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Revision as of 07:54, 10 January 2008 view sourceGatoclass (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators104,012 edits →Requests for clarification← Previous edit Revision as of 08:55, 10 January 2008 view source Egghead06 (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers80,234 edits →Elvis Presley / Onefortyone: Egghead06 - viewsNext edit →
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====Statement by LaraLove==== ====Statement by LaraLove====
In the months I have been working on this article, I have found Onefortyone to be a consistent obstacle in article improvement. My involvement started after the article was improperly promoted to GA status in August 2007. It's my opinion that every attempt to bring this article to GA standards is halted by Onefortyone. Evidence has been shown on ] that brings Onefortyone's sourced additions into question, as it appears as though he has selectively pulled information in order to push his preferred POV. He refuses to allow information to be removed in order to bring the article down to a manageable, readable length, which is why his latest additions remain. I created ] in hopes of being able to get more attention on the article, however, it's no further along now than it was when it began a month and a half ago. Something has to change in this situation because no progress is being made and every other editor that consistently works on this article is ready to give up, which is not in the best interest of the project. ''']''']''']''' 18:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC) In the months I have been working on this article, I have found Onefortyone to be a consistent obstacle in article improvement. My involvement started after the article was improperly promoted to GA status in August 2007. It's my opinion that every attempt to bring this article to GA standards is halted by Onefortyone. Evidence has been shown on ] that brings Onefortyone's sourced additions into question, as it appears as though he has selectively pulled information in order to push his preferred POV. He refuses to allow information to be removed in order to bring the article down to a manageable, readable length, which is why his latest additions remain. I created ] in hopes of being able to get more attention on the article, however, it's no further along now than it was when it began a month and a half ago. Something has to change in this situation because no progress is being made and every other editor that consistently works on this article is ready to give up, which is not in the best interest of the project. ''']''']''']''' 18:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

====Statement by Egghead06====
There is so much about the life of Elvis that is unknown. Since his death much rumour and gossip have grown-up around the man. How can anyone give a definitive view? They can't! What they can do is offer data which differs from the norm. As long as this is given with good references this can only help to provide a fuller picture. How can you ban someone who does that?
There appears to be a drive here to only have one view point - put them all as long as they are referenced and let the reader decide.
There also appears to be a drive to keep the article short so as to acheive some internal star or pat-on-the back. Brevity and accuracy do not always go hand-in-hand. This is not an encyclopedia for goldfish. Surely people can keep their span of attention long enough to grasp all the possibilities.
This user may not toe the line but banning is too heavy handed.
--] (]) 08:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


==== Clerk notes ==== ==== Clerk notes ====

Revision as of 08:55, 10 January 2008

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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

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Please make your request in the appropriate section:

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Current requests

David Howe (claimant to King of Mann)

Initiated by Kingofmann (talk) at 03:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

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

In an attempt to resolve this issue with user Newguy34 and having researched for several hours his edits as well as many others, based on the discussions of several editors on my biography's talk page at Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann) with those attempting to edit to Misplaced Pages's policies, I do not feel that this issue is easily resolved and it does suggest that there is a group effort to edit to the negative with three of the parties involved as well as other anonymous editors not cited using various USENET groups as a base for orchestrating their efforts. See MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal citing user Wjhonson involvement. See Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann)/Archive_2#Celebrity_Friends_and_Royal_Cousins illustrating user Hearldic's participation in a USENET group with a long list of libelous claims against me.

Statement by Kingofmann

I am David Howe, the subject of a Misplaced Pages Biography.

My initial dispute had to do with the inclusion of a business that I own, that has nothing to do with my notability, on a biography page about me. I requested to Admin Hu12 that he aid me with the removal on his talk page and I cited WP:Blp#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy as the reason why. I eventually deleted the material I felt violated my privacy and stated why on my talk page. User Newguy34 reverted it twice and that is when I requested page protection which was issued.

In response to what seemed like several editors of my biography page, namely Newguy34, Heraldic, Wjhonson and some anonymous users involvement in what seems to be an orchestrated effort to circumvent WP:BLP and present a negative point of view see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal, Admin Hu12 on his talk page as well as my biography's talk page stated, "The Media bias is evident in many of the sources, which are attributable and doesn't surprise me since its rooted in forms of Cultural biass. The subject of David Howe is no doubt a Political one to many, however lets keep these biases out of the article space." His request has had no effect.

There are numerous examples on the biography's talk page that show the well telegraphed intent of some editors. Just a few are as follows: December 27, 2007, editor Newguy34 was an advocate for the Misplaced Pages blacklisted site that has since be revised several times to appear less libelous. Talk:David_Howe_(claimant_to_King_of_Mann)/Archive_2#Celebrity_Friends_and_Royal_Cousins Despite the fact the site isn't a reliable third-party source, addressing another editor's objection to the site he stated, "Your bias appears clear, namely to advance Howe's claims. The author of the website is well respected in genealogy circles and has fully cited and referenced his "opinions."" In fact none of these things are true. The author of the site at the bottom of the first page describes himself, as of January 9, 2008, "an accountant with a keen amateur interest in history and genealogy."

Heraldic and Wjhonson advocating for including libelous blacklisted site see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#unrealroyal.com and then attempting to get it removed from the blacklist See MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal. Here it was also revealed that Wjhonson had conspired with the author of the blacklisted site to misuse Misplaced Pages.

Statement by Wjhonson

When a person has achieved that level of notability that a biography is acceptable, all known facts about the person have an equal chance of being represented. The person, short of pointing out libelous statements, has no special prerogative to exclude certain details. We do not allow this priviledge to Ann Coulter, we do not allow it to Jimmy Wales, we allow it to nobody. It is a red-herring argument that only issues *related* to notability are included. We include a biography based on notability, but once included, each statement does not need to pass notability to be included.

Contrary to the claim that I was involved in "...circumvent WP:BLP and present a negative point of view see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/January_2008#Unreal_Royal...." I submit that all of my edits have quite plainly adhered to WP:BLP. The issue regarding what I perceive as an out-of-process blacklisting is a seperate issue to this article. That the http: //www.unrealroyal.com site was blacklisted as an "attack site", when IMHO it is a "criticism" site of a *public figure* as the King of Man is most clearly. If the King of Man were not himself a public figure, than pointed criticism might be a valid reason for blacklisting a site which criticizes a Wikipedian. The fact that he is a *public figure* puts him outside that purview and he is then fair-game just as surely as George Bush is himself. We do not blacklist sites critical of Bush, and if Bush became a Wikipedian we would not blacklist sites critical of Bush.

Contary to the assertion that "The author of the website is well respected in genealogy circles and has fully cited and referenced his "opinions."" In fact none of these things are true.", I submit that indeed the author is well-respected in genealogy circles, and his fair-and-even criticism of David Howe is fully cited and referenced.

Contary to the assertion that the site is "...libelous..." is my assertion that it in fact engages in well-reasoned and pointed criticism of a public figure.

Contrary to the assertion that "...Wjhonson had conspired with the author of the blacklisted site to misuse Misplaced Pages." is my assertion that outside Misplaced Pages, in particular on the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup, I know the author of the website. My agreeing with his perception that his website was unfairly blacklisted, is not a conspiracy.

Statement by Newguy34

I am disappointed that this has reached the ArbCom, and am not sure quite where to start in this unfortunate episode.

First, either Mr. Howe is notable as an individual (for which information such as his primary business venture is relevant) or he is notable for only a single event (namely his claim) and the BLP should be merged with another article. I think a BLP of Mr. Howe is unwarranted. As it relates to WP guidelines, a person is generally notable if a) the person has received significant recognized awards or honors, or b) the person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field.

Further, when a person is associated with only one event, such as an unsubstantiated claim to be related to ancient royalty, consideration should be given to the need to create a standalone article on the person. If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted.

And from BLP, if reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. Marginal biographies on people with no independent notability can give undue weight to the events in the context of the individual, create redundancy and additional maintenance overhead, and cause problems for our neutral point of view policy, which is exactly the situation we are facing in this matter. I fail to see how Mr. Howe has achieved any notability other than through this singular claim, and the recent coverage of it. In spite of this, a single user Lazydown has made the majority of edits in support of Mr. Howe's claim, while several editors (including those involved in this arbitration matter) have been consistent in attempting to achieve a balance and neutrality to the article, Lazydown's (and now Howe's) protestations that we are somehow violating NPOV aside. The support for this assertion is contained on the article's talk page and the edit history, and is clear for anyone to read.

As to the information I seek to have included, I believe the inclusion of Mr. Howe's business is relevant information, which is entirely permissible and standard for a BLP. I cited the information from a verifiable, reliable source in accordance with WP policies. The fact that he owns a Glass Doctor franchise in Frederick is a matter of public record and comes from press releases penned by (or authorized by) him. I can not see how it now should be excluded (in its present form) from a biographical article on claimed grounds of privacy, especially given that it was Mr. Howe who first put this information in the public domain. That Mr. Howe does not like the relevant information he has placed in the public domain being used in a BLP article about himself is insufficient support for its exclusion under privacy concerns.

I attempted to reach consensus with Mr. Howe on the issue (as evidenced on his talk page), but he refuses to discuss the matter further and instead has made a very serious threat of legal action against me (and possibly Misplaced Pages) see http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Kingofmann. A threat which I take very seriously, and for which I believe he should be admonished. He has not engaged in dispute resolution. These are indisputable facts, evidenced in various talk pages.

Mr. Howe's assertion that there are several editors involved in "an orchestrated effort to circumvent BLP and present a negative point of view" is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and represents libel. I have never met any of the other editors. My edits have been to retain NPOV after numerous attempts by Lazydown to edit the article in a light most advantageous to Mr. Howe and his claim. Lazydown's edits are typically accompanied by accusations that the editors involved in this arbitration are violating NPOV and other WP policies. I have posted that I believe we are involved in a content dispute. I have attempted to reach consensus on the issue with Lazydown, but he too refuses to discuss the matter. Instead, he posts accusations of a number of us on the talk pages of several administrators, namely Hu12. As such, I believe that Lazydown has not been exhibiting good faith, and am curious why Lazydown is not also a subject of this arbitration action given the inordinate number of edits he has made.

I also take strong personal offense to Mr. Howe's implication that the edits of myself and others amount to a "well telegraphed intent" on our part. Again, I have never met the other editors in question, and there is no evidence or factual basis to support this latest assertion. Contrary to Mr. Howe's assertion, I was not an advocate for the now-blacklisted site, but rather sought to understand the objections of Lazydown in that matter. It is important to note that at the time of my posts on the matter, the website in question was not blacklisted. It is also important to note that the criticism of Mr. Howe on the website in question is fully cited and is fully referenced. The occupation of the website author is not relevant to his recognized expertise in the matters the website discusses. I, too, believe the blacklisting of the website is inappropriate and uncalled for.

In summary, I believe this is a very disturbing series of events, filled with red herring arguments, selective adherence to WP policies, inappropriate COI on the part of Howe, and an exercise of bad faith on the part of Howe and user Lazydown. I welcome the consideration of these matters by ArbCom, but as one who believes in the Misplaced Pages project, I am disappointed that it has come to this. Newguy34 (talk) 06:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

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

User:R. fiend

Initiated by SirFozzie (talk) at 22:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

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

Two threads at ANI, as well as current RfC at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/R. fiend‎

Statement by SirFozzie

R. fiend has been accused of using his administrator powers in numerous inappropriate ways. Among the incidents of questionable adminstrator rights brought up in the RfC:

A) Reverting to a preferred version in the Black Irish page, and then immediately semi-protecting the page to prevent the IP addresses that he was edit-warring against from editing the page. Then, having "won" the edit war, left the page semi-protected indefinitely for almost six months. Revert Protection, Protection Log

B) Continual insertion of questionably-sourced information about a person' (that would violate WP:BLP if the person in question was living). R. fiend again semi-protected the page (without any message as to reason) to "lock out" the anonymous IP editor from editing the page. Link to diff of protection. When the anonymous editor in question requested the page unprotection, two administrators asked R. fiend for the rationale for the protection. He stated that his edits were per the talk page's consensus On the administrator's talk page], but when asked for a link to show this consensus, he did not reply.

C) R. fiend blocked User:Ed Poor in an apparent error in October, leaving no block summary. User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson unblocked Ed nine hours later in the absence of any communication. When questioned on it on his talk page by a three other admins,, he replied, "Hmmm. Looks like a mistake. Oh well. No harm done.". When it was suggested by User:WJBscribe that he apologize, R. fiend just walked away and never approached User:Ed Poor on the matter again. (Block log). When this matter was brought up as part of the RfC, he apologized stating that he must have been drunk or high while he edited, which he stated he did infrequently. Link to R. fiend statement about block of Ed Poor. Ed Poor has asked that the block be expunged from his record.

D)R. fiend has been involved in a content dispute with User:Domer48 over the Segi article.. He then went on to block Domer48 for WP:3RR violation on the same article, even though he was in dispute and editing there. Nor had R. fiend approached Domer48 at any time before the block. While it is fairly well understood that Domer48 was at least at 3 Reverts (and may have broken 3RR), R. fiend, as a participant in the dispute should NOT have been the one to carry out the block. After Domer48 was blocked, uninvolved admins, User:Luna Santin and User:Metros and other editors voiced their concerns. R. fiend replied that he didn't see any problem with being a participant in the dispute and blocking Domer, stating "If I didn't block him, someone else would have" Luna Santin questioned that comment, saying that it could be considered an abuse of admin privileges, that besides the obvious conflict of interest in the block, it could have a chilling effect on future editors who found themselves in dispute with R. fiend.'. R. fiend chose not to reply, instead refused to unblock and got more irate when questioned by myself .

In the interests of brevity, I will not list several other incidents that R. fiend was involved in, however, should ArbCom wish to review this additional information, I invite them to review the evidence posted at theRfC on R.fiend‎ Throughout, R. fiend has refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong in most of the incidents above, stating that he thought folks were whining, and that most of his actions were fundamentally correct. He also says that he is a self-admitted "Snide Bastard" and that folks knew what they were getting when they passed his RfA, therefore this allows his behavior.

ArbCom should accept this case, review the incivility and use of his administrator rights and privileges, and determine if at least a temporary suspension of these rights, if not a permanent revocation of his administrator rights, is called for.

Statement by Alison

... to follow later today.

Statement by R. fiend

First off, I want to say that the recent spate of free time I've recently had that has allowed to me spent large amounts of time to editing and discussions at Misplaced Pages is drawing to a close, so I won't be able to devote as much time to this as I have to other things recently, nor will I be editing as regularly in general, for reasons not associated with AN/I, RfC or Arbcom.

Basically, I just want to say this. At the RfC, I clearly stated that I would refrain from obnoxious comments, show more restraint in article protection, and be more careful when blocking people. Other editors seem to have decided ahead of time that I am not going to do theses things. I just think it would make sense to put off an Arbcom until we see if they are right.

Thank you. That is all. -R. fiend (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Aatomic1

Item C Above

At least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this sysop and have failed. I cannot see evidence of this at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/R. fiend. Indeed I can also see evidence that no one noticed.

Aatomic1 (talk) 23:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there are three users who certified the RFC, and 24 more who agreed with the summation. Horologium (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Padraig

I'am disappointed that this has reached Arbcom, but giving R. fiend attitude in the RfC, I see no other way that this can now be resolved.--Padraig (talk) 23:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


Statement by Rjd0060

I'd just like to mention that it really is unfortunate that Arbitration has been requested, as we (myself and several others) have tried to resolve these matters elsewhere (ANI and RFC/U as mentioned above), however the lack of consideration and effort by R. fiend to resolve these issues leaves no other alternative. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jj137

I'm sure this has mainly already been said; this matter has gone from talk page → AN/I → RfC → and now ArbCom. I really didn't see any progress whatsoever until the RfC, and even so I don't think there was much. I think it is unfortunate it had to go this far, but it is probably the best way to go if this matter will ever be resolved. In the RfC, Brownhairgirl made a statement proposing R. fiend voluntarily remove his admin status and go back to RfA if he chooses; 16 users accepted the statement. I do not know whether that is the best course of action, but I think it is an option.   jj137 01:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

Principality of Sealand

Initiated by Onecanadasquarebishopsgate (talk) at 19:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Gene Poole

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Onecanadasquarebishopsgate

What began as a simple debate eventually became an argumentative dispute that eventually led to the dispute resolution process. I used Third opinion and Request for Comment - but Gene Poole would not cooperate, as can be seen here. After progress was made with the Request for Comment (which Gene Poole did not take part in), Gene Poole returned arguing that Sealand is a micronation. Other editors within the discussion page of Principality of Sealand consider Sealand a micronation, but Gene Poole is the only one that does not cooperate with dispute resolution.

It was clear now that because Gene Poole considers Sealand a micronation and I consider Sealand a sovereign state, there was, and still is, a dispute. But Gene poole became less and less cooperative. After the Third Opinion and Request for Comment, I decided to write on his discussion page (after he thought that I was a sockpuppet):

"On the same day as the above was posted I suggested using a solution that has been used for the past week with success (Note: this solution is to have a similar first pargraph to Empire of Atlantium). Maybe this could solve the problem?"

Gene Poole would not reply and after reminding him of the statement I wrote he deleted the reminders and called them trolling. He then wrote on Legal status of Sealand:

"There is no dispute about Sealand's legal status. A single-purpose editor is currently attempting to insinuate an unreferenced, strong pro-sovereignty position into a range of Sealand-related articles, and this appears to be one of them."

After that the dispute continued here, where he questioned my comprehension of the subject and my linguistic ability. I then decided to use Request for Mediation and placed this notice on his discussion page:

"Rather than continue with this absurd to-and-fro, perhaps you would agree to mediation.

I would like to see this dispute resolved, why not in a NPOV way?"

Gene Poole replied with this on my discussion page:

"The matter has only one possible resolution: you must comply fully and immediately with WP content policies by ceasing to promote a POV that is unsupported by either reliable third party sources or consensus. There is nothing to mediate, and nothing further to discuss."

He has refused to cooperate with dispute resolution, and another user (Cheeser1) is not pleased:

"I am not pleased that this person is not cooperating in dispute resolution."

This dispute needs to be resolved, but the purpose of this statement is for the following to happen:

  • Gene Poole needs to cooperate with the dispute resolution process so that a solution can be found.
  • Gene Poole needs to stop attacking user's opinions in an argument (particularly the Sealand is a sovereign state opinion), and instead support his own opinions in a debate.
  • Gene Poole needs to stop commenting on the contributor.

His history of sockpuppetry and attacking rather than discussing opinions have caused enough problems and this dispute needs to be resolved. Onecanadasquarebishopsgate (talk) 19:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by {party 2}

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

Extraordinary rendition by the United States

Ccson Ccson (talk) at 20:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Swatjester

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ccson

I have inserted text within the article and cited the World Policy Council as the source for the statements and their opinion. User Swatjester continues to remove the text because he feels the source is unreliable. I have shown the WPC is associated with a university, the WPC seek the advice of experts when needed, and I have consensus from other editors that the source is reliable for their opinion. I attempted cabal mediation, however, the user declined mediation and reverted again.

The opinion presented is the agreement of 9 persons whose background include a Senator, U.S. Ambassadors, U.S. Congressmen, College Presidents, Leaders of Churches and Foundations, and a professor at Ivy league universities.

Each person is highly regarded for their individual opinions and an agreement of the nine should be regarded more highly as a reliable source within wikipedia.

I hope the committee will accept this case and determine that the World Policy Council is a reliable source to cite within Misplaced Pages.

I wasn't aware that I was "forum shopping". I was following the suggested steps for dispute resolution. I'm surprised that Swatjester says that no time was given to develop this since he refused mediation so I interpreted this action that he didn't want to reach a truce even with the help of a neutral party. His response on the RSN board seems more like a scolding for the editors who decided the WPC was a reliable source. Becauuse Swatjester is an admin, I thought he woud respect the Misplaced Pages:BRD policy, however, the diffs shows that he restates his objections then reverts. I would also like to note that Swatjester has provided no reliable source for his continuing to revert other than his own personal knowledge of Alpha Phi Alpha and that he lives 3 blocks from Howard University where the World Policy Council was founded and based. I will wait to see if other users post on the RSN and seek the other options suggested such as 3rd opinion and RFC. thanks for your response.--Ccson (talk) 03:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kendrick7

Current use of this source fails WP:SOAP because no third party source is given which attests to the WP:Notability of this group's opinion.

This is a content dispute, and premature prior to filing a WP:RFC

Statement by Swatjester

Content dispute. Excessively rapid escalation with no time to develop. Mountain. Molehill. ⇒SWATJester 01:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

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Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0)

Palestine-Israel articles

Initiated by Ryan Postlethwaite at 17:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Jaakobou, PalestineRemembered, Tiamut, Eleland, Pedro Gonnet, ThuranX, Sulanda, CJCurrie, RolandR, Chesdovi, Armon, G-Dett, Itzse, Tewfik.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

The battles that are going on at Palestine/Israel articles are now getting out of hand and the community is no longer able to handle them. The history of Saeb Erekat is an ideal example of the problems we’re faced with here. Despite there being discussion on talk pages, the parties insist on edit warring with Jaakobou continually changing the article to his version – despite it being arguably a BLP violation (Jaakobou has basically been trying to label Erekat a liar). Other articles paint a similar picture (Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian, Palestinian Fedayeen, Second Intifada, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Allegations of Israeili apartheid, Islam: What the West Needs to Know, Media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Arab citizens of Israel, Pallywood (Note:This is not an exhaustive list)). What it boils down to is severe ownership issues from certain members of the dispute, and an unwillingness for parties to make compromises and stick with consensus. I realise there are no user RfC’s in this dispute, the problem is, who to create an RfC for? We’ve had many previous threads on AN/I about this, a previous arbitration case which was closed without action and now all parties seem resigned to getting their point across through edit warring and other disruption. A quick look at the block logs of a number of the participants show that they have no respect for some of our editing policies and guidelines. Any further efforts at attempting to stop the dispute other than arbitration are simply going to add gasoline to the fire and will act solely as a stepping stone to arbitration at a later date. I hope the arbitrators will accept this case to look at remedies including editing restrictions and/or article/topic probations. Ryan Postlethwaite 17:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by PalestineRemembered

  • Nobody need be intimidated by this case, because it's not really so complex. In my humble opinon, all the problems come down to just two factors:
  1. One or two semi-literate editors, who cannot process the information in front of them properly.
  2. Occasional cases of straight-forward cheating, deliberate insertion of falsehoods - or removing good material on frivolous grounds, to the severe aggravation of scholarly editors.
  • Neither of these problems are difficult to identify and score/judge. An easy first step would be an answer to the following:
  • Question to Jaakobou - have you ever operated any sock-puppet accounts, and, if so, have you operated them abusively? PR 19:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sm8900

Hi. this is Sm8900. I would like to add my input. i have been a frequent contributor to many discussions in these articles. sorry , but i do somewhat question the need for this arbitration. this request makes no specific statements as to what actually needs to be done or addressed. it's my understanding that Arbcom proceedings exist mainly to sanction other users. I have a concern about the wholesale nature of this proceeding. I would like to see more details about what needs to be addressed here.

I am concerned that starting a case like this might actually create greater conflict than the discussions which it would supposedly address. Sorry, I disagree with statements in the request; I feel that this community has been manifestly able to frequently have positive discussions. There are some articles where that has not been the case, but I feel that those should be addressed individually, not wholesale in a manner which invites the most minute problems and individual flaws to end up taking up most of the time and energy. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to PR

(please note, everyone; we are permitted to make customary subheadings like this for readability within our OWN text sections here. )
Hi PR. sorry if my text was incovenient. everything is fine with me in regard to this case, so please feel free to remove my comments if you wish. thanks very much for the helpful sentiment which you expressed. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
By the way, if anyone wishes to discuss this case informally, they may do so by going to this page. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

General comment.

I am greatly disturbed by the tone which is already emerging here. Since no specific article is the focus here, editors are already piling on allegations and counter-allegations of various misconduct. this is sort of inevitable, since ArbCom does not address content disputes, and can only address user conduct.

i would suggest that a slightly better route might be to focus on disputed articles individually, on a case by case basis. Going on this current route will only lead us into fuirther acrimony, and furthermore we may also find that nobody ends up with a useful resolution, because everybody is so involved in making allegations and counter-allegations. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry

I strongly encourage the committee to review editing patterns across a broad spectrum of articles here. We have factionalized editing occurring, and also individually problematic editors from both factions. I haven't been interested enough, nor willing enough to suffer the inevitable personal attacks consequent upon acting, to take a wholistic view and determine which editors Misplaced Pages would be better off without, if any, nor what other solutions would work. I believe there is a pattern of "edit war, page protected, change page to war over, don't discuss the original edit war" occurring. Some of this is a natural consequence of attending to a watchlist, some seems to reflect users who don't want to collaborate and/or create a NPOV article. As an example of the sorts of problems that are encountered routinely consider the following sets of protections on Nov 29 and Dec 5.

