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Requests for arbitration

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Banning Policy

Initiated by Hell in a Bucket (talk) at 17:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Hell in a Bucket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Tarc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Smallbones (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Carrite (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Diff. 1]
• Diff. 2]
• Diff. 3]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Link 1 ] (couldn't find in archives)
• Link 2 ]
• Link 3 ]

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

There is a lot of dispute if WP:EVADE is covered under talkpage posting. It's my understanding that when banned that person is persona non grata and all edits are to be reverted. If in an article and it's not vandalism another editor may take responsibility for that edit but posting on their behalf or attempting to repost their concern is not appropriate. Enter User:Tarc. Tarc has been blasting insults, incivility and outright trolling on Jimbos page. Edits such as or this edit summary . Apparently the word cunt is not ok but telling a editor or telling me or the attitude that this is a game . There are many more edits stating that Smallbones and myself are whiteknighting, overzealous and etc. Jimbo has not replied and there is an impasse as Smallbones and I are within policy to revert on sight edits on or on behalf of a banned user without regard to 3rr. Why will we ban people then let them post if it's good contributions, there are plenty other editors with lots of great contributions banned and there is no question about it. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 18:18, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@Konveyor, if there was significant doubts you are correct but in this case all three accounts were spouting the same thing, terms of use nonsense, it was a very very clear duck case. It was clear enough theat a checkuser was done but I didn't have the correct beginning user which from the Block log the TheKohser isn't actually the master either but an older account User:MyWikiBiz, at least according to this block log. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 18:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Tarc that's why we are here you can't understand the difference of usage of the word as a word and an epithet. Please point out where I called someone a cunt? If you want people to be CIVIL you have to actually be civil yourself, not ask if they have the balls. I do that's why we are here, you are trolling and as User:KWW rightfully says trying to pick a fight. Arbcom has dealt with the last comment you can drop your WP:STICK now, your horse is dissecated now, now move on to your disruptive trolling, time for a new issue. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Smallbones Arbcom has or the community has handed down blocks, if there is to be an interpatation that allows talkpage edits and the community can not come to a consensus as this can be a sitewide issue this can be a good way to stop disruptive edit wars. I will say that even being right about removing the comments it's still disruptive for us to revert war too. If talkpage are the exception and Arbcom agrees then problem solved but maybe we can address what it means to post on behalf of banned users, when it's ok to revert and where banned users may post and under what conditions. Multiple admin disagree and obviously the community does too, Tarc is only the face of a larger issue here. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

On another sidenote User:Tarc, asking someone if they have the balls is pretty sexist in and of it's self ]. So there again if that's why you are having a problem then this can help you understand how a simple comment can be misconstrued as sexist nonsense. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Konveyor Belt

@Hell in a Bucket: "It's my understanding that when banned that person is persona non grata and all edits are to be reverted." This is not the central argument here. Tarc or anyone else does not deny this policy. Rather, the debate is whether uninvolved editors can revert suspected socks with no proof of socking, as this is what you and Smallbones have been doing. KonveyorBelt 18:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kww:: You are right. Admins may decide what users are and aren't socks. Herein lies the problem. Neither Smallbones nor Hell in a Bucket are admins. They cannot make this decision themselves and carry out enforcement or revert it. Until an uninvolved admin decides based on CU or quack evidence that it is indeed a sock, they cannot do anything with the edits of merely what they "suspect" to be socks. Similarily, Tarc cannot revert reversions either until an admin judges that it is not a sock. The best thing to do is leave the edits alone. Focus on the edits, not the editor. If they are truly derogatory, revert like you would anyone else. KonveyorBelt 20:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Kww

I think it's pretty obvious that Tarc is doing this solely to stir up a fight, a.k.a. to disrupt Misplaced Pages. There's no possible improvement to an encyclopedia by restoring talk page comments by a banned editor, so WP:IAR is inapplicable. As for Konveyor Belt's argument: so long as we have our restrictions on checkuser in place, an admin's best judgement is all we generally have to go on when it comes to socking and block evasion. It's apparent from the discussion that Tarc agrees that the edits are likely from a banned editor, and is "taking ownership" only as fig-leaf to preserve the comments.—Kww(talk) 18:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved editor betafive

