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Requests for arbitration

Sock Puppet Standards of Evidence

Initiated by WavePart (talk) at 09:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties

• WavePart (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Hipocrite (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• The Wordsmith (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Marknutley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ATren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ZuluPapa5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Thparkth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Stephan Schulz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Prolog (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Weakopedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