At the time I made the comments here, the named parties ended with Chesdovi
November 29, 2007
December 5, 2007

Statement by Kendrick7

I don't edit in this topic area as much as I used to; I hardly recognize the names of half the listed parties. But, I agree with Sm8900 that this could quickly devolve into a witch hunt which won't be good for anyone involved.

Insomuch as I can answer Kirill's question, the situation in Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more or less the same as every other part of the Misplaced Pages trying to cover an ongoing civil war. There is always a slow influx of zealous new editors on both sides, and either they learn the ropes in a few months or they don't. If they remain problematic -- and I admit to cringing a little when I saw Jaakobou had installed Twinkle -- then an RFC is a better first step. Meanwhile, occasionally an article gets enough neutral editors going on it at once, as I recall occurring lately with Palestinian exodus for example, and the quality of the category does slowly improve.

Update: Ah, I am now caught up per the AN/I thread and User:Jaakobou#Detwinkled. Glad I wasn't the only one cringing.

Reply to Eleland: The thinking is correct as there are two sides to this little chess game, and instead of an RFC on the behavior of particular editors individually, bringing this to ArbCom puts all the pieces into play. The AN/I thread comments regarding WP:KETTLE forebode the likely attempt by one side to sacrifice one editor in exchange for an editor of greater value on the other side.

Reply to ThuranX: Yes, I also don't understand why you'd be a party here; Ryan seems to have listed just a lot of people who commented in the AN/I.

Reply to Durova: I concur that other dispute resolution would be a better first step; the examples Ryan give above are either rather ancient or ongoing or not even dispute resolution per se. P.S. You shouldn't get upset at G-Dett's little poke in your belly -- it just wouldn't be a cabal without you!

Statement by MastCell

This probably ought to go to ArbCom since there are real problems here, and no admin who values his residual sanity would get involved in trying to resolve them given the prevailing atmosphere and history. The only suggestion I have is that, if this goes to Arbitration, an uninvolved party (clerk or Arbitrator) seriously needs to ride shotgun over the Workshop and discussion pages to prevent them from turning into yet another front on the WP:BATTLEfield. MastCell 18:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Eleland

I urge ArbCom to accept this request. While it stems primarily from good-faith content disputes, the manner in which these disputes have been conducted has been seriously disruptive across literally dozens of Misplaced Pages articles. Admins recognize the problem and the problem users, but generally don't go beyond brief 3RR blocks because the subject matter is so touchy, and they don't want to be seen as favouring one side. Actually, that's the problem here; we're clearly thinking in terms of sides. Normal dispute resolution has succeeded occasionally (the lists of Civilian casualties in the Second Intifada, finally removed from their politicized context as an Israeli-only List of massacres committed during the al-Aqsa Intifada, being a case in point) but more commonly failed miserably (Saeb Erekat, the never-resolved Battle of Jenin slugfest, etc, etc.) The buck has to stop somewhere, and ArbCom is it. <eleland/talkedits> 19:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, in addition, there may be some parties who ought to be named additionally. Offhand:
Armon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
G-Dett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Itzse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Tewfik (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
And surely others. <eleland/talkedits> 20:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tariqabjotu

I also strongly urge the Arbitration Committee to examine this case. Resolving this issue, or at least issuing remedies related to it, would go a long way to defusing the minefield that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and Middle East articles in general. I have not assessed the full situation, but every time my actions intersect with these articles, I see what appears to be an attitude a lá "I'm right, everyone else is wrong; thus, my edit-warring is okay (or actually not edit-warring at all) and everyone else is a disruptive POV warrior". Not good, to say the least. -- tariqabjotu 21:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I know I'm being pedantic here, but can we please reorder the entities in the name of this case, from "Palestine-Israel conflict" to "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", if/when it gets opened? The latter arrangement seems more customary both here on Misplaced Pages and elsewhere, and the former sounds awkward. -- tariqabjotu 21:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
P.P.S. I don't believe ThuranX (talk · contribs) and Chesdovi (talk · contribs) should be involved in this case. I'm also unsure about the involvement of G-Dett (talk · contribs), Itzse (talk · contribs), Suladna (talk · contribs), and Tewfik (talk · contribs). -- tariqabjotu 21:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to remind everyone that this is an RfArb on just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles. Please be cautious about adding new editors; ensure that their involvement is specifically in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict articles and not primarily in regard to disruption on other Middle Eastern articles (or elsewhere). Also, I do not believe every single person that has edited an article related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to be dragged into this arbitration case. Please use some discretion. -- tariqabjotu 12:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ThuranX

Not really sure why I'm considered an involved party. I watch AN/I and I like reading through some of the cases and chiming in when I think that wider community input is useful, or the opinion of a third party editor can help. I've got all of three article space edits to any of the relevant articles (two to The Palestinian Fedayeen, one to the definitions of Palestinian). I'm not particularly into edit warring about these articles, but I have acted in these few instances when I think I can help. One was corrected (the Def. of Palest-ine/ian), and the other two probably got lost in the edit warring there fast. For me, wider involvement in Misplaced Pages, via AN/I, has just been a way of expanding my awareness here, by getting me into new subject areas. Although it's possible some here think I've got a 'side' going because i happen to be Jewish, not the case. I've been reading the cases and reviewing them, and anyone who looks at my contribs to AN/I will see I kibbitz in lots of cases, sometimes to some particular help, other times, it goes silently ignored. Either way, fine by me. I've got no particular interest in this entire situation beyond being frustrated watching the project resources being squandered on the cyclical fighting, and in noting who I think has been responsible for violations of policy and creating problems. Do I have opinions about the topic? yes. I keep them out of the cited facts, because frankly, I suspect most of the editors of these articles write more from personal assumptions and POV, and I'd rather see cited facts I disagree with than not. Cited facts make me rethink my own attitudes.) Do I have opinions about who is at fault here? Yes, and they're already stated in the relevant AN/I threads about Jaakobou and Eleland. In summary, no clue why I'm here, not an edit warrior on here, just an uninvolved third party. ThuranX (talk) 21:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Durova

Jaakobou has undertaken mentorship with me. This mentorship regards Misplaced Pages policies only, not the related content dispute. He tells me he wishes to pursue other dispute resolution at this time. Arbitration in general is a last resort, and I ask in good faith for the other parties to consider whether a brokered solution would be feasible.

I am neutral regarding the underlying conflict and, I hope, sufficiently respectful of both sides. About two years ago I started a short article on a Judaism-related topic and at present I'm doing a little bit of editing that relates to uncontroversial parts of Palestinian social history. Durova 21:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

G-Dett, please strikethrough that insinuation regaring me. It's very bad faith and treads on the margins of a personal attack. Durova 23:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Yikes, Durova! I'm not sure how the wires got crossed, but...that was a straight suggestion, not a sarcastic insinuation. Sure, we've clashed briefly a couple of times, but I regard you as very even-handed on ME pages and related issues. There was a mediation way back about whether Misplaced Pages should report with a straight face something that Juan Cole said about himself in wry self-deprecation, and two partisan editors were locked in what appeared to be mortal combat, and if I remember right you were stern and effective. I was trying to think who would be a good foil to HG on my proposed 'cabal', someone who could be bad cop if necessary but had no ideological dog in the fight, and I thought of you.--G-Dett (talk) 00:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Apologies, I misunderstood. Please bear in mind that pretty much everyone in this dispute understands the content side in much greater depth than I do. So while I'd gladly interact with anyone as a neutral party regarding wiki policies and practices, I'm also reticent to scale up my involvement more than it already is. I'm posting here to affirm that Jaakobou is taking proactive steps and endeavoring to adapt to site standards. Durova 05:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by G-Dett

I'm glad this has been brought forward; many thanks to Ryan for doing so. Two other editors who might be included here are 6SJ7 and of course Jayjg.

I have two suggestions and will keep them both brief. One is that User:HG be included somehow. He is a very unusual editor in that he's widely trusted by both sides. I'm sure he has real-life views but they are no more detectable in his Misplaced Pages presence than is his body odor. He seems to be drawn to resolving intractable debates, as if they were 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles and he some kind of savant.

Ideally we could have a mini-cabal but frankly I don't know who else would be on it (Durova?). Part of HG's success has been that he never tells anyone they're talking balderdash, even when they are; he's more of a facilitator of mildly Socratic dialogue. There are many other intelligent and non-aligned editors, who however through very occasional and understandable flashes of intellectual impatience have been branded partisan.

My second suggestion is that we have some sort of moderated ME-related forum where inter-article balance issues could be discussed as they arise, and loose working principles formulated. There are certain policy-interpretation memes that come up regularly in editing disputes, and even when they're semi-resolved there's no take-away. I know "other stuff" isn't supposed to exist on Misplaced Pages, but it certainly does exist on ME pages, and the fact that we're not supposed to talk about it has just forced it underground into "strategy," often of a passive-aggressive sort.--G-Dett (talk) 22:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CJCurrie

Arbcomm intervention on this file is long overdue. The controversies on pages having to do with Israel/Palestine can no longer be described as simply "content disputes"; many of these pages have become completely dysfunctional, due in large part to the reasons identified by Ryan and others.

Further comments:

  • The list of involved participants seems to have been chosen in an arbitrary fashion. User:Jayjg strikes me the most noteworthy omission, though I'm certain that others have been left out as well.
  • I would recommend that this ArbComm case be restructured so as to encompass pages that do not specifically address the Israel/Palestine conflict, but rather address related matters and involve many of the same participants. New antisemitism strikes me as a particularly relevant example, in light of ongoing discussions on its talk page.
  • I do not accept Ryan's assertion that "all parties seem resigned to getting their point across through edit warring and other disruption". While it's undeniably true that both "sides" in this dispute are guilty of edit-warring, there are some participants who have tried to persuade "the other side" with rational arguments ... the difficulty is that this approach seldom leads to discernable results.
  • While it may prove necessary to admonish or sanction certain editors for their behaviour on these pages, this will not solve the underlying problem. It could even be counter-productive, if editors who are not sanctioned (or like-minded editors who are not named in this particular RfA) continue the larger pattern of tendentious editing once arbitration is finished. Misplaced Pages's articles on Israel/Palestine have been an embarrassment for some time, in no small part because meaningful debate on substantive editing issues has become almost impossible. We need is method of ensuring that future disputes can be resolved in an open and civil manner -- anything short of this will just be window dressing on one of the project's most serious problems. (The suggestion of appointing an ombudsman has its advantages, though I wonder if this task could prove too large for any one editor to take.)

CJCurrie (talk) 00:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC), with 02:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Please allow me to reiterate my view that this RfA should be expanded to address relevant articles that do not specifically address the Israel/Palestine conflict, and should address the larger problem of a poisoned atmosphere on all of these pages.
If this RfA only addresses issues of behaviour on a small number of pages, I'm quite concerned that it could (i) selectively punish some participants while allowing equally culpable parties in the larger dispute to escape sanction, (ii) further poison the atmosphere on these pages by creating the appearance of selective prosecution, and (iii) do nothing to resolve the larger and more pressing problem of factionalism on these pages.
By the way, I think 6SJ7 has raised an interesting point regarding the time frame. I'm a bit concerned that this RfA could have the unintended consequence of allowing tendentious editors who've kept a low profile in recent months, but were prominently involved in past POV disputes, to re-emerge if and when restrictions are placed on their "opponents". I don't believe this (plausible, if remote) turn of events would create either the appearance or reality of fairness.
To improve the quality of these pages, this RfA must take a proactive role in establishing terms of behaviour for articles on Middle East issues. We don't need to examine every dispute, but we most certainly do need to ensure the situation on these pages improves. User:Sm8900's "general comment" was well-intentioned, but I fear it his/her remedy would take this process in entirely the wrong direction, and focus on minutiae rather than the bigger picture. CJCurrie (talk) 23:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ChrisO

I strongly support this request for arbitration. I only rarely edit Middle Eastern-related articles, for exactly the reasons that MastCell alludes to in his statement above. However, I've kept an eye on a number of editors and articles for some time, and I can confirm that there is indeed a serious and systematic problem in this topic area. I'd like to offer a few observations for the arbitrators:

  • The class of affected articles is potentially very large - essentially all Middle Eastern articles, plus those on Jewish and Muslim-related topics, though I should emphasize that the number of articles being disputed at any one time is much more limited.
  • The problem has its roots in the behaviour of a relatively small number of editors whose primary interest is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Action against some of these editors (which will likely require topic or site bans) will help in part, but the topic areas are also likely to need placing under article probation (cf. Macedonia, Armenia-Azerbaijan). I suggest that parties should look to Misplaced Pages:General sanctions for relevant precedent in proposing remedies. A number of editors have been involved in straightforward violations of editing and conduct policies - for instance, episodes such as Jaakobou's recent edit warring to re-insert properly removed BLP violations, abuse of editing tools and other willful policy violations that led to this arbitration request in the first place. Such misconduct is relatively easy to identify and should result in those responsible being sanctioned.
  • The harder question is what to do about the underlying problem in this topic area - the existence of blocs of partisan editors who use Misplaced Pages as a battlefield to campaign for their causes. The problem with Middle Eastern articles isn't only a matter of misconduct by individual editors; it has its roots in mutual hostilities that exist off-wiki and have been transported here en masse. The result is a poisonous atmosphere characterised by antagonism, aggressive behaviour and mutual distrust. There needs to be a change in editing culture on these articles, not just conduct. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Pedro Gonnet

I am listed as a party to the edit-war on Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My last edit to the page (here) or to the talk page (here) predate the page-protection by 12 and 14 days respectively, which makes me an unlikely candidate for that war (I am, however, involved in Gilad Shalit, where a nice solution was found, and on Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt, which went stale). The discussions on that Talk:Israeli-Palestinian conflict (the wildest one is regarding the use of the term "occupied" when referring to the Israeli-occupied territories) are symptomatic of the way certain editors work: insert POV/unsourced/tendentious material or delete sourced material, start a revert war, call for an RfC, flame anybody who participates in it, drop out of the discussion and when a compromise is reached between other editors, block and/or ignore it.

As I have mentioned on the WP:AN/I thread, this is not about a content dispute, but about the willingness to start literally hundreds of content disputes based on bogus material, simply to deadlock or seriously degrade most -- if not all -- articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main protagonists are not interested in verifiability, NPOV, avoiding undue weight and such, but in inserting their own, generally anti-Palestinian WP:POV at any cost. For these editors , there is never a compromise, never a mutually agreed solution and as such, never an end to an edit-war.

As you may have guessed, my main problem is with User:Jaakobou, with whom I have locked horns on several occasions. I have yet to see him end an edit-war, accept a compromise or back down from any of his positions or edits. This is not about tough discussions -- I have had many with User:GHcool and User:Sm8900 and in most cases reached a solution and/or compromise, of which I am somewhat proud -- but about fruitless discussions being used as a mere pretext to drag an issue on an wear out all participants. This kind of behaviour is extremely disruptive, time-consuming and just plain annoying -- and does not contribute to the encyclopaedia.

Please, accept this RfA so that we can all get back to normal editing. pedro gonnet - talk - 09.01.2008 08:02

Statement by Uninvolved CarolMooreDC

While happily I'm not named above! - and this is NOT my primary area of editing interest (except last couple days!) - I have observed the problems on some of the pages mentioned above, as well as on Carlos Latuff (where there is an absurd on going editing war I don't much get involved in); on Samson Option (where any attempt to mention the controversial things said about the Samson Option by Israel leaders and supporters was repeatedly deleted, no matter how well sourced, even when placed in a "controversies" section); and on Jewish Lobby (refusal to allow there to be ANY mention of NON-antisemitic use of the phrase Jewish Lobby, even though many prominent uses of the phrase are by Jews and/or mainstream publications and/or are NOT antisemitic).

Having just started intensely editing in last 6-8 months, I confess I have sometimes lost my temper and ranted and even made a couple personal attacks, but I'm learning how to use to the process instead! :-) Yes, it has taken me longer than it should to really read and re-read and understand the Wiki Pillars, but the more I understand them, the more outraged I become at the behavior of these editors. See my most recent complaining entry attempting to get NPOV version of page. At the end of it I list multiple violations of WP:NPOV from the tutorial.

Besides whatever steps Arbitrators might take, I really think wikipedia needs a neutral AND courageous Ombudsman just for the Israel-Palestine and related issues to keep people in line with the wikipedia process.

An additional idea: I noticed that Misplaced Pages:Naming_convention has manuals of styles for several nations. Maybe there should be a "Israel-Palestine" manual of style, or maybe one on Arab/Muslim/Jewish issues, to set up some guidelines -though there'd be a massive debate on creating that!

Also, I agree that User_talk:Jayjg should be added to the list of problematic editors on this topic. Carol Moore 02:36, 9 January 2008 (UTC)CarolMooreDC talk

Statement by RomaC

I am relieved to see that this issue is being addressed. I was happily contributing in many areas of Wiki until I tried to edit a picture caption at Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and came across a stubbornly persistent Jaakabou. I am currently working to add recently-released casualty figures to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict article, and again I see what seems a coordinated effort by some editors to control content, with open talk about "sides," referring not to the subjects of the article, but to the editors themselves. This is a serious threat to Wiki. I would suggest interested parties also consider looking at some of the activity in our little edit war, I know Timeshifter for one has already studied the problem and made an interesting exposition on his user page. Good luck! RomaC (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CasualObserver'48

Sigh of relief, I am happy, ecstatic, naively optimistic and very much appreciate the decision to accept. You will need the wisdom of Solomon and I wish you luck. It is long overdue; much longer that I have been around Misplaced Pages or on the Internet (Sept07). That said, I have already been labled as being on one of the ‘sides’, but only on the talkpages, not on edits (largely because I’m still learning to Be Bold. My POV is Pro-MidEast Peace, although a good friend of mine termed it the ultimate oxymoron, and even I consider that it is pushing the limits of the Serenity Prayer. I look at the I-P conflict situation from a civil/human rights perspective and, therefore my bias tends to be pro-Palestinian, but my support for Israel is based on, well, Biblical proportions. The admins will decide what they decide and I hope to be helpful along the way, but that is well over my head. Most of the heavily involved users with whom I am familiar are included above, although I could name a few more, if asked.

As pointed out in other’s statements above, I too feel that a broad range of topics with content disputes should be included and an ombudsman might be helpfull. I also believe for Misplaced Pages to gain more credibility, the systematic bias with respect to this subject must be addressed. More critically for Misplaced Pages viability is to address the issues noted here and to that I’ll add CAMERA and it’s multitude of talk-alikes, Hasbara and, for those computer literate types Megaphone. The import of these on NPOV should not be discounted. CasualObserver'48 (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC) So, why is it Red?

Statement by RolandR

I welcome the fact that ArbCom is to look at this area, and I hope that they will come up with some helpful guidelines. In particular, I support the suggestion by CarolMooreDC above for a style guide or naming convention. As Pedro Gonnet notes, there is constant dispute over the use of the term "occupied" to describe the territories which came under Israeli rule in 1967. There are also disputes over the term "guerilla"/"terrorist", over the placing of an "Antisemitism" category tag on many articles, and other similar issues. This could all usefully be addressed.

However, I question my own inclusion, and indeed that of most editors named above (including some with whom I have clashed in the past), on this list. The problem is not, in most cases, the individual editors, but the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the absence of clear guidelines here. Some of us may have been guilty of occasional tendentious editing, and there is one editor above whom I have recently accused of incivility; but these are issues which can be -- and indeed are being -- dealt with by regular procedures. They do not amount to disruptive editing, and do not in themselves require the involvement of ArbCom.

If there is to be a named list of editors to be looked at by ArbCom, then there are several more who should be included. For a start:

Amoruso (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Andyvphil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Screen stalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Zeq (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Hertz1888 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
6SJ7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

and I'm sure there are many more. If Isarig was not currently under a one-year topic ban, he also would be included. In short, it is invidious to pick out just the editors named above, since there are countless others acting in a very similar manner.

Having said that, I do think that there should be a specific inquiry into the behaviour of Jaakobou, identified by several editors above and elsewhere as a particularly problematic and uncooperative editor. My history with him includes an ANI regarding his use of racist language and another following his posting of libellous comments about me on a talk page. On that occasion, Jaakobou so thoroughly angered other editors (not previously involved in this area) that he was extremely lucky to avoid a lengthy community block. RolandR (talk) 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvited Number 57

I would also strongly urge the arbitration committee to look at this case. As possibly the largest single contributor to articles on Israeli politics, I have come across almost all the editors listed in this case (hence listing myself as uninvited rather than uninvolved), and I am thoroughly sick of the endless disputes which a number of them create and prolong. Unfortunately for the project, whenever an edit by at least five of the editors listed above comes up on any of the 500+ articles on my watchlist, I know that in the vast majority of cases (for two of the editors the figure is 100%) that edit will not conform to WP:NPOV.

Unfortunately my past attempts to diffuse situations and correct POV have led to me being labelled as a POV pusher by both sides, but particularly by the pro-Israelis (possibly because I tend to stick to articles on domestic Israeli topics rather than Israeli-Palestinian ones, and pro-Palestinian editors are not common in that sphere). This has meant that despite being well-placed to do so, I am now effectively hamstrung from carrying out administrative actions against the numerous violations of policy carried out by many of the editors listed above. I hope that a thorough investigation may allow me more room to take prompt action against both sides in the future.

In addition, I would also support adding User:GHcool and User:Beit Or to this case, as they are both involved in reverting on some of the articles listed above. пﮟოьεԻ 57 11:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jaakobou

My own conduct hasn't been ideal, I realize and I took upon myself to change my editing habits since my recent block (arguing on a number of articles and 3RR breach on one of them) and have obtained mentorship to address that and help diffuse problematic cases.

I ask the committee to defer arbitration at this time in favor of some communal observation resolutions/declaration of intent.

I also believe there is a serious need for formal mediation on Second Intifada and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I believe full blown arbitration should always be a last resort and that my suggestions will help everyone involved to improve their policy understanding and conduct and will also open the door for new editors who'd be kicked out in the current state of affairs. Jaakobou 11:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If the Committee does decide to accept this case, then I request that the following names be added to the list - Nishidani, Stingray86, NSH001, Sanguinalis, Gatoclass, Timeshifter, Ian Pitchford, Nickhh, ChrisO, Abu_Ali, Paul kuiper NL, Timb0h, RomaC, Editor54321, JaapBoBo, Burgas00, Bless sins, Liftarn, and 70.109.223.188, who are certainly involved in these conflicts as much as anyone else, and some moreso than the listed or suggested parties.
My apologies if I forgot someone. Jaakobou 18:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tiamut

First off, I would like to thank Ryan Postlewaithe for being bringing this case to the attention of Arbcomm. The problems besetting Palestine-Israel articles are chronic, long-term problems that have not received the attention required to resolve them.

I second Number 57's suggestion that Beit Or (talk · contribs) be added to the list and the suggestion of other editors above that Jayjg (talk · contribs) also be included. The former has a habit of pile-on reverting and even wikistalked me to five different articles one day, just to revert my additions. (See related discussion here, here, and here). The latter, while having taken a brief sabbatical between August and November, was (and still is) deeply involved in editing Palestine-Israel articles, and as an admin, set the example to many of us on how to approach editing at such articles (for better or worse - arbcomm can decide that). Though his involvement is recent, I would also add Eternalsleeper (talk · contribs) here as well, since he jumped into the dispute at Second Intifada to drive-by revert twice, before even engaging in any discussion.

Having learned a lot over the last year and half about Misplaced Pages policies, I like to think that the quality of my editing contributions and my ability to work with others with vastly differing viewpoints has greatly improved. This is of course not true across the board. There are some editors who engage in tendentious and disruptive editing with whom I have not been able to construct a satisfactory, collaborative editing relationship. I often get the sense that the goal of these editors is simply to disrupt a page where sourced edits representing a viewpoint they don't like are being added, until the page is protected and no further additions can be made.

Regarding my own block log, I have been blocked four times for 3RR. The first block was placed SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) for editing at Arab citizens of Israel, where in the midst of multi-participant edit war over how (or for some whether) to include a piece of sourced information regarding the status of Palestinians in Israel as an "indigenous people", involving many of the editors listed here, Isarig reported me for 3RR and I was blocked. Many fellow editors took issue with the block, which they believed was unfair, given my involvement in discussion in the talk page and the attempt in my edits to find alternate phraseology acceptable to everyone. The subsequent two blocks were placed after reports filed (again) by Isarig (who in all three cases was edit-warring with me at the time, but was not himself sanctioned). These two were lifted before they expired after Isarig's own history of edit-warring was brought to the attention of admins by other editors. It was around this time that I began to see how detrimental edit warring was to the project. I am certainly not making excuses for my behaviour, only outlining an evolution. The last block was placed by Tariqabjotu (talk · contribs) after I filed a report against Egyegy (talk · contribs). While I had not violated 3RR and had not lowered myself to responding to Egygey uncivil and personal attacks on me, I admit that I was edit warring, and Tariqabjotu blocked me for a lengthy period. The block was overturned by Mangojuice (talk · contribs) long before it expired after I recognized that fact. (Note that Tariqabjotu refused to lift the block when I requested that he do so by email). That was my last block (in September 2007) and I have had no blocks since.

