Revision as of 01:00, 7 February 2006

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

• Paroxysm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – notified
• Joeyramoney (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – notified
• Carbonite (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Radiant! (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Carnildo (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• El C (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Giano (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – notified
• The Land (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• MarkSweep (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Ashibaka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Violetriga (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• David Gerard (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• BorgHunter (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified
• Karmafist (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) – notified

--Based on summary of events at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration_Committee/Clerks/Administration#Wheel_warring_about_the_pedophile_userbox

• Dschor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - based on subsequent actions described on Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war Raul654 01:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Statement by party 1

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by User:The Land

I noticed Carnildo's statement on WP:AN . I unblocked Carbonite, El C and Giano as quickly as I could find Special:Ipblocklist, not having unblocked anyone before. The blocks were a clear breach of blocking policy, of WP:POINT, and probably half a dozen other policies. I then kept Special:Ipblocklist on refresh and noticed El C's block of Carnildo. I immediately undid it; it also violated POINT and the principle that you should not block someone you are in dispute with. El C requested that I reblock Carnildo, which I declined to do.. At this time, I was also urging a number of other users in the IRC admin channel not to go around blocking people because they were angry with them. After keeping an eye on the block list for another 20 mins or so in case there were further problems, I went to bed.

My actions were intended to take the heat out of the situation, by rapidly removing blocks that had no basis in policy and which would only lead to further anger, conflict and strife. While I reverted admin actions without discussion, and so arguably was engaged in wheelwarring myself, the blocks concerned were clearly:

• against policy;
• made in anger;
• likely to provoke further retaliation which could potentially involve other users.

I would also note that:

• I can't recall encountering any of these 4 users previously;
• my involvement in the pedophilia template issue was limited to two brief comments on WP:AN, the second of which was lighthearted;
• I unblocked parties on both sides of the debate.

I urge the ArbCom to use this case clarify the rules of conduct for administrators in these circumstances. The Land 10:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement by BorgHunter

As well as The Land, I will try to keep my statement short. First of all, I don't consider myself a wheel warrior, primarily because I only performed one restore and refused to do any more than that. My rationale on that restore: The template was up for TfD, and had consensus had not been reached, therefore it must stay until voting can finish and we can all come to a consensus. That's not wheel warring; that's upholding policy. —BorgHunter (talk) 13:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement by David Gerard

I'll see if I can put something together tonight or tomorrow night. I should be able to give a full timeline from my perspective - David Gerard 13:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ashibaka

It all started when Paroxysm decided we needed a userbox for pedophiles. MarkSweep decided that was way too obvious trolling, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him on his userpage whether it was trolling. Since he said it wasn't, I assumed good faith and voted to keep it in MarkSweep's ensuing TfD. An unnecessary wheel war then began, which I was involved in because I wanted people to be able to see what they were voting on and know that it wasn't an attack template. In retrospect it wasn't a big deal and probably unnecessary, but without any firm policy for me to follow, I felt process was important here. I asked David and others to stop wheel warring so that the TfD could continue peacefully but they didn't respond. (It's been pointed out to me that it takes two to wheel war, and I'm sorry about that.) Meanwhile, Paroxysm took manners into his own hands and boldly made a new template while I was watching the Super Bowl. I attempted to keep this visible to users as well, and Jimbo Wales got scared and said "you're moving with your aunt and uncle in Bel-Air". I whistled for a cab, and when it came near, the license plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought "Nah forget it, yo home to Bel Air!" I pulled up to the house about seven or eight, and I yelled to the cabby "Yo homes, smell ya later." Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Ashibaka tock 14:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

(Addendum: I believe the wheel war to be an honest mistake by all parties, with no bad faith involved, and I don't think long-term repercussions could possibly be helpful. We are all mature enough not to let it escalate to this point again. But this is not for me to decide. Ashibaka tock 19:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC))

Statement by Carbonite

FYI, I've left the project permanently (and requested to be voluntarily desysoped). I have no ill will towards anyone and hope that some good can come out of this incident. I strongly believe that all of my actions were in good faith and intended to help Misplaced Pages. Best regards to all. Carbonite 15:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement by MarkSweep

