needless wikidrama that inevitably arises over injudicious/improper actions. Besides, since I am habitually cast (against all reason) into a disliked minority group, I prefer not to rely on the 'charitable impressions' of people who are not overly-inclined to be charitable towards me. --Ludwigs2 19:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

An overdue comment on bullying

A general comment per my perspective as a teacher and parent:

Bullies depend on one fundamental to carry out their activities, and that is, that the victim either is, or thinks of themselves as weaker than the bully.

Standing up to a bully is not becoming a bully, and shouldn't be confused with bullying, but is refusing to lay down in door mat position, refusing to acknowledge that weakness Standing up to the bully as opposed to becoming the bully has more to do with 'legacy', that is, turning around and applying bullying tactics to someone else rather than standing up to the person bullying . Its not always easy for outsiders to see or tell the difference.

Not standing up to a bully leaves two options. Do not encounter them at all by avoiding the environment, or leave the environment if the bully is encountered.

Bullies are not emotionally mature so although sometimes one can discuss their behaviour with them, most of the time the behavior will only disappear with the growth of maturity which often comes with time.

Bullies do not honor in their activity, integrity, or honesty in part because they lack maturity. Asking them to honor these things as happens on Misplaced Pages is an exercise in futility in most cases.

Bullies often become expert manipulators making sure their activities are not seen and or recognized by those in authority positions.

In real life bullying has serious and far reaching repercussions that include suicides. While Misplaced Pages editors aren't likely to jump off a cliff if they're bullied, bullying on Misplaced Pages is a serious and pervasive issue and we can expect that even here bullying is extraordinarily damaging to editors. Bullied editors may most often leave as a way of dealing with their situation, so we have little way of knowing how damaging bullying has become. Allegations of bullying should be carefully and painstakingly investigated in order to protect those editors who have the tenacity to remain despite the environment, for those editors who are bullying, and for the good of the Misplaced Pages environment. Quick superficial decisions cannot take into account the complexity or seriousness of these situations.(olive (talk) 23:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC))

These comments are very worthy but what is their application to the present issue? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC).

Ditto that. What specific proposals, findings, evidence, etc do the comments refer? --Ronz (talk) 00:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to make any specific comments, but there have been multiple comments and discussions in this case that refer to bullying and who is bullying who, and when and where. I'm offering these thoughts, but because of RL commitments right now and my own situation can't say much more than I have here. Perhaps the comments will persuade others to look closely at some of the Misplaced Pages goings-on in this case. Sorry for being obtuse. I just don't have the time or energy to say more. Very little of the proposed decisions have been posted. This comment may impact those un posted decisions. If this is a bother to you all please delete or move.(olive (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC))

Mathsci (talk) 06:32, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Allow me to untangle Olive's point in a carefully and delicately phrased rant (I say delicately and carefully because I need to point to specifics but I want to keep it from becoming personal - that's a tricky balance). If you suffer from TLDR syndrome, apologies in advance, and skip to the last two paragraphs.

It's clear from what's been said in this case that I feel bullied, by several editors in particular, and more generally by an attitude that prevails on project. I do not believe that these editors see themselves as bullies, and I do believe that each has (for the most part) the best interests of the project at heart - we can dispense with the whole moral quagmire of intentional bullying for the moment - but the fact remains that I have a very difficult time interpreting their behavior as anything other than bullying. For example, I can only see the block I got as an effort to (pardon the phrase) "put me in my place" for having challenged QuackGuru. There was no imminent problem that the block was likely to solve, and the block was too short to solve any long-term problem, so the only practical values it could possibly have were (i) to protect QuackGuru by disrupting the noticeboard thread I'd begun - which of course it did - and (ii) to teach me a painful lesson about complaining with respect to certain editors or situations. Both are bullying tactics designed solely to make sure that the project pecking order always keeps the right people on top.

Incidentally, I think QG is just a token here - at least, no one has bothered to try to defend him or his actions in any way, and everyone seems to agree that there are issues in that quarter. My sense is that by calling QG's behavior into question, a number of people assumed that I was challenging the scientific perspective as a whole, and that triggered some unpleasant defensive posturing. Classic group dynamics...

More generally, I am constantly exposed to editors who threaten and insult me - this is a concomitant of working on fringe articles. I don't really need to hear that something I've done is a policy violation that's likely to get me blocked, nor do I need to hear that I'm a fringe advocate who ought to be driven off project, nor do I need to hear that something I said was uncivil or that I'm a bad person, nor do I need to be reminded of some unpleasantness I was involved in six months or a year ago; and yet, more than half of the comments directed at me from certain editors are repetitions of those kinds of statements. It's demoralizing to have three or four different editors (or one editor three or four different times) tell me that I'm a POV-pusher who's working on borrowed time, have them revert everything I try to do with meaningless edit summaries right up to 3rr, and then have fly-bys drop by to clinch the deal (and accuse me of edit warring for spice). I can hold my own in any reasoned discussion, but trying to discuss something reasonably with editors whose main activity is to revert me for senseless reasons, threaten me with sanction, and call me names... It's just ridiculous. I'm high-functioning, determined, and very, very smart, and I find it a brutal, grueling experience trying to get even minor revisions on fringe articles through; I can only imagine what it's like for someone who doesn't have my internal resources.

This is bullying, intentional or not. In fact, the reason I get in so much trouble on project is not that I stir up trouble, but that I simply don't ever give in to bullying, period. This makes people confused and angry - they don't see that they are bullying, they don't understand why I don't accept it 'the normal state of affairs' and give in, they interpret the fact that I'm standing up for myself as aggression - and confused, angry people do confused, angry things that cause a lot of wikidrama which I end up in the center of. Which (frankly) sucks.

This is really the crux of the issue for me. AE Discretionary Sanction - which are undoubtably a useful, powerful tool - also happen to be a picture perfect bullying tool. Seriously, I could not design a tool for bullying that would be better suited to the task. As it stands, an admin can use AEDS to soundly thump whomever s/he likes as hard as s/he likes whenever s/he likes, with no need for justification or explanation (beyond a perfunctory "it was under the purview of the decision and within my discretion"), and almost no recourse for the hapless target. Almost every fringe article is arguably under one arbitration ruling or another, any editor on a fringe topic is subject to immediate sanctioning for next to no cause, admins are not notable for their charity towards fringe issues... I'll give you whatever odds you like that if you looked over all the discretionary sanctions issued under fringe and pseudoscience rulings, the overwhelming majority (assuredly over 90%) will be against fringe-leaning editors, and a sizable proportion of those against middle-of-the-road editors like me and Littleolive oil, whereas AEDS are rarely if ever applied to even the worst, most disruptive science-leaning editors. I doubt it's intentional, but I'm sure it's a fact.

Don't get me wrong - I can adapt to this (the fact I haven't already been indef-blocked on some trumped-up charge should be sufficient testimony to that), but I don't like it, and I don't think this is what Jimbo et al had in mind when they came up with the idea of a collaborative encyclopedia - the whole "collaborate from the right perspective or else" thing tends to detract somewhat from the broader ideal. Sooner or later this is going to need to be fixed. --Ludwigs2 06:00, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci (talk) 06:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Unlike you, Mathsci, I was trying to keep this impersonal. does that even mean anything to you? --Ludwigs2 07:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci (talk) 07:57, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I did not mention you in this thread, directly or by implication. I was simply talking about my experience on project in a general way, so that people understood what I meant without it becoming personal. Your 06:32, 15 April 2011 post was unnecessary, uncalled for, overly-hostile, and seems to be nothing more than a scattershot approach to slandering me, in that it draws in a whole bunch of material irrelevant to this discussion. I'm asking NuclearWarfare to caution you and to redact the more pointed parts of your posts. NW - ball's in your court. --Ludwigs2 08:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci (talk) 09:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci: your above post (and in fact, your entire contribution here and to the evidence and workshop pages) has no direct bearing on this case. You've simply dredged up every negative thing you could think of - going back years, going across my entire experience on every page of the project, all presented without context and in the dimmest light possible. You don't bother to try to analyze what happened in the case with QG, you don't bother to try to analyze what happened in any of the cases that you cite, you simply try to paint as negative an image as possible of my person and my character in the hopes (assumedly) that you can prejudice other people against me. That is slander by definition, and there is no other interpretation of your actions.

Now, I hope my position is clear, and I am still waiting on a clerk to redact your posts from this thread so that we can get back to the main topic without this kind of character assassination. --Ludwigs2 16:21, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Can the two of you simply refrain from speaking to each other, no matter how wrong you think the other person is? NW (Talk) 16:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) NuclearWarfare: I'm happy not to talk to or about Mathsci, but he keeps engaging in this kind of slander against me. Are you asking me to sit quietly and allow him to say any bad thing about me that he wants to say, whether or not it is true, reasonable, or relevant to the discussion or the case? That does not seem like a remotely reasonable request, particularly considering that you have expressly forbid me from engaging in any discussions of Mathsci's past behavior.

Again, if you redact his efforts to slander me in this thread, and ask him explicitly not to do it any more, I will consider the issue resolved and feel no need to talk about him any further in this discussion. The problem will be resolved. Are you going to do that or not? --Ludwigs2 16:57, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Mathsci (talk) 16:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

It goes without saying that slander has a purpose, Mathsci. That does not make it appropriate behavior in a reasoned discussion. --Ludwigs2 17:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

• Defense of encyclopedia writing

The only purpose of the Misplaced Pages project is to write an encyclopedia, not to make editors happy. This is neither a social experiment nor a utopia. Some people may go away unhappy because their un-encyclopedic material is rejected. Guidance and suggestions don't always work. That's almost unavoidable. Firm measures against those repeatedly adding inappropriate stuff to Misplaced Pages is not bullying. Misplaced Pages does not allow anyone to write anything. That community consensus, like all others, is enforced by individuals editors and admins. Some of what has been called "bullying" in this matter may be the enforcement of widely accepted standards in narrow circumstances. Policies are meaningless if they're never enforced.   Will Beback  talk  10:35, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Will: Let me just point out the obvious places you glossed over important distinctions

1. Misplaced Pages is a collaborative encyclopedia. It may not be about making editors happy, but it is surely not about making the experience so unpleasant for some editors that they go away and leave the 'collaborating' to people who agree with one perspective.
2. No one has a problem with firm measures against people who disrupt the encyclopedia; the problem under discussion here is when firm measures are applied to well-intentioned editors because they hold the wrong viewpoint. That is unconscionable.

You've created a straw man argument which asserts that any limitation on administrative power will result is a complete inability to enforce policy. On the contrary, any healthy system of authority in the real world has strong limits and constraints on the use of authority, and this is considered necessary to ensure that authority is applied is applied fairly, equally, and justly. In the real world, one rarely finds the claim that unchecked authority is necessary for proper administration: outside of totalitarian states (where it's a common theme) it is usually reserved for states of emergency where the need for rapid control of a situation temporarily outweighs niceties like humanitarianism and civil rights. Is that where you mean to go with this? --Ludwigs2 16:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree Misplaced Pages was not created to make editors happy. The purpose of the encyclopedia is to inform. Misplaced Pages, the encyclopedia "that anyone can edit", is both an encyclopedia and a community, and its policies and guideline reflect that, in that it has both, guides that refer to editing and those that refer to behaviour. As in any work environment the quality of the environment directly affects the quality of the work. Bullies do not have the interests of the encyclopedia at stake whether they know it or not, and they sadly for themselves as well as for those they bully colour the environment in a non positive way decreasing work output. Bullying has nothing to do with content, directly. Bullying is a behavior. However, how and what an editor edits may give a certain kind of editor "perceived permission" to bully.