I do try to avoid edit-warring. It is however, deeply challenging. Particularly when you spend days working to add reliable sourced and relevant scholarly material to an article, only to have someone come by and mass blank your additions, and then have someone else come and drive-by revert them away again after they are restored by you or others. I think Arbcomm needs to know that this is not about a content dispute. It's about a style of editing that centers on disruption to do away with facts that cannot argued away. It's about some editors letting WP:IDONTLIKEIT be the key determinant to whether an addition remains in an article, rather than adibing by core Wiki policies like WP:NPOV and WP:CONSENSUS. I don't think I am one of those editors. Though I do have a strong POV on the issues which no doubt influences what information I add to these articles, I do try to be self-conscious about it and I don't delete relevant reliably sourced information representing opposing viewpoints, even when I think it's a total load of crap.

I think the arbcomm should focus on identifying specific behaviours that are unhelpful here (e.g. drive-by reverting to delete sourced material without sufficient engagement in talk) and the editors who use them. Without a specific work agenda here, this arbcomm is likely to end up unfocused and end without resolving anything (as did the previous one on Allegations of Israeli apartheid). Tiamut 12:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

PS. Regarding Tariqabjotu's statement that Tewfik (talk · contribs) (among others) shouldn't be lsited in this case, I have to disagree (about tewfik specificially). Tewfik regularly engages in the kind of behaviour I have described above. His mass blanking of material Second Intifada after one version enjoyed stability for two weeks, prompted a series of edit wars that led to the page being protected. In my opinion and that of other editors at the page, he did not sufficiently explain these edits. Tiamut 12:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by 6SJ7

I have to agree with Sm8900's "General Comment." There may be something for the ArbComm to accept in Ryan's initial "example", in which he specifies what a few specific editors did in a few specific articles. After that, Ryan identifies a few other articles, but with no specifics about what events concerning those articles might require arbitration. And in the comments of some subsequent editors, this potential arbitration case has taken on a life of its own. It would not be a particularly happy life, either for the parties, potential parties, the arbitrators or anyone else. If the committee accepts this case without specifically limiting what the case is about, the case is potentially going to be about every dispute that has occurred among dozens of editors on dozens of articles. I wouldn't be surprised if 150 or more editors are "named" before this is all over. And how far back does this go? All Israel- or Palestinian-related articles (and antisemitism-related articles? and other religion-related articles?) for the past six months? A year? Three years? Five years? And what kind of disputes are we talking about? I have already seen mentions of articles that would involve the ArbComm in content disputes, but I know that the ArbComm does not accept those. I hope that the arbitrators, if they accept this case, will tell the rest of us what it is about. Otherwise, this is going to become one big, ugly, nasty, confused and contentious scene, and it isn't going to produce anything good for anyone. 6SJ7 (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Parties, please don't edit each others' sections. Dialog is usually less effective than making a clear and concise presentation of why Arbitration is needed to handle this dispute. PalestineRemembered, you may add additional parties by adding their names above, notifying them on their talk page, and putting a diff of the notification in the confirmation section. Thatcher 18:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Four votes to open noted. Will be opened late January 10 (UTC). Daniel (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

  • Accept, primarily to consider the overall situation in this topic area. Kirill 17:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept per Kirill. -- FayssalF - 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept to look out the best way to handle heated conflicts related to this topic and examine involved parties disruptive conduct. FloNight (talk) 16:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Accept. There's no doubt this case must be accepted but the scope needs to be kept fairly tightly defined and this case has already started to sprawl. The decision is not going to have any effect on the balance of views present in articles about the Israel/Palestine conflict. The committee will only be looking at user conduct issues. The wide number of users involved is likely either to make this case among the most protracted ever seen, or to a deliberate decision to pass enforcement to uninvolved admins. The latter is the more likely. Can I make a plea for brevity in the evidence? Generally the pithier a submission, the more impact it makes. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Elvis Presley / Onefortyone

Initiated by Steve Pastor (talk) at 16:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Onefortyone Rikstar Northmeister LaraLove Maria202 Jaye9

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Several editors have made heroic attempts to work with OneFortyOne. All editors who have tried to do this have thrown their hands up in frustration, as can be noted by the comments of the editors who have joined in this request.

Statement by Steve Pastor

Comments by the combined editors of the Elvis Presley article should suffice to substantiate the following request

that user OneFortyOne be permanently banned from editing the Elvis Presley article, including the Discussion page. Furthermore I request that OneFortyOne be banned from editing any article with a mention of Elvis Presley, including, but not limited to, the Milton Berle Show, Steve Allen, The Steve Allen Show, Ed Sullivan, and The Ed Sullivan Show articles.

This has been a long term pernicious problem. As Rikstar has written, 141 "knows how to play the edit warring game without getting into obvious trouble, his posts beg to be answered ... and this has been as tiresome as it has been unproductive". It should be noted that 141 brings up the same previously rejected arguments and material over and over again.

OneForty One has been banned previously. You may wish to review the following pages: , , .

The following are remarks are from on the Discussion page of the Elvis Presley article:

Disruptive editing. 141 continues to edit this article unilaterally, making little or no effort to co-operate with others. 141 was asked to leave my last edits for others to consider and comment on. He did not. 141 was asked to justify his accusations of fan bias in later sections on these pages first. He did not, and has gone ahead and made changes. It was explained in detail above that 141's edits regarding guitar playing didn't work and that the citation was incomplete. He reverted the changes I subsequently made and it remains a poor read and poorly cited. 141 has been asked if his intention is to make this an article of GA or FA status: no comment. 141 is refusing to allow any of his precious edits to be removed, inspite of article length, and the good will of others in removing or allowing the removal of their own contributions. Rikstar 12:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

We've approached a point where regardless of efforts to include onefortyones edits within the summary style of Misplaced Pages, and despite concessions to him; this editor continues to spoil any effort to bring improvement to the article so that it may become among the best at Misplaced Pages and receive feature status. Numerous editors thus far including yourself and tireless Rikstar have improve this article substantially. I would hate to see it all ruined by one editor who is not getting the point of our efforts nor Misplaced Pages WP:Point. It is time this matter is resolved by outside parties. --Northmeister 01:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This article has been degraded enough. Too much time and hard work has gone to waste. This article has great potential to be an FA. Currently, it can't even keep GA. It's time to fix the issues that ail this article. Lara❤Love 17:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

It pains me to see what one user, 141, has done to this article. I watched many others work very hard on getting it to FA status. Maria202 (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So much of the "current controversy" occurs because one particular user (guess) keeps trying to own this article, and the Talk Page. I'm in favor of taking it to arbitration, or even having him banned for his behavior in and about this article and Talk. It's a shame that this user has made such a mess of this page with his obsessive blather that the page is sinking into a swamp of user despair. Hoserjoe (talk) 00:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC) To Steve Pastor add me to your list, please.--Jaye9 (talk) 15:04, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I will add my own comments:

If I thought it would make a difference to 141, I would go through the archeives and repeat the arguments that have been made by other editors as to why this material does not belong in this article. Since 141 has been unable or unwilling to understand, or accept any other viewpoints on this subject, that exercise would be pointless. Steve Pastor (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Rikstar has by far put the most effort into this article, and provided these additional comments.

I posted my worries about improving the Elvis article on Dec. 8, 2006 - my comment is still in the summary of FA/GA submissions. My concerns actually referred to the involvement of one user, Onefortyone, though I did not mention him by name. His history already indicated that he had an alarming and persistent preoccupation with negative and sexually biased material, something not reflected in other encyclopedic articles. I noted he had at times been banned/committed violations.

By May, 2007, I was being actively encouraged by user Northmeister to edit (he has since given up) because of other editors' concerns about the state of the article; the lack of progress seemed tied to article length, trivia, fan bias, structure and to 141's continued involvement. In the last 6 months, I have tried to improve the article but I have felt regularly frustrated by 141's talk, edits, reverts, ignoring consensus and general tactics that lead me to seriously believe he has some kind of agenda to be disruptive and/or to have his POV included at any cost. His posting of a list of miswritten lyrics implying Presley was gay was as perplexing as it was disturbing. Responding to his claims, new submissions, etc. has taken up more time and effort than with any other user, and the payback has been negligible.

141 is shrewd: he knows how to play the edit warring game without getting into obvious trouble, his posts beg to be answered if only not to give his claims undue weight, and this has been as tiresome as it has been unproductive. I hope that my own posts on the talk pages will give sufficient details about the specific objections I and others have had to 141's editing behavior, and that they will be seen as fair and as objective as possible. It should be noted however that the frustration over many hours of discussion/arguing with 141 alone has pushed me to the point where I have felt physically repelled at the thought of doing any more editing, period. I have stretched my patience to its limit trying to negotiate with/accommodate/tolerate 141, to ignore his rehashing of stale tactics/arguments. However, the evidence is there, I think, that this and other articles will never improve as they should with his continued involvement. I also believe he has scared off too many people who could help make this a featured article. And I may well be another casuality. Rikstar (talk) 21:53, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional statement by Onefortyone concerning false claims by Steve Pastor

Here are some false claims made by Steve Pastor in his statement above:

  • "141 continues to edit this article unilaterally, making little or no effort to co-operate with others."
This is not true, as the discussion page shows and my efforts in order to shorten longer versions of specific paragraphs previously written by me prove. See , . See also and , , . However, if some users removed entire, well-sourced paragraphs, I did not agree, which I hope is understandable. In these cases I tried to reinclude the deleted material in the original form or, alternatively, in revised, abridged form. It should be noted that others also reverted such edits. See , , , .
  • "141 was asked to justify his accusations of fan bias in later sections on these pages first. He did not..."
I did. See , , , , etc.
  • "It was explained in detail above that 141's edits regarding guitar playing didn't work and that the citation was incomplete. He reverted the changes I subsequently made and it remains a poor read and poorly cited."
For my response, see , where I have demonstrated that Steve Pastor's edits regarding guitar playing "suggests that Elvis's music was accepted from the beginning by the majority of listeners. But this isn't true," as the sources I have provided show. The said passage has been reworded by me and Rikstar several weeks ago and it is now a good read.
  • "141 has been asked if his intention is to make this an article of GA or FA status: no comment."
This is also a false claim. For my statements that I am willing to help to make Elvis Presley an article of GA or FA status, see , , .
  • 141 is refusing to allow any of his precious edits to be removed.
This is not true. For example, when Rikstar shortened this section, I did not revert it to the previous, much longer version written by me. In many other cases, I accepted edits by others, as the contribution history of the Elvis article clearly shows.

So much for Steve Pastor's false claims.

Statement by Onefortyone

It's interesting that User:Steve Pastor requests a ban in view of his biased removals of well-sourced, critical information and inclusion of fan-oriented material in Elvis-related articles.

To my mind, the whole thing is simply a content dispute concerning Elvis-related topics. Pastor seems to be primarily interested in removing critical information and including material mentioning "that some of Elvis's greatest assets were his youth and good looks." And he adds, "I have several sources (my favorite is a BB King statement, which can be seen on dvd) that he tought Elvis would be popular whether he could sing or not." See .

It should be further noted that most editors who have joined in Steve Pastor's request are acknowledged fans of Elvis Presley.

  • Northmeister says on his user page, "I've been a lifelong fan of Elvis Presley even though he passed away in my very early years." See .
  • LaraLove says, "I am an Elvis fan, but of his music and look, not so much his life and how he lived it." See .
  • Jaye9 says, "Oh by the way 141, I am an Elvis Fan..." See . This could suggest that they may be interested in excluding more critical material from the Elvis article.

See also these four edits by Pastor of May 2007: , , , . Furthermore, which contributions to The Ed Sullivan Show are more encyclopedic? This one and this one by Steve Pastor or that one and that one by Onefortyone?

In the past, User:Steve Pastor repeatedly removed content he didn't like from the Elvis page. See , , , , , , , , , , , , , etc. etc.

What is more, Steve Pastor frequently includes references to specific fan sites and DVDs in Misplaced Pages articles. See , , , , , , , , , , , , . Other users had also a suspicion that the hyperlinks Steve Pastor prefers seem "designed primarily to sell CDs." See , . This inclusion of references to Elvis fan sites, DVDs etc., which is not in line with Misplaced Pages policies, may indicate that Pastor is part of an Elvis fan group and may therefore be an editor who has a conflict of interest.

Concerning the well-sourced material I have used for my contributions, Steve Pastor writes:

  • I think we need to keep in mind that many of the people who wrote about Elvis were writing books. Much of what they write is opinion and doesn't need to be repeated here. See .
  • We no longer have to rely on second hand accounts of many things. We also no longer have to rely on someone elses account of what the music sounds like with the availablity of samples. See

Third-party users seem to agree with my edits:

  • "The article seems a bit too fan influenced. I wish that some of the input by Onefortyone (biased though he may or may not be) got more air time. Elvis was wonderful, but an encyclopedia article, especially a wikipedia article should be brutally honest." See .
  • "Elvis was a controversial figure. His sexuality, drug taking, divorce, eating disorders etc etc all attract differing points of view. To some he was a god; to others a fat bloke who died on the toilet. For many aspects of his life there is no definitive answer. ... To attempt to compromise, this article needs to show both sides with suitable references and let the reader decide." See .
  • "Onefortyone presents well documented information on a lot of negative aspects of Elvis` life and it gets continually edited out. Let the truth be heard, you inane fanboys." See .

Here are some other commentaries concerning my contributions:

  • ... If the Presley article is so POV and controlled by biased Elvis fans as you claim, then feel free to make all the edits you like. They seem to wasted just appearing on the talk page. You are obviously intelligent, erudite and can write excellent prose that is unimpeachably cited. Other people are freely editing the article, so why don't you? See
  • I like your recent compromise. It shows we can work together and that you understand my concerns. I moved the later material to 1968 comeback to fit better in the article. In this way we can work towards your concerns. See
  • A Resilient Barnstar for learning and improving from criticisms, and not letting mistakes or blunders impede your growth as Wikipedian. I'm really impressed. See

As far as I can see, I am the only editor who frequently cites his sources, among them mainstream Elvis biographies, essays by reputed Elvis experts, books by people who knew Elvis and peer-reviewed studies published by university presses. For the many sources I have used for my contributions, see .

Significantly, my opponents now endeavor to remove exactly the same sourced information that my former opponents had removed, who are banned by former arbcom decisions. To my mind, Steve Pastor and some new sockpuppets of Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabbadoo are still edit warring with me, as multiple hardbanned User:Ted Wilkes alias User:DW and banned User:Lochdale did in the past. Onefortyone (talk) 22:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Jehochman

You have claimed, "Onefortyone appears to have been in persistent conflict since at least May 2007..." and "I believe Onefortyone has significantly impeded development of the article, based on the statements of involved parties." If you look at the contribution history, you will find that I didn't touch the Elvis article between May 19 and August 27, 2007. As there was a permanent edit war in the past, I didn't revert any removals by other users for months in order to show good faith. This means that there was plenty of time for my opponents to develop the article, and they changed a lot. However, there was a discussion on the talk page, as my opponents frequently removed sourced content that was not in line with their personal opinion. In August, Rikstar said on the talk page, "...feel free to make all the edits you like. They seem to wasted just appearing on the talk page. You are obviously intelligent, erudite and can write excellent prose that is unimpeachably cited. Other people are freely editing the article, so why don't you?" See . So I returned. The edit war started again with this edit by Northmeister, who, as usual, removed well-sourced information from the article page. Furthermore, if you look at the Elvis article in its present state from a neutral point of view, is it really such a mess as my opponents claim? Onefortyone (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to LaraLove

I think I have shown on the talk page that the claims by Jaye9, perhaps a newly created sockpuppet of one of my former opponents (see his contribution history), are unjustified. Jaye9 even made false claims concerning Elvis's father, Vernon, and his stepmother, Dee Presley, on the talk page similar to the claims made by banned user Lochdale, who even added this false information to the Elvis article. See and my reply here. Onefortyone (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

I direct the Committee's attention to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive249#Still an unresolved problem. I am concerned that the current remedies against Onefortyone may be entirely insufficient to deal with the level of disruption that seems to be going on. I urge the committee to accept this matter for review to help resolve a long running controversy that the community has been unable to handle. Onefortyone appears to have been in persistent conflict since at least May 2007 and probably much longer. I remain concerned about the possibility of disruptive sock puppetry, and of false allegations against other editors. Jehochman 23:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not feel comfortable applying the existing probation remedy because it is too narrowly written. I believe Onefortyone has significantly impeded development of the article, based on the statements of involved parties. Additionally, Sam Blacketer has stated that he thinks Onefortyone's editing has been acceptable. It seems that there is a conflict amongst administrators how to handle this problem. The status quo since at least May 2007 has been paralysis resulting in valued contributors becoming frustrated to the point that they abandon the article. I think an expedited review of editing since the last case and a decision to remove, alter, or sustain the existing remedy would be helpful. Jehochman 22:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by LaraLove

In the months I have been working on this article, I have found Onefortyone to be a consistent obstacle in article improvement. My involvement started after the article was improperly promoted to GA status in August 2007. It's my opinion that every attempt to bring this article to GA standards is halted by Onefortyone. Evidence has been shown on Talk:Elvis Presley that brings Onefortyone's sourced additions into question, as it appears as though he has selectively pulled information in order to push his preferred POV. He refuses to allow information to be removed in order to bring the article down to a manageable, readable length, which is why his latest additions remain. I created Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Elvis Presley in hopes of being able to get more attention on the article, however, it's no further along now than it was when it began a month and a half ago. Something has to change in this situation because no progress is being made and every other editor that consistently works on this article is ready to give up, which is not in the best interest of the project. Lara❤Love 18:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Egghead06

There is so much about the life of Elvis that is unknown. Since his death much rumour and gossip have grown-up around the man. How can anyone give a definitive view? They can't! What they can do is offer data which differs from the norm. As long as this is given with good references this can only help to provide a fuller picture. How can you ban someone who does that? There appears to be a drive here to only have one view point - put them all as long as they are referenced and let the reader decide. There also appears to be a drive to keep the article short so as to acheive some internal star or pat-on-the back. Brevity and accuracy do not always go hand-in-hand. This is not an encyclopedia for goldfish. Surely people can keep their span of attention long enough to grasp all the possibilities. This user may not toe the line but banning is too heavy handed. --Egghead06 (talk) 08:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

There appear to be two reports in the enforcement archives, see first and second and the enforcement log. Thatcher 17:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/2)

  • The situation is troubling, but I am not certain that a new case is necessary. It appears that the problem could be addressed through enforcement of the existing remedies through a report to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration enforcement. That page is used where an editor fails to abide by a rule in a prior arbitration case(s) and enforcement of remedies under the prior ruling are sufficient to resolve the issue. Could the parties kindly address whether the problem could be addressed more efficiently in this way. If arbitration enforcement is insufficient to address the problem then I lean toward acceptance, subject to Onefortyone's statement and possibly as a Review of editing since the prior decisions rather than a whole new case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Decline. Onefortyone is a restrained editor of the actual article on Elvis Presley and his more recent additions appear to be reliably sourced and have stayed in the article. While the talk page can get heated at times, I am very reluctant to sanction an editor merely because they happen to be in a minority. Discussion and debate is working. The current sanctions are in my view sufficient. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:53, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Decline for now as per Newyorkbrad. -- FayssalF - 17:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I do not want to reject a case that can not be handled by past remedies or the community, but I do not see evidence for a case now. I need to see more specific evidence that we need to be involved before I can accept. FloNight (talk) 18:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Dominicanism

Initiated by Zenwhat (talk) at 19:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

XLR8TION (talk · contribs) was banned for a week by Nishkid64 (talk · contribs) Also, see the see Wikiquette alert.

Statement by Zenwhat

To begin with, I was completely outside of this dispute but happened to come across it while surfing Special:Random. User:UnclePaco has been pushing anti-Dominican and anti-black racism, including fringe theories about Dominican racial heritage. These include denying that modern Dominicans have any genetic relation to the native tribes that preceded them , claiming that such native tribes were wiped out entirely , and Dominicans today are mostly of "African roots," not of Hispanic or Native origin. And he characterized a Dominican politician as supporting "reverse discrimination" by appealing to black Dominicans and that black Dominicans maintain "political supremacy." Recently, he has attempted to associate the Dominican Day Parade with crime. And he has used homophobic epithets. He posted a video critical of black Dominican basketball player, Felipe López and black NBA star, Amare Stoudemire, whose status as a Dominican cannot be confirmed, but he is from Florida.

Aside from the above obvious POV-pushing, this is an overall pattern of behavior, where some of his edits seem to be made with the subtle intent of supporting racism, such as by uploading the mugshot of the black dominican involved in the alleged plot to attack St. John's University and trying to create an article to push POV about that event.

He has engaged in wikilawyering in order to push his POV. Recently, he reported XLR8TION (talk · contribs) for violating the 3RR on Dominican Day Parade and for bad ettiquette. by being accused of speaking English as a second language.

After noting on WP:ANI that his 3RR report was unfounded, an anonymous user suddenly made baseless accusations against me, of harassment and stalking. An RFCU will likely confirm this is UnclePaco, who has been making edits while not logged in, possibly in order to hide his identity.

He's also engaged in edit wars over long periods of time, attempting to insert two objectionable photos of his into various articles on Dominicans. See his contributions list to see the reverts.

XLR8TION's accusation that UnclePaco speaks english as as second language was rude, however, given UnclePaco's name and the fact that he does often use broken english , this is a reasonable criticism. A one-week ban seems particularly extreme and XLR8TION's violation of the 3RR doesn't apply, because UnclePaco is editing in bad faith.

I request that XLR8TION be unblocked, that UnclePaco be blocked for a time determined by the arbitrator, and that he be investigated for sockpuppetry, per the edits by the anonymous user above.

Although there's been no RFCU, It's pretty much been confirmed that the anonymous IP isn't UnclePaco, UnclePaco's ban is now over, and I wasn't aware of XLR8TION'S block log, so these comments no longer apply. However, I do request that some arbitration ruling be made about the "violence section," on Dominican Day Parade, because of its contentious edit history, as admin Sam Blacketer suggests below. Zenwhat (talk) 06:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Zenwhat

XLR8TION reverted other editors over the "white nationalism" reference and claimed he was being accuse of racism. He also told B to stop making ignorant accusations. This matter could have easily been resolved, had XLR8TION asked the other editors what they were referring to. There was no need to make personal attacks or continuing the edit war. Also, XLR8TION may not have a history of being a "white nationalist troll", but he certainly has a history of violating 3RR, making personal attacks and being uncivil on Dominican-related articles. Nishkid64 (talk) 23:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Nishkid64

UnclePaco filed a 3RR report against XLR8TION on January 1, 2008. The two users had been edit warring over this edit by UnclePaco, which highlights the incidents of crime at the Dominican Day Parade in 2007. B found that both users had violated WP:3RR on Dominican Day Parade, but they were currently engaging in discussion in the talk page, so he felt blocks were not necessary. Hours later, UnclePaco left a message at the 3RR report board about personal attacks from XLR8TION. XLR8TION's comment on Talk:Dominican Day Parade were uncivil, as he justified removing UnclePaco's additions because they brought the article to a "standard that is low and unreliable." Next, he claimed that from UnclePaco's edits, it was apparent that English was not his first language. XLR8TION states that since he is a native speaker, it is his "duty to maintain proper grammar and structure in articles." Afterwards, XLR8TION and UnclePaco continued to edit war on Dominican Day Parade, and XLR8TION began an edit war on Puerto Rican Day Parade, which included admin B (talk · contribs) and IP users. On Puerto Rican Day Parade, XLR8TION added a reference from a "white nationalist" message board. 67.87.197.9 removed the reference. XLR8TION reverted the edit with the edit summary: "Revert, there is nothing mentions White power here". Another IP removed the reference, and XLR8TION reverted the editor, stating that the removal of sourced information can be labeled as vandalism. Admin B (talk · contribs) came to the article and removed the reference with the edit summary: "Completely unacceptable source (white power message board), no position on the rest of it." XLR8TION promptly reverted B, and left a threatening edit summary, in which he told B to "refrain from ignorant accusations" and that his next revert would lead to "corrective action." B reverted and left an edit summary: "You're joking, right? It's a message board (bad) with a big logo in the upper left corner that says 'white proud'" Meanwhile, on Dominican Day Parade, an IP re-inserted the material previously added by UnclePaco. XLR8TION promptly reverted. Shortly after, B went back to the 3RR board, where he requested a review of the previous 3RR report by an uninvolved administrator. Two minutes later, XLR8TION reverted B's edit on Puerto Rican Day Parade and told him to once again refrain from ignorant language.