I originally deleted Template:User pedophile with rationale "unnecessarily inflammatory". It was and is a tool for trolling, IMHO, and I'm afraid we've all been summarily trolled. When Ashibaka restored {{User pedophile}}, I put it up on TfD instead. The next time I checked {{User paedophile}} (different spelling) had been created and the discussion and wheel war was being waged on two fronts. Since Template:User paedophile was then the template being debated on TfD, I deleted Template:User pedophile as a duplicate just as the whole debate was about to wind down. (The serious escalation started with the later actions and debate about Joeyramoney, which I wasn't involved in.)

I'll say two more things: (1) This incident was never about pedophiles. For me it has always been about trolling and disruption. Of course, to troll successfully, one has to pick an issue that will trigger a strong emotional response, but the choice of "p(a)edophile" is arbitrary. Here's an analogy, borrowed from RX StrangeLove: Imagine you put up a sign that reads "This employee identifies as a pedophile" in your place of work. Imagine a big public office space frequented by customers of your organization. If you wouldn't put up such a sign there, whatever its specific message might be, don't do it here. I wish Misplaced Pages would be treated more like a place of work/business than yet another online community. Individual expression is sometimes at odds with the need to create an atmosphere that will attract people interested in substantive issues. I know plenty of people who wouldn't go near Misplaced Pages if they perceived it to be mostly about personal politics and perennial debates.

(2) While I know that my judgement is far from perfect, I wish people would AGF and discuss my deletion decisions before overturning them. WP:DRV or WP:AN/I are good places for this. In the case of genuine trolling, it makes no sense to me personally to go through TfD, because that will make the trolls very very happy indeed. As I've said elsewhere, we cannot be so obsessed with process that we need to first create a policy which exhaustively enumerates all possible ways of trolling and disruption before we're allowed to deal with them. The alternative, which has been used successfully in the past, is to allow admins to make judgement calls, which may well turn out to be controversial. I realize that overturning such decisions is itself another judgement call, but the standards should be higher IMHO.

Given what has happened and where we are now, we should consider ourselves expertly trolled. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 18:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Paroxysm

"While I know that my judgement is far from perfect, I wish people would AGF and ..."

Yes, please do.

I was surfing Misplaced Pages when I came across User:Phyrex/Sandbox. (Now deleted?) It had a couple of pedophilia-related templates which I thought were interesting, so I reworded one and pasted it into Template:User pedophile. I figured it would be listed on TFD but would be kept, since there was no real reason to delete it so long as we have other sexuality templates. (That I see, at least.)

It was inappropriate speedy deleted not long after its creation, which was undone by Ashibaki. Mark then listed it on TFD, as should have been done, but David speedied it some time later as an "attack template", which caused the wheel war. As should be clear to anyone, "This user identifies as a pedophile." is not an attack template; it met no speedy deletion criteria and should have been placed on TFD for the full 7-day period. Eventually, Ashibaka and the others left and David protected the template as a blank. I was agitated that he could abuse his powers to speedy delete something against policy, even though some people obviously disagreed that it should be deleted, so I created Template:User paedophile, which was the next best thing I could do without sysop functions. This was probably a bad idea.

Violetriga deleted that, and the war was anew. Blah blah blah.

Then "everyone" involved was desysopped. Well, mysteriously excluding violetriga and David Gerard.. essentially, everyone who was following established policy and reverting the deletion of an obviously non-attack template as an attack template was desysopped. Carnildo might have violated WP:POINT, but the world's not going to come to crashing end because three people were blocked for 5 minutes. The selective desysopping here is absurd.

In conclusion, I wasn't trolling, though it would have been a pretty kick-ass troll if I was. Maybe I should consider a career change. // paroxysm (n) 21:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

Remanded by Jimbo Raul654 07:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision (none yet)

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Principles

Findings of Fact

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Enforcement

Log of blocks and bans

Here log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.