And indeed, Misplaced Pages has become very much a social experiment, one in which children edit alongside seasoned PhDs for example, and is one of the first four online communities. We can see every day that the encyclopedia community is experiencing growth as policies/guidelines/arbitrations are adjusted and changed to deal with the community needs, ensuring that the writers of this encyclopedia are always working in an optimal work environment. Bullying is an unfortunate, internal community mechanism that destroys that progress.(olive (talk) 16:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC))

@ Littleolive. Cognitive distortions that are used to play the victim are equally problematic. They are used to manipulate others to gain sympathy. This bully meme is amusing in that the bullies are pretending to be victims.OrangeMarlin 17:43, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

@OM: you know, there's a truth to what you say (though we'd obviously disagree on whom it applies to). Personally, I would prefer a situation in which people rarely if ever felt the need to talk about other editors - that whole 'comment no content' thing, remember? However, given that so many discussions on wikipedia boil down to that artful game of trying to cover someone else with shit while still claiming to smell like a rose, whining and bullying will always go hand-in-hand (you can always tell the biggest shit-smearers, because they're the ones who scream like bloody murder over every imagined slight). It's actually a fascinating psychological dynamic, if you examine it. --Ludwigs2 18:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I was commenting to you. But I do thank you for proving my point. OrangeMarlin 18:09, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

yeesh, try to agree with someone... --Ludwigs2 18:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually Orangemarlin, my comments were general per bullying and are based on real life experiences and reading, rather than a meme that refers to Misplaced Pages, and were intended to bring out into the open what I see is a big problem, because it is damaging to every one involved and eventually the encyclopedia. I didn't cast any one in any role on any side of the "fence", nor do I intend to. A close friend and teacher died a few days ago and frankly in preparing his memorial/ celebration of life service it occurred to me in a forceful way that we as editors are caught in our own small worlds that often do not serve anything larger than our own idiosyncrasies. Death has a habit of making certain aspects of life look trivial, and of highlighting the things we waste our time with. My comments are off track now with this arbitration so I won't comment again (olive (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2011 (UTC))

• I just realised I'm a little late by a day or so in adding some details of my own experience, (however I'll invoke WP:TIND) which very much involves long-term bullying and includes the use of AE as a means to do so. --Tothwolf (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I have had better things to do with my time than follow the ins and outs of this Much-Ado-About-Very-Little -Indeed Arbcom debate so I am not clear about who has been bullying who. However I find that the statement by Will Beback above to be a charter for bullies. The argument that the Might and Majesty of the Institution overrides the human rights of its constituent citizens is one that has been used by every totalitarian state since civilization began. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:51, 16 April 2011 (UTC).
  • My point is that enforcing content policies is not, in and of itself, bullying. Saying "you cannot add your personal knowledge to an article", for example, is not bullying even though it may feel like it to the person trying to make an important contribution. Ideally, good Misplaced Pages editors respond with patient guidance and education, and avoid rude reverts and generic warnings. But content policies still need to be followed. More experienced editors who continue to violate content policies may exhaust the community's patience. That's not bullying, that's the community responding to a problem user. In the final analysis, if people feel hurt when their inappropriate material is rejected then that's their problem. On Misplaced Pages, editors have the right to be treated with civility. They also have the right to leave and the right to fork. I strongly support those rights. However there is no right to add material which violates content policies.   Will Beback  talk  10:03, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Will, I don't think anyone's disagreeing with what you're saying, at least not generally. I happen to be pro-rule - I understand that role that rules play in making groups function smoothly - but like anything else in the world excesses turn even good things sour. When I go to an article to make a reasoned argument that some content needs to be added or removed, I do not want to be told that I cannot make the argument because of some senseless interpretation of policy, and I do not want to be blocked because he person making the senseless interpretation has friends in high places. The problem that started all this is a perfect example: QuackGuru's interpretation of policy was utterly senseless, his use of the source was absolutely idiotic from any thoughtful perspective, he was exceedingly tendentious and aggressive in pursuing it - and yet I get blocked for trying to get help dealing with him? I could understand this if it seemed like some isolated mistake, but everyone knows Sandstein is a pro-skeptic admin, and Sandstein's attitude makes it clear that it wasn't an mistake (that he wanted QG protected, and he wanted me blocked, and he wasn't at all concerned about the details). That's just plain offensive. Not to be too blunt about this, but I really wish you guys would stop playing politics and let reason and sourcing handle these problems. The dedicated pogrom you all are waging against editors you perceive as 'fringe' is unnecessary and disruptive. There are better ways to manage content on fringe topics than hounding editors you don't much like off of the project. --Ludwigs2 19:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Editor numbers seem to be dropping. Is that seen as a problem or not? From my own experience what is described here as "bullying" is a major problem. You have editors who are contributing content to articles being chased away by editors, who in general if you look at their records, do not. This site has been becoming less about editors building an encyclopedia and more about backseat busybodies who have equal rights to article authors getting to exert and abuse the right granted to them so they can have a power trip. Moreover because building an article is time-consuming while criticizing one isn't, the busybodies not being tied down usually cover a lot more ground and tend to form what are essentially packs. Admins as a group are a party to this because they themselves generally fit the same profile and have the same mentality. You will see many instances where WP:VANDALISM, WP:VERIFY, WP:NPOV, WP:OR or their associated guidelines are invoked or could be used as a basis to explain an admin intervention. On the other hand I do not get the impression that WP:EDIT gets any respect or the now taboo WP:IAR—the two policies that give article contributors room to work. Subtraction of content now seems to be favored over addition despite being directly opposed by the WP:EDIT POLICY. Now you have before you a case that illustrates the above phenomenon and what happens when one actually sticks up for content. Notice also how the other major party that was key to instigating this action is nowhere to be found on this page. This is classic vandalism that has been pervertedly supported by admin action. This seems to happen on a regular basis at ANI. Lambanog (talk) 04:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
        • Misplaced Pages's content policies have grown stricter over time. When we decided that we could not host images without clear GFDL-licenses or public domain status it pissed off a lot of editors, but it made for a better encyclopedia. When we made a stringent policy on biographies of living people that upset some users too, but it was for the greater good. There have been recent efforts to make it a little harder to create new articles because most of them have been garbage which takes considerable effort to patrol and clean. Each of these steps may be seen by some as bureaucratic vandalism by perverse admins. But in addition to creating good content it's also necessary to remove bad content. Our aim is not to please editors or to provide a free speech zone. Our only purpose is to create an encyclopedia.   Will Beback  talk  23:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
          • So Will tell me: Why do you think Misplaced Pages is a better encyclopedia than Encyclopedia Britannica or Citizendium? Why are science related Misplaced Pages articles generally underdeveloped in comparison to video game articles? Yours is a recipe to run Misplaced Pages into the ground. Lambanog (talk) 09:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with Olive and Ludwigs that there is a lot of bullying going on in some of the science-related topics. Most of the bullies support what they feel is the "mainstream" school of thought on certain subjects. The Intelligent Design topic area is one place in which I've seen it occur in the past (check my talk page archives to see what I mean). I've been told by email that one reason it occurs so much in that and other topic areas is that many of those participants have asperger syndrome and thus, don't realize that they are engaging in bullying behavior. I don't know if this is true or not, so I'm reserving judgement on that idea. Because of Misplaced Pages's torturous dispute resolution process, it's very difficult to deal with bullying by other editors, so, as Olive states, many editors simply decide to move on. Cla68 (talk) 07:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The definitions of Bullying at the Misplaced Pages article don't seem to apply this matter. Could someone explain, preferably with examples, what specific behaviors are being alleged?   Will Beback  talk  07:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Olive and Ludwigs, you were leading this discussion, so you please be the first to state what behaviors you have observed that you consider to be bullying. Perhaps you can do so without naming any names. Cla68 (talk) 07:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Olive has already said she doesn't want to provide an explanation of what she means. Cla68, you say you've seen bullying at Intelligent Design. What form did that bullying take?   Will Beback  talk  07:51, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
        • Since it happened three years ago, and most of the involved editors don't appear to be editing Misplaced Pages anymore (unless they changed their usernames), I think I can talk about it in general terms without appearing like I'm trying to engage in dispute resolution about it. I'd prefer, however, for Ludwigs to lead off because he is the one involved in this case here. Cla68 (talk) 07:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
          • • Cla68, referring to "told by email"s is really not a good way to go here. Can I post here that I was told by email that everything you were ever told by email was wrong? Do I become slightly more right? Plese use examples accessible by diff references. Franamax (talk) 09:11, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
          • Guys, I've already given a thorough description and examples of what I see as the bullying problem. Are you asking me to say something new, or to explain what I've already said? It would be helpful to know how what I've already said has missed the mark - that might let me tailor something new to be clearer. --Ludwigs2 08:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
            • I'd have my doubts about diagnoses of asperger's syndrome - I've seen the label thrown about alot online and especially not entertain it when "diagnosed" by one editor of another (and we are all just lines of text to each other for the most part). Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
              • It looks to me like Ludwigs is saying that the bullying behavior was connected to a block and some incivility all with the bad faith intent of harassing him on order to protect QuackGuru. He alleges that the block was meant to disrupt his ANI thread and to harass him into laying off of QuackGuru. He also alleges threats and insults. So is bullying a kind of harassment intended to alter an editor's behavior to protect another editor or topic? How do we distinguish that from legitimate enforcement? Let's say that an editor is promoting a certain viewpoint a little excessively, "POV pushing". Let's also say he's being rude. He may not even be aware he's rude. When people respond negatively to his behavior he could assume that their real intent is stop him from promoting his POV, which he probably thinks is under-represented. Once a person sees things in this way I don't know how they can ever be convinced otherwise.   Will Beback  talk  09:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

                Will: Ok, this is something to work with. Clarifications first, and the I'll answer your specific questions as best I can (Incidentally, it would have been nicer if you directed this statement to me, rather than casting it as a general statement to other editors about me - grandstanding not necessary, yah?). so, clarification points:

                1. I don't actually believe Sandstein exercised 'bad faith'; I believed he exercised bias and bad judgement. I have no doubts whatsoever that Sandstein intends to do what is best for the project as a whole, but when it comes to pseudoscience issues (as I see him in action) he is inflexible and unreflective enough that it can become a liability.
                2. As I said, Sandstein is trying to protect a particular perspective, not a particular editor. his support of QG is only because of a shared perspective on pseudoscience (I do not believe S would support QG at all for the same kind of actions in other topic areas).
                3. If you're going to accuse me of having a POV, please explain what that POV is; otherwise, please strike that comment. This case revolves around my efforts to remove a gross misrepresentation of a published source and an exasperated statement I made that was interpreted as a threat - neither of those has been related to any putative POV. Making unsubstantiated claims of this sort is a nono - see below.