I saw the report and evaluated XLR8TION's contributions. As I was reviewing his contributions, he made an edit at Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts, in which he accused B of making racist and uncivil accusations of "white power" against him. 15 minutes later, I blocked XLR8TION for one week, due to edit warring, incivility and personal attacks. Within the hour, I received an e-mail from XLR8TION about the block. He felt the block was unfair, and claimed that he was being accused of "white power" propaganda. We sent over a dozen e-mails back and forth, in which I explained the reasons for the block. He claimed he did not know the message board he was adding as a reference was a "white nationalist" website. He stated that his firewall at blocked parts of the page, so he did not see the banners indicative of the site's purpose. He believed that this firewall should be taken into consideration. He repeatedly asked what I was going to do about UnclePaco. He advocated for a block, but I felt it was unnecessary. Finally, I told him I would look into the matter. When I went back on Misplaced Pages hours later, I saw UnclePaco was edit warring on St. John's University (New York City)‎ and Dominican Day Parade. I then blocked UnclePaco for 24 hours due to edit warring.

A few points of clarification from ZenWhat's statement and the entire case, itself:

  • No dispute resolution
  • I blocked, not banned XLR8TION for one week. I have been in contact via e-mail regarding his block
  • Sandstein declined the unblock request on XLR8TION's talk page
  • XLR8TION's 3RR report was not unfounded; B (talk · contribs) found both UnclePaco and XLR8TION had violated WP:3RR, but he chose not to block the users at the time
Reply to Nishkid64
I received an email from XLR8TION, where he claimed that he did not realize Stormfront.org was a "white power" site, and feels embarrassed about the matter, because his ISP has a firewall his blocks certain objectionable content (I assume he means a word filter, he could explain better than I). A copy of the email can be found here: Because he does NOT have an history of contributions supporting white nationalism, per WP:Assume Good Faith, I see no reason to disbelieve him. Although I admit the edit war was a bad idea and I would like to hear more specifics about his ISP's firewall. Zenwhat (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I received e-mails from XLR8TION as well. The issue is not about "white nationalism", but about the edit warring and personal attacks he made on Puerto Rican Day Parade. A firewall is no excuse for inappropriate incivility and edit warring. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by UnclePaco replied on January 7, 2008

  • Amare Stoudamire isn't hispanic at all. He's black. I posted an article that spoke about him and summarized it. . What you wrote is a strech of the imagination and simply trying to find things to bury me on.
  • The felipe lopez article. This was his last college game. How is it critical of him? http://youtube.com/watch?v=vdmf9l6b8Bc Again, trying to find something to bury me on. Why don't you look at the video!
  • the alleged homophobia comment. In the context of the article we discussed how allegations with no substance can still make it into articles, such as personal life. http://en.wikipedia.org/Rock_Hudson#Personal_life. We discussed the Patriot Act, Habeous Corpus, Guilty until proven innocent (i.e. Rock Hudsons personal life). To which he stated Gay not being a crime, and that depends on what nation you're at. AT no point did I make homophobic remarks. If someone chooses to live a certain lifestyle that is on them. I'm indifferent.
  • Dominican Day Parade crime section. I created a section similiar to two other articles in New York about parades that had similiar sections. http://en.wikipedia.org/Labor_Day_Carnival#Violence and http://en.wikipedia.org/Puerto_Rican_Day_Parade#Controversy . I placed in verified information NY Times, NY Sun, NY Daily News, NY Post to illustrate this. Why is it ok for the Labor Day Carnival to have a violence section and the Puerto Rican Day Parade to have a controversy section, but the Dominican Day Parade not to have one? I have brought this up on talk pages.
  • The black supremacy section, well I did reinsert the trivia section . I simply didn't read the whole thing. It was originally inserted in Dec 2005 way before I became a member. I saw it was deleted and saw the first couple of sentences and it looked good to me.
  • Dominican racial identity is simply up for debate. There are numerous articles that state that DR is simply african and spaniard. Also that the native indians died off.

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/amholocaust-5.html http://pine3.info/Barbecue%20Heritage.htm http://forests.org/archive/general/columbus.htm http://forests.org/archive/general/columbus.htm http://www.websteruniv.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/precolumbian/tainospring.htm http://www.delhey.de/content-00/en/reports/domrep.htm www.dominican-rep.com/history.html http://www.icumedia.com/santodomingo/sd-history.shtml http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096409671 http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/IndianGenocide.html to easily name a few.


There does seem to be some kind of relationship between Zenwhat and XLR8TION. For a period they seem to have a similiar writing style and utilization of edits or accusation that has no true source. Look at the Felipe Lopez article and what I was accused of for example. How could that even remotely be considered to be anti-dominican or racism. Zenwhat below states that he wants us to Assume Good Faith for XlR8TION (for posting racist message boards, and stating that english isn't my first language ; which I might add is someting that individuals who are on those sites tend to do (white message boards). They tell people to speak english or mock peoples english skills), but is going for the throat with me with outlandish accusation. UnclePaco (talk) 18:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:B

I have interacted with all of these editors over the last few days on two separate occasions while patrolling WP:AN3 and I will make an effort to give some background.

UnclePaco (talk · contribs) reported XLR8TION (talk · contribs) for 3RR on Dominican Day Parade. (See for the thread.) Both users were in violation, but appeared to be talking it out on the talk page. I felt it would be appropriate to simply warn them, rather than block them. After that, XLR8TION resumed edit warring and repeatedly adding a link to a thread on a white power message board to Puerto Rican Day Parade. I removed it for obvious reasons and he reverted the removal twice. I realized my prior conclusion that the disruptive editing had stopped was incorrect and, though I would have been justified in making the block myself, in order to maintain transparency I posted a request at 3RR that another admin review my previous decision and consider making a block. Nishkid64 decided, based on the continued edit warring, incivility, and inappropriate external link, to block XLR8TION for one week. I concur with this block. During the interim before the block was made, XLR8TION opened a frivolous WQA alert concerning my removal of the inappropriate external link.

UnclePaco has repeatedly added to Puerto Rican Day Parade the comment "with Manuel Vargas being deemed the ring leader." That statement is supported by the source, although not knowing the issue, I can't see a reason why this matters - no foundation is given - who is he? He has also edit warred on Dominican Day Parade. Again, I don't know anything about the issue to conclude a right or wrong, only that it is a disruption. 67.101.248.187 (talk · contribs) seems to almost certainly be UnclePaco editing while logged out. UnclePaco says on his talk page that he isn't the IP, and it's completely moot to everything else I typed - I just assumed it was him based on seeing the same edit summary in the same article, this wasn't meant to be an accusation. --B (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I obviously feel that overturning XLR8TION's block would be a bad idea. UnclePaco's editing is somewhat tenuous and if it continues, it can be dealt with, but arbitration is premature. --B (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Having read the above, I have serious doubts about the technical likelihood of this selective firewall. "Stormfront White Nationalist Community" is the top level forum of this message board and it is printed in plain text (not an image) in the same HTML file (not overlayed by a javascript). The "White Pride World Wide" image is on the same domain (www.stormfront.org) as the rest of the site. The alt text is "Return to Stormfront White Pride World Wide Main Page". This particular sub-forum is the "América Latina White Nationalists in Latin America." There is enough racist nonsense on that message board that I feel sick in my stomach from just looking at it. I am often told that I have a poor imagination, but I have a difficult time imagining someone taking more than a cursory glance at this site and not realizing what it is. --B (talk) 22:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The blatant obviousness of Stormfront as a white nationalist site is precisely why I believe XLR8TION's claim that Stormfront's material is partially blocked. Even a legitimately white nationalist troll is probably not going to be stupid enough to cite Stormfront.org, with "White Nationalist" plastered all over it, then claim in his edit summaries that it isn't white nationalist, and engage in an edit war over it. It's not effective trolling. It's the same reason there isn't a "White Nationalist" usebox. Per WP:Assume good faith and because XLR8TION doesn't have a suspicious edit history, as all white nationalist trolls should, I think we should reserve judgment on the issue until XLR8TION can explain his claim more in detail and name his specific ISP. If he does both, we could easily confirm or deny the claim. XLR8TION seems genuinely concerned that his reputation has been severely tarnished by being branded a racist. If this matter isn't cleared up, it may affect the credibility of his future edits. It wouldn't require hardly any effort to confirm or deny and, if it turns out that I'm right, it's a particularly important detail for the arbitrators to consider. Zenwhat (talk) 23:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Please move your comments to your section. If you want, you can make subsections like ===Reply to B=== or something, but you should not edit another person's section. If the site was "partially blocked", exactly what part wasn't blocked? It doesn't make any sense. There's no mindreading software that can selectively cleanse the page of the racist material and leave whatever it was being used to source. But if he is really seeing something else, he can take a screenshot of what he is seeing (alt+printscreen), paste it into Microsoft Paint, save it, and upload it to somewhere like flickr or webshots and post the link here. --B (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Cheeser1

As one of the primary responders to the WQA complaint, I would like to point out a few things. The block was not for this incident, but for something else that occurred. Check the block log and the WQA history:

Block Log: 21:41, 3 January 2008 Nishkid64 (Talk | contribs) blocked "XLR8TION (Talk | contribs)"
WP:WQA: 22:50, 3 January 2008 UnclePaco (Talk | contribs) (185,592 bytes) (XLR8TION) (undo)

As for the WP:SKILL issue, it doesn't matter if UnclePaco is the worst editor in history, WP:SKILL still applies. And "but he really is bad at English" is not a valid defense, nor is "but he's not a good contributor." There may be merit in considering UnclePaco's contributions, because they were certainly dubious. But XLR8TION is responsible for his actions and they can't be excused based on the quality of UnclePaco's contributions. He has a history of being warned and blocked for incivility, personal attacks, and edit warring in this exact way (read: he should know better), and his block seems to be self-evidently appropriate (several instances of totally incivility during edit wars). His appeal was declined because his defense was the same one coming up here: UnclePaco is bad at English, and he's a bad contributor. That's not relevant, especially since he's being blocked for an incident prior to it. The prior incident, by the way, was also reported at the WQA here, where you can confirm that the block is not related to the incident involving UnclePaco - not that another round of incivility doesn't support the validity of the block anyway. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: After seeing a more thorough account, it seems that all of these incidents are loosely related. However, there is still a misunderstanding that UnclePaco reported XLR8TION at the WQA, and then he gets blocked, and then UnclePaco is the winner. There was a similar issue when XLR8TION asserted that UnclePaco had not been warned for 3RR, when he had (and has, in fact, been blocked too). Like I said, UnclePaco's POV and content issues merit examination (although perhaps not here). Unblocking XLR8TION is not related to that, and does not seem warranted. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

One more consideration: As for the edit warring over the Stormfront message board "reference" - XLR8TION's explanation about some sort of partial firewall seems dubious, but I'm willing to accept that as an explanation for his having used such an obviously inappropriate source. Once. When someone says "your source is a white nationalist messageboard, and is thus inappropriate," then you just found out what all your "partial firewall" or whatever was blocking on that page (although I can't imagine it wasn't obviously some kind of forum, which should be enough). Edit warring and breaching WP:CIVIL in order to reinsert a source that he has admitted to at least being unable to assess the reliability of - that's not appropriate and is not excused by anything others might have done. I think XLR8TION even jumped to the odd conclusion that "the reference you are citing is a white power messageboard" means the same as "you are a white supremacist." --Cheeser1 (talk) 08:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by trying to be funny Kendrick7

Looks like a Jesuit plot to me. Oh, wait -- wrong anti-Dominicanism. -- Kendrick7 22:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/6/0/0)

Armenia-Azerbaijan 3

Initiated by White Cat at 17:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

  • Anybody that is involved that I had forgotten. This can be added by anybody.
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by White Cat

The dispute hasn't been resolved and has been continuing on as if the previous arbitration cases didn't happen. A good number of involved parties on the previous cases continue to post inflammatory comments, game the system, and other such acts of disruption. Current remedies had been ineffective in preventing the disruption nor in resolving the disputes. On some occasions the remedies had been used to game the system.

Although I believe arbcom is fully aware of it, Arbitration enforcement Archive 10, Archive 11, and etc is full of flame wars and related material.

I have been uninvolved from the most part. The parties came and started revert waring in List of attacks by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia and removing sources. Even governmental sources seem to be unacceptable. That has been the entirety of my involvement with this case.

-- Cat 17:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of argument, lets just say I have been overall disruptive. Had not the contribution of Andranikpasha, Eupator, and VartanM perhaps had a hint of disruption? Why am I the only one receiving the topic-ban proposal?

Reply to Moreschi. "Requests for arbitration" is a poor place to "forum shop". Who am I shopping for? Arbitrators? That accusation is false. If Arbcom rules that the entire Azerbaijan-Armenian war had been my fault, sure. Then such a ban would be warranted.

-- Cat 18:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Several people had been banned by arbcom. The fear of sockpuppetary has led to situations where bad behaviour is overlooked over sockpuppetary fears.


“ Good for you, but you are wrong. This is not a secret, it's common knowledge. The Turkish governments attitude towards Armenians in general is not far from the Third Reichs attitude towards the Jews mildly put. ”
from this page

Inflammatory ethnic comments (such as the one above) are merely not recommended, I would hope that such is supposed to be outlawed. The example above is mild in comparaison to other nonsense.

-- Cat 22:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I also am weary of the Armenia-Azerbaijan rfars. Relatively good users such as myself are given the boot on sight while behaviour of people who have been involved on both RfArs are overlooked. Moreschi's attitude on an unofficial IRC discussion was rather unpleasant for example. His treatment of me is also apparent on this very page.

I do not believe Armenia-Azerbaijan thing will be resolved with the current remedies. While I do understand that spelling out what is disruptive gives disruptive users a mean to avoid the remedies. That is why the boundaries of the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute were loosely defined. However loosely defined boundaries may be also giving admins too much power.

-- Cat 22:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply to John Vandenberg: Thats a big fat lie and you know it. All attacks in question with the Exception of two of them are cross sourced by MIPT which establishes the ASALA connection clearly. The two exceptions were covered by the two sources that are removed.

ASALA is mentioned numerous times. On some occasions Tr.Gov didn't state who was responsible but they do agree that an attack happened. Therefore referencing them for this purpose is perfectly legitemate. The tone on the tr.gov source isn't exactly neutral. The material covered is of course partisan. As is US gov partisan on Al-Quida and etc. Partisan websites are not banned. Since the material used from the partisan source is not in dispute, their use is not an actual problem. No one raised any objections on the content in the article.

If a North Korean related organization starts shooting US employees such as ambassadors, embassy employees and such can't I use the US government as a source? Why the double standard?

ASALA is mentioned numerous times. One of the attacks ASALA connection is only mentioned on ATMG.org. MIPT has nothing on that attack MIPT is rather incomplete for 1975 and prior. ATMG has more of a diplomatic tone. Presents information in a more neutral way. It does not delude into pre WW2 issues that are irrelevant to ASALA. I do not know nor care about their information on non-ASALA related matters. That has no bearing or relevance to the article on ASALA attacks.

I removed www.atmg.org as a compromise but that wasn't enough. Both links had to go. My only fault was restoring sources.

All VartanM and Andranikpasha did was revert war. Was this their first time? Hardly! Just check their recent contribution history. Many examples. Were they on revert parole when they started removing sources from the ASALA article? No. VartanM has a Christal clear block log. So does Andranikpasha despite frequently revert waring.

If I am going to be damned at least damn me for what I have done not what others have done. How the heck am I "sparking off" a dispute on an article that VartanM and Andranikpasha had no edits whatsoever prior to November 2007.

There is a very serious problem here if I am the one accused. I will edit wikipedia normally if a bunch of Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Turks, or any other group of ethnicities in dispute do not like it, though luck. No admin threatening me for hardly doing anything (I merely restored sources) will change that.

If we are in the business of banning people for adding sources, you have bigger problems in your hands than you think.

-- Cat 07:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Moreschi

This is ridiculous. White Cat's just forum-shopping here (see ANI here.) Two options. Either take this case, rename it and ban White Cat from anything related to Armenia (see my comments on ANI and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek). Or chuck it out, because the remedies from AA2 are working as much as they are able, insofar as long-term peace and harmony in this area is very unlikely. Moreschi 18:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC) )

I also endorse the statements of Folantin, Thatcher, and John Vandenburg. I've applied the ArbCom remedies piecemeal, letting the punishment fit the crime (revert-warring, even done politely, is rewarded by revert limitation only: that is, being a tad rouge), but it would be nice to have official permission to actually do so. I sent a few emails to the ArbCom mailing list on this subject recently, which I know at least a few people read. This could more usefully be handled by an open vote on this page, however, or perhaps via a review.
That's all that needs doing, and I speak as an admin who's been highly active in dealing with the Armenia-Azeri disputes. Unless, of course, you want to deal with the problem of White Cat's relentless Turk-nationalist agenda advocacy, largely consisting of Armenian Genocide denial. Moreschi 12:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Andranikpasha

Unforunately the real life, politics has its influence also to Misplaced Pages and I think the AA2 remedies are doing maximum (maybe more than needed due to the lack of sockpuppetry) in this situation. And surely White Cat needes an admin involvement to stop his "source" pushing to Armenia-related articles. Andranikpasha (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Folantin

I second what Moreschi says. White Cat is just forum-shopping over a content dispute. List of attacks by the ASALA is related to Armenian and Turkish issues, but not directly to Armenia-Azerbaijan. The main argument between Armenians and Azeris is only tangentially relevant to this matter (it's mostly concerned with Nagorno-Karabakh and has little or nothing to do with the ASALA) and it is currently being dealt with at Arbitration Enforcement. Admins are having some success in calming the main Armenian-Azeri dispute down. This latest move by White Cat simply inflames matters and is completely unhelpful. What's the point of dragging users into another ArbCom because White Cat wants to use a particular (unreliable) source? White Cat has a history of trouble-making on Armenian issues and I second the suggestion he be restricted from editing in this topic area. --Folantin (talk) 18:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Update I completely concur with John Vandenberg's statement below. This is just another example of White Cat going forum-shopping because he can't get consensus to use a dubious source on the talk page. He went to ANI over a similar issue on the same page in March 2007 when he want to use an extremist hate site, Tallarmeniantale, as a "reliable source" for the ASALA attacks . This is simply White Cat disrupting Misplaced Pages to get his own way. Unsurprising behaviour from a user who once put WP:CIVILITY up for deletion to make a point . --Folantin (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Grandmaster

I don't think another arbcom case is really necessary right now. What we actually need is proper application of the existing remedies and maybe better definition of the terms of the remedies to avoid troublemakers getting away because of minor technical issues. Grandmaster (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Thatcher that endless arguments on WP:AE became annoying. In my opinion, reporting rules should be modified to put an end to this. I think that regular users should not be allowed to post responses to reports, except for the reported party, which should be allowed to post a brief explanation of its actions. Only admins should be allowed to post responses to the reports. That would end the mess the AE board has become. Grandmaster (talk) 14:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Thatcher

Response to Newyorkbrad: In my view, the effectiveness of the prior remedy would be greatly improved by allowing uninvolved admins to place editors on restriction (probation, revert parole and civility probation) on a discretionary basis, as the current language requires incivility, making it impossible (or at least more difficult) to impose restrictions on POV edit warriors who are polite (see Kirill's comment).

“ The remedies of revert limitations (formerly revert parole), including the limitation of 1 revert per week, civility supervision (formerly civility parole) and supervised editing (formerly probation) that were put in place at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan shall apply to any editor who edits articles which relate to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility. ”

The alternative is an absolute topic ban. The editors here are certainly immovable in their convictions, and seem largely unable to agree on compromise language that respects all points of view. However, enforcement so far seems to have focused on the 1RR limit, rather than topic bans (which are permitted under the probation) so it might be premature to issue broad topic bans (not to mention the problem of sockpuppetry that would likely arise).

The other problem is one of vexatious litigation, in which certain parties report each other over the most minor perceived infractions, and argue at length on WP:AE. I suspect this can be handled by more aggressive refactoring. Thatcher 19:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by VartanM

I believe arbitrators can help and a review could be helpful for clarifications and few changes, but not a new case. First, Ehud Lesar, who many are convinced is Adil Baguirov, second to wave the condition of incivility as a condition to include members in the revert restriction. I think every person who regularly edits articles related to the region should be required to justify their edits in the talkpage. I also believe that arbitrators should put conditions as to what is a justification in a talkpage, with conditions. Some members have been abusing it by adding a irrelevant sentence or two as a justification to their reverts.

I believe there are more things that should be done, but I'm not including those, I presented things which are general and that both parties would find it helpful to deal with. I also agree with Thatcher, on the baseless reports on the enforcement page. So, I think the review could deal with those who have abusively reported members for enforcement, and if there is evidence to such abuse they could be restricted to report others there. I think Atabek's behavior should also be reviewed, but that would be opening a can of worms and having to do with evidences and counter evidences. VartanM (talk) 21:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Atabek should be the one assuming good faith. Both Fadix and Fedayee start with an F, I had the link of the evidences on a word document and posted the wrong one. If Atabek even bothered to check the evidence he would see that it didn't have anything to do with Azerbaijani members but White Cat in 2005. It's also easy to lie about members who could not defend themselves. As when he claims that Fadix has used several socks, he is probably mistaking him with AdilBaguirov. The two socks (not several) Fadix created didn't disrupt and were self exposed by Fadix himself. VartanM (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Rlevse

I am responding per User:Newyorkbrad's commment below as I have recently been active on the arb enforcement page in an admin role. It seems to me the issues here are pretty much the same as before, therefore, opening a new case would simply be a rehash and hence a waste of time. The views by Thatcher and Moreschi make the most sense to me. In summation, we need to more actively and forcefully use the tools already in hand and/or bring in more stringent enforcement methods. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

Concur with Thatcher in that the remedies probably need reworking, but a new case isn't necessary. I recently dealt with VartanM whose only point was that he wasn't uncivil (in which his edits were quite contrary to that). - Penwhale | 01:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg

I agree with Thatcher and VartanM that the existing remedies could use tweaking to help prevent people who insist on being difficult while being (barely) civil, but the issue of sources on ASALA is being blown out of proportion by White Cat, who is the only one wanting to include a Turkish government source on the article. On close inspection, that Turkish government webpage was being used as a source for attacks that are not even mentioned on the webpage, and for attacks that the website doesnt attribute to ASALA. If there is a case here, it is that White Cat was edit warring and is now looking to spark off a third round of an unrelated dispute because prior attempts at gaining wider support, on user talk pages, AN/AE and AN/I, didnt have the desired result. John Vandenberg (talk) 06:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ehud Lesar

I think it would be a good idea to have stricter rules on baseless accussations, such as those above made by Vartan. If a user is proven to be not a sockpuppet after continuosly accussed of being one, it should be made clear once and for all for the accussing parties to stop harrassment campaigns. Moreover, these parties should be demanded official apologies Ehud (talk) 21:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Brief comment by EconomicsGuy

This case may not be the right place or time for this debate but it is going to need ArbCom's attention again sooner rather than later. I urge the arbitrators to read the archives of WP:AE just month back. The arbitrators only have one issue they need to consider: are these people here for the encyclopedia or not? As will be obvious to the arbitrators once they review the debates (flame wars) of the last month or so the remedies are being used as entitlements to disrupt as long as they are being civil on the surface at least. Is this the sort of disrespect for the purpose of 2 past ArbCom cases and endless waste of time that we should accept? I sincerely hope not for the sake of Misplaced Pages as a project and I hope that the arbitrators will look at this again with more realistic ambitions and expectations and draw the inevitable conclusion that needs to be drawn here. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Lar

This m:Requests_for_CheckUser_information#Andranikpasha crosswiki CU case may or may not have some bearing. If I can answer any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. ++Lar: t/c 15:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Brief comment by Atabek

If I may ask, why is User:VartanM assuming bad faith against me again above and reciting my name, when I am not even involved in this particular case raised by White Cat? And using the evidence of a banned User:Fadix, caught with several socks, to bring more groundless accusations against another User:AdilBaguirov that he was in conflict with? And didn't the last ArbCom principle prohibit contributors from doing this? And wasn't VartanM assigned to mentor Andranikpasha, on whom new evidence of violations is being presented all over various language Wikis? And what is with repeated violations of WP:AGF in regards to John Vandenberg? How many users have to be the subject of attacks by VartanM, before he is finally explained that he needs to calm down and assume good faith in his interactions with other contributors? Atabek (talk) 07:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/4/0/1)

  • Comment. We are expecting to look again at all the 'general sanctions' cases, including Armenia-Azerbaijan, once we new arbitrators have settled in. Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would appreciate input from the administrators active on Misplaced Pages:Arbitration enforcement as to whether a new case would play a useful role here in potentially honing the remedies available, or whether it would only compound the disruption and bitterness that already exist. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC) Based on input above, decline as a new case, but agree that the committee should revisit the issue of remedies available. I invite the admins familiar with this matter to present a proposed motion in the "requests for clarification" section of this page, with the earnest request that editors keep responses to any such proposal as brief and non-argumentative as possible. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm going to say reject for now; we do expect to look at this again, as Sam mentions, but since this situation essentially revolves around enforcement issues, it can best be dealt with by motion in the earlier case. --bainer (talk) 11:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • This series of disputes has gone on a long time. There have been persistent comments that the previous remedies are not as well drafted as they might be, echoed by comments above by experienced administrators that they are having to flex the wording somewhat and would like not to have to do so. Other administrators have commented similarly that using the remedies is a bit problematic. However no claim is being made that the principles or findings of fact were misplaced in prior cases. The sole persistent issue raised is that 4 months after AA2, enforcers are seeking better remedies for use on the same problem. I'm prepared to believe this is a reflection of a genuine (slight) mismatch of drafting to the needs of the dispute. Accept (with limited scope) at this point, or as an extension of remedy, purely to hear evidence of any disruptive behaviors where the remedies are not fully helping, and to consider whether we can provide the disputants with reworked remedies, in light of current experience. We can do that quickly without duplicating our future work on the cases themselves. FT2  13:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject I see more harm than benefit from re-examining the case in whole. Prefer to look at this in a limited manner and tweak enforcement remedies. FloNight (talk) 17:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Decline. Paul August ☎ 17:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

Place requests for clarification on matters related to past Arbitration cases in this section. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. Place new requests at the top.