It seems to me that if an edit from a banned user introduces content of sufficient quality that another editor in good standing sees fit to restore it after a revert, in the absence of evidence that the user in good standing is acting as a sockpuppet, the restored content should not be subject to reversion on-sight, as the alternative allows banned editors an effective heckler's veto. betafive 18:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

Hell in a Bucket is mounting a rather superlative misdirection campaign by highlighting my use of silly internet memes ("a challenger appears", come at me bro", etc...) in edit summaries. For someone who casually throws around misogynist c-bombs into discussions in this project, and someone who acts as deplorably as he did at User talk:Newyorkbrad#Word usage in defending the c-word, I find it to be the height of hypocrisy to call anyone out for incivility.

This whole mess is about a few different things, but one in particular; a fundamental difference in opinion regarding what it means to edit a page in this project, be it a user talk page or an article-space page. One site has a strict interpretation of "banned means banned", and that all edits by socket (whether proven or unproven) can and will be reverted on sight. This means that any possibly banned user who posts a question to Jimbo's talk page is automatically reverted, as well as a possibly banned user who adds a freely-licensed image to an article is automatically reverted. The other side wishes to evaluate the merits of the post or the article addition and believes that either should remain in place unless there is something egregiously wrong, e.g. WP:NPA or a topic ban violation. This is a collision of a draconian interpretation of the ban policy vs. how things usually flow in this project, and have flowed for years. Users have traditionally been granted a bit latitude in allowing banned users to post to their talk pages; I do that myself with a few people on mine. Users have also been traditionally able to "take responsibility" for revert article content and have been able to re-add it as their own if deemed a "good edit". Both of these have been denied lately; here at Jimbo's page, and one here involving a suspected sock of Russavia. I asked Kww if he plans to call for a block of the user, as he threatened to do to me, who restored the image at Dassault Falcon 7X, but have yet to see a response.

Note: despite Kww's as-yet-uncorrected false assertion here and here, I have not actually ever restored content added by a Russavia sock, though I believe his situation and the one we're going over here are two aspects of the same problem.

The other aspect of this is the situation of editors reverting suspected socks of banned/blocked users...and no, not that they are literally flagged as a suspected sock, but that the reverter him/herself is the one with the suspicion. That is how I got embroiled into this mess initially, when Hell and Smallbones were reverting an account with no block log and no SPI. The account is now blocked, but I and others are rather uncomfortable with regular users patrolling another user's talk page and removing content based on their own guesswork alone.

If this case is accepted, I would urge the committee to not focus on the who but more of the substance of what is at stake here. "Russavia" and "Mr. 2001" (alleged to be "thekohser") are being invoked here as boogeymen, people that quite frankly no one, even myself, particularly care for. We shouldn't craft policy or make decisions with the aim in mind of punishing specific editors.

So this is where we're at... "banned means banned" vs. "if a rule prevents you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore it". Tarc (talk) 18:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

@Hell in a Bucket: If my at-times flippant edit summaries were misconstrued as incivility, then I apologize. After this, please stop pinging me here, as I'm really not going to engage in this now move on to your disruptive trolling rhetoric, esp on an Arbitration page. Tarc (talk) 19:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Smallbones

I think it is too early for an ArbCom case. For one thing, Jimmy W. is said to be on vacation and may return and clear up the whole thing one way or another with just a few words. I've also offered a couple of compromises, including an offer of mediation, which Tarc has yet to answer. Finally, Tarc will essentially ask you to repeal WP:BANREVERT and WP:Banned Mean Banned and this doesn't seem to be the proper place to do that. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:15, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Herostratus Thank you for reminding me where I saw Jimbo's words on the matter of who is invited to edit Jimbo's talk page and how. From the 5th paragraph of User:Jimbo Wales (and it has been there forever):

"Over 3,000 Wikipedians monitor my user and user talk page via a watchlist, and I trust them to edit and remove errors or attacks. This is a wiki, so (apart from bad faith alterations and vandalism) visitors are welcome to edit."