                Your other factual points are basically correct. With respect to the two questions you raised:

                1. Is bullying a kind of harassment intended to alter an editor's behavior to protect another editor or topic? That's too specific: Bullying implies the use of force, threat, harassment, or other strong-arm tactics to create, defend, or exercise control over others, usually because the bully cannot achieve some desired goal through civil, reasoned, non-authoritative interaction. In this case, no one could possibly defend QG's actions or goal in rational terms; what he is doing is that far off the deep end in terms of logic and scholarship. However, QG never tries to explain using reason, but attempts to browbeat other editors into compliance by endless IDHT repetitiveness; other editors (such as you and Kww) never try to explain using reason, but focus on efforts to cast me as someone with a particular problematic POV who should be ignored; Sandstein never tried to explain using reason, but arrowed straight for sanctions behind the cover of unilateral discretion. All this is mild bullying in its own right, and taken collectively is not at all mild.
                2. How do we distinguish from legitimate enforcement? This is actually easy, though there are (as with everything) some gray areas:
                   • Legitimate enforcement is objective and impersonal: it always seeks to solve particular problems and to measure the solution against the scope of the problem. For instance, numerous editors and admins in this case have pointed out that the reasonable course of action in this case would have been to ask me to rewrite, redact, and/or apologize (and even I can see that any of those would have been reasonable requests). This is what confers legitimacy: clear examination of the problem, measured and restrained application of enforcement, willingness to work with the editor to resolve the problem.
                   • Bullying is subjective and personal: it focuses on exerting power over people in order to keep them in line, and doesn't really care about the facts or context of any particular issue. Power of this sort can be achieved in any number of ways: IDHT behavior and mindlessly reactive action (which frustrates and exhausts people who try to discuss things); labeling, name-calling, or other efforts to put editors in defensive minority positions (which also frustrates and exhausts people, because they have to waste energy contradicting such demeaning comments); excessive emphasis on rules and policy (bullies love bureaucracy, because bureaucracy allows the application of force without reason); repeated accusations and threats of sanction (which creates an uncomfortably hostile and paranoid environment); etc... In short, whenever editors create a hostile environment that makes individual editors or editors of a certain "type" feel threatened, insecure, offended, frustrated, or etc. - i.e., where the aim is to raise the perceived costs and risks of participation so that some editors feel inhibited and defensive about contributing, while others feel righteous and empowered - you've got bullying going on.

                Hope that clears things up for you. --Ludwigs2 17:33, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I said this earlier that QG doesn't respond well to being talked to negatively. If s/he is talked to politely then usually the response is also polite, at least that's been my experience with him/her. We have to remember, which I've said before but deserves repeating in case it was missed, that behind every screen name is a real person with real feelings. Everyone should be treated with respect and assumption of good faith. Of course assuming good faith isn't a suicide pact but that being said, everyone has to at least start with assuming good faith. I think Will Beback hit the nail on the head and I agree with what he says. @ Ludwig: would you like to change what you say about Sandstein? I know RL has you stressed so I'm thinking maybe your stress here made you say the assumption of bad faith above. Please adjust your comment or supply difs showing why you feel Sandstein treated you unfairly because of an assumed POV. Thanks, --CrohnieGal 12:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Crohnie: I'm happy to change any overstatements I made about Sandsein - what particular statements did you have in mind? As I said in my just-previous post, I don't think S is guilty of bad faith; I think he's guilty of bias and bad judgement (which only demonstrates that he's a fairly normal human being). I wouldn't normally worry about things like that, except that he's in a position of authority which lades him with a higher standard of accountability - the unconscious indulgence of bias using discretionary sanctions can cramp a lot of people unfairly, and hurt the project as a whole .

With respect to QG: I've exchanged many, many posts with QG over his peculiar use of wp:V to misrepresent scholarly sources - most of those posts were civil and reasonable, though most such threads eventually break down. The problem, I think, is that QG uses this policy approach a lot in his editing on fringe articles (particularly at places like chiropractic which has been one years-long squabble). Consciously or unconsciously, I don't think he wants to give up this approach because it's something that he's come to depend on; at least, whenever I try to explain to him that he's misrepresenting sources badly he retreats from the discussion into repetition and it goes nowhere. I can't not tell him that he's misrepresenting sources when he clearly is (because the misrepresentation needs to be removed) - to that extent talking to him negatively is unavoidable. I can be nice about it, but it needs to be said. You see why I'm at a loss over this. --Ludwigs2 18:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Bullying is simply intimidation. I almost always see comments in Misplaced Pages that are only mildly stated opinion but which results in treatment of editors that are disfavored by the mainstream editors. For instance, this editor claims the desire for subject matter experts in Misplaced Pages, but then says that they must adhere to "policy." In fact, he is faster than any editor I know in reporting COI and it is clear that his well-meaning words are really subtle threats that what he considers fringe editors had better edit as he (and the mainstream editors) sees the rules.

Another editor who is well-known for similar intimidation with his black and white stance on editors he sees on the other side of science. here. He later make it clear to me that my attempts to change the pseudoscience article from name calling to a more balanced "what it is" article as evidence that I have no right to edit in Misplaced Pages. Every way I phrase the desire for more balance is heard as pushing pseudoscience.

A favored tool for bullying is name calling. Editors who seek balance in Wikiedpia articles about frontier subjects are routinely insulted by people who think we are "Fringe-pushing POV edits".

It is like a secret handshake; anti-"fringe" editors show their membership in the Skeptic club by calling frontier subject editors "fringe POLV pushers" and that automatically produces a unified front to push the edit into a corner and intimidate him or her with threats of blocking, for COI, Undue and all of those rules so easily interpreted to support the majority viewpoint. The majority of you are automatically discounting this as a "fringe POLV pushers" rant, but if you considered the point of view of someone trying to say that a subject is about "This" and not about "This pseudoscience fringe idea," you would see that the above examples are about intimidation with the intention of controlling. That cannot be good for the long view of an encyclopedia that needs to explain societies culture and not just the dominant group's culture. Otherwise it needs to be renamed to "Skeptic's Misplaced Pages." Tom Butler (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait, using your embarrassing logic, you're guilty of the same thing. Skeptic club? Anti-fringe editors? Laughable at best. Really pathetic at worst. I haven't laughed so hard in months. OrangeMarlin 18:52, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Just for everyone's personal edification, let me point out that OM is using overtly personal and demeaning language here (e.g. 'embarrassing logic', 'Laughable at best', 'Really pathetic at worst', 'I haven't laughed so hard in...'). This is (AGF) a particular kind of communication style - a kind of jocular, poke-em-in-the-ribs, insult-swapping, good-natured badgering that's very cool among friends. Now I'm tempted to respond in kind and say something good-naturedly insulting about OM (I'll leave that to everyone's imagination), and I suspect if it were just me and him we'd go back and forth at it a few times until we established a feeling of camaraderie - the kind of thing you can see happen between jocks in any locker room in the world on any given day. But when this is done in writing in front of strangers it is easily misinterpreted as abusiveness, and no doubt if I did so someone would accuse me of being uncivil. Best, perhaps, if we simply avoid this kind of jocularity in order to avoid giving the wrong impression, hmmm? --Ludwigs2 19:20, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, another example: New user 207.154.107.14 posted in the pseudoscience article: here

"Pseudo-science appears to be a derogatory term aimed at those who may be bringing new scientific information to the science community. For instance, the Wright Brothers were working on "pseudo-science" until they proved their heavier than air flying science. It is this author's view that the term "pseudo-science" should be stricken from Misplaced Pages, as it is merely defamatory, deprecating, and itself is not open to the self-indicting accusations it purports. All of its premises could be dealt with objectively and rationally one by one, but the underlying motive behind its inception makes it merely argumentative and itself not open to scrutiny. Thank you .."

He was immediately reverted for WP:SOAPBOX (HG) so he tried it again in the pseudoscience talk page here and was immediately reverted by a second editor for the same thing. No one has ever greeted this editor and no one has attempted to explain to him or her why the edits were not appropriate as placed. That is a clear "brick wall" kind of bullying.

I might add that the comment is well considered, demonstrably correct and should have been considered. It has also come up many times and will come up again and again until the article is better balanced. Tom Butler (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a bad example. If reverting this edit counts as "bullying", then we need more bullying. That text is inappropriate for about five different reasons. Under no circumstances should editors ever add anything containing the words, "in this author's view" when referring to themselves. The point of Misplaced Pages is not to have editors expressing their personal opinions on matters. Clearly, deleting that kind of material is not bullying. It's part of the necessary work of enforcing content policies.   Will Beback  talk  21:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The diffs presented earlier by Tom in this thread are very good examples of bullying. Being labeled as a "fringe editor" then having an editor muse if it could be established that being so is a "blockable offense" is clear bullying. Anyway, the issue of bullying in the science in pseudoscience articles is a bigger issue than this case, so it probably needs to be brought up elsewhere with participants who can do something about it, perhaps with en.Misplaced Pages's configuration control board, charter organization, or Admin council. Oh wait... Cla68 (talk) 23:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Labels in general are commonly used for bullying, not just the "fringe editor" label. I was bullied by a handful of individuals who repeatedly called me "paranoid", "delusional", etc, at AN/I and elsewhere. These very same individuals were at the same time making bogus claims of WP:COI, WP:OWN, WP:SPA, WP:NPOV, etc, while mass-AfD/XfDing articles and other pages I edited, and later mass-MFDing drafts and material in my userspace. (I should also note that the subject area which is being discussed here is not a subject area I usually edit in -- my main focus tends to be in computing and technology.)

Article "cleanup" templates/tags are also used for bullying. Most anything which can be used as a label or otherwise turned into something divisive "us vs them" can be used for bullying. Speaking from experience, such divisiveness can be quite effective as a bullying tactic until the larger community takes a closer look and catches on to what is really happening. In the majority of the cases I looked into or witnessed elsewhere, the bullied editor would eventually just give up and leave Misplaced Pages.

After my own experience, I began taking a closer look at other cases and have become much more outspoken about it. This is one of the things which has caused the editor retention problem Sue Gardner mentioned in the March 2011 update and which has also been covered in the Signpost. This high profile mess is also part of our editor retention problems. With the now apparent shutdown of Encyclopedia Dramatica the community here is going to have to take a strong stance on bullying because we are already beginning to see an influx of this stuff from the former ED community. In the last week or so I've begun to notice a trend of AfDing material which can only be described as "AfDing for the lulz", but as I'm beginning to get off-topic, I'll end my comments on this here.

The bullying problem here on Misplaced Pages is real and while we would like for it to simply go away, the larger community is going to have to take a strong stance against it because it is not going to go away on its own. --Tothwolf (talk) 01:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Editors interested in this problem might want to work on improving Misplaced Pages:WikiBullying/WP:BULLYING.   Will Beback  talk  05:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Removal of information

Will I'm just curious, can you refer to many instances where the principles of WP:EDIT were protected that were not blatant vandalism involving an IP? There seems to be a culture at ANI and apparently among many admins where the removal of information is tolerated even encouraged. But isn't the removal of sources sometimes automatically tagged by the system in the way section and page blanking or repeating characters is? If an IP was to remove a source, the automatic reaction of many is that it is vandalism, however, there are some dedicated users who seem to do little else but that yet are allowed to run rampant. I was unaware of the user formerly known as Science Apologist but through recent experience his case came to my attention. Is the attitude exemplified by that character alive and well? Do you support it? Lambanog (talk) 10:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I split this off because it's a separate question from bullying. I haven't followed Science Apologist's career closely so I won't comment on his behavior. But as for the general question, I do think that WP:EDIT is one of the more frequently forgotten policies. However that doesn't mean that there aren't many legitimate reasons for deleting material. Personally I routinely revert noticeable deletions of sourced material, even by non-IP editors, when they don't leave a reasonable explanation for the deletion. In the case of "fringe" material, then there are cases where removing material is appropriate, especially from non-fringe articles. So it's fine to have an entire article devoted to the flat-Earth hypothesis, but we shouldn't include that theory in the main Earth article and if someone added it then it should be deleted or moved to another article.   Will Beback  talk  11:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

There's a reason we use the term "editing". Editing involves the addition, correction, and removal of information. The removal of information should be "tolerated and even encouraged" if that information is inaccurate, misleading, or presented in a way that violates this site's content policies. I will never, ever understand the irrational bias that adding material is inherently superior to removing material. Adding low-quality material makes the encyclopedia worse, and removing it makes the encyclopedia better. MastCell  16:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

There many policies and guidelines related to what information is allowed in articles and when, such as WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:FRINGE, WP:MEDRS. In the case of WP:BLP, repeatedly violating it by adding poorly sourced, contentious information may result in a block or worse. --Ronz (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

@MastCell, same question I posed to Will: Why do you think Misplaced Pages is a better encyclopedia than Encyclopedia Britannica or Citizendium? How much time does it take to add a good source? How much time does it take to remove a good source? Do you ascribe value to time? With additional information you have something to work with. You can sculpt it; you can play off of it. But if you have nothing, you have nothing. Lambanog (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I think that Misplaced Pages is a better encyclopedia than Britannica. You've framed the question in a way that doesn't have much real-world validity. People don't remove "good" sources; why would they? They remove sources that they think are bad.