Request for procedural clarificaton re: Digwuren general restriction

The Digwuren general restriction states that Any editor working on topics related to Eastern Europe, broadly defined, may be made subject to an editing restriction at the discretion of any uninvolved administrator and then goes on to describe the terms of the restriction. Some questions have been raised, however, as to whether an administrator should apply this restriction to a first-time offender who has not yet been made aware of the existence of this special clause relating to EE pages, or whether it would be more appropriate to warn the alleged offender first.

The question arose in relation to my own case whereby I have been placed under the restriction for making a single comment that one administrator, User:Thatcher, construed as "disparaging editors by their status in a group" and a "bad faith assumption" on my part (both of which charges I repudiate). Two administrators, User:Geogre and User:Anynobody, have also appeared to question Thatcher's judgement in this case in regards to whether the sanction should have been immediately applied to an (alleged) first-time offender like myself with no prior knowledge of the restriction.

So I think it would be appropriate for the arbcom to clarify this matter, if not in relation to my own case specifically, then at least in regards to the general case. The discussion, BTW, can be read at Thatcher's talk page under the headings Digwuren restriction notice and No. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 07:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Appeal regarding Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3

Some of the restrictions imposed on me by the Arbitration Committee in stages between November 2005 and July 2006 expired in November 2007; however, according to former arbitrator User:Raul654, I am still subject to two of the restrictions—remedy "X" from the original November 2005 ruling, and remedy 4 from the July 2006 amended ruling—and they will remain in effect indefinitely, until lifted by the ArbCom. (I don't know if the rest of the ArbCom agrees that they are still in effect, but the only arbitrator who has spoken about it says they are in effect, and therefore I must assume they are until or unless the other arbitrators say otherwise.) I am not concerned about falling afoul of these rulings, and have no intention to ever do the things they prohibit, but by remaining in place these remedies act as a "scarlet letter" impeding my participation on Misplaced Pages, enabling people to ignore, dismiss or insult me because I am "not a user in good standing", and rendering it almost hopeless for me to attempt to regain my adminship through RfA, which was taken from me by the ArbCom in 2006 for an issue unrelated to the case in question. I think these remedies accomplish nothing except to marginalize me and should be lifted. Everyking (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The committee has seen a fairly large number of aggrieved parties to previous arbitration hearings present appeals immediately after the changeover in membership, so please accept our apologies for not responding immediately. The term "in good standing" is an imprecise one capable of being taken strictly or loosely. Could you help us by pointing to recent examples where you feel you have been suffering through the presumed continuation of these remedies? Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Raul654 announced on behalf of the committee on November 14 that one of the remedies against Everyking (parole on music articles) was being suspended for 3 months, but would automatically go back into effect 90 days later unless otherwise decided by the committee. This means that we will need to review Everyking's recent editing in early February so we can make this decision by February 12. For the sake of efficiency, I suggest that we review this request for relief from the remaining sanctions at the same time.
For those of us who were not active at the time of the prior decisions, the history of these cases (including even locating "Remedy 4" and "Remedy X") is a little bit difficult to follow. Either now or when this request is renewed in February, could either Everyking or a Clerk please provide a more complete set of links and a quick summary of the history? Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Brad's suggestion of hearing everything together in February is all right by me, although of course I would prefer if it was heard now—these sanctions have been in place for an extraordinarily long time. My editing on pop music articles has varied very little over quite a long span of time and I don't see how it could be expected to be any different in February, so I see no reason that issue could not be conclusively decided at the present time as well.
The key issue concerning the effect my arbitration sanctions have on me is that very many people simply will not vote for someone with ongoing sanctions in an RfA. Some of those opposing said that they would be willing to vote for me when the sanctions expired, which was understood to be in Nov. 2007, but as it turned out the ruling was interpreted (at least by Raul) to mean that certain aspects of it remained in place even after that point. I don't have many other clear examples, although I think there is a widespread subtle effect; because I have stayed out of disputes for so long there have been few occasions for people to blatantly batter me with reminders of my low status. In October, after some articles were deleted purely because the person who wrote them was believed to be a banned user (I believe that content should be judged on its merits and not based on its author), I requested that User:Lar provide me with copies of the articles so that I could determine if they were suitable and potentially vouch for them, or at least put them through WP:DRV, and he told me that he would not because I was not a "user in good standing". I never obtained the copies and as far as I know the articles are still deleted. Everyking (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Responding to your last point, the circumstances surrounding the particular banned user are exceptional, as I believe you are aware. As someone who generally supports giving second chances to users, I strongly advise that you would probably be better served by not using your interchange with Lar as an example of something that the remedies have prevented you from doing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, well, if we're going to get into a discussion of strategy here: I thought about not mentioning that because some people have particular feelings about the issue, but it was the best example I could think of in recent memory, and he asked for specific examples. Everyking (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

My appeal request was removed by somebody "per arbitrator request" (nobody notified me; I had to dig through the history to figure out what happened) although no arbitrators ever voted on it and the two who commented on it did so in such a way as to not indicate any clear viewpoint. The arbitrators should either accept my request or reject it, not silently sweep it under the rug. I am thus restoring it and ask that the arbitrators actually address it in some form or another. I am a Wikipedian, I have been working continuously on this project under their restrictions, and I think I deserve something more than this silent, unexplained form of rejection. Everyking (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for extension of restrictions at DreamGuy 2

I am requesting an extension of sanctions against DreamGuy, to add restrictions on abusive sockpuppetry and edit-warring, along with the civility restrictions from the October 2007 ArbCom case.

DreamGuy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been systematically using anon sockpuppets in an abusive manner, to avoid scrutiny and sanctions. This is a violation of WP:SOCK: It is a violation of this policy to create alternate accounts — or to edit anonymously without logging in to your account — in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions.

It is therefore my request that the sanctions should be extended to cover:

  • Abusive sockpuppetry, meaning that the editing restriction should be extended to state that DreamGuy is to make all of his edits under the DreamGuy account.
  • Edit-warring. During various incidents since the October 2007 ruling, there have been multiple examples of DreamGuy edit-warring (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/DreamGuy), but a block was not issued, because the ArbCom sanctions did not specifically include edit-warring. I would therefore like to see the sanctions extended to cover this, such as to put him on a limit of one revert per article per day.

For further details, please see: User:Elonka/DreamGuy report

--Elonka 01:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the level of IP usage by DreamGuy, I would suggest that remedies are extended, limiting DreamGuy to using only his one account and no editing through IP's - his edits often go undetected for a while and make blocks punitive. Likewise I see edit warring from the account and a motion to include edit warring looks to be a good idea. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I would support this, just so long as the restrictions specifically state that he is not to edit from IPs as well. Wizardman 02:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Did something happen recently? It's difficult to tell from the above. If not, why fix what isn't broken? El_C 03:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I still don't see how he violated his restrictions, specifically. Eloka's report suffers from inaccuracies. And isn't there a priori bad blood? El_C 03:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, yet another Checkuser was filed by yet another user, which alerted me to the fact that DreamGuy is using yet another anon to avoid sanctions, despite multiple admins telling him in the past that he has to stop doing this. DreamGuy keeps repeating, "There's no rule that says you have to login." And yet, WP:SOCK says exactly that, that you do have to login if other editors have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions. DreamGuy didn't just "forget" to login once or twice, he's been avoiding his DreamGuy account, and has been systematically using an anon for weeks. See my report at User:Elonka/DreamGuy report for details. --Elonka 03:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
That dosen't answer the question about bad blood, so I'll pose for the third time. As for the login-in requirement — so long as there's no troubles from those ips, I don't think that sockpuppet clause can be invoked, as much as some may take an interest in his contributions, he has a right to edit without login-in. I asked you about these troubles and you said: "bad faith and uncivil comments. Just look at his contribs." I don't really have time to review these in their totality, so again, please provide diffs. Thx. El_C 03:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
He's using IP's to evade transparency in his editing. He's under arbitration restrictions, and by using IP's, he stops the possibility of having his contribs looked at. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand El C's point. Is he saying that an editor engaged in a revert war can use up his 3RR allowance in his registered identity and then be granted an extra 3 reverts unregistered (and then go back to the registered identity ad infinitum thus having a six for the price of three revert allowance). Is that legal or not? I am a complete duffer when it comes to wikilawyering and would like some clarification on that point! If the same person is using a registered and unregistered identity in tandem is that classed as one user or as two users on the 3RR rule? Colin4C (talk) 16:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
This is a red herring. Of course nobody can violate 3RR by signing out and using an IP address. That's not at issue here. I am not using a registered account and an IP address in tandem and am not violating any policy. There are no 3RR violations, attempts to pretend to be another party to confuse people, or anything else. DreamGuy (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This is simply ridiculous. Elonka has been making false accusations of sockpuppeting for years as part of her longstanding grudge against me, which came to a head recently when she was up for admin (in which Ryan Postlethewaite was her biggest supporter, accusing me of lying about harassing emails Elonka sent, etc.). In fact, her history of falsely accusing me of sockpuppets to try to get her way was in discussion as part of her admin application, and, whattya know, now that she's an admin right away she's continuing on with it. Her accusations here are nothing more than a major violation of WP:AGF -- In effect, she wants me punished or restricted in some way because she assumes, without any evidence, that I am up to no good. The bottom line here is that there are no rules here that I or people in general here HAVE to edit signed on if they have an account, and considering that it's all too easy to end up not signed in anymore after you change browsers or the cookie expires or whatever, is a good thing. None of my edits on IP address has violated any sanctions or indeed any policy on Misplaced Pages whatsoever... This is just a desperate attempt by Elonka to find any excuse she can come up with to harass me some more. Please note also how Elonka assisted Jack1957 in filing the false sockpuppet report this time around. She really needs to demonstrate some of that good faith and letting go of personal conflicts she promised, and if she is unwilling to do that she needs to be told to stop making false accusations and trying to invent trouble.. DreamGuy (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I had nothing to do with Jack1956 filing his Checkuser, he did that completely on his own. The first I heard of it, or your latest anon, was when I saw that the Checkuser page had been updated. I did advise Jack1956, after he filed that report, that he should probably inform the affected editors. I have also informed him about this extension request, since his name is on my report. But that's the extent of it. So no, I'm not "behind" this latest checkuser, I'm just reporting what I'm seeing, and recommending that the sanctions be extended to prevent further evasion. --Elonka 20:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Can I just confirm that no one has 'put me up' to filing a sockpuppet report concerning Dreamguy. I did it entirely myself after noticing what I recognised as Dreamguy's editing style coming out of another anon. account. As this anonymous editing had been going on for days while Dreamguy's regular account was dormant raised suspicions in my mind, valid or otherwise. I do not accept that some one 'forgets' to log in for days on end. I can accept that it happens from time to time, but not consistently in this manner. Jack1956 (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Dreamguy consistently "forgets" to log in and continues causing problems in the editwarring/civility departments until someone notices the IP is him. He's been asked not to do it multiple times and doesn't seem to want to do so voluntarily. Since he is already under ArbCom restrictions, it seems incredibly reasonable to ask him not to avoid scrutiny in this manner. Lets get past this "you can't sanction me because Elonka and I don't get along" nonsense once and for all. Shell 22:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I would point out as well, that the last time this occurred (immediately prior to his last ArbCom enforcement
(as per a request for clarification as to the socking and other events, I have provided diffs and links for the things I've pointed out. - Arcayne () 06:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC))

These efforts in support of Elonka's attempt to extend DG's sanctions appear spurious and needlessly longwinded. It is also, blatantly, a punitive one, unless the ip/s can be demonstrated to have been abusive, recently. Her subpage looks dated, poorly organized, and convoluted. El_C 06:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Asgardian-Tenebrae

I presented lengthy evidence documenting possible sock puppetry during this case, . Since a check user request has just established Asgardian has edited using an ip address in a manner violation of the arbitration ruling, does this mean new sanctions need to be considered, or should we stick to the prohibitions listed in the case outcome? Hiding T 21:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC) <edited to add link to checkuser request and clarify a point, Hiding T 21:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)>

Any uninvolved administrator can take action against an editor who sockpuppets to avoid an ArbCom restriction. Reports of infractions should be posted to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration enforcement. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Remedy extension in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

Per the discussion regarding a new case for Armenia-Azerbaijan articles, I'd like to make a proposed remedy extension for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case. We're at the point now where it's clear the the previous remedies do not go far enough and administrators should be given greater authority to deal with the disruption in articles relating to this case. It's important that the committee make it clear that any form of disruption (not just limited to incivility with edit warring) will no longer be permitted on these articles. My proposal is as follows;

To address the disruptive editing that has taken place on Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles, any user who hereafter engages in edit-warring or disruptive editing (including, but not limited to incivility or pushing a point of view) on these or related articles may be placed on Misplaced Pages:Probation by any uninvolved administrator. This may include any user who was a party to either cases, or any other user after a warning has been given. The administrator shall notify the user on his or her talkpage and make an entry on Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#List of users placed under probation. Users placed under probation are limited to one revert, per page, per week and any revert (except for obvious vandalism) should be accompanied by an explanation on the article talk page. They are also required to be civilised in all discussions and in edit or log summaries. Any uninvolved administrator may place an article ban on a user that breaks the terms of their probation, or block the user for a period of up to one week. After five such blocks or bans, the maximum length of a block is increased to one year. All bans and block are to be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Log of blocks and bans.

Ryan Postlethwaite 18:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

This would be a welcome improvement to address the fact that these editors have learnt to edit war civilly, however it does not address the core of the problem: they edit war as a united front, so attempts to reform individuals result in anon edits, socks, renames and other clued up approaches to keep the admins hands tied in frustrating ways. John Vandenberg (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I do appreciate all these concerns, but I'm not really sure what remedies could cover this - many of these issues are out of the scope of the ArbCom, and probably even the scope of the community. CheckUser of users couldn't be done at random, but obviously if there's clear sockpuppetry that could be dealt with via the usual channels. I've struck through, one revert, per page, per week - obviously we need to limit the disruption here, and one revert per week stops the users moving around every article uinder the scope of the decision and reverting it once. Ryan Postlethwaite 18:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The "no speeding" sign of one revert per week is a good idea. The wording of the rest of it is also acceptable provided it is clearly understood that this remedy is applicable to any anon or freshly minted user that steps into an existing debate or rekindles an old one. In order to avoid throw away accounts being used to do reverts, it would be advisable for the uninvolved admin to also revert when this occurs. Due to past experience, it would also be helpful if it was made clear that WP:BOLD and WP:IAR does not apply to Armenia-Azerbaijan related articles. John Vandenberg (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think it would be best to stick as closely as possible to the original wording, just without the incivility clause:
“ Any editor who edits articles which relate to Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts in an aggressive point of view manner may be placed on revert limitation, civility supervision, and supervised editing by any uninvolved administrator, such restrictions to take effect after a notice has been placed on the editor's talk page and logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2#Log of blocks and bans. ”
Civility supervision, revert limitation, and supervised editing have been described previously in the case and at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions. This allows maximum flexibility. So far we have made little use of the supervised editing restriction (allowing an admin to ban an editor from an article or topic for a period of time or indefinitely) but I think we need to start moving away from mechanical 1RR limits that encourage vexatious litigation ("his rationale was insufficient") and toward broader more permanent sanctions. Thatcher 06:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for increased enforcement /Brahma Kumaris

A previous request by Thatcher131 was declined declined in April however the the pattern of disruption has continued, has been experienced by non-affiliated editors, and evidence of the disruption being due to the same editor using a succession of different accounts has been built up. Yes, the article has improved substantially due the input of editors with no association with the article subject, however the disruption is something the article, and other editors, could well do without. Relevant sockpuppet reports are .

The pattern of disruption usually involves editing with contempt for consensus, edit waring, taunting other editors based on their affiliation, incivility and ranting against the article subject. Strong enforcement of WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:NOR and WP:CONS would effectively screen out the disruption.

I have tried using normal dispute resolution methods but this is getting tiring for me, other editors who have dropped by to help and also the admins that have to deal with the constant requests for help. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 13:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that there has been little to no "disruption" at all and this is just another preemptive strike by an individual that admits to be part of the organization in question, a new religious movements' called the BKWSU, own Internet PR Team; and is acting in accordance with the organization's PR aims. An individual that has invested a huge amount of time, effort and admins' energy in attempt to control the topic for his affiliated organization.
To state this for the sake of new admins coming to this issue is hardly "taunting". It is a statement of fact. I hope that eventually the Misplaced Pages admins will appreciate this for what it is. Simon has become incredibly skilled in his manipulation of Misplaced Pages admins and constructing accusations.
Let's look at the timing of this and the collusion of yet another BKWSU contributor, User:76.79.146.8. Bksimonb requests an early unprotection, User:76.79.146.8 reverts and accuses vandalism, attacks etc. Both complain to admins etc. Bksimonb puts RfA.
Putting aside the loaded and hysterical language, the seemingly endless accusations and complaints, if we look at the differences between the BKWSU's chosen version, the main differences are really;
  • the removal of weblink to an informed independent website that makes public and openly discusses the BKWSU's core teachings, the only independent website about the organization and one that the BKWSU's USA trust spent considerable amount of money attempting to recent silence via legal action and failed to do so.
  • the attempt to play down the centrality of channelling and mediumship to its practises. The channelling and mediumship of a spirit guide its followers are told is God and a centrality which illfits with its public face and political ambitions.
  • the instant removal and erasure of considerable time and effort made making neutral and beneficial formatting ... etc the 65 edits, here;.
Personally, I just want to get on and contribute to the Misplaced Pages. I am sick of being the target of these people. I know the subjects I edit on. I add form, content and provide citations. It gives me no pleasure to be continually subjected to wasting admin's time and constantly tripping over the stumbling blocks these people are persistently using in an attempt to exclude me.
I am happy to discuss this in detail and supply all the diffs that illustrate just exactly what Simon and the BKWSU are up to if required. but, frankly, the Misplaced Pages admins cannot see this for what it is by looking at nature and amount of complaints this individual has made, then I am afraid that I would wasting my time.
References;
  • Suspected sock puppet
  • BKWSU IT violation
  • WP:3RR pattern
  • Long term use of affiliation to discredit
--Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 18:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
As a remedy I am asking for strong enforcement of Misplaced Pages's policies. If this causes a problem then it is clear where that problem lies. I am not asking for unilateral enforcement. I am happy for the same rules to apply to me and other editors. It is clear from the above post that there is a strong bias against the BKWSU and a rather obvious attempt to discredit me and other editors based on our affiliation and non-agreement with the the above editor's own views. In the above post alone I am being accused, as if it were some indisputable fact, of "collusion", "PR", "preemptive strike", "manipulation" and censorship. In fact, I am most grateful for the above post as it clearly illustrates the problem. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 05:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the need for enforcement of Misplaced Pages's policies. In particular WP:COI where it states;
" Editing in the interests of public relations is particularly frowned upon. This includes, but is not limited to, edits made by public relations departments of corporations; or of other public or private for-profit or not-for-profit organizations; or by professional editors paid to edit a Misplaced Pages article with the sole intent of improving that organization's image."
BK Simon B is a member, if not leader, of the BKWSU Internet PR team. In fact, I think the correct title is "core Internet PR team". The Internet PR team of the organization in question. If Simon choses to deny this, here, then I am happy to provide evidence to support this assertion. He is and has been supported by other BK followers (BK is the title followers given themselves) and they also work together to suppress other internet source, e.g. they (Simon and other BK Misplaced Pages editors) recently acted in a failed attempt to close down an independent website via a domain name dispute. This is the same domain that BK Simon and the other BK contributors keep removing from the article; http://www.brahmakumaris.info.
I do not think it is fair that the Misplaced Pages's admins have their time used up protecting the PR interests of a new religious movement but that it is only in this context can we understand what is going on here.
The BKWSU has invests a considerable amount of money on its public face and generally keeps hidden from newcomers the more extreme elements of its beliefs, e.g.
  • the practise of mediumship or channelling of a spirit they claim is God himself via their mediums at the Indian headquarters
  • the belief is a 5,000 year Cycle of time that repeats identically
  • numerous failed predictions of the End of the World in which 6 Billion are meant to die so that 900,000 of their faithful followers will inherit a Golden Age heaven on earth (all, of course, backed up by independent, academic sources).
  • their historical revision and superiority as God's chosen religion
The last year or more has been one long war of attrition in which the BK followers, with varying degrees of finesse and investment in gaming the Misplaced Pages system, have attempt to distort the topic to hide these core, identifying elements to bring the topic inline with the 'vanilla' version presented on their websites. This gaming continues with a barrage of complaints, accusations, unfounded vituperative depending each time on some new admin or contributor not knowing the history and not knowing the organization.
I think it is wrong that the Misplaced Pages allows this waste of volunteers resources. I think this individual has made a disproportionate amount of complaints underling his and his organization's single intent ... which is to break the spirit of any informed, independent contributor and push their PR agenda. Even the Scientology article includes independent websites and external links. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 08:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Just an outside view from a regular user, but the article is on probation and adding unnecessarily positive or negative stuff without reference to core policy seems to be against the terms of this. The remedy reads, "Any user may request review by members of the Arbitration Committee", which both sides appear to have done in the section above. Also in Principles: "Users with a deep personal involvement with a subject who edit in a disruptive, aggressive biased manner may be banned from editing the affected article or articles, per Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest." User:Bksimonb has a self-declared conflict of interest, and per WP:COI as cited in the arbitration, needs to consider whether the edits are promoting his organisation, or promoting the interests of Misplaced Pages. I can't tell exactly what has been added by the user, but I made a reverse diff of Lucy's revert which gives some clue as to what matters are under dispute. The article was reverted to the pre-Lucy version and immediately full-protected by User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry on 26 December 2007. I am unsure at this stage whether User:Lucyintheskywithdada also has a conflict of interest in the opposite direction - user commenced editing on 21 December 2007 and, strangely, their main edits have not been focused on this article. However, their reference to the BKWSU Internet Team in their very first edit to the page suggests they may be a historic participant in the dispute. Orderinchaos 08:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to have a go at trying to get this one on track - it does seem to have rather gone off the rails. If Misplaced Pages policies were strictly enforced here it would be necessary to ban everybody involved, which while resulting in peace and a complete end to edit warring on the article, would certainly not be a desirable outcome. Strict enforcement of the rules before has led to a situation where it appears the article overly favours one side, is far from encyclopaedic and needs a lot of sourcing. I'm acting purely as a content editor and negotiator with no past history and no particular views on the subject, and am quite happy to defer to arbitrators on any matter. Orderinchaos 09:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Orderinchaos. Although I obviously find some of your initial assessment challenging the important thing for me is that you are prepared to work with us, and I really appreciate that. As far as COI issues are concerned I have tried my best to act within limits and leave the most drastic edits to outside editors who have dropped by. I appreciate that it probably doesn't look that way without a detailed analysis of the article history and talk archives. I don't expect you to do that so I'll just take it all on the nose for now knowing that everything will transpire in it's own time if you stick around. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I would have to disagree with you Orderinchaos, the article is, or at least has been prior to the BKs revision, very highly sourced. It lists all the major and many minor BK sources. One of the problem it has suffered is the BKs team persistently removing not just references and citations but also perfectly good copy and formatting edits. This is not bitching, the history demonstrates it and it worth studying. The purpose has surely been the same as all the admin complaints; a bad will disincentive for any informed non-BKWSU contributors.
I am sorry but although I have been cautioned to let this go, I must ask for action to be taken on the obvious WP:COI by the Internet PR team. Fine, a Christian editing a page on Christianity, that is acceptable. But the representative of the "Core Internet PR Team" of the organization warring on the organizations own topic, I am afraid that really is too much given all the illwill.
Whilst doing my laundry, I made a spreadsheet of this individual; Bksimonb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
Of 1266 edits only a handful were not related to the BKWSU. Going by the summaries alone (approximately ... my attention to detail has some limits)
  • 103 were Administrator requests related to the BKWSU (including 26 "Reports" and 50 re "enforcement")
  • 76 were "Suspicions", e.g. "Suspected" complaints related to the BKWSU,
  • 76 Revision of non-BKWSU contributors
  • 88 related to Sockpuppets accusations related to the BKWSU
  • 69 Related directed to Adminstrators noticeboard related to the BKWSU protection
  • 13 checkusers complaints related to the BKWSU
  • 13 POVs related to the BKWSU
  • 3 were page delete requests related to the BKWSU
This equals approximately 428 non-constructive edits, or a third of the total. These are then mirrored by the other BKs such Appledell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I suggest this is disproportionate to the value to the Misplaced Pages, the time and efforts of other volunteers. I think I can find 4 time he actually added a reference, the rest are just passing judgement on or removing other's work.
In his original arbcom statement he writes, "we (BKWSU Internet PR Team have no problem with critical websites". But then in reality, he and other members of the BKWSU team both persistently remove all independent websites links from the article under a variety of guises and work together on a failed legal attack to silence the leading one. As I state before, even the Scientologists are mature enough to allow criticism and critical links on their topic.
Surely it would be naive of us not to consider that "creating a problem" is in order to achieve an end result within which even uninformed inaccuracies are better than referenced precision. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 13:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Comment Certainly there are some pro-BK or BK-affiliated editors working here. There are also some people committed to "exposing the truth" about BK. Interestingly, brand new editor Lucyintheskywithdada (talk · contribs) is making exactly the same arguments as a number of previous editors, including the editor who used 195.82.106.244 and was banned for making personal attacks. The "truth" about BK often comes from alleged internal BK documents that are in the possession of former members, and which do not meet the reliable source guidelines, although I understand there has been improvement in this area. Ultimately, the article probation that passed had unique wording that makes it unenforceable except by the Arbitration committee. What is needed therefore is a review by the Committee to determine whether the current disputes are within the normal scope of the dispute resolution process (thus directing the parties to RFC, mediation etc.) or whether the disruption is sufficient to adopt a more muscular remedy. Thatcher 02:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to make a factual correction here.
The "internal BK documents" that have been referred to as such by the BK editors, or debate with regards to this topic, are the channeled messages believed to be God speaking through their mediums called the Murlis. It was discovered that some at least had been published with an ISBN number after all but, in principle, it is accepted that the main body are disallowed. Other early sources of literature, including Indian ones are all taken from publicly sources are equally held by the BKWSU. So there can be no controversy over these.
There is some inconsistency towards the use of BKWSU produced materials, e.g. the BK editors refusing certain publications but then using other publication or their websites to support their own claims, e.g. that charity projects are theirs, where the documentation appears to support they are not BK ventures. The debate has really be about "who" gets to use and chose them, i.e. whether they are a BK or not; what is a "contentious" citation or not and the guiding principle being whether or not it matches their current publicity or not.
We are dealing with a very specific and narrow topic here with relatively little literature. Any contributor coming forward is going to rely on the same sources and references. I would suggest that there would be no contention at all if Bksimonb and the other BKs were not pursuing their policy of total reversion over even utterly neutral edits (typos, formatting etc) ... and shooting the messenger by way of killing the message.
I think what the topic needs is a chance to develop without persistent and personalised BKWSU censorship before motives are assigned. To that end, I am asking the committee to extend some trust and allow us to do so.
I also think the article needs to be split into a number of others to allow each aspect to be covered in detail, again something the BKs keep disallowing. Part of the problem is a simple dispute caused by the artificial constraint imposed by insisting it all fits onto one page.
I am not a new editor. I joined as Lwachowski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) but forgot my password, I rejoined and immediate drew admin attention to this as AWachowski attempting to recover my original account. My diffs are here if they are to be criticised . Please do.
Despite making clear the change of name, these were reported by Bksimonb and disallowed with any chance of comment because they were either too similar (of course, they were meant to be!) or the name of a real person (Wachowski is a fair common name in Poland) forcing me to register another name Creationcreator (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log).
Creationcreator was then contrived to be a sockpuppet account by Bksimonb and reported again on two separate occasions using the L/AWachowski change of name despite his knowing clearly that I had lost a password and made efforts to have it official changed. No checkuser was made other alleged accounts. None of these have ever been used consecutively.
I am happy to use one account IF I can be left alone without an obvious policy of exclusion by the BKWSU PR guy Simonb ... and if it can be recognised what is going on. Please note again the collusion; .
I am being open here in trust and good faith, with all the attendant risks. I make no effort to hide this. This not sockpuppetry. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 10:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Could the parties and/or administrators with the relevant background please clarify whether this is a request for enforcement of the existing remedies from the prior arbitrator, or whether the committee is being asked to clarify the remedies or enact new ones? If the latter, please clarify exactly what is being proposed or requested. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The existing article probation states only that the parties may ask for a review; it does not have the usual enforcement provisions such as allowing admins to issue topic bans for disruptive editing. Bksimonb appears to be asking that the article be placed on standard article probation so that admins could hand out topic bans and so forth. I have not reviewed the content or recent contribs/talk page to see whether Bksimonb is correct in his assessment that certain editors are disruptive (as opposed to merely disagreeing with him). Thatcher 16:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I would appreciate input from administrators active on Arbitration Enforcement (including Thatcher) regarding whether a Review case is warranted and/or whether a motion to add the standard enforcement provisions to the decision should be adopted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I apologise for asking this but I would appreciate if the arbcom would look at enacting new remedy with regards to the "core BKWSU Internet PR team" and WP:COI. I also have posted recently on the talk page noting the involvement of Sockpuppets of Ekajati; IPSOS/Ekajati/GlassFET. I have been cautioned about persisting in the use of the above term but it is the organization's official term for the group, under the BKWSU USA leadership, which Bksimonb represents. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 15:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