Bad faith, i.e.duplicitous, fraudulent, or deceptive, seems to perfectly describe the banned editor in question.

In any case, all those folks who have been harassing me and others in the last 2 weeks saying "Smallbones can't delete the banned editor, unless he has explicit permission from Jimbo" now have an explicit answer straight from Jimbo. I'll also say that I have always edited within the letter and spirit of WP:BANREVERT and WP:Banned means banned, and, with one possible small exception, only reverted the one banned editor.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Monty845

As I see it, there are three separate issues intersecting here. First is that User talk:Jimbo has historically been a kind of neutral zone where we would often over look an editors blocked status on the project when they wanted to talk to Jimbo. People from many projects come there to raise issues, and as such we should be a bit more reluctant to strictly enforce policy than on other pages. Second, this is the second major spat in a month that revolves around a WP:3RR exemption, where there is a lack of consensus on whether the reverts count. (The other hasn't made it here yet, but has a massive RFC ongoing) Some people think the exemption applies to the removals, others think it doesn't, as its now an edit war between editors otherwise in good standing. This is exacerbated by the language of WP:BANREVERT that doesn't require reversion if there isn't a problem with the edit, using a permissive may, and then allows editors in good standing to assume responsibility for the edit, but then says edits at the direction of a banned editor are prohibited, which is now being argued to apply to the talk page reverts. Editors on both sides have massively violated WP:3RR even though the restore side has no claim to an exemption. That no one was blocked speaks to just how much of a mess the conflicting policy interpretations have created, and the danger of 3rr exemptions. Monty₈₄₅ 19:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite

Adding myself as a party in the event ArbCom decides to accept this case. I do not believe that this matter is ready to be heard by ArbCom at this time, since the community has not reached a stalemate. Perhaps there will be blocks and bitterness down the road which make a case necessary here. I don't think that policy on the matter at hand here is unclear — people need to simply stop selectively reading what they want it to say. A block or two might prove to be a boon to literacy... Carrite (talk) 19:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Uninvolved statement by Hasteur

Great Gravy Marie... We're back at ArbCom to get annother swing at the "words that should not be said" debate? If ArbCom wanted to do something about this they could go with the A plague o' both your houses route and sumarily block the leading advocates on both sides to demonstrate that the time for drama farming is over and to drop the entire line of debate lest we do this again in 2 weeks. Hasteur (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Resolute

While this may not be ready for ArbCom today, the general pattern of behaviour suggests we are going to be back here in the future. The accounts that people are fighting over are, IMNSHO, ban-evading socks at worst and scrutiny-evading socks at best. Seems an odd hill for Tarc to be willing to die on, but that is his choice. Meanwhile, Smallbones and HIAB may be technically correct, but the actions of all three are really serving only to cause a great deal of distracting drama. There comes a point where the solution is more damaging than the problem. You guys are just feeding the trolls at this point. In this case, denying the throwaway accounts the attention they seek by simply ignoring them may be of greater benefit. Resolute 20:00, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Floq

in three easy steps:

1. Accept case
2. Figure out which users think this is a vital issue
3. Siteban them

--Floquenbeam (talk) 20:13, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon

What Floquenbeam says is harsh but mostly on the mark. Sometimes an issue is said not to be ready for arbitration. Sometimes an issue really isn't ready for arbitration. However, sometimes an issue becomes ready for arbitration when the filing party throws the boomerang. This is such a case. The filing party, by repeatedly deleting the comments of an editor who is accused of being a sock, but not found to be a sock, has been disruptive. It isn't as if the comments, on the founder's talk page, which is something of an anything-goes zone, were interfering with developing the encyclopedia. The real reason, as I understand it, for the rule about reversion of posts by banned users is that banned users are known to be not here to develop the encyclopedia. The development of the encylopedia isn't at stake. The disruption by the sock-reverters is at least as great as the disruption by the possible (unproved) sock. It may not have been ready for arbitration until the filing party requested arbitration.