Asking whether I ascribe value to time is sort of obnoxious, so I'll pass it over. I will say that it's often much more time-consuming to fix a large batch of poorly worded and sourced material than it is to rebuild an article from scratch using good sources from the get-go. Moreover, it's disrespectful of others' time to dump a bunch of material in an article and expect others to polish it. People who make the effort to fix poorly sourced or inaccurate material should be supported, not reviled, even if that effort often involves removing material from Misplaced Pages.

Of all the problems besetting this project, a lack of raw written material is not high among them. Quality of information is a much more serious concern than quantity at this point in the project's lifecycle. MastCell  20:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I think Misplaced Pages is a better reference than Britannica in many respects and that it shouldn't be too hard for a Wikipedian to explain why. If one cannot, then one will fail to appreciate Misplaced Pages's strengths and the factors that contribute to them.

Right here on this page people are complaining about bullying; are you suggesting we're not in the real world? There are mischief-makers running around removing good sources. But as your reaction clearly demonstrates admins are less likely to look and listen but instead reply that editors are being obnoxious.

If it's less time consuming to write an article from scratch rather than polish an existing article there is nothing stopping that. But this is Misplaced Pages, a collaborative effort by volunteers on a wiki and has policies that are cognizant of the realities. Are you saying you are unaware of WP:IMPERFECT? Your reaction seems to have fundamental conflicts with core Misplaced Pages principles. You are quite right when you say that people who make the effort to fix poorly sourced or inaccurate material should be supported, not reviled—but such people are usually doing a better job when they're adding more material than they are removing. For example, it's easier to tell them apart from vandals that way.

The idea that lack of raw material is not an issue is fanciful. Are you saying that in your view Misplaced Pages is likely to get better in the future by removing information it already has rather than by adding more? Don't be irrational. Lambanog (talk) 10:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

What does this discussion have to do with the Arbcom? --Ronz (talk) 15:51, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

To give context to the case at hand by calling attention to the culture at ANI that is hostile rather than protective of editors adding to articles and the regular failure of admins to respect and follow the precepts of WP:EDIT POLICY. Lambanog (talk) 16:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. If admins and the community "regularly fail to respect and follow the precepts of WP:EDIT", then it seems that the policy no longer reflects current practice. If that's the case, then we need to revise WP:EDIT to reflect existing practice. After all, policy is intended to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and it appears (from your comments, as well as from my own observations) that WP:EDIT currently fails in that regard. MastCell  22:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Of course that is something you can venture, but that is another step away from a proven policy that has contributed to Misplaced Pages's success. Many claims that Misplaced Pages's problems are such and such coming from people it seems who have never truly embraced the philosophy that contributed to its growth. If you want Misplaced Pages to stagnate like Citizendium then it is within your power to promote policy changes to achieve that end. Probably explains why editors are abandoning ship: Misplaced Pages isn't working as advertised. Lambanog (talk) 04:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

MastCell, just as a philosophical aside on a point that never fails to irk me: Policy is always prescriptive. Even when one says that policy is descriptive of existing practice, what they mean is that policy describes practices that should be considered 'normal' or 'best' practices (because they are what the community already does). We write policy because we expect people to follow it because we think it shows good ways to do things - that's the very definition of 'prescriptive'.

If you need a clear example, please consider wp:CIV. if this simply described community practices it would say that editors are nice to people the agree with and absolute biatches to people they disagree with. That's what seems to happen - I can count on one hand the number of editors I've seen who are universally civil to everyone; most editors have their likes and dislikes, things they can tolerate and things they can't, and there's no shortage of examples of people being unpleasant to each other. CIV policy written to reflect actual practice would not be anywhere near as heartening and high-minded, and that's because the policy is intended to prescribe better behavior than currently exists. --Ludwigs2 17:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Contradictory principles

The following principles are contradictory:

• 5) "Substantial community consensus or Committee permission must be sought before overturning an act explicitly stated to be pursuant to an arbitration remedy."
• 9) "An administrator's actions taken for purposes of Arbitration enforcement may be overturned by a consensus of fellow administrators"

5) requires "substantial community consensus", while 9) requires unqualified "consensus of fellow administrators". If you adopt both, it is not clear whether either or both forms of consensus are sufficient or required for overturning an AE action.

And both principles do not match the Trusilver decision, which requires "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard". If you intend to change the standards required for overturning AE actions, I suggest that you do it by way of a remedy, rather than by way of two incompatible principles that do not match what the Committee has previously decided.  Sandstein  14:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think they are contradictory, simply focusing on different aspects (5 goes into more detail about when it's appropriate to overturn, 9 is about how overturning isn't about the admin). That said, those are the underlying principles behind review while the motion (which remains valid) provides a specific process to implement what those principles put forward. — Coren  15:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The conflict between principle 9 and the Trusilver decision has now been fixed, thanks.  Sandstein  11:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

revision to decorum point?

Repeated claims

Mathsci (talk) 16:50, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Both of you, enough. Risker (talk) 17:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Sandstein concerning the proposed decision

I thank the Committee for taking the time to accept and examine this case, and Coren for drafting a decision.

Much of it is helpful. I appreciate in particular the well-written principle 4.2, which provides appropriate and reasonable guidance without unduly restricting administrator discretion, and principle 7, which outlines certain common-sense procedural responsibilities. The findings of fact are also correct as far as I can tell.

But I submit the following for the Committee's consideration:

• In future similar cases, I recommend that the Committee should delineate the scope of the case as soon as possible. Because the Committee has not done so here, the case pages have been misused by the parties to the ideological and personal disputes that triggered the actions reviewed in this case as a forum to continue these disputes, often in a disruptive manner (see e.g. the sections above). This has distracted from the issues under review and has been a waste of time for all involved, and it has allowed the arbitration process to become a forum for exactly the battleground-like conduct that my block sought to prevent. It would have been better to make clear as soon as possible, as I have recommended from the outset, that the underlying disputes involving Ludwigs2 and others would not be addressed in the decision, but are subject to the normal dispute resolution processes.

• Principle 8 notes that admins who work in AE "handle one of the project's most sensitive and stressful administrator tasks; among other things, they must frequently assess and resolve complex issues arising from bitter long-term editing disputes and involving intractable and strongly opinionated editors." It then calls for more admins to engage in AE. But the proposed remedy by which Dreadstar is merely admonished rather than desysopped or made subject to another tangible sanction is likely to have the opposite effect.

  I accept that by working at AE I will be bitterly reviled by many editors because I sanction them or because I do not sanction their opponents. And sometimes my sanctions will be overturned by consensus or ArbCom. All of that is OK. But in exchange for spending my (real-life valuable) time to help manage the intractable mess that is a typical AE clique fight, I ask the committee to support me by making sure that the exercise of my discretion is given the minimal respect of not simply being overturned at will and without discussion by anybody who happens to disagree with me, but only based on discussion and consensus.

  Uncollegial unilateral conduct among admins is a substantial problem on Misplaced Pages in general, for reasons I've given elsewhere, but it is particularly disruptive in a context of discretionary sanctions, which are instruments of binding dispute resolution. If the Committee chooses not to enforce its bright-line rule against unilaterally undoing AE-labeled actions by issuing actual sanctions to those who violate it – admonishments or reminders are for all practical purposes meaningless –, I do not anticipate spending any more time at AE. That's because if I want to waste my time, I can do so more pleasurably elsewhere.  Sandstein  15:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that not desysopping Dreadstar will deter other admins from engaging in AE enforcement?

Do you hold some grudge against Dreadstar and are you using this forum to pursue it? Or, alternately, is this actually the way you view Misplaced Pages? Either way, I would submit to the Committee that this is the last straw, and at the least Sandstein needs to be banned from enforcing AE, and perhaps desysopped. This is atrocious and egregious, and should be dealt with. It is especially so when combined with accusations of "Uncollegial unilateral conduct." I am simply outraged here, and definitely hope that if the Committe does not take action, that Sandstein means it when he says he will not participate further at AE. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 16:34, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Q.E.D., but as I said, stuff like that is to be expected if one works as an admin in this area, and does not bother me. Anyway, if the arbitrators do not want me to work at AE, any two of them just need to say so, and then you can all conduct your little wars without my interference.  Sandstein  16:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

What?!? I could get this if you were reacting to a proposed sanction against you, but this seems to be the consistent theme. Are you extremely stressed out presently? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 16:57, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually I believe Sandstein does take this as a proposed sanction against him... or at least an equivalent. Area's of WP that are under Discretionary Sanctions are implicitly understood to be the worst area's in terms of editors behavior and the best area's in terms of editors ability to game restrictions. Sandstein (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) view the Discretionary Sanctions as a valuable (if sometimes draconian) way to pierce the gaming of the system regularly done in these area's by allowing him (and other admins) to lay down sanctions in problematic areas and not have to worry about the standard tactics used to gum up process. Key to that process is taking the power away from the wiki-gamers.

Under 'normal' circumstances, if someone gets blocked, someone can 'unblock' and that unblock is considered sacred due to the wheelwarring rules and is difficult to overturn. This has the result of making it easy to gum up the works by having a friendly admin perform an unblock then editors stall and filibuster attempts to reblock until someone yells "its been too long now for anyone to consider a reblock anything but punitive" and the disrupter wins.

Under Discretionary Sanctions the block is considered sacred and anyone unblocking needs to acquire clear consensus before overturning. This specifically stops a common gaming tactic.

So while I doubt that Sandsein has anything against Dreadstar per se. I do believe he feels quite strongly that without a desysop as a bright line deterrent for overturning AE sanctions they become meaningless. You end up back at square one where the presumed disruptors and their defenders have fait accompli on their side and the admins are the ones climbing the uphill battle to end the disruption. This means that a Remedy that removes the teeth of AE sanctions are, in effect, a sanction against any and all admins working at AE. So Dreadstar walks away being told not to do something he was already told not to do (overturn an AE block), while the AE admins get told not to do something they had been told they CAN do (block disrupters in the worst area's of WP and have a reasonable expectation it will not be gamed to death). 158.35.225.227 (talk) 21:57, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I do see the problem. However, rather than excessively punishing Dreadstar, it would be easy to make the clarification in this ArbCom that in the future such an unblock would result in desysop (and revise the warning template to be easier to notice). Additionally, there would be nothing unworkable about a two-strike rule coupled with automatic reblocking if the newly clarified conditions have not been met. Because such a simple humane fix is available, it is extremely strange that draconian measures are being promoted. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 22:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to have an explicit "If they do it again, their administrative tools will be removed quicker then you can say Holy Recidivism, Batman!" in the case text, that is pretty much understood from our comments and from our votes. As to Sandstein's comment that he will stop working in AE if we do not de-sysop Dreadstar.. I'm sorry that he feels that way. As I've said previously, AE is an area where we are constantly looking for more administrators to work... so losing an administrator who has been active there is bad.