I request that User:Lucyintheskywithdada and all relevant incarnations he admits to above be blocked for persistent violation of WP:NPA and WP:OWN.
I am an outside editor trying to work in good faith on the article and each time I ask a question for clarification, suggest that he create a sandbox, or otherwise engage in in consensus building, he reverts to personal attacks or WP:Own. I've gone to a great deal of effort to research the articles and most recently acquired a copy of the book that Lucy suggested getting (Walliss's book) yet he continues his relentless attacks.
For example of violation of WP:NPA, scroll to the end of this entry .
This, this, and this are clear examples of WP:OWN.
From WP:OWN: "An editor comments on other editors' talk pages with the purpose of discouraging them from making additional contributions. The discussion can take many forms; it may be purely negative, consisting of threats and insults, often avoiding the topic of the revert altogether. At the other extreme, the owner may patronize other editors, claiming that their ideas are interesting while also claiming that they lack the deep understanding of the article necessary to edit it."
Lucy's repeated diversionary tactics (including filing checkusers, reports here, etc.) and disruptive talk page edits demonstrate his unwillingness to discuss substance and build consensus in good faith. He is violating arbcomm's ruling that current and former associates refrain from personal attacks and aggressive edits. Please block. Cleanemupnowboys (talk) 17:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be a lot of allegations, accusations etc flying around, and that's actually the main problem at present - I think the content issues have all but faded into the background while each of them accuse each other of various violations of policy and/or being sockpuppets. If the parties can set that aside and work together, there would not be a need for a review. If they are unable to, it's probably the only option. I don't think an encyclopaedic article is impossible from the people and sources available. Orderinchaos 00:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to NYB's request - the review request seems to have been made as part of a campaign by one side of the dispute against the other side of the dispute, a continuance of a pattern which extends back some months. Said other side has come in and made allegations/launched processes in response. Past enforcement of the ArbCom, whose decision was a broadly sensible one, by admins viewing individual / out-of-context requests (without criticising any of them, as it took me days to determine where things were at) has sadly been narrow in focus and has been gamed somewhat by involved editors, particularly those on the BK side. The response of course has been the other party turning to increasing degrees of shrillness, which we're seeing above in the bolding of paragraphs and bizarre allegations. The unfortunate reality is that this article is a mess, one needs to be something of a subject expert to wade through it and improve it (I've actually read a lot of source documents in recent days), and the few here who have that expertise are small in number and have a history of conflict with each other. Orderinchaos 03:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I would appreciate a more thorough investigation. I can't really go along with some of the above assessment. Firstly the "shrillness", bolding of paragraphs, presumptions of bad faith, soapboxing and bizarre allegations are something I encountered right from the very first time I posted . What you call "gaming" is just what happens when help is requested and there is no response. One naturally tries escalating the issue. I've always tried to be as reasonable as possible but when in the absence of any feedback at all when I've signaled an issue, I can't really be expected to know how to proceed or what, if anything, I was doing wrong at the time. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 17:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I should add that I have no complaint regarding arbcom and arbcom enforcement. The problem is in finding any useful feedback or response with lower forms of dispute resolution. For example, should any editor have to spend a year and a half being constantly harassed regarding their affiliation  ? Regards Bksimonb (talk) 18:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I should note I'm not in ArbCom, am not a clerk, etc, so my "investigation" carries the weight only of my own opinion, as much as that may be regarded or ridiculed in some quarters - I'm an admin, I've been a user for almost two years, and I'm trying to use my experience to end a dispute in a good-faith manner, however impossible a task that seems. I come from outside the dispute and until 30 December had no exposure to any of the disputants. My concern is simply that most of the action reports which have led to actions being taken have been initiated by yourself. Then you point to those actions as evidence that the community is acting on your concerns, and use your own reports as justifications for other reports. When you are in a position of an identified conflict of interest regarding the article, and all your reports are about people who disagree with you, while people who agree with you appear to have gotten off, you can understand the problem for Misplaced Pages and the community in trusting the soundness of these reports and actions. In addition it appears that these actions on your part may have assisted in escalating the dispute which has continued for well over a year now and shows few if any signs of ending soon. Orderinchaos 22:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your efforts to end the dispute. However I must protest that I have never reported someone simply because they disagreed with me. I report editors who blatantly ignore consensus, constantly make crazy accusations against other contributers and the article subject, use the talk page as a soapbox for propaganda, use anonymous IPs (probably proxies) and other accounts abusively and taunt editors on their talk pages and in edit comments. Is this really a normal part of the editing process we should be expected to live with? I would have thought that editors who behave in such a way have effectively forfeited any right to be a part of any editing process. It's kind of disheartening. It's like my house constantly gets burgled and when I complain to the police they say I am part of the problem because I complain so much. Nice. Regards Bksimonb (talk) 05:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Did BKSimon ever put in a complaint against BKWSU editors who did the same, e.g. Riveros ? Why so few citations in comparison to blocks, bans, and reversions? I am sorry but we have to see all this talk of "consensus" for what it is; media control.
The organization has considerable personal and material resources and yet throughout the history of the topic has done, basically nothing to add value (by which I mean citations and references) whilst engaging in cover up. Please allow us the chance to develop the topic without the organization's own censorship.
This is why, following the involvement of IPSOS I would like a checkuser to be allowed on Cleanemupnowboys.
I suspect they are Reneeholle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) as the edits patterns match and our experience is similar to that on the Talk:Alice Bailey and related admin complaints.
Personally, I would just like some peace of mind that it is not IPSOS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) or Riveros11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) back again under another guise. I am not asking for a punitive results, just a commitment to openness and straightforwardness. --Lucyintheskywithdada (talk) 07:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested motions to /Digwuren

I request that the Committee consider the following motions. It is not clear where request for motions in a prior cases ought be placed, so could the clerks move this to the right spot if this is not it. Thanks. Martintg (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Clerk note: I have moved these requests to the "requests for clarifications" section as probably the best place for them. I agree with Marting that it is not clear from the instructions where a request for relief from a prior decision should be posted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The Committee will be discussing these motions soon-ish. They have move toward the top of our To-do-list. FloNight (talk) 22:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Suspension of bans for both User:Digwuren and User:Petri Krohn

It is now obvious, after an initial bit of confusion and subsequent clarification, that the remedy 11 Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#General_restriction will be most effective in combating incivility, which was the core issue of this case. No one was calling for year long bans for either party in the original case, in fact most involved and uninvolved were explicitly against any ban, as Alex Bakharev succinctly argued here and seconded by many others including Geogre and Biophys in Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren/Proposed_decision#Remedies_are_too_harsh. Note too that Digwuren did make a reflective and conciliatory statement aplogising to those he had wronged and forgiving those who had wronged him Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren/Proposed_decision#Statement_by_Digwuren. Compare this to the recently banned Anonimu, where there was a clear concensus for a ban and he was defiant and un-remorseful to the end.

While a year is a long time, and shortening it may be useful, I'd like to see those users expressing remorse, telling us what they have learned and promising not to continue behavior that led to their ban before any shortening or suspension of a ban is considered.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no point in banning these editors, especially Petri, who unlike Digwuren, even sincerely apologized long before the case and was still punished for his actions taken prior to the apology, unlike Digwuren who continued to create "occupation" badwagons, revert war and bait contributors even while his arbitration was ongoing. Still, as far as Digwuren is concerned, I neither proposed nor supported a year-long ban. I have a very thick skin towards incivility and this aspect of his conduct did not bother me much. But if he is unblocked, he must be on the short leash regarding the number of reverts and coatracking.

Overall, I think that case needs a new hearing in light of how editors see it now in the retrospect and by the hopefully wisened up ArbCom as well. Also, there were several new developments, chiefly, editors using the "editing restrictions" to blockshop and vigorously "investigate" each other. This whole matter needs a fresh look, perhaps by a renewed Arbcom after the election which is almost over.

I would object to selective reversals of the original decision. The case was handled badly in a hands-off-by-ArbCom-type way during the entire precedings. Selective return of Digwuren and doing nothing else would just make matters worse. Rehashing that decision overall may be a good thing and hearing all parties in an orderly way by the arbitrators who actually listned and engage would be a good thing though. --Irpen 19:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I think most of the involved parties had findings of fact regarding revert warring. The differentiating aspect for Digwuren and Petri Krohn was using Misplaced Pages as a battleground. Note that the root cause of this battle was the Bronze soldier controversy, which has now largely resolved itself, the threat for further battling has significantly diminished. Also given that bans are in principle intended to stop further damage to Misplaced Pages, rather for retribution and punishment for its own sake, and they have already served some months of this ban, I see no reason to continue this ban, particularly since there seems a concensus against a ban in the first place, the parties have shown remorse as I have linked above and the Bronze soldier issues have dissipated. I am not asking for selective reversals, just a suspension. Martintg (talk) 20:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I would support suspension of the ban of Digwuren and Petri. It would make sense to match it with some sort of the revert parole and/or topic bans Alex Bakharev (talk) 02:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I have to re-confirm my opinion since it has been mentioned above. Yes, I support the suspension of the ban of Digwuren and Petri since they are highly productive editors. The ban could be replaced by a restriction on the number of reverts per week if necessary.Biophys (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Strike User:Erik Jesse, User:3 Löwi and User:Klamber from the Involved parties list

These people were offline long before the case even started, never participated in the case, and continue to be offline to this day. No or little evidence was presented against them and no finding of fact either. In fact they had absolutely no involvement in the issues of this case and were only mentioned because they were included in an earlier checkuser case. Note however it is a finding of fact that Petri Krohn used Misplaced Pages as a battleground, and the checkuser case against these and other Estonian users was a part of that warfare. We don't want to perpetuate this wrong against these three editors.

Therefore I ask ArbCom to amend the case such that their names are struck from the list of involved parties and thus the notices removed from their talk pages. In fact I made a similar motion to this effect Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren/Workshop#Motion_to_strike_3_L.C3.B6wi_and_Klamber_from_the_list_of_parties during the case and it was seconded by the clerk Cbrown1023 at the time. I know it is a minor issue, but it is an important gesture that ArbCom ought to do to further heal the hurts and encourage them to return, particularly User:3 Löwi who has been an editor of good standing since 2005.

Expand definition of "uninvolved admin" in Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#General_restriction

The principle of involved admins not being permitted to issue blocks is founded on the issue of conflict of interest and that trust should be maintained in the impartiality of the blocking admin. Generally "involved" means personal involvement in the immediate issue or article. However, given that the span of this general restriction covers all of Eastern Europe, and the principle that trust should be maintained in the blocking admin's impartiality, and that political issues (the role of the Soviet Union and communism) is the basis for much of the conflict on Eastern Europe; the definition of "involved" should be expanded for this remedy to include admins with overt and obvious political view points or past significant involvment in content disputes within Eastern Europe

The recent episode concerning blocks issued by El_C illustrates this problem. An admin with a "vanity page" consisting of figures associated with communist oppression and terrorism wades into a dispute involving Eastern Europe, not only is this highly provocative, but alarm bells start ringing as to the impartiality of this admin. Note that this is same admin saw no problem with the behaviour of the recently banned Anonimu, uncivilly branding those who brought the complaint as "ethno-nationalist editors". This fact of questionable impartiality and lack of trust only served to inflame the situation resulting a commited and significant editor and wikiproject coordinator Sander Säde to leave the project.

While one must endeavour to assume good faith, never the less, there would be an issue of trust in the judgement of an admin if, to illustrate with an example, they had a vanity page consisting of images of Osama bin Ladin and Hezbollah on their user page wading in and handing out blocks in a dispute regarding Israeli related topic. Common sense dictates that controversial admins of questionable partiality should not be involved enforcing this remedy.

Good point, but it all boils down to the issue of anonymity. El C at least declares some of his POV on his user page. I, for example, declare quite a few more things. Would you prefer to trust a user who declares nothing? How can we be sure if such declarations are truthful, and not ironic or simply deceptive? Looking back at the Essjay controversy I still think all admins should be required to reveal their identity, education, and POVs... but I am well aware this will not fly. I think "uninvolved admin" should be one that is accepted by the parties; but of course that creates a possibility for the parties to evade judgment by refusing to accept any admin as uninvolved. Perhaps to avoid that but deal with the problem you outlined, we should have a procedure parties can lodge complains about admin's involvement, where this could be reviewed by other admins and if involvement is determined (something like CoI), the admin's action is reverted and warning issued? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Note that I am one of the most sought-after admins by both the Armenian and Azerbaijani factions. They never cared what is on my user page, they just care that I'm fair, and indeed I have such a record dating back years. Conversely, I've had pro-Palestinian groups or extreme-right Europeans refuse to have me as an uninvolved admin because I am fluent in Hebrew, requests which I always denied. El_C 15:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
In this particluar case, I fear the problem isn't actual conflict of interest so much as perceived lack of impartiality. While people knowing El_C may very well feel quite comfortable that he does not let his political leanings influence his judgment, the fact that they are very visible nonetheless will give the impression that he might be siding with one side of a debate, or "overcompensate" for the other. This does not mean that other editors with less visible politics would do a better job, but giving such ammo for complaints is probably a relatively bad idea. — Coren  17:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It's important to assume good faith. You are not calling to ban people who exhibit the flag of Israel on their userpage from admin actions on Israeli-Palestinian issue, so why this? Both Azerbaijan and Armenia were former Soviet republics, why are editors there acting differently than editors here? The reason, I think, has more to do with a perceived personal dispute than political (see for example the attempt by the user above to delete Bishzilla ). Anyway, I would gladly delete my user page, but such ruling need to be applied consistently, anticommunism should not be getting a priority because of easy targets. El_C 20:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I tried to specifically make the point that I didn't feel your impartiality was at issue, and I'm sorry if you understood this differently. My point is that perception is the key here and that leaving the enforcement to another admin would not be so much more trouble. And, personally, yes I would expect someone who displayed an Israeli flag on their userpage to also avoid admin action in Israeli-Palestinian issue — not because I think them unable to act fairly and impartially, but because the appearance of impropriety is a probable source of heat. — Coren  23:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It's a trap, but I'll answer. Appearances do count (for example, I never edited the Communism article even once), but this is far from it. What about someone displaying the American flag in relation to articles about 911 or modern Iraq? Some would have me cease enforcing Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute which I have been doing for years, even though both factions seek this, due to abstract appearance of political correctness. It's a red herring (pun intended), anyway; Misplaced Pages is not a free-for-all. El_C 02:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I support the proposal by Piotrus to have a review procedure for such cases. The reviewrs have to decide if the blocking admin is indeed an impartial side. If there are any doubts about that, the block should be lifted immediately.Biophys (talk) 20:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

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Arbitrator workflow motions

Workflow motions: Arbitrator discussion

  • I am proposing these three motions for discussion, community input, and a vote. Each seeks to improve ArbCom's functioning by providing for the performance of basic administrative responsibilities that sometimes go neglected, which, in my opinion, if successful, would significantly improve ArbCom's overall capacity. Motivation: We've known about the need for improvements to our workflow and capacity for some years now – I wrote about some of these suggestions in my 2022 ACE statement. It's a regular occurrence that someone will email in with a request or information and, because of the press of other work and because nobody is responsible for tracking and following up on the thread, we will let the thread drop without even realizing it and without deciding that no action is needed. We can each probably name a number of times this has happened, but one recent public example of adverse consequences from such a blunder was highlighted in the Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area case request, which was partially caused by our failure to address a private request that had been submitted to us months earlier. Previous efforts: We've experimented with a number of technological solutions to this problem during my four years on the Committee, including: (a) tracking matters on a Trello board or on a private Phabricator space; (b) tracking threads in Google Groups with tags; (c) requesting the development of custom technical tools; (d) reducing the appeals we hear; and (e) tracking appeals more carefully on arbwiki. Some of these attempts have been moderately successful, or showed promise for a time before stalling, but none of them have fully and fundamentally addressed this dropping-balls issue, which has persisted, and which in my opinion requires a human solution rather than just a technological solution. Rationale: The work we need done as framed below (e.g. bumping email threads) isn't fundamentally difficult or sensitive, but it's essential, and it's structurally hard for an active arbitrator to be responsible for doing it. For example, I could never bring myself to bump/nag others to opine on matters that I hadn't done my best to resolve yet myself. But actually doing the research to substantively opine on an old thread (especially as the first arb) can take hours of work, and I'm more likely to forget about it before I have the time to resolve it, and then it'll get lost in the shuffle. So it's best to somewhat decouple the tracking/clerical function from the substantive arb-ing work. Other efforts: There is one more technological solution for which there was interest among arbitrators, which was to get a CRM/ticketing system – basically, VRTS but hopefully better. I think this could help and would layer well with any of the other options, but there are some open questions (e.g., which one to get, how to pay for it, whether we can get all arbs to adopt it), and I don't think that that alone would address this problem (see similar attempts discussed above), so I think we should move ahead with one of these three motions now and adopt a ticketing system with whichever of the other motions we end up going with. These three motions are the result of substantial internal workshopping, and have been variously discussed (as relevant) with the functionaries, the clerks, and the Wikimedia Foundation (on a call in November). Before that, we held an ideation session on workflow improvements with the Foundation in July and have had informal discussions for a number of years. I deeply appreciate the effort and input that has gone into these motions from the entire committee and from the clerks and functionaries, and hope we can now pass one of them. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    • One other thing I forgot to suggest—I'd be glad to write motions 1 or 2 up as a trial if any arb prefers, perhaps for 6-12 months, after which the motion could be automatically repealed unless the committee takes further action by motion to permanently continue the motion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Workflow motions: Clerk notes

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

Workflow motions: Implementation notes

Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by an automatic check at 08:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Motion name Support Oppose Abstain Passing Support needed Notes
Motion 1: Correspondence clerks 2 3 0 Currently not passing 4 One support vote contingent on 1.4 passing
Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener" 1 2 1 Currently not passing 4
Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant" 0 1 3 Currently not passing 4
Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial) 0 3 1 Currently not passing 5
Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly 1 2 1 Currently not passing 4
Motion 2: WMF staff support 0 5 0 Cannot pass Cannot pass
Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators 4 0 0 Currently not passing 2
Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks 0 3 0 Currently not passing 6
Notes


Motion 1: Correspondence clerks

Nine-month trial

The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it:

Correspondence clerks

The Arbitration Committee may appoint one or more former elected members of the Arbitration Committee to be correspondence clerks for the Arbitration Committee. Correspondence clerks must meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public personal data and sign the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement.

Correspondence clerks shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.

The specific responsibilities of correspondence clerks shall include:

  • Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
  • Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
  • Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
  • Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
  • Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.

The remit of correspondence clerks shall not include:

  • Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
  • Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks.