The filing party now has requested that ArbCom accept the case. I suggest that ArbCom accept the case and file their own SPI, or conduct their own SPI (since some of the clerks are also CheckUsers). Regardless of whether the editor whose comments are being reverted is a sock of a banned user, the edit-warring over the posts has been disruptive, and I ask ArbCom to determine appropriate sanctions for the disruption. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by peripherally involved editor Herostratus

De facto Jimbo's talk page has kind of a special status (and so does Jimbo) and so I'd give a great deal of weight to how he thinks his own talk page should be run, and he's expressed that banned users can post there even if they can't post anywhere else, for various good reasons and within reasonable bounds (a possibly important point). And so Jimbo's talk page is not a good test for the long-running argument: "banned means banned" versus "banned has exceptions". And so I'd like to hear what Jimbo has to say and if he doesn't weigh in I'd be pretty reluctant to take the case. If it was any other page, it'd be useful to have an ArbCom decision bearing on the general question though, maybe. Herostratus (talk) 21:34, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by peripherally involved editor Nick

The banning policy specifically states Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule. This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor (obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.

There is no absolute requirement anywhere to revert immediately and instantly, editors can (and do) allow edits made by blocked and banned editors to stand. That's a small window of opportunity that is clearly going to extend and expand at Jimbo's talk page, as long as comments being left by blocked or banned users aren't disruptive (using the terminology as it relates to editors otherwise in good standing). Jimbo is still an important cog in the governance of Misplaced Pages, although not typically exercising his powers, he does have the authority to overturn bans and blocks and allowing those people who are blocked or banned to appeal at his talk page is not a massive hardship for the project.

I have always felt we're too quick to cast out bad editors we no longer like, locking bolting and chaining the door behind them. We lock their talk page, disable their e-mail and generally force them to appeal to BASC or if we're especially generous, we (administrators) might organise an unblock discussion at AN/ANI. We don't actually make it technically possible for a blocked or banned editor to appeal to the other person on the project, Jimbo, who can in theory hear their appeal and reverse any sanctions against them. I think, by placing obstacles in their way, reverting them quickly, blocking their socks, and doing things like protecting Jimbo's talk page, we always look like we're trying deliberately to stop them appealing to Jimbo for some sinister reason, which for some banned users can add to their theories of administrator abuse. If we let some of those people freely and openly ask Jimbo to review their case, even though we're fairly certain of the response, it might well cut down on disruption further along the line.

The banning policy further goes on to state When reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of such core policies as neutrality, verifiability, and biographies of living persons. Editors who reinstate edits made by a banned editor take complete responsibility for the content... ...Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits.

I realise this is slightly towards clutching at straws, but reinstating a banned users posts on a talk page, especially that of Jimbo, may have the potential to be constructive, if they get a decision from Jimbo regarding their final appeal and can then be persuaded to stay away from the site for a period of time.

I'm going to drift from the core of the discussion here, but I think the biggest issue that has developed with the banning policy, is that it's so far out of date and there's too few viable options to assist in controlling the behaviour of undisciplined editors. We're sadly seeing editors with track records of good content being banned from the site because of editing carried out away from the article namespace, with the likes of Russavia harassing Jimbo or Kumioko persistently disrupting over RfA. If administrators had a wider range of tools available to block editors from individual pages, from pages present in one or more categories (a way to enforce topic bans, essentially) and to allow things like editing of pages within their own user space whilst blocked (but which could be revoked if abused) it may be possible to corral editors in the right direction, keeping them firmly out of areas where they may get themselves into trouble, and allowing them to focus on the areas of the project where they can continue to make a positive difference.