However, I am very hesitant to go so far as to mandate administrative removal for this. It seems like the phrase coming to mind here is from Voltaire, "Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" (or in English, "in this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others". As I said above, we must always take external circumstances into account in our decisions. Like everything else out there, a lot depends on the circumstances of the action taken. Does the person realize they've screwed up? Have they promised not to do it again (and do we have reason to believe that promise?) We want Misplaced Pages's rules to be firm enough to be policy, but flexible enough to take outside circumstances into account in our decisions. SirFozzie (talk) 22:57, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, true I guess I was forgetting below that even offline there is room for circumstances to mitigate. And Sandstein also has circumstances to take into account as I'm sure his job is difficult. I'm glad the Arbs are following the Middle way here. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 00:56, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that circumstances must be taken into account. In this case, though, I believe that they are such that a sanction is warranted - Dreadstar did not initiate any communication and ignored explicit warnings by others, essentially saying "bring it on, ArbCom", which forced an escalation of this matter. I'm not saying that I ask for a full desysop as a prerequisite to continue work in AE, but for the reasons explained below, I do ask for some tangible support by ArbCom to admins working in that area - that is, some sort of tangible sanction rather than a meaningless admonishment. That's because I believe that acting otherwise sets a precedent that AE sanctions can be overturned at will, and ArbCom is not willing to actually do something to prevent that, which makes AE a waste of time.  Sandstein  05:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

That’s mostly is a disagreement on what constitutes a 'tangible sanction', I think. It is kind of sad that there is a perception that an admonishment essentially equates to got off scott free. There is some validity to it, but I don't think its the teflon coating you equate it to. You may have to take heart in the idea that your bright line does not lead to dysysop, but merely to a serious possibility of desysop. Perhaps your close association to Arbcom and its functions has desensitized you to idea that even BEING a named party to an arbcom case is kinda a big deal, let alone an official admonishment. Perhaps an RFC or a 3rd opinion request from the community to ask if anyone even gives a flying fig if they were admonished or not could add some clarity over whether it matters 158.35.225.227 (talk) 17:21, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

@Sandstein – Nothing forced the escalation of this matter. The block was a choice. The unblock was a choice. The decision to bring it to Arbcom was a choice. Arbcom's decision is also a choice. Lambanog (talk) 18:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Do you believe that someone is saying that one of those actions was done against that persons will? Is someone saying Sandstein issued the block against Sandstein's will? Or that Dreadstar Unblocked against Dreadstar's will? I don't think anyone disputes the facts or that any particular person chose to do what they did. What am I misunderstanding here? 158.35.225.227 (talk) 19:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, clarified. Lambanog (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Technically, yes, Sandstein could have simply walked away from the matter and did make a choice to escalate it. The long form of his statement, I think, is that he was forced to bring it to Arbcom as the only appropriate next step in resolving the matter at the time. I suppose one could make an agrument that his own personal morals "forced" him to persue the matter, but thats mostly semantics. 158.35.225.227 (talk) 16:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You don't want to be raising the the ethics flag here. Sandstein made a bad block and it got reverted - if he were thinking ethically he would have acknowledged he made a bad block and dropped the matter without making a fuss over the procedural point. He chose to be bureaucratic and contest the procedural point for purely egoistic reasons: he wanted me blocked, he didn't like having his authority challenged, he was self-righteously miffed at being thwarted. We can (and likely will) argue about what is procedurally correct until the cows come home, but the moral dimensions of this matter are unambiguous. --Ludwigs2 17:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are not Valjean and Sandstein is not Javert no matter how much you shout it to be true. You have spent this entire Arbcom making nothing but emotional appeals about how incredibly blameless you are and how incredibly petty and vindictive Sandstein is and I just don't buy it. Your every word drips with bad faith and the more I read of your 'moral dimensions' the more convinced I am that the initial statement was real and credible threat of disruption. 158.35.225.227 (talk) 15:18, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sandstein, I respect your work a great deal (as I'm sure you know). But I think the problem here is that you consider what you call "tangible" sanctions - desysops, topic bans, restrictions, etc. - as the only good form of sanction, and - in my opinion - undervalues the weight of warnings too much. To be sure, warnings and admonishments do not have an immediate tangible effect, but they are more like a general restriction to "behave well", so to speak. If someone inadvertently violated an applicable 1RR rule that was long dormant (a certain recent AE case), then a warning is sufficient to address the problem as long as the user keeps the 1RR in mind in the future. It may not be as satisfying as blocks, but one important part of our job is to make sure that the sanctions we impose are sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to address the problem at hand. And if he violates 1RR again, I'm fairly sure that a swift block will be handed out.

Similarly, Dreadstar committed to not revert another AE action out of process in the future. Desysopping him at this stage serves very little purpose - and, as several arbitrators commented, if he does it again there's little doubt that he will be desysopped. You can read the admonishment as a sort of "Dreadstar restricted from reverting AE actions out of process", if you will. T. Canens (talk) 17:33, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your appreciation of my work, which is reciprocal. My concern is not necessarily that Dreadstar will repeat his disruptive actions – his statement that he will not is probably sincere – but rather that others will.

As you know, AE cases are often about issues that many feel very strongly about and that cause editors to sort themselves into warring groups whose members tend to support each other. These groups frequently include administrators. (If one is convinced by Skinwalker's evidence, which does look rather plausible, this also applies to the current case.) My concern is that such administrators may conclude that if the Committee considers a blatant disruption of the arbitration enforcement process, which enables continued misconduct and causes an immensely time-wasting arbitration case, to be so minor an infraction that it is worthy only of an admonishment, they may be ready to take that risk to help their friends to continue their fight for The Truth™, or at least to unblock them under circumstances that do not amount to a clear consensus, because they know that a facile apology will get them off the hook and nobody can reblock because of the prohibition against wheel-warring. Only stringent enforcement of the Committee's decision – disrupting the AE process will get you, if not a desysop, then at least some sort of tangible restriction – will prevent that.

Your reading of the admonishment as a sort of "Dreadstar restricted from reverting AE actions out of process" illustrates my point about the meaninglessness of the admonishment. All admins are already so restricted, and Dreadstar knew this when he unblocked Ludwigs2. The Commitee's choice now, as I see it, is to actually enforce that restriction or abandon it as essentially meaningless.  Sandstein  18:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I also respect some of the work you've done but.... You do not USE an editor to scare off other editors. First, this is about a human being who made a mistake and who as you have agreed is sincere in his apology. That editor is not just print on a computer page. He must be dealt with fairly as an individual. Misplaced Pages is not punitive either. If AE is structured in such a way now that it can be misused fix it, but do use anther human being for the purpose. Really shocking admission, very much so. (olive (talk) 18:32, 18 April 2011 (UTC))

Well, Dreadstar knew the risk he took when he disregarded the very clear warning message on Ludwigs2's talk page, so I do not think that he is being unfairly used. But if he is merely admonished, all other administrators who undo AE decisions on a whim would – and justifiedly so! – expect to be treated just as leniently, as a matter of fairness. And that would not only substantially weaken the binding force of arbitration decisions, but it would also be unfair to the administrators who volunteer to get yelled and cursed at each and every day in order to make these AE decisions.  Sandstein  18:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, general deterrence, as they call it. Theoretically, there's a difference between the Dreadstar "restriction" and the general restriction - if Dreadstar violates the "restriction", he will in all likelihood be desysopped, plain and simple. If another admin violates the general restriction, the available remedy can range from an admonishment to a desysop. Consider the general restriction as a "two strikes and you are out" rule, if you will. Dreadstar just got one strike.

Moreover, the number of active admins is not that large; the number of active admins that are editorially active in controversial areas is a small fraction of that; the number of active admins that are editorially active in controversial areas and will use the tools inappropriately in contravention of a clear arbcom restriction, knowing fully that they might get desysopped or at least dragged into a long arbcom case, is still fewer. I guess I just don't think that the value of general deterrence is high enough here. T. Canens (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is high enough from my point of view as an administrator working in AE, because it is I who have to bring these very time-consuming cases each and every time somebody undoes my work on a whim. (Litigation is much more fun when you get paid for it.) I've already done it twice, in the Trusilver case and here, and I don't want to have to do it a third, fourth (etc.) time with a third, fourth (etc.) admin, especially not if I know that the outcome is a meaningless "first strike" admonishment and thus a waste of time all around.

So, in effect, a "two strikes" policy may well have the effect of a free pass for any amount of AE disruption: Few administrators will want to face the enormous hassle of bringing the first infraction to arbitration if they know that nothing more than an admonishment is likely to result.

In practice, therefore, the only way to make AE sanctions (and consequently arbitration decisions) mean anything at all is a clear "one strike" enforcement policy, even if the first sanction is not always a full desysop, though it should normally be in clear-cut cases like this one. (But, for example, an indefinite ban from admin actions in the pseudoscience area, and/or from unblocks generally, would also be possible "first strike" sanctions in this case.)  Sandstein  19:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Is the first infraction worth bringing to arbitration, though? If an admin reversed an AE action out of process, was clearly warned for that (by the admin who imposed the sanctions and other AE admins), and then did it again, then I don't think the committee will hesitate to desysop even if it is technically the first arbcom case brought over it. I guess my point is that you don't necessarily need a full arbcom case to accumulate a strike. T. Canens (talk) 19:39, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

But that's what happened here. Dreadstar was warned, not only by the {{uw-aeblock}} message but also by other editors (, ) and still maintained that he was right to act as he did. Only after the arbitration case was filed did he have a magical change of heart, but still did not undo his unblock. By way of these repeated refusals to undo his disruption he should have accumulated enough strikes, even by these standards, for a sanction.  Sandstein  20:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict:

You can't 'use' people whether you think its fair or otherwise. Its not humane. The day this encyclopedia starts to use people to make points, to scare people is the day it starts to die. Further, you can't assume what other editors know or do not know, that they know what you know, or vice versa. A fundamental aspect, a pillar of any kind of successful community work is trust. That's what 'assume good faith' means. When an editor makes a statement, and even you accept that statement as sincere, that's what we have. There is no evidence in this case, and I looked at the Skinwalker information very, very closely, that indicates that Dreadstar cannot be taken at his word. And that's what's on the line here. AE is another issue, which the arbs seem to be dealing with. (olive (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC))

Most Arbitration cases use people to make points. This one, in particular, seems to have been explicitly designed to use the Sandstein/Dreadstar incident to outline a set of broad principles about WP:AE. I don't really share your moral outrage; after all, Supreme Court cases typically use a specific dispute to outline a set of broad principles. Moreover, when Sandstein talked about Dreadstar being "unfairly used", I think he meant "used" in the sense of "treated", not "used" in the sense of "employed for a purpose". This is a slightly anachronistic and literary usage, but an entirely appropriate one. I just think he didn't mean what you think he meant. MastCell  20:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

If this is the case and I'm not convinced it is, then, arbitrations needs to stop using people and start dealing with the inadequacies in the system that force it fall back on using human beings to manipulate other human beings. The Supreme court is not a collaborative community, and it is punitive so I don't really think that analogy works here on Misplaced Pages. Human beings are so conditioned to punish for perceived wrong doing that slipping into that mind set comes pretty naturally, even here. We should be doing whatever we can to hold onto good editors. Punishment is not the way to do it. Knowledge is. Allowing editors to make so-called mistakes as long as they are willing to improve is how learning takes place. Attempting to force an issue which probably could have been settled with discussion, and to continue to force that issue in a way that can only be described as punishment, is action based on an outdated, not particularly successful, paradigm. That paradigm doesn't belong here. Never has.