All correspondence clerks shall hold concurrent appointments as arbitration clerks and shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
  1. This is my first choice and falls within ArbCom's community-granted authority to approve and remove access to mailing lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee and to designate individuals for particular tasks or roles and maintain a panel of clerks to assist with the smooth running of its functions. Currently, we have arbitration clerks to help with on-wiki work, but most of ArbCom's workload is private (on arbcom-en), and our clerks have no ability to help with that because they can't access any of ArbCom's non-public work. It has always seemed strange to me to have clerks for on-wiki work, but not for the bulk of the work which is off-wiki (and which has always needed more coordination help). When consulting the functionaries, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that four functionaries (including three former arbitrators) expressed interest in volunteering for this role. This would be lower-intensity than serving as an arbitrator, but still essential to the functioning of the committee. We already have a number of ex-arbs on the clerks-l mailing list to advise and assist, and this seems like a natural extension of that function. The Stewards have a somewhat similar "Steward clerk" role, although ArbCom correspondence clerks would be a higher-trust position (functionary-level appointments only). I see this as the strongest option because the structure is familiar (analogous to our existing clerks, but for off-wiki business), because we have trusted functionaries and former arbs interested who could well discharge these responsibilities, and because I think we would benefit from separating the administrative responsibility from the substantive responsibility. The cons I see are that volunteer correspondence clerks might be less reliable than paid staff and that we'd be adding one or two (ish) people to the arbcom-en list. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. Contingent on 1.4 passing. This option was not my first choice, and I'm inclined to try having a coordinating Arb first, if we can get a volunteer/set of volunteers. Given that the new term should infuse the Committee with more life and vigor, we may find a coordinating Arb, or another solution. But I think we should put this in our toolbox for the moment. This doesn't force us to appoint someone, just gives us the ability and outlines the position. CaptainEek ⚓ 05:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. I don't think we should extend access to the mailing list and the private information it contains beyond what is absolutely necessary. I understand the reasoning behind former arbitrators in such a role as they previously had such access, but people emailing the Arbitration Committee should have confidence that private information is kept need to know and that only the current arbitrators evaluating and making decisions based on that private information have ongoing access to it. - Aoidh (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. This is limited to former arbitrators for good reasons, most of them privacy-related. But the same concerns that led to this proposal being limited to former arbitrators are also arguments against doing this at all. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain

Motion 1: Arbitrator views and discussions

  • I'd be glad changing this to only appoint former arbs, if that would tip anyone's votes. Currently, it's written as "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps (and preferably from among former members of the Arbitration Committee)" for flexibility if needed, but I imagine we would only really appoint former arbs if available, except under unusual circumstances, because they understand how the mailing list discussions go and have previously been elected to handle the same private info. I am also open to calling it something other than "correspondence clerk"; that just seemed like a descriptive title. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
    I do like the idea of using our Arbs emeritus for this position (and perhaps only Arbs emeritus); it ensures that they have experience in our byzantine process, and at least at some point held community trust. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
    @CaptainEek: I have changed the motion to make only former arbs eligible. If anyone preferred broader (all funct) eligibility, I've added an alternative motion 1.1 below, which if any arb does prefer it, they should uncollapse and vote for it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I also think that if we adopt this we should choose a better name. I know Barkeep49 meant this suggestion as a bit of a joke, but I actually think he was on the money when he suggested "scrivener." I like "adjutant" even more, which I believe he also suggested. They capture the sort of whimsical Misplaced Pages charm evoked by titles like Most Pluperfect Labutnum while still being descriptive, and not easily confused for a traditional clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 03:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    Whimsy is important -- Guerillero 08:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • @CaptainEek and Guerillero: Per the above discussion points, I have (a) proposed two alternative names below that were workshopped among some arbs ("scrivener" on the more whimsical side and "coordination assistant" on the less whimsical side; see motions 1.2a and 1.2b), and (b) made this motion a nine-month trial, after which time the section is automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to extend it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I plan on supporting motion 1 over anything else. I've spent a week just getting onto all the platforms, and I'm already kind of shocked that this is how we do things. Not only is there a lot to keep track of, all of the information moves unintuitively between different places in a way that makes it very difficult to keep up unless you're actively plugged in enough to be on top of the ball – which I don't think anyone can be all the time. I just don't think a coordinating arb is sufficient: we need someone who can keep us on track without having to handle all of the standard work of reviewing evidence, deliberating, and making an informed decision. (Better-organized tech would also be great, but I'd need to spend a lot more time thinking about how it could be redone.) I understand the privacy concerns, but I don't think this represents a significant breach of confidentiality: people care more whether their report gets handled properly than whether it goes before 15 trusted people or 16. So, I'll be voting in favor of motion 1, and maybe motion 3 will be a distant second. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Scope and responsibilities
  2. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Procedures and roles

Motion 1.1: expand eligible set to functionaries

If any arbitrator prefers this way, unhat this motion and vote for it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

If motion 1 passes, replace the text The Arbitration Committee may appoint one or more former elected members of the Arbitration Committee to be correspondence clerks for the Arbitration Committee. with the text The Arbitration Committee may appoint, from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps (and preferably from among former members of the Arbitration Committee), one or more users to be correspondence clerks for the Arbitration Committee..

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
Oppose
Abstain


Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener"

If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "scriveners".

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
  1. Nicely whimsical, and not as likely to be confusing as correspondence clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. I think correspondence clerk is fine if role is something we're going with, it's less ambiguous as to what it entails than scrivener. - Aoidh (talk) 04:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. I have never heard that word before; at least "correspondence" and "clerk" are somewhat common in the English Misplaced Pages world. When possible, I think we should use words people don't have to look up in dictionaries. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. I think that because it's more archaic and possibly less serious, I disprefer this to either "coordination assistant" or "correspondence clerk", but would ultimately be perfectly happy with it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant"

If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "coordination assistants".

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
Oppose
  1. bleh. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. I am indifferent between this and "correspondence clerk". Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. If we're going to use a role like this, either this or correspondence clerk is fine. - Aoidh (talk) 04:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. That would be okay. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial)

If motion 1 passes, omit the text for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
Oppose
  1. I recently experimented with sunset clauses and think that frankly a lot more of what we do should have such time limits that require us to stop and critically evaluate if a thing is working. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. If this change is necessary, there should be a review of it after a reasonable trial period to see what does and does not work. - Aoidh (talk) 01:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. I have no preference as to whether this is permanent or a trial. I do think that nine months is a good length for the trial if we choose to have one: not too long to lock in a year's committee; not too short to make it unworthwhile. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly

If motion 1 passes, strike the following text:

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

And replace it with the following:

To that end, correspondence clerks shall be added to the arbcom-en mailing list. The Committee shall continue to maintain at least one mailing list accessible only by arbitrators.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
  1. Much less trouble to have them on the main list than to split the lists. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Access to private information should be as limited as possible to only what is strictly necessary to perform such a task, and I don't see a allowing full access to the contents of the current list necessary for this. I'd rather not split the list, but between that and giving full access then if we're going to have a correspondence clerk, then it needs to be split. - Aoidh (talk) 04:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. Motion 1 is already problematic for privacy reasons; this would make it worse. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. I would not really object to this. C-clerks (or whatever we call them) are former arbs and have previously been on arbcom-en in any event, so it doesn't seem that like a big deal to do this. On the other hand, I would understand if folks prefer the split. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Arbitrator discussion

Motion 2: WMF staff support

The Arbitration Committee requests that the Wikimedia Foundation Committee Support Team provide staff support for the routine administration and organization of the Committee's mailing list and non-public work.

The selected staff assistants shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work. Staff assistants shall perform their functions under the direction of the Arbitration Committee and shall not represent the Wikimedia Foundation in the course of their support work with the Arbitration Committee or disclose the Committee's internal deliberations except as directed by the Committee.

The specific responsibilities of the staff assistants shall include, as directed by the Committee:

  • Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
  • Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
  • Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
  • Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
  • Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.

The remit of staff assistants shall not include:

  • Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
  • Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.

To that end, upon the selection of staff assistants, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and staff assistants.

The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by staff assistants.

Staff assistants shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
Oppose
  1. I appreciate that Kevin put this together, and I think this would be very helpful, maybe even the most helpful, way to ensure that we stayed on top of the ball. But just because it would achieve one goal doesn't make it a good idea. A full version of my rationale is on the ArbList, for other Arbs. The short, WP:BEANS version is that this would destroy the line between us and the Foundation, which undoes much of our utility. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. Per my comment on motion 4. - Aoidh (talk) 01:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  4. I like the general idea of the WMF using its donated resources to support the community that made the donations possible. I am uncomfortable with putting WMF staff in front of ArbCom's e-mail queue, however, as this would come with unavoidable conflicts of interest and a loss of independence. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
  5. The help would be useful, but the consequences would be detrimental to both ArbCom & WMF. Some space between us is necessary for ArbCom's impartiality & for the WMF's section 230 position. Cabayi (talk) 12:56, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain

Motion 2: Arbitrator views and discussions

  • I am quite open to this idea. A professional staff member assisting the committee might be the most reliable and consistent way to achieve this goal. ArbCom doesn't need the higher-intensity support that the WMF Committee Support Team provides other committees like AffCom and the grant committees, but having somebody to track threads and bump stalled discussions would be quite helpful. I'm going to wait to see if there's any community input on this motion before voting on it, though. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators

The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section:

Coordinating arbitrators

The Arbitration Committee shall, from time to time, designate one or more arbitrators to serve as the Committee's coordinating arbitrators.

Coordinating arbitrators shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.

The specific responsibilities of coordinating arbitrators shall include:

  • Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
  • Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
  • Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
  • Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
  • Performing similar routine administrative and clerical functions.

A coordinating arbitrator may, but is not required to, state an intention to abstain on some or all matters before the Committee without being listed as an "inactive" arbitrator.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
  1. This is currently my first-choice option; we have unofficially in the past had arbitrators take on specific roles (e.g. tracking unblock requests, responding to emails, etc) and it seemed to work fairly well. Having those rules be more "official" seems like the best way to make sure someone is responsible for these things, without needing to expand the committee or the pool of people with access to private information. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. I may still vote for the clerks option, but I think this is probably the minimum of what we need. Will it be suffucient...aye, there's the rub. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. Of the motions proposed, this one is the one I'd most support. It doesn't expand the number of people who can view the ArbCom mailing list beyond those on ArbCom, and creates a structure that may improve how the mailing list is handled. - Aoidh (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
  4. Per Primefac. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Oppose
Abstain

Motion 3: Arbitrator views and discussions

  • I am also open to this idea, though I am worried that it will be insufficient and haven't made up my mind on my vote yet. This idea was floated by a former arbitrator from back when the committee did have a coordinating arbitrator, though that role kind of quietly faded away. The benefits of this approach include that there's no need to bring anyone else onto the list. This motion also allows (but does not require) arbs to take a step back from active arb business to focus on the coordination role, which could help with the bifurcation I mention above. Cons include that this could be the least reliable option; that it's possible no arb is interested, or has the capacity to do this well; and that it's hard to be both a coordinator on top of the existing difficult role of serving as an active arb. I personally think this is better than nothing, but probably prefer one of the other two motions to actually add some capacity. Other ideas that have been floated include establishing a subcommittee of arbitrators responsible for these functions. My same concerns would apply there, but if there's interest, I'm glad to draft and propose a motion to do that; any other arb should also feel free to propose such a motion of their own. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I was partial to this idea, though it was not my first choice. I proposed that we might make it a rotating position, à la the presidency of the UN security council. Alternatively, a three person subcommittee might also be the way to go, so that the position isn't dependent on one person's activity. I like this solution in general because we already basically had it, with the coordinating arbitrator role. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
    • @CaptainEek: I think your last sentence actually kind of nails why I don't love this solution? From a new person on the scene, it doesn't seem to me like trying old strategies and things we've already been doing is really going to solve a chronic problem. If there are arbs who really are willing to be the coordinators, that's better than nothing, but I haven't seen any step up yet and I'm not convinced that relying on at least one arb having the extra time and trust in every committee to do this work is sustainable. I am leaning towards voting for the scriveners motion, though, because I do love a good whimsical name 😄 theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
      My concern with this is that if an arb already has the time and inclination you'd expect them to be filling the role, as has happened in the past. Simply formalizing the role doesn't help if no one has the motivation to do it. It's still the option I support the most out of those listed, though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
      I think formalizing it does move the needle on someone doing it. Two possible benefits of the formalization:
  • It makes clear that this is a valuable role, one that an arb should feel is a sufficient and beneficial way to spend their time. It also communicates this to the community, which might otherwise ask an arb running for reelection why they spent their time coordinating (rather than on other arb work).
  • It gives "permission" for coordinating arbs to go inactive on other business if they wish.
These two benefits make this motion more than symbolic in my view. My hesitation on it remains that it may be quite insufficient relative to motion 1. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks

In the event that "Motion 1: Correspondence clerks" passes, the Arbitration Committee shall request that the Wikimedia Foundation provide grants payable to correspondence clerks in recognition of their assistance to the Committee.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference
Abstentions Support votes needed for majority
0 6
1–2 5
3–4 4
Support
Oppose
  1. Misplaced Pages should remain a volunteer activity. If we cannot find volunteers to do the task, then perhaps it ought not be done in the first place. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:09, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  2. We should not have a clerk paid by the WMF handling English Misplaced Pages matters in this capacity. - Aoidh (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
  3. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Abstain

Motion 4: Arbitrator views and discussions

Community discussion

Will correspondence clerks be required to sign an NDA? Currently clerks aren't. Regardless of what decision is made this should probably be in the motion. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Good catch. I thought it was implied by "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps" – who all sign NDAs as a condition to access functionaries-en and the CUOS tools; see Misplaced Pages:Functionaries (Functionary access requires that the user sign the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.)  – but I've made it explicit now. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
You're right that that was there, but I missed it on my first readthrough of the rules (thinking correspondence clerks would be appointed from the clerk team instead). * Pppery * it has begun... 18:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Why does "coordinating arbitrators" need a (public) procedures change? Izno (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

As Primefac mentioned above, it seems reasonable to assume that having something written down "officially" might help make sure that the coordinating arbitrator knows what they are responsible for. In any event, it probably can't hurt. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
It is a pain in the ass to get formal procedures changed. There is an internal procedures page: I see 0 reason not to use it if you want to clarify what the role of this arbitrator is. Izno (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
On top of that, this doesn't actually change the status quo much if at all. It is almost entirely a role definition for an internal matter, given "we can make an arb a CA, but we don't have to have one" in it's "from time to time" clause. This just looks like noise to anyone reading ARBPRO who isn't on ArbCom: the public doesn't need to know this arb even exists, though they might commonly be the one responding to emails so they might get a sense there is such an arb. Izno (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

While I appreciate that some functionaries are open to volunteering for this role, this borders on is a part-time secretarial job and ought to be compensated as such. The correspondence clerks option combined with WMF throwing some grant money towards compensation would be my ideal. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this suggestion – I've added motion 4 to address this suggestion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

In the first motion the word "users" in "The Committee shall establish a process to allow users to, in unusual circumstances" is confusing, it should probably be "editors". In the first and second motions, it should probably be explicit whether correspondence clerks/support staff are required, permitted or prohibited to:

  • Share statistical information publicly
  • Share status information (publicly or privately) with correspondents who wish to know the status of their request.
  • Share status information (publicly or privately) about the status of a specific request with someone other than the correspondent.
    For this I'm thinking of scenarios like where e.g. an editor publicly says they emailed the Committee about something a while ago, and one or more other editors asks what is happening with it.

I think my preference would be for 1 or 2, as these seem likely to be the more reliable. Neither option precludes there also being a coordinating arbitrator doing some of the tasks as well. Thryduulf (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for these suggestions. I've changed "users" to "editors". The way I'm intending these motions to be read, correspondence clerks or staff assistants should only disclose information as directed by the committee. I think the details of which information should be shared upon whose request in routine cases could be decided later by the committee, with the default being "ask ArbCom before disclosing until the committee decides to approve routine disclosures in certain cases", because it's probably hard to know in advance which categories will be important to allow. I'm open to including more detail if you think that's important to include at this stage, though, and I'd welcome hearing why if so. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
I see your point, but I think it worth clarifying certain things in advance before they become an issue to avoid unrealistic or mistaken expectations of the c-clerks by the community. Point 1 doesn't need to be specified in advance, maybe something like "communicating information publicly as directed by the Committee" would be useful to say in terms of expectation management or maybe it's still to specific? I can see both sides of that.
Point 2 I think is worth establishing quickly and while it is on people's minds. Waiting for the committee to make up its mind before knowing whether they can give a full response to a correspondent about this would be unfair to both the correspondent and clerk I think. This doesn't necessarily have to be before adoption, but if not it needs to be very soon afterwards.
Point 3 is similar, but c-clerks and community members knowing exactly what can and cannot be shared, and especially being able to point to something in writing about what cannot be said publicly, has the potential to reduce drama e.g. if there is another situation similar to Billed Mammal's recent case request. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

What justification is there for the WMF to spend a single additional dollar on the workload of a project-specific committee whose workload is now demonstrably smaller than at any time in its history? (Noting here that there is a real dollar-cost to the support already being given by WMF, such as the monthly Arbcom/T&S calls that often result in the WMF accepting requests for certain activities.) And anyone who is being paid by the WMF is responsible to the WMF as the employer, not to English Misplaced Pages Arbcom.

I think Arbcom is perhaps not telling the community some very basic facts that are leading to their efforts to find someone to take responsibility for its organization, which might include "we have too many members who aren't pulling their weight" or "we have too many members who, for various reasons that don't have to do with Misplaced Pages, are inactive", or "we have some tasks that nobody really wants to do". There's no indication that any of these solutions would solve these kinds of problems, and I think that all of these issues are factors that are clearly visible to those who follow Arbcom on even an occasional basis. Arbitrators who are inactive for their own reasons aren't going to become more active because someone's organizing their mail. Arbitrators who don't care enough to vote on certain things aren't any more likely to vote if someone is reminding them to vote in a non-public forum; there's no additional peer pressure or public guilt-tripping. And if Arbcom continues to have tasks that nobody really wants to do, divest those tasks. Arbcom has successfully done that with a large number of tasks that were once its responsibility.

I think you can do a much better job of making your case. Risker (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a need to do something as poor communication and extremely slow replies, if replies are made at all, has been an ongoing issue for the committee for some time. However I agree that asking the foundation to pay someone to do it is going too far. The point that if you are paid by the foundation, you work for them and not en.wp or arbcom is a compelling one. There's also a slippery slope argument to be made in that if we're paying these people, shouldn't we pay the committee? If we're paying the committee, shouldn't we pay the arbitration clerks....and so on. Just Step Sideways 20:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
I fully share Risker's concern about a paid WMF staffer who, no matter how well-intentioned, will be answerable to the WMF and not ARBCOM. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
The 2023-2024 committee is much more middle aged and has less university students and retirees, who oftentimes have more free time, than the 2016-2017 committee. -- Guerillero 08:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
It seems to me that the issue of there often being some Committee members who, for whatever reason, are not "pulling their weight", is at the core of the problem to be addressed here. Because this happens "behind the scenes", the community has no way to hold anyone accountable in elections, and because of human nature and the understandable desire to maintain a collegial atmosphere within the Committee, I don't really expect any members to call out a colleague in public. I suppose there could even be a question of what happens if whoever might be filling the role proposed here nudges a member to act, but the member just disregards that. It's difficult to see how to make it enforceable. I don't have any real solutions, but this strikes me as central to the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I think this is largely correct. I was reluctant on the committee to even note this committee's inactivity problem (worst of any 15-member arbcom ever), even though it was based on a metric that is public, when I was still on the committee. And it gets further complicated by the fact that some people not visibly active in public more than pull their weight behind the scenes - the testimonials Maxim received when running for re-election being a prime example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
During my first term it was Roger Davies. He was barely a presence on-wiki but he kept the whole committee on point and up-to-date about what was pending. Trypto is right that it isn't enforceable, it is more a matter of applying pressure to either do the job or move oneself to the inactive list.
I also think the committee can and should be more proactive about declaring other arbs inactive even when they are otherwise present on-wiki or on the mailing list" That would probably require a procedures change, but I think it would make sense. If there is a case request, proposed decision, or other matter that requires a vote before the committee and an arb doesn't comment on it for ten days or more, they clearly don't have the time and/or inclination to do so and should be declared inactive on that matter so that their lack of action does not further delay the matter. It would be nice if they would just do so themselves, or just vote "abstain" on everything, which only takes a few minutes, but it seems it has not been happening in practice. Just Step Sideways 00:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
And Roger was a pensioner which kinda proves my point -- Guerillero 08:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Roger may have been a pensioner at the end of his time on the committee (7 years), but he certainly wasn't at the beginning of his term. He was co-ordinating arbitrator for a lot of that time, and did a good job without a single bit of extra software. The problem with that software is that people have to already be actively engaged to even contemplate using it. My sense is that the real issue here is the lack of engagement (whether periodic or chronic) on the part of many of the arbitrators. People who are inactive on Arbcom tasks aren't going to be active on any tasks, including reading emails asking them to do things or special software sending alerts. Simply put, if people aren't going to put Arbcom as their primary Misplaced Pages activity for the next two years, keeping in mind other life events that will likely take them away, they should not run in the first place. Yes, unexpected things happen. But I think a lot of the inactivity we've seen in the last few years involved some predictable absences that the arbs knew about when they were candidates. (Examples I've seen myself: Oh, I have a big exam to write that needs months of study; oh, I have a major life event that will require a lot of planning; oh, I'm graduating and will have to find a job.) No, I don't expect people to reveal this kind of information about themselves; yes, I do expect them to refrain from volunteering for roles that they can reasonably foresee they will have difficulty fulfilling. Risker (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
I might as well ask a hard question. Is there a way to make public enough information for the community to be able to evaluate ArbCom candidates for (re)election, in terms of behind-the-scenes inactivity? If individual Arbs were to make public comments, that would do it, but it would also potentially be very contentious and could reduce effectiveness instead of improving it. Could ArbCom initiate a new process of posting onsite information about the processing of tasks, without revealing private information (such as: "Ban appeal 1", "Ban appeal 2", instead of "Ban appeal by "), and list those members who voted (perhaps without listing which way they voted)? Maybe do that monthly, and include all tasks that had not yet gotten a quorum. Yes, I know that's difficult. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
I question an answer to the problem of "we're having trouble finding enough people to do the secretarial work we have already" being "let's create substantially more secretarial work" even accepting the premise that people would then get voted off if they didn't pull their weight. While I think that premise is correct, what this system would also encourage - even more than it already exists - is an incentive to just go along with whatever the first person (or the person who has clearly done the most homework) says. And that defeats the purpose of having a committee made up of individual thinkers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
That's a fair point. I'll admit that, even from the outside, I sometimes see members who appear to wait to see which way the wind is blowing before voting on proposed decisions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
That's something that's hard to know or verify, even for the other arbs. The arbs only know what the other arbs tell them, and I've never seen anyone admit to that. Just Step Sideways 23:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the timing for this is wrong. The committee is about to have between 6 and 9 new members (depending on whether Guerillero, Eek, and Primefac get re-elected). In addition it seems likely that some number of former arbs are about to rejoin the committee. This committee - basically the committee with the worst amount of active membership of any 15 member committee ever - seems like precisely the wrong one to be making large changes to ongoing workflows in December. Izno's idea of an easier to try and easier to change/abandon internal procedure for the coordinating arb feels like something appropriate to try now. The rest feel like it should be the prerogative of the new committee to decide among (or perhaps do a different change altogether). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong, but I assumed he was doing this now because he will not be on the committee a month from now.
That being said it could be deliberately held over, or conversely, possibly fall victim to the inactivity you mention and still be here for the new committee to decide. Just Step Sideways 23:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Since WP:ACE2024 elections are currently taking place it makes sense to have the incoming arbitrators weigh in on changes like this. They are the ones that will be affected by any of these motions passing rather than the outgoing arbitrators. - Aoidh (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Oh I assumed that's why he was doing it also. I am also assuming he's doing it to try and set up the future committees for success. That doesn't change my point about why this is the wrong time and why a different way of trying the coordinator role (if it has support) would be better. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Regarding "timing is wrong": I think you both would agree that these are a long time coming – we have been working on these and related ideas for years (I ran on a related idea in 2022). I do think there's never quite a good time. Very plausibly, the first half of the year is out because the new arbs will need that time to learn how the processes work and think about what kinds of things should be changed vs. kept the same. And then it might be another few months as the new ArbCom experiments with less-consequential changes like the ones laid about at the top: technological solutions, trying new ways of tracking stuff, etc., before being confident in the need for something like set out above. And then things get busy for other reasons; there will be weeks or even occasionally months when the whole committee is overtaken by some urgent situation. I've experienced a broadly similar dynamic a few times now; this is all to say that there's just not much time or space in the agenda for this kind of stuff in a one-year cycle, which would be a shame because I do think this is important to take on.
I do think that it should be the aspiration of every year's committee to leave the succeeding committee some improvements in the functioning of the committee based on lessons learned that year, so it would be nice to leave the next committee with this. That said, if arbitrators do feel that we should hold this over to the new committee, I'm not really in a position to object – as JSS says, this is my last year on the committee, so it's not like this will benefit me. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I think it's entirely possible for the new committee to have a sense of what it wants workload wise by February-April and so it's wrong to just rule out the first half of the year. By the end of the first six months of the year that you and I started (and which JSS was a sitting member on) we'd made a number of changes to how things were done. Off the top of my head I can name the structure of cases and doing quarterly reports of private appeals as two but there were others. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Here's what I'll leave you with overall. What you may see as a downside – these proposals being voted on relatively late in the year – I see as a significant possible upside. Members of this committee are able to draw on at least eleven months' experience as arbitrators in deciding what is working well and what might warrant change – experience which is important in determining what kinds of processes and systems lead to effective and ineffective outcomes. That experience is important: Although I have served on ArbCom for four years and before that served as an ArbCom clerk for almost six years, I still learn more every year about what makes this committee click. If what really concerns you is locking in the new committee to a particular path, as I wrote above, I'm very open to structuring this as a trial run that will end of its own accord unless the committee takes action to make it permanent. This would ensure that the new committee retains full control over whether to continue, discontinue, or adapt these changes. But in my book, it does not make sense to wait. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • As a 3-term former arb and a 3-term current ombuds commissioner, I've had experience of about a dozen Wikimedia committee "new intakes". I am quite convinced that these proposals are correctly timed. Process changes are better put in place prior to new appointees joining, so that they are not joining at a moment of upheaval. Doing them late in the day is not objectionable and momentum often comes at the end of term. If the changes end up not working (doubtful), the new committee would just vote to tweak the process or go back. I simply do not understand the benefit of deferring proposals into a new year, adding more work to the next year's committee. That surely affects the enthusiasm and goodwill of new members. As for the point that the '24 committee is understaffed and prone to indecision: argumentum ad hominem. If Kevin's proposals work, they work. If anything, it might be more difficult to agree administrative reforms when the committee is back at full staff. arcticocean ■ 15:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    If these pass now you will have new members join at a moment of upheaval as anything proposed here will still be in its infancy when the new members join (even if we pretend the new members are joining Jan 1 rather than much sooner given that results are in and new members tend to be added to the list once the right boxes are checked). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    You're right. And it's important to be realistic: any proposal would be under implementation for several months, so say from December through February. Would that be so bad? Any change will disrupt, in the sense that a few people need to spend time implementing it and everyone else needs to learn the new process. But waiting until later in the year causes even more disruption: members have to first learn an 'old' process and then learn the changes you're making to it… New member enthusiasm is also a keen force that could help to push through the changes. arcticocean ■ 16:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think new member enthusiasm is part of why I think this lame duck hobbled committee is the wrong one to do it. I have high hopes for next year's group and think they would be in a better place to come up with the right solution for them. And as I noted to Kevin above this isn't hypothetical - the year we both started as arbs we made a lot of process and procedure changes in the first six months. It was a great thing to funnel that new arb energy into because I was bought into what we were doing rather than trying to make something work that I had no say in and that the existing members had no experience with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    While I think a solution such as adopting ZenDesk is something that could face objections, personally I think the idea of having someone track a list of work items for a committee is a pretty standard way of working (including pushing for timely resolution, something that really needs a person, not just a program). From an outsider's perspective, it's something I'd expect. It doesn't matter to non-arbitrators who does the tracking, so the committee should feel free to change that decision internally as often as it feels is effective. I'd rather there be a coordinating arbitrator in place in the interim until another solution is implemented, than have no one tracking work items in the meantime. isaacl (talk) 19:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Just to double check that I'm reading motion 1 correctly, it would still be possible to email the original list (for arbitrators only) if, for example, you were raising a concern about something the correspondence clerks should not be privy to (ie: misuse of tools by a functionary), correct? Granted, I think motion 3 is probably the simpler option here, but in the event motion 1 passes, is the understanding I wrote out accurate? EggRoll97 02:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@EggRoll97 Yes, but probably only after an additional step. The penultimate paragraph of motions 1 and 2 says The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks . No details are given about what this process would be, but one possibility would I guess be something like contacting an individual arbitrator outlining clearly why you think the c-clerks should not be privy to whatever it is. If they agree they'll tell you how to submit your evidence (maybe they'll add your email address to a temporary whitelist). Thryduulf (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