I have listed myself as peripherally involved as I'm the editor who restored the edit to the Dassault 7X article originally made by Russavia (I've not actually asked him for confirmation, but I agree with the assertion it's one of his edits) and I reinstated around 10 other edits made by Russavia around the same time, these were listed at an ANI thread, and after carefully examining all of the edits, I'm happy that they constituted an improvement to the project, were not disruptive and fell in line with the above mentioned sections of the Banning Policy concerning reinstatement of 'good' edits. I reason that continuing to show banned users that good edits are appreciated and bad edits are not, we at least attempt to stop them turning into vandals, damaging the project in a fit of anger or frustration at being forcibly ejected from something they enjoy and even love doing.

My feeling with editors like Russavia is that they need to be banned from sections of the site, where they cause disruption and trouble, but they need not be banned from the entire site, if better tools were available to administrators to deal with such behaviour. I don't think being able to better control editors would be a bad thing for assisting in editor retention either, giving us the ability to sanction editors in more appropriate ways, instead of having to block them, protect pages and rely on people being reported for interaction bans, we could have a suite of click and forget tools to enforce IBANs, page bans, topic bans and the like.

The current policy doesn't really appear to be doing much to help with editor retention, so hopefully the ArbCom will look at what might be done with regards to banning and the huge amount of egregious behaviour needed which so poisons the project before something snaps and the community has enough. Nick (talk) 23:50, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by marginally involved editor Deltahedron

I asked User:Tarc and User:Smallbones to stop edit warring at User talk:Jimbo Wales over edits by and on behalf of banned editors when they reached 19 reverts between them. Each of them took the view that it was the others fault. Not surprisingly the matter was referred (not by me) to WP:AN/I where I formulated a possible way forward :

if Smallbones is convinced in all good faith that an edit is by a banned user, he revert it once, explain his reasoning and leave it to others to revert it again if reinstated; and that if Tarc is convinced that a valuable addition has been lost to Misplaced Pages by a mistaken revert, he repeat the comment in his own name, taking personal responsibility for its validity or value to the discussion, thereby protecting it from subsequent removal

The discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive850#Edit_warring_at_User_talk:Jimbo_Wales suggested that there was some support for that, if not universal consensus. It seems that Tarc has explicitly taken personal responsibility asking a question which may have been posed originally by a banned user (I cannot say whether that's correct). If so, then to claim the protection of WP:EVADE for unlimited reversion, User:Hell in a Bucket needs to establish (1) that Tarc is posting at the direction of a banned user: in other words, that the user actually is banned, and that Tarc is actively acting in bad faith by claiming to post independently but actually at the behest of another person. That's a very high bar to meet and in practice it seems insurmountable. Of ocurse, it might be that (2) the question is inherently disruptive. If so, the status of the posters, whoever they may be, is irrevelant, as is WP:EVADE: whoever posts an inherently disruptive question is behaving disruptively. Of course, establishing that a question is inherently disruptive is also a high bar to meet. I have yet to see evidence supporting either (1) or (2). However, it may help frame the discussion for participants to say whether they wish to assert propositions (1) or (2) or both. I would also suggest that the proposal I enunciated before might be the foundation of some behaviours which would allow those of us with topics to discuss with Jimbo Wales to do so in relative peace and quiet. Deltahedron (talk) 11:09, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Statement by marginally involved editor Sitush

My involvement has been limited to initiating this request at ANI and whatever comments I made within it. That the situation has continued is regrettable. I have no particular interest in wikilawyering over which policy might be most applicable/which should be given more weight etc but the warring has been ridiculously disruptive and unseemly on what is allegedly a high-profile talk page. It is unfortunate that Jimbo hasn't been around to comment. That said, Jimbo can't over-ride policy himself and he is probably stuck between a rock and a hard place because of the potential PR consequences. The issue needs to be resolved one way or the other and, since some people really are taking sides and the ANI reports got nowhere, ArbCom seems to be the only realistic way to do that. - Sitush (talk) 14:07, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Banning Policy: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/1>-Banning_Policy-2014-08-15T21:17:00.000Z">

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

• I'll allow some additional time for statements, but I'm leaning toward acceptance. I think there are several people here whose behavior is due (or well overdue) for a review, and I don't think that is going to happen any other way at this point. Seraphimblade 21:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)"> ">