@ Sandstein. While two editors were somewhat in support of reversing Dreadstar's revert how many were not? That information seems to me to be a bit one sided.(olive (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC))

In the last case in which Littleolive oil was a party the only remedies she proposed were warning or topic banning an editor, myself. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental Meditation movement/Workshop#Proposals by User:Littleolive oil. She made proposed no remedies to deal with the "inadequacies in the system". Rightly or wrongly, the Misplaced Pages editing community is made up of individuals, and the ArbCom is tasked with dealing with otherwise intractable behavioral problems. Outside of the narrow (but ever-growing) scope of ArbCom-related policies, the ArbCom does not generally set policy or deal with the "inadequacies in the system" - that's a job for the rest of us.   Will Beback  talk  23:15, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Will. I assume you are trying to make some kind of point. My point, which I think you missed. is that if something works leave it alone, if it doesn't fix it. I lay no blame on anyone if AE doesn't work. Is that what you imply. I'm not sure how often I've used the term collaborative community, but probably enough so that is clear that's how I view Misplaced Pages, and that's how I see Misplaced Pages functioning in terms of both its editing and behavioural policies. I was responding to MastCell who made a specific, reasonable statement about how arbitration functions in terms of making examples of people, which I don't agree with. Further I don't think arbitration necessarily does function that way. I thought I'd clarify my comments since you've misinterpreted them. (olive (talk) 23:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC))

Part of what you seem to be saying is that a user shouldn't be admonished, etc., for past transgressions if he or she has promised to avoid making the same mistake in the future. However that doesn't account for the real word. Those who've been around Misplaced Pages for a while have seen many well-intentioned, sincere promises to stop problematic behavior. Sometimes editors have even resigned and other said the resignations made further enforcements unnecessary. Yet, in so many cases, the all-too human editors have returned to the same behaviors, or even returned from their retirements. The ArbCom has to deal with the fact that people don't always live up to their aspired behaviors.   Will Beback  talk  00:01, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I didn't say that. I think admonishments in this case are fair. (olive (talk) 00:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC))

But I assume you do think that more severe remedies would be unfair, because the ArbCom would "using people" if it enforced Misplaced Pages policy.   Will Beback  talk  00:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Will, you're makin' stuff up. Enjoy.(olive (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2011 (UTC))

Maybe you could explain better for my dull brain. Are you opposed, neutral or in support of the ArbCom imposing remedies on individuals who have violated Misplaced Pages policies? I had thought you were opposed because that would be "using people" instead of addressing the "inadequacies in the system", but maybe I'm making that up too. <;)   Will Beback  talk  01:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeesh... why do people love straw man arguments so much? Again, Will, obviously everyone supports the application of remedies where they are needed - the problem here is how to introduce accountability so that remedies are not applied where they are not needed, which harms individuals and the encyclopedia. You keep making comments which sound as though you believe the only way to keep the project from falling apart entirely is to implement strong, unilateral, preemptive measures - it's as though you feel we have to impose a kind of wiki-totalitarianism in order to stave off some purported collapse into wiki-anarchy. That kind of dichotomous thinking is a marvelous political tool, but it has no value as a reasoned argument. please stop trying to turn discretionary sanctions into the only thing that stands between Misplaced Pages and the ravening hordes. thanks. --Ludwigs2 05:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

People here seem to be under the delusion that this is the real world. Beback said "...for past transgressions if he or she has promised to avoid making the same mistake in the future. However that doesn't account for the real word." The reality here is that this is not the real world, and has no need to function by the same rules as if material reality were involved. Much of the above would be appropriate were material reality involved, for instance if Ludwigs had vandalised property and Sandstein had thrown him in the brig, and Dreadstar had let him out in spite of the fact that he might destroy more property. The level of seriousness here is not nearly so high. This allows us -theoretically- to be much more humane, and to avoid unfair actions which might be necessary due to limited physical resources. The thrust is that Dreadstar should be humiliated and punished so that other people won't do the same thing, or so that rules will be rules (simple blind obedience/enforcement). This is very inappropriate, as was noted by one of the arbitrators the first time Sandstein proposed it. This is not how Misplaced Pages needs to be. There is not even a recognition here that the ArbCom could state, or consider this case itself to be a statement, that in the future penalties will be higher, but in this case things weren't so clear. People don't recognize this in spite of the fact that the ArbCom took this case in order to clarify a situation acknowledged to be unclear. All in all, considerable blindness (at least). BE——Critical_{__Talk} 06:23, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

BC, wikipedia (unfortunately) is part of the real world. There are editors and administrators all over the project who are here because they want to influence the world, rather than just describe it, and wikipedia is a marvelous tool for propaganda if one can manage to take control of it. I frequently run across people who make these kinds of moves - examples:

• On Messianic Judaism, where a handful of editors take great pains to ensure that MJ is never legitimized as a form of judaism.
• On Ramakrishna, where an editor has spent a long time (and may still be) trying to insert Freudian sources that suggest RK was sexually deviant (possibly a repressed pedophile) because he thinks that the article is being whitewashed by RK devotees.
• On alternative medicine articles, where some editors try to use the article itself to argue that alternative medicine is always stupid and dangerous, and fight with editors who think their particular AltMed is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
• On articles like cold fusion and Intelligent Design where science editors are so invested in demonstrating that the topic is wrong that it is at times almost impossible to understand what the topic actually is.

Advocates and counter-advocates, and counter-advocate advocates... People who are here to have a public influence are naturally going to think in political terms and naturally going to use less-than-savory political tactics to get their ends (as the old political science joke goes, one can solve the problem of crazy, raging street-people by rounding them up and making them run for public office - it doesn't change their behavior, but it puts them in a context where they seem relatively normal, even respectable). It's teleological thinking, and teleological thinking is always immune to idealism. Sandstein's concern right now lies in trying to preserve as much as possible of his unilateral authority, so that he can continue to do things in the way he already does them; he's pushing for firmer sanctions against dreadstar primarily because that will reduce the risk of anyone challenging his decisions in the future. Nothing he's said in this case has indicated any concern with the moral idealism issues running through this matter, and I don't expect him to become suddenly enlightened to these issues. However, it's clear that the arbiters have the moral side of the equation in view, so we'll just have to trust that they will establish proper guidelines that will keep biased politics out of the process as much as possible. --Ludwigs2 09:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

MJ isn't a form of Judiasm, their doctrines are essentially christian, but of course religion is also essentially subjective so there is no right or wrong. Anyway, I'm not sure you got my point which was that WP doesn't have to play it as safe as one does when material reality is part of the equation, and therefore can afford to be a more highly moral/compassionate/humane environment. The fact that it has fewer civil rights is defensible by the same fact, that this does not effect material reality. Leaving material reality out of it allows greater freedom in both directions. I do submit that the lack of kindness, reminiscent of either fundamentalist puritanism or dictatorial regimes has no place in WP, especially when found in an administrator who actually hands out AE sanctions. I already suggested the Sandstein be restricted from any more AE enforcement, and this thread confirms my instinct in spades. At least one of the Arbitrators thought of going further and desysopping. The fact that Sandstein doesn't get why people are having a problem with his attitude and continues to pursue this line as if he's trying to prevent desertion by troops in a time of war confirms the necessity. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 16:46, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm reading this section with empathy for all the viewpoints represented. I do think most uninvolved observers feel that an admonishment to DS is proportionate, but are also waiting to see how the final decision addresses the broader issues raised regarding arbitration enforcement. That will determine whether this case was productive, not whether DS leaves with a red card vs a yellow one.

As to Sandstein's concern that the failure to desysop DS will declare open season regarding caparicious AE reversals, I personally feel this should not be the case. However, AE is an environment that disproportionately concentrates on people with tunnel vision and system gamers (I love Ludwig's distinction of influencers versus describers, above), and therefore I think Sandstein's concern is legitimate. To address this, ArbCom could just provide a bit more insight into its thoughtprocess, to make clearer why this is not to be interpreted "if you are nice, you get a free pass". In particular, the following elements may well have influenced Arbcom's thinking: a) persuasiveness of Skinwalker's evidence asserting DS's long-term involvement in the area vs DS's rebuttal, b) rationale and communication around the original block of Ludwigs, and c) DS's assertion that he at some early point emailed Arbcom as to how to deal with the mess, and apology/committment to desist in the future. This would build on SirFozzie's comment that circumstances matter, above, and thereby to avoid the type of misinterpretation Sandstein fears. I don't think that necessarily requires more findings of fact, etc. - just more ample comments from the arbitrators in their votes.

Besides that, I agree with Sandstein's other suggestion that in the future, Arbcom could delineate the scope of cases like this better. This need not be restrictive - there's nothing wrong in saying later on, "having considered what we've seen so far, we also want to look into X", or "we are no longer considering Y (or we have all we need on Y)". But after some days of collegial and productive discussion, the discourse in this case took a turn for the worse, and many useless bits were spilled and tempers frayed, all for nought. This worked better in the Noleander case, where the scope temporarily grew by adding one other party, even if not ultimately treated in the final decision. Arbcom should ideally provide similar guidance on scope adjustments regarding issues, not only individuals. This could allow parties, observers, and clerks to manage interactions more effectively. All of this meant in the spirit of appreciation to Arbcom for the hard and thankless work they do. Martinp (talk) 11:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Consensus on block?

Coren said there was a lack of consensus to overturn the block. I was under the impression that there was a general but not complete consensus to overturn at the time Dreadstar actually undid the block. Did anyone assemble the stats on this? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 21:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Your impression is incorrect. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Drama and more drama

With respect, to Sir Fozzie, this statement makes no sense. In the multiple situations that precipitated this arbitration attempting to lay blame on any one editor seems a narrow view of how human interactions work. First, as an editor stated earlier, no one made any one do anything. Second, remove any step and the whole situation would have been different. This situation is no one's fault and everyone's. Third, If you're climbing a ladder start at the bottom. Where did the difficulties first start. Maybe long ago with pigeon holing articles and editors, for those interested in prehistory. Maybe with Ludwigs who felt frustrated. But then evidence seems to indicate he had a right to be frustrated. Forgetfulness seems to be colouring things too. I think the arbitration has lost sight of the fact that Ludwigs asked what it was that he posted that Sandstein found to be a problem, and Sandstein didn’t give a diff or even snippet of the problematic comment. When Ludwigs asked, Sandstein's response was to block instead of answering. Ludwig's ‘crime’ wasn’t actual disruption or violation of WP:Policy or ArbCom findings. Dreadstar reacting humanely and not being familiar with AE, then unblocked with the implied support of multiple editors, a consensus actually in non AE terms. Should Dreadstar have realized he may not have had have a consensus per AE , sure, but then he admitted he wasn't familiar with AE. Should Sandstein have responded to Dreadstar before going up the chain , sure, but he didn't. More mess. In interactions like this everyone plays a part. Laying blame is a leftover from punitive punishment days. Everybody acted and reacted and the result is what we have. The important factor is that both editors and arbitration learn from this lessening the chances that this happens again. Scrutinizing the structures in place to aid the encyclopedia is important. Do we need to look at the ladder and decided on which rung the trouble started. Nope. Lay blame on anyone, Sandstein, Ludwigs or Dreadstar. Nope. Where the trouble started depends on where your standing. Everyone will have a different view of the ladder. Tell each what they have to do to improve and move on. A bit of soapboxing I guess on laying blame and punitive actions. (olive (talk) 23:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC))

I'm sorry, but I disagree with you. Ludwig's statement was disruptive and borderline to me immediately blockable for making threats "you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly." If he doesn't make that statement, none of this happens. If he removed it when told to, none of this happens. and if Dreadstar does not take a precipitous action in unblocking an AE block when he shouldn't have, none of this happens. That's the way I see it. SirFozzie (talk) 00:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand your position, but what you have left out is, all the way along communicate, communicate, communicate, and you arbs might be doing something else. This didn't have to go to arbitration, problems could have been solved all the way along with communication and patience. As well, human interactions aren't linear. People made choices that wove this together into a mass. We can't try to linearize (is that a word :) that mass now trying to find the place in the line where it all started. There was no single place where it started. Allowing that Sandstein's mistakes were OK, but others weren't sets a standard on Misplaced Pages for totalitarian and unilateral actions which seems a very dangerous way to go, and vice versa for any editor involved. We could take every editor (who has actually carefully read this case) and get a different way to lay blame. And learning is valuable, while blame isn't. Blame darkens everything too. I teach in an area that depends on mistakes and how the student perceives those mistakes. Blame and punishment is destructive. Mistakes that a student studies and understands in a positive environment helps produce brilliant creative moments later on, not because of the students, the teacher or the subject matter but because that's how human beings learn best. Anyway. thanks for your reply ... some thoughts on the matter.(olive (talk) 00:39, 21 April 2011 (UTC))

No, I've said quite frankly that Sandstein didn't act optimally. He himself says that he didn't act optimally. I just think that it doesn't come up to a level of a finding. SirFozzie (talk) 01:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

SirFozzie, my statement may have been unfortunate, but it did not disrupt anything in and of itself, and the various claims that it was a threat of disruption are barely credible - someone who is inclined to disrupt does not generally open a thread in a different forum and ask for help with a problem. If you all want to make a case against me, there are plenty of things you can rightfully criticize me for, but this isn't one of them. Sandstein was over-eager to block me (for reasons only he knows), and he stretched the legitimacy of discretionary sanctions to the breaking point in doing so. He should consider that if the Committee were inclined to apply the kind of hard-nosed attitude that he himself takes, he'd be desysopped immediately; fortunately for him, the committee is more thoughtful and deliberate than that.

You think that you are helping him by thumping on this obvious exaggeration as though it were a fact. you're not - you're just debasing the whole discussion. --Ludwigs2 01:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

If you don't think "I'm going to have to shout him down and shut him up, you know I can, and this will get ugly" isn't a threat, then I'm sorry, your understanding of this whole situation is sorely lacking and I think you need to re-read Misplaced Pages's policies because your expectations and Misplaced Pages's norms and policies are way out of whack. SirFozzie (talk) 01:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it was a frustrated statement about the direction that the talk page was heading. Further, as I noted in my evidence, that phrase you keep quoting comes in the middle of a paragraph in which I specifically say I don't want things to come to that and I ask for help dealing with the issue. The fact that people consistently misquote it in order to make it look more like a threat only increases the sense that this whole thing is an irrationally personal effort to get me in trouble, rather than a reasonable response to some actual problem. Sandstein was over-eager to get me blocked, you guys are over-eager to support him, and all that over-eagerness is causing all of you to aggressively promote nonsense. I swear, it's like watching the the Keystone Kops edit Misplaced Pages, and if you weren't all so focused on clumsily swinging your batons at me I'd find it all very hilarious. --Ludwigs2 02:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The reason there is so much drama in many instances is because of a failure to appreciate the situation another party is in. You go to ANI to find help and instead you find suspicion at every turn despite proven contributions to Misplaced Pages. WP:EDIT says adding stuff is good; for the longest time I thought it was obvious that any party adding material to Misplaced Pages should be given the benefit of the doubt in cases because they were contributing to the encyclopedia. I am only recently realizing that it's actually the opposite, that if you add stuff to the encyclopedia you are the enemy until proven otherwise. This is a corrosive state of affairs and completely at odds with the spirit and policy that Misplaced Pages advertises. Policy says one thing; practice is quite different. I frankly don't understand the mentality at ANI and I think anyone who takes the policies at their word would have trouble comprehending the actions there as well. Lambanog (talk) 04:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN kind of says guilty till proven innocent, doesn't it? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 13:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Not if WP:AGF was taken seriously. But then again I see WP:AGF being cited more successfully by serial removers who cuss for the heck of it rather than content adders who blow up when their work is demolished. Lambanog (talk) 20:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC) (Carried away about other experiences not directly related to this case in particular. But point remains that WP:AGF should be more prominently at the top of the mind's of admins planning on blocking.) Lambanog (talk) 05:29, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

AGF is about people and interactions, not about content. You AGF that the editor meant to put in good content, not that the content was good.

I was also under the impression that Ludwigs was not told what to do , and when he asked what to do he was blocked. Thus SirFozzie saying "If he removed it when told to, none of this happens" doesn't seem to apply. There were a lot of places where this could have been avoided, most notably with the original unblock by Dreadstar and had Sandstein been less trigger happy about filing with ArbCom and willing to engage with Dreadstar (and I do think that's a very notable thing here: editors are rowdy in AE areas all the time, but it doesn't go to ArbCom). As to Ludwigs not-real threat, that was indeed blockable, but there was no need at all to block under AE. Blocking under AE was just an excessive reference to authority which only tends to undermine the respect for that authority. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 13:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

BC - this comment was not blockable under standard blocking policy except by a gross misrepresentation of the facts of the case, and would have been almost immediately overturned if Sandstein had used a standard block. The fact that it was immediately overturned regardless proves this point. Sandstein is an experienced admin, there is no question that he was aware of this, and so there is no question that he used an AE sanction specifically to keep a bad block from being overturned. He should be desysoped, but that is not currently a politically viable option.

BURDEN does not say 'guilty until proven innocent'; BURDEN says that the burden is on showing that a contribution to the encyclopedia is meaningful and pertinent to the topic. There's no question that QG fails BURDEN with this particular piece of content, and no question that he was being tendentious about it. The only real question in my mind (which is what this whole issue revolves around) is why QG is allowed to be extensively and actually disruptive over content additions that are badly sourced and conceptually incorrect, while people go out of their way to invent disruptive behavior on my part in order to sanction me. QG sends months stumping on the same irrational point, to everyone's frustration; I make one unfortunate statement in the process of asking for help. I'm in hot water, QG gets a frigging cookie. If that's the way the system is supposed to work, then it's a stupid, fucked-up system.

I am absolutely sure that I am in the right with respect to content. I am absolutely sure that I was acting in the best interests of the encyclopedia. I am absolutely sure that I was not doing anything disruptive. No one has even tried to prove that any of those statements are wrong, so I assume that they are generally accepted as correct. If the point of this whole stupid exercise is to demonstrate to me that I have to be far more restrained in my actions than everyone else on project because everybody Template:Nono hates me, well fine: I get it, and I'll do my Template:Nono best. But if the point of this whole stupid exercise was to scare me away from cleaning up fringe topics, well... I am not going to stop doing what I think is right in terms of content, so tough luck on that. If anything, this is starting to convince me that I need to branch out into more fringe areas just to remove this prevasive bias.

Just so we're all clear with each other. --Ludwigs2 17:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it was blockable, but that in general editors get away with that kind of thing, and only once in a while get blocked for it. I believe at least that Sandstein has shown that he does not have an attitude conducive to the "continued" existence of a civil community. I meant that the information itself is guilty till proven innocent by sources. Certainly, QG's addition to Pseudoscience didn't meet the standard. I do believe that you act in the best interests of the encyclopedia, in the instances I've observed, but you weaken yourself by not adhering to the strictest standard of CIV, thus making it easy for admins, for whatever reason they may have, to sanction you. This is something you should reconsider I believe, and yes, you should do your redacted redacted redacted best. If you are correct and editors such as QG are allowed to run rampant because of the POV they hold, then you have an extremely cogent point which the project needs to consider. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 19:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Had Ludwigs been warned his comment was viewed by some to be threatening, I suspect he would have redacted as he has redacted in the past, when asked, and that would have been the end of it. Seems a good Idea to start with the simplest, kindest, most obvious remedy first when dealing with people.(olive (talk) 23:34, 22 April 2011 (UTC))

He was indeed warned, and did not retract the statement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:22, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a warning. "I therefore invite Ludwigs2 to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for making threats against others."(olive (talk) 01:14, 23 April 2011 (UTC))

But I am concerned about the following statement by Ludwigs2 above: "I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly." That sounds like a threat to me. Threats are not an acceptable mode of dispute resolution. Ludwigs2 has previously been warned that they may be subject to discretionary sanctions if they violate community norms in the pseudoscience topic area. I therefore invite Ludwigs2 to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for making threats against others. Sandstein 21:51, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

That's a warning. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

No, that's not a warning. I'm not sure what it is, but a warning generally is clear about what the problem is and what the necessary steps for avoiding sanctions are. Had Sandstein said "This sounds like a threat to me, refactor it or I will sanction you", that would have been a warning, and I would have refactored. I still would have disagreed with the assessment (which I think is silly verging on stupid), but I'd have refactored. Because I didn't think I'd made a threat, and Sandstein was both hostile and unclear about what he wanted, I did the natural thing and asked for clarification, and got blocked for it. Getting blocked because I asked for clarification is not even 'verging', it's just plain stupid. clear enough? --Ludwigs2 07:10, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

It was a warning, but also not clear enough, and while refactoring was the obvious thing to do, asking for clarification should not have been met with a block. When you get to this level of detail, things are not simple. What is simple and clear is that the pattern of escalation was too steep from the beginning all the way to ArbCom. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 18:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and just for the record, the whinging on Misplaced Pages about "threats" reminds me of expelling a high school student for having plastic knife in their pack by accident. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 13:11, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

A suggestion

Since it doesn't seem like ArbCom is interested in heavily sanctioning any of the parties, perhaps they'll consider adopting the wording from the last remedy on this page? Real feelings have been hurt, serious rules have been broken, and many people have probably made angry faces at their computer screens during the course of this case. Instruct all parties to behave themselves, or else the sticks will come out; otherwise, you'll have to agree that somebody's right here, and it doesn't look like anybody is.

My apologies to the parties and the committee for butting my head in, but honestly: unless you're going to attempt to "solve" enforcement, you might as well threaten everyone with blunt objects and move on to something else. Happy Easter, Archaeo (talk) 21:19, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous comments

It appears that a user who presumably has an account is commenting anonymously from their place of work. I don't know if this is considered a problem. If it is, then for reference, the user has been using the following IP addresses:

• 158.35.225.240 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 158.35.225.227 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Normally I would have left a message on the IP's talk page first, but for a shared IP address this doesn't seem appropriate. Hans Adler 16:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Cautioned?

I'm finding it a little hard to swallow the fact that the only person who has a real cause for complaint here (that would be me, having been blocked over a triviality) is finding language against me gradually getting stronger. I'm not surprised, mind you, I'm just a bit disgusted. But whatever - I wash my hands of this case, and will avoid these pages from now on, unless someone specifically wants my input. Someone let me know if so, or how nasty things will get for me as the case is resolved.

Unfortunately, I feel my hand is forced, so here's what I'm going to do regardless of the outcome here:

• I'm going to redouble my efforts at detached academic editing.
• I'm going to redouble my efforts on fringe articles, aiming to remove bad sourcing and excessive skepticism.
• I'm going to focus on being polite, reasonable, and thoroughly rational, the way only an academic can.
• in 3 months or so I'm going to make an RfA, specifically on the platform that I want to deal with bullying problems and anti-fringe attitudes on project.

I'm counting on the fact that the number of editors who feel bullied far outweighs the number of people who dislike me thoroughly enough to oppose my adminship. Anyone interested in opposing it had best start dredging up ad hominem arguments to use from my past history, because there won't be anything to use from the intervening stretch. I'm simply assuming that without ad hominems there won't be much to say against me - at least, no one has ever managed to make a credible argument against me, to date. I suppose we'll see.

I guess I should start by rewriting wp:BULLY. I'll get on that this week. I expect I'll be back to AE at least once (probably twice) before I file for adminship from someone trying to use this 'caution' to block or ban me. Hopefully not, but we'll see on that as well. --Ludwigs2 00:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't you deserve the caution for reasons we already agreed on? As to cause for complaint, if QuackGuru is not dealt with it will probably be because it's not in the scope of this case (I can't imagine any other reason nothing would be done), and therefore ripe for you to file a case specific to that problem. However, you seem to have taken the caution to heart already so I don't know why you object? Which language has been getting stronger? And I thought the main argument against you was that you promote fringe subjects? If you're going to defend them in the meantime, that will be the main thing at an RfA, no? But hey, good luck on the RfA (: BE——Critical_{__Talk} 02:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

It's astonishing how the mischief-makers who are the underlying cause for the problems always seem to fall outside the scope of things with the authority figures around here isn't it? They're like Loki causing mayhem and then lying low and playing innocent and it seems admins are clueless. Unless that is addressed the caution against Ludwigs2 is completely unwarranted. I'd also be rather forgiving of Sandstein and Dreadstar for that matter. They are all victims in their own way. If you look at the chain of events they may have escalated things but they weren't the initial cause of the disturbance. The regularity with which admins cannot seem to satisfactorily deal with such problems and instead blame the victim is a pretty big reason the esteem toward the admin corp takes a nosedive with editors. Lambanog (talk) 03:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with some of this. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC).

FoFs (currently) #5 & 6 (and sometimes 9)

Just looking now at Fof #5 (was 4?) "March 2011 block warning to Ludwigs2 by Sandstein" and it appears the wording and links are temporally reversed, the AN post by Sandstein was 3 minutes before the post to L2's talk page. Misplacing these in the FoF, to me misstates the sequence of events and the facts should be stated in clear temporal order.

On #6, the warning to which Sandstein alluded was clearly and latterly present in the AN thread, so while I can understand the first "hunnh?" response on L2's talk page (though I for one always check the surroundings before replying to something on my talk page) as bemusement, given the edit timing, the further "hunhh?" response at AN doesn't make a whole lot of sense given that Sadnstein had just above specifically quoted the item of concern, to wit, a direct threat of disruption. I fail to understand what semantice allow "...if you don't do something...you leave me no choice..." to not be a threat, or at least an attempt at coercion. I would contend that this should be especially viewed in the context of L2's recent history, which seems replete with open discussion of "tactics" of editing (additionak examples of which I have declined to enter as evidence, so take my statements here for nothing) - playing dumb would be a valid "tactic" from L2's viewpoint, but I personally reject it as a valid DR strategy. I dispute the finding that L2 "requests clarification" - my judgement at the time and now was that L2 was playing a game, just like all the other games, but then again, I've been watching the editor for 6 or so months and I'm not presenting evidence.

I'm also not that happy with current #9 "Dreadstar's alternate discretionary sanction", though I may have missed somewhere where DS formulated an alternate snction. As I saw it go down, it was an afterthought, very much so - perhaps drop the "discretionary" since it was carried out in normal-course adminship, not AE discretion? In any case, can the statement in FoF #5 be put in proper link order? Franamax (talk) 01:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I've flipped the diffs, thanks.

The reason why clarity in warnings is so important is because clarity and unambiguity give the warnee as little wriggle room as possible and avoid later arguments about intent.  Roger Davies 02:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

What about the issue of "Block is AE block because I say so"

An important issue is the fact that, as things stand now, any Admin can, in principle, just declare that a block is an AE block. I think there has to be some process to establish that AE applies. Count Iblis (talk) 16:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

There is, a consensus of admins can decide that an "AE block" is inappropriate, and invalidate it by overturning it. We don't need any more bureaucratic hoops for admins to jump through. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:04, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying a bigger consensus than in this case? What is "consensus?" Given that being wrong will result in desysopping, exactly what kind of consensus do you have to have to actually overturn an AE block? No... It doesn't seem solved at all to me. Or it is solved: AE blocks stand, period, and there is almost no conceivable condition where they would be overturned . I think this is wrong, but it's the outcome here as I read it anyway. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 17:13, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

There was no consensus among admins in this case to overturn Sandstein's AE block (and, in fact, no clear consensus among all editors in the discussion that it was a bad block -- that there was a consensus to overturn is one of those little bits of mythology that have slipped into this case almost unnoticed, like the notion that Ludwigs2 wasn't warned).

Also, the only action that would potentially result in de-sysoping is overturning an AE block without a consensus of admins supporting the action. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that one needs a strong consensus that AE applies. When that is established, a block on AE grounds should not be reversed unless there is a strong consensus that the AE-block is wrong (the block can be for too long a period, or whatever, but at that stage there is no dispute that AE applies). It is wrong for an Admin to first claim that AE applies and then the burden of proof that it doesn't apply, is basically on the community. But this doesn't work, because you often have a polarized community in such cases (the fact that you have an Arbitration result often means that the community was unable to deal with a problem due to polarization in the community).

You can imagine that in this case, Sandstein would have issued a preliminary EA block and then other Admins at AE would look at the case and decide if AE applies. But there would then need to be a strong consensus that it indeed applies. If not, the preliminary AE block will be lifted. If they decide that AE applies then the blocked editor can appeal the AE block. In such a system, you make the actual original ArbCom ruling more relevant, instead of some Admins interpretation of it. Count Iblis (talk) 20:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Seriously Iblis, you want to create more bureaucracy? More rules? Then have another massive Arbcom thing? Look, we elect these admins, let them do their job. If they lied, or are incompetent, or push a POV, we can deal with them later. I don't want anarchy, but enough rules and regulations. Who remembers 1% of them anyways. OrangeMarlin 20:38, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Orangemarlin, that we need to set a balance of flexibility and rules. One of the problems is that AE is a special area where one of two things has already happened. Either the Committee has identified (in a decision):

A:One (or more) editors whose behavior has already fallen short of Misplaced Pages's norms and policies and set up sanctions to try to keep the editor on the straight and narrow, or..

B: there's a topic area where the editing amongst multiple editors has been suboptimal and risks further issues... and it's easier slash less stressful to have discretionary sanctions, then to have constant arbcom cases adding new editors who need to be sanctioned.

AE needs to be as flexible as possible to handle editors/topic areas like this. SirFozzie (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the Committee is doing a good job of expressing how admins should treat AE enforcement decisions/cases. You've outlined a deliberate and controlled process for administrators to follow, without putting in place such onerous red tape that AE would almost never be used. The one weakness is that the failsafe of overturning an AE action could be improved. As it is now, it seems as if the level of consensus necessary is such that bad AE actions are likely to be allowed to stand. The whole process of AE sanction would gain community trust and flexibility if some sort of expeditious formal review process were in place which did not depend on the nebulous determination of "substantial community consensus" or "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" which as things stand no admin would dare use to overturn an AE action unless consensus were both total and vehement. No admin is going to risk desysopping for this, and that's the position you've put them in. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 01:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

But isn't there already a "formal review process" in place? You put up the appeal template and make your case to the admin; if that fails, you go to ArbCom and ask them to review it; and, finally, you can always ask Jimbo to intervene on your behalf. That's something like 20 people. The "clear, substantial, and active consensus" language sounds to me like it's just there in case of a rogue AE admin or something, where the block is unambiguously wrong. If something's at AE, the community's patience is already exhausted, and unblocking only serves to further inflame a situation that has been to arbitration before. Here, a three-day block that was perhaps a little unclear has turned into a two-month arbitration. In the absence of a clear consensus to unblock, everybody needs to just take a deep breath and e-mail the committee, who we've elected to do this very task.

The only thing that's really needed at this point is a remedy reminding all administrators to take things to talk pages and stop playing politics with the tools, both at AE and at large. There simply isn't any evidence that the AE system is broken, while there's ample evidence that administration in general needs a lot of work, and that's hardly the ArbCom's remit. Archaeo (talk) 13:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Archeo wrote:

If something's at AE, the community's patience is already exhausted, and unblocking only serves to further inflame a situation that has been to arbitration before.

And that is exactly why we need an extra layer of independence in the AE process. This would then also help to prevent personal disputes between Admins and editors. You also get rid of the effect that an Admin who has been frequently involved in matters involving editor X, is seen to be "involved", even though that Admin has never edited any articles that X has been edititing.

Example: After the end of the CC case, Beeblebrox was very enthousiastic about policing AE on CC matters. However, after he sanctioned William, he was criticized and that led him to stop being involved in CC and in all cases relating to William. While I personally disagreed with Beeblebrox's sanction of William, I also see it as a big problem that he found it necessary to stop being involved there. This should be considered to be an inherent weakness of the system that can very easily be solved by a very small modification of the system. Count Iblis (talk) 15:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree, as there is "an extra layer of independence" (the ArbCom) and a process designed "to prevent personal disputes between Admins and editors" (WP:DR). Regardless, we're not going to "solve" AE here, and unless the Arbs are interested in opinions on AE, we should save it for the inevitable Misplaced Pages:Request_for_comment/Arbitration_Enforcement. Cheers, Archaeo (talk) 16:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I know from my editing at the Jerusalem article that the AE system is broken: editors there are bullied by partisans, but so afraid of AE that they won't go to the AE noticeboard. If people are too afraid of the police to call them in, there is something wrong with law enforcement. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 19:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing good points here made by a number of people. There are two issues I witnessed first hand regarding AE which I feel tend to make the AE system seem more "broken" than it really is. Discussing and fixing these is probably outside of the scope here though and will likely require a larger discussion.

1. An administrative action shouldn't be labeled AE if it really isn't AE (and also perhaps if it doesn't explicitly need to be AE for it to be effective).

2. AE is often too easy to game to get "one up" on someone else (especially with something such as a "civility restriction" when the other person is still actively engaging in baiting, taunting, harassment, etc).

As I briefly mentioned here I was bullied and harassed both on and off-wiki by an individual who found AE an ideal means to further bully and harass.

It was pointed out to me later on that this individual was engaging in blatant cyberstalking, right down to the false victimization, false accusations, attempts to social engineer information about me from others, attempts to gain access to my email, and even attempting to get others to engage in the same harassment behaviours, both on and off-wiki. For example, in this reply on AE, he tried to claim "i'm being harassed, dude. i don't know why you don't see it." after he had spent the better part of the week attempting to bait me via email and showing up in IRC channels where he was not welcome in order to taunt me via /msg. This was during the same time he was doing stuff such as this. There was also this baiting attempt made right at AE after repeatedly trying to remove a link to this diff at the top of my talk page. This was followed a few weeks later by This AE request for which Sandstein initially blocked me for 72 hours and later changed it to indef when I made the mistake of ranting at him about the harassment via email. Shortly before the civility restriction expired, the three individuals named in the ArbCom case began mass-MFDing drafts and material in my userspace as outlined in this AN/I discussion in yet another baiting attempt.

When I was indef blocked by Sandstein after I ranted at him after being bullied and harassed, no one wanted to address the block for fear of getting into trouble with ArbCom. While the block wasn't exactly an AE block, it was still initially treated it as though it was. Even though I was feeling very stressed over the harassment, and I really shouldn't have ranted at Sandstein, nothing much good really came from the whole situation (the sole exception being the documentation I linked to in the final AN/I which I began compiling while still blocked). Unfortunately, the harassment from Theserialcomma continued on even after that AN/I and he only got blocked after he got really brazen with the personal attacks.

The ArbCom case that allowed this individual to do this was flawed, and while that point is not in question, to tie back into this section above, how do we "fix" AE so that someone can't game it to further bully and harass someone? The timeline for the stuff I went through is about a year and a half, excluding the whac-a-mole sockpuppetry which is still on-going from Theserialcomma. Perhaps some of this stuff should be addressed at WP:BULLY? This update to Misplaced Pages:Harassment certainly looks to be a start in the right direction. See also: Wales, Jimmy (December 29, 2009). "Keep a Civil Cybertongue". The Wall Street Journal. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) --Tothwolf (talk) 07:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

One further comment on the events I outlined above... Discussing this stuff is not exactly easy. It means going back and to a certain degree having to relive a lot of very unpleasant events, a process which I'm finding to be somewhat stressful. If not for the fact that I don't want to ever see another editor ever having to go through what I went through, there is no way I'd be bringing this stuff up. --Tothwolf (talk) 07:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Per addition by Roger Davies on Warnings and discretionary sanctions