In my experience working on committees and for non-profits, typically management is much more open to offering money for software solutions that they are told can resolve a problem than agreeing to pay additional compensation for new personnel. Are you sure there isn't some tracking solution that could resolve some of these problems? Liz 07:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

In our tentative discussions with WMF, it sounded like it would be much more plausible to get a 0.1-0.2 FTE of staffer time than it would to get us 15 ZenDesk licenses, which was also somewhat surprising to me. That wasn't a firm response – if we went back and said we really need this, I'm guessing it'd be plausible. And we've never asked about compensating c-clerks – that was an idea that came from Voorts's comment above, and I proposed it for discussion, not because I necessarily support it but because I think it's worth discussion, and I certainly don't think it's integral to the c-clerk proposal. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, offering compensation for on-wiki tasks would be breaking new ground for the project. I do wonder though about the possibility of securing former arbitrators for these correspondent clerks' positions. It sounds like all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results. I don't know if we'd have many interested and eligible parties. How many clerks would you think would be necessary? One? Or 3 or 4? Liz 21:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, these are great questions. Responses to your points:
  • On volunteers: As I wrote above, four functionaries (including three former arbs) expressed initial-stage interest when this was floated when I consulted functionaries – which is great and was a bit unexpected, and which is why I wrote it up this way. Arbitrators will know that my initial plan from previous months/years did not involve limiting this to functionaries, to have a broader pool of applicants. But since we do have several interested functs, and they are already trusted to hold NDA'd private information (especially the former arbs who have previously been elected to access to this very list), I thought this would be a good way to make this a more uncontroversial proposal.
  • How many to appoint? I imagine one or two if it was up to me. One would be ideal (I think it's like 30 minutes of work per day ish, max), but two for redundancy might make a lot of sense. I don't think it's all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results – because the c-clerk would be responsible for tracking matters, not actually attempting to resolve them, that's a lot less work than serving as an arb. It does require more consistency than most arbs have to put in, though.
  • On compensating: Yeah, I'm not sure I'll end up supporting the idea, but I don't think it's unprecedented in the sense that you're thinking. Correspondence clerks aren't editing; none of the tasks listed in the motion require on-wiki edits. And there are plenty of WMF grants that have gone to off-wiki work for the benefit of projects; the first example I could think of was m:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/UTRS User Experience Development (ID: 22215192) but I know there are many.
Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I am quite confused, I often read arbs saying most of ArbCom work is behind-the-scenes work. But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work? If so, the solution here is that more arbs should simply pull their weight, which Motion 3 helps. I don't think WMF would pay someone to work 30 minutes a day either. Kenneth Kho (talk) 07:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work?. No, the actual work takes a lot more time and effort because each arb has to read, understand and form opinions on many different things, and the committee needs to discuss most of those things, which will often re-reading and re-evaluating based on the points raised. Then in many cases there needs to be a vote. What the "one-person, 30 minutes a day" is referring to is just the meta of what tasks are open, what the current status of it is, who needs to opine on it, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 11:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, I realized I misunderstood it. I see that this is a relatively lightweight proposal, perhaps it could work but it probably won't help much either.
@L235 I have been thinking of splitting ArbCom into Public ArbCom and Private ArbCom. I see Public ArbCom as being able to function without the tools as @Worm That Turned advocated, focused more on complex dispute resolution. I see Private ArbCom as high-trust roles with NDAs, privy to WMF and overseeing Public ArbCom. Both ArbComs are elected separately as 15-members bodies, and both will be left with about half the current authority and responsibility. Kenneth Kho (talk) 01:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Thryduulf is right; I think Kevin meant that the tracking itself might be a 30 minute a day activity. But it has to happen consistently, and with a high catch rate. It also has to happen on top of our usual Arb work, which for me already averages a good ten hours a week, but can be more than twenty hours in the busy times. And I, like the other arbs, already have a full time job and a life outside Misplaced Pages. I don't like the idea of splitting ArbCom in twain, nor do I think it could be achieved. CaptainEek ⚓ 02:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree, having someone managing the work could really help smooth things out. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
My first thought is that cleanly splitting arbcom would be very difficult. For example what happens if there is an open public case and two-thirds of the way through the evidence phase someone discovers and wishes to submit private evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree, the split won't be entirely clean. I'm thinking Public ArbCom would narrowly remand part of the case to Private ArbCom if it finds that the private evidence is likely to materially affect the outcome. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
How will public know whether the private evidence will materially affect the outcome without seeing the private evidence? Secondly, how will private arbcom determine whether it materially affects the outcome without reviewing all the public evidence and thus duplicating public arbcom's work (and thus also negating the workload benefits of the split)? What happens if public and private arbcom come to different conclusions about the same public evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 11:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
You raised good points that I did not address. I think that a way to do this would be to follow how Oversighters have the authority to override Admins that they use sparingly. Private ArbCom could have the right to receive any private evidence regarding an ongoing case on Public ArbCom, and Private ArbCom will have discretions to override Public ArbCom remedies without explanation other than something like "per private evidence". Private ArbCom would need to familiarize themselves with the case a bit, but this is mitigated by the fact that they only concerned with the narrow parts. Private ArbCom could have the authority to take the whole Public ArbCom case private if it deems that private evidence affect many parties. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
12 candidates for 9 open seats is sufficient. But it hardly suggests we have so many people that we could support 30 people (even presuming some additional people would run under the split). Further, what happens behind the scenes already strains the trust of the community. But at least the community can see the public actions as a reminder of "well this person hasn't lost it completely while on ArbCom". I think it would be much harder to sustain trust under this split. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I honestly like the size of 12-member committee, too many proverbial cooks spoil the proverbial broth. I did think about the trust aspect, as the community has been holding ArbCom under scrutiny, but at the same time I consider that the community has been collegial with Bureaucrats, Checkusers, Oversighters. Private ArbCom would be far less visible, with Public ArbCom likely taking the heat for contentious decisions. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree with L235 regarding whether this is all the work and none of the authority: it does not come with all the responsibility that being an Arb comes with either. This role does not need to respond to material questions or concerns about arbitration matters and does not need to read and weigh the voluminous case work to come to a final decision. The c-clerk will need to keep up on emails and will probably need to have an idea of what's going on in public matters, but that was definitely not the bulk of the (stressful?) work of an arbitrator. Izno (talk) 00:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
@Liz well that's what I thought. I figured that ZenDesk was the winningest solution, until the Foundation made it seem like ZenDesk licenses were printed on gold bars. We did do some back of the envelope calculations, and it is decidedly expensive. Still...I have a hard time believing those ZenDesk licenses really cost more than all that staff time. I think we'll have to do some more convincing of the Foundation on that front, or implement a different solution. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I touched upon the idea of using former arbitrators to do administrative tasks on the arbitration committee talk page, and am also pleasantly surprised to hear there is some interest. I think this approach may be the most expeditious way to put something in place at least for the interim. (On a side note, I urge people not to let the term "c-clerk" catch on. It sounds like stuttering, or someone not good enough to be an A-level clerk. More importantly, it would be quite an obscure jargon term.) isaacl (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

Something I raised in the functionary discussion was that this doesn't make sense to me. What is the basis for this split here? Izno (talk) 00:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I assumed it was so that the clerks would only see the incoming email and not be privy to the entire commitee's comments on the matter. While all functionaries and arbs sign the same NDA, operating on a need to know basis is not at all uncommon in groups that deal with sensitive information. When I worked for the census we had to clear our debriefing room of literally everything because it was being used the next day by higher-ups from Washington who were visiting. They outranked all of us by several orders of mgnitude, but they had no reason to be looking at the non-anonymized personal data we had lying all over the place.
Conversely it would spare the clerks from having their inboxes flooded by every single arb comment, which as you know can be quite voluminous. Just Step Sideways 00:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
And it would also prevent them from seeing information related to themselves or something they should actively recuse on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
This suggested rationale doesn't hold water: someone with an issue with a c-clerk or where they may need to recuse should just follow the normal process for an issue with an arb: to whit, kicking off arbcom-b for a private discussion. Izno (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I was thinking of material from before they were appointed, e.g. if there was a discussion involving the actions of user:Example in November and they become a c-clerk in December, they shouldn't be able to see the discussion even if the only comments were that the allegations against them are obviously ludicrous. I appreciate I didn't make this clear though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Making arbcom-en a "firewall" from the arb deliberations would inhibit the c-clerk from performing the duties listed in the motion. I cannot see how it would be workable for them to remind arbs to do the thing the electorate voluntold them to do if the c-clerk cannot see whether they have done those things (e.g. coming to a conclusion on an appeal), and would add to the overhead of introducing this secretarial position (email comes in, c-clerk forwards to -internal, arbs discussion on -internal, come to conclusion, send an email back to -en, which the c-clerk then actions back to the user on arbcom-en). This suggested rationale also does not hold water to me. Izno (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Apologies – if this was the interpretation, that's bad drafting on my part. The sole intention is that the new correspondence clerks won't see the past arbcom-en archives, which were emails sent to the committee on the understanding that only arbitrators would see those emails. C clerks will see everything that's newly sent on arbcom-en, including all deliberations held on arbcom-en, with the exception of anything that is so sensitive that the committee feels the need to restrict discussion to arbitrators (this should be fairly uncommon but covers the recusal concern above in a similar way as discussions about arbs who recuse sometimes get moved to arbcom-en-b). The C clerks will need to be able to see deliberations to be able to track pending matters and ensure that balls aren't being dropped, which could not happen unless they had access to the discussions – this is a reasonable "need to know" because they are fulfilling a function that is hard to combine with serving as an active arbitrator. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Well, I clearly totally misread your intent there. I.... don't think I like the idea that unelected clerks can see everything the committee is doing. Just Step Sideways 03:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, I oppose splitting arbcom-en a second time -- Guerillero 10:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Regarding 1.4, I think arbcom-en and -c are good ones for a c-clerk to have access to. -b probably doesn't need access ever, as it's used exclusively for work with recusals attached to it, which should be small enough for ArbCom to manage itself in the addition of a c-clerk. (This comment in private elicited the slight rework L235 made to the motion.) Izno (talk) 06:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
What does this mean – when was the first time? arcticocean ■ 15:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
@Arcticocean: In 2018, arbcom-l became arbcom-en and the archives are in two different places. -- Guerillero 18:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Appointing one of the sitting arbitrators as "Coordinating Arbitrator" (motion 3) would be my recommended first choice of solution. We had a Coordinating Arbitrator—a carefully chosen title, as opposed to something like "Chair"—for a few years some time ago. It worked well, although it was not a panacea, and I frankly don't recollect why the coordinator role was dropped at some point. If there is a concern about over-reliance or over-burden on any one person, the role could rotate periodically (although I would suggest a six-month term to avoid too much time being spent on the mechanics of selecting someone and transitioning from one coordinator to the next). At any given time there should be at least one person on a 15-member Committee with the time and the skill-set to do the necessary record-keeping and nudging in addition to arbitrating, and this solution would avoid the complications associated with bringing another person onto the mailing list. I think there would be little community appetite for involving a WMF staff member (even one who is or was also an active Wikipedian) in the Committee's business; and if we are going to set the precedent of paying someone to handle tasks formerly handled by volunteers, with all due respect to the importance of ArbCom this is not where I would start. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Regarding little community appetite – that is precisely why we are inviting community input here on this page, as one way to assess how the community feels about the various options. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I also like the idea of an arb or two taking on this role more than another layer of clerks. I'm sure former arbs would be great at it but the committee needs to handle its own internal business. Just Step Sideways 03:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I think it is ideal for the arbitration committee to track its own work items and prompt its members for timely action, and may have written this some time ago on-wiki. However... years have passed now, and the arbitration committee elections aren't well-suited to selecting arbitrators with the requisite skill set (even if recruitment efforts were made, the community can only go by the assurance of the candidate regarding the skills they possess and the time they have available). So I think it's worth looking at the option of keeping an arbitrator involved in an emeritus position if they have shown the aptitude and availability to help with administration. This could be an interim approach, until another solution is in place (maybe there can be more targeted recruiting of specific editors who, by their ongoing Misplaced Pages work, have demonstrated availability and tracking ability). isaacl (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

2 and 4 don't seem like very good ideas to me. For 2, I think we need to maintain a firm distinction between community and WMF entities, and not do anything that even looks like blending them together. For 4, every time you involve money in something, you multiply your potential problems by a factor of at least ten (and why should that person get paid, when other people who contribute just as much time doing other things don't, and when, for that matter, even the arbs themselves don't?). For 1, I could see that being a good idea, to take some clerical/"grunt work" load off of ArbCom and give them more time for, well, actually arbitrating, and functionaries will all already have signed the NDA. I don't have any problem with 3, but don't see why ArbCom can't just do it if they want to; all the arbs already have access to the information in question so it's not like someone is being approved to see it who can't already. Seraphimblade 01:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: Following up on your comments on motion 1, depending on which aspect of the proposed job one wanted to emphasize, you could also consider "amanuensis," "registrar," or "receptionist." (The best on-wiki title in my opinion, though we now are used to it so the irony is lost, will always be "bureaucrat"; I wonder who first came up with that one.) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Or "cat-herder". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
Following parliamentary tradition, perhaps "whip". (Less whimsically: "recording secretary".) isaacl (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad:, if memory serves @Keegan: knows who came up with it, and as I recall the story was that they wanted to come up with the most boring, unappealing name they could so not too many people would be applying for it all the time. Just Step Sideways 05:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

So, just to usher in a topic-specific discussion because it has been alluded to many times without specifics being given, what was the unofficial position of ArbCom coordinator like? Who held this role? How did it function? Were other arbitrators happy with it? Was the Coordinator given time off from other arbitrator responsibilities? I assume this happened when an arbitrator just assumed the role but did it have a more formal origin? Did it end because no one wanted to pick up the responsibility? Questions, questions. Liz 06:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I cannot speak for anything but my term. I performed this role for about 1.5 years of the 2 I was on the committee. To borrow an email I sent not long before I stepped off that touches on the topics in this whole set of motions (yes, this discussion isn't new):
  • Daily, ~20 minutes: went into the list software and tagged the day's incoming new email chains with a label (think "upe", "duplicate", etc).
  • Daily, ~10 minutes: took care of any filtered emails on the list (spam and not-spam).
  • Monthly, 1-2 hours: trawled the specific categories of tags since the beginning of the month to add to an arbwiki page for tracking for "needs to get done". Did the inverse also (removed stuff from tracking that seemed either Done or Stale).
  • Monthly, 15 minutes to prep: sent an email with a direct list of the open appeals and a reminder about the "needs doing" stuff (and a few months I highlighted a topic or two that were easy wins). This built off the daily work in a way that would be a long time if it were all done monthly instead of daily.
I was also an appeals focused admin, which had further overhead here that I would probably put in the responsibility of this kind of arb. Other types of arbs probably had similar things they would have wanted to do this direction but I saw very little of such. Daily for this effort, probably another 15 minutes or so:
  • I copy-pasted appeal metadata from new appeals email to arbwiki
  • Started countdown timers for appeals appearing to be at consensus
  • Sent "easy" boilerplate emails e.g. "we got this appeal, we may be in touch" or "no way Jose you already appealed a month ago"
  • Sent results for the easy appeals post-countdown timer and filled in relevant metadata (easy appeals here usually translated to "declined" since this was the quick-n-easy daily work frame, not the long-or-hard daily work frame)
(End extract from referenced email.) This second set is now probably a much-much lighter workload with the shedding of most CU appeals this year (which was 70% of the appeals by count during my term), and I can't say how much of this second group would be in the set of duties depending on which motion is decided above (or if even none of the motions are favored by the committee - you can see I've advocated for privately documenting the efforts of coordinating arbs rather than publicly documenting them regarding 3, and it wouldn't take much to get me to advocate against 2 and 4, I just know others can come to the right-ish conclusion on those two already; I'm pretty neutral on 1).
Based on the feedback I got as I was going out the door, it was appreciated. I did see some feedback that this version of the role was insufficiently personal to each arb. The tradeoff for doing something more personalized to each other arb is either time or software (i.e. money). I did sometimes occasionally call out when other members had not yet chimed in on discussions. That was ad hoc and mostly focused on onwiki matters (case votes particularly), but occasionally I had to name names when doing appeals work because the arbs getting to the appeal first were split. In general the rest of the committee didn't name names (which touches on some discussion above). I think some arbs appreciated seeing their name in an email when they were needed.
I was provided no formal relief from other matters. But as I discussed with one arb during one of the stressful cases of the term, I did provide relief informally for the duration of that case to that person for the stuff I was interested in, so I assume that either I in fact had no relief from other matters, or that I had relief but didn't know it (and just didn't ask for anyone else to do it - since I like to think I had it well enough in hand). :-) The committee is a team effort and not everyone on the team has the same skills, desire, or time to see to all other matters. (The probing above about arbs being insufficiently active is a worthwhile probe, to be certain.) To go further though, I definitely volunteered to do this work. Was it necessary work? I think so. I do not know what would have happened if I had not been doing it. (We managed to hit only one public snag related to timeliness during my term, which I count as a win; opinions may differ.)
There is no formal origin to the role that I know of. Someone else with longer committee-memory would have to answer whether all/recent committees have had this type, and who they were, and why if not.
I don't know how much of what I did lines up with what L235 had in mind proposing these motions. I do not think the work I did covers everything listed in the motions laid out. (I don't particularly need clarification on the point - it's a matter that will fall out in post-motion discussion.) Izno (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
The original announcement of the Coordinating Arbitrator position was here. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Archive zero: I love it! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Interestingly, that announcement also repeated the announcement at the top of the archive page that a departing arbitrator continued to assist the committee by co-ordinating the mailing list: acknowledging incoming emails and responding to senders with questions about them, and tracking issues to ensure they are resolved. So both a co-ordinator (plus a deputy!) and an arbitrator emeritus. isaacl (talk) 23:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
former arbitrator will continue to coordinate the ArbCom mailing list. was probably a statement along the lines of "knows how to deal with Mailman". And I think you're getting that role mixed up with the actual person doing the work management: the Arbitration Committee has decided to appoint one of its sitting arbitrators to act as coordinator (emphasis mine). Izno (talk) 23:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Obviously I have no personal knowledge of what ended up happening. I just listed the responsibilities as described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 0 § Improving ArbCom co-ordination. I'm not sure what I'm getting mixed up; all I said is that a co-ordinator and deputy were appointed, and that a former arbitrator was said to be co-ordinating the mailing list. It's certainly possible the split of duties changed from the first post in the archive. isaacl (talk) 00:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Oh, I see that now. Izno (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
I think I agree with Izno regarding the coordinating arbitrator role. There's no problem letting the community that the role exists, but I don't think it's necessary for the role's responsibilities to be part of the public-facing guarantees being made to the community. If the role needs to expand, shrink, split into multiple roles, or otherwise change, the committee should feel free to just do it as needed. The committee has the flexibility to organize itself as it best sees fit. isaacl (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
I think this is the right approach. It doesn't need to be advertised who is coordinating activity on the mailing list, it just needs to get done. If it takes two people, fine, if they do it for six months and say they want out of the role, ask somebody else to do it. And so on. Just Step Sideways 23:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
For instance, I don't think it's necessary to codify whether or not the coordinating arbitrator role is permanent. Just put a task on the schedule to review how the role is working out in nine months, and then modify the procedure accordingly as desired. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
One exception: the first bullet point regarding responding to communications and assigning a tracking identifier does involve the committee's interactions with the community. I feel, though, that for flexibility these guarantees can be made without codifying who does them, from the community's point of view. (It's fine of course to make them part of the coordinating arbitrator's tasks.) isaacl (talk) 23:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
Izno, this actually sounds like a helluva lot of work, maybe not minute-wise but mental, keeping track of everything so requests don't fall through the cracks. I think anyone assuming this role should get a break from, say, drafting ARBCOM cases if nothing else. Liz 03:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
It might be a lot of work, but it wasn't the bulk of the work, even for the work that I was doing. There was a lot more steps to being the appeal-focused admin above. Izno (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
You made me laugh, Liz. That sounds like my normal start-of-day routine, to be accompanied by a cup of tea and, perhaps, a small breakfast. I'd expect most arbitrators to be reading the mail on a daily basis, unless they are inactive for some reason; the difference here is the tagging/flagging of messages and clearing the filters, which probably adds about 10-12 minutes. I'll simply say that any arb who isn't prepared to spend 30-45 minutes/day reading emails probably shouldn't be an arb. That's certainly a key part of the role. Risker (talk) 04:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
+1. In my thoughts to potential candidates I said an hour a day for emails but that included far more appeals than the committee gets now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Never mind reading emails, the bulk of my private ArbCom time was spent on processing them: doing checks, reporting results, and otherwise responding to other work. You can get away with just reading internal emails, but it's going to surprise your fellow arbs if you don't pipe up with some rational thought when you see the committee thinking about something personally objectionable and the first time they hear about it is when motions have been posted and are waiting for votes. Izno (talk) 06:17, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Right now, I check my email account about once a week. I guess that will change if I'm elected to the committee. It would have helped to hear all of these details before the election. Liz 08:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
My hour included time to respond to emails, though I also note you're not going particularly deep on anything with that time (at least when ArbCom had more appeals). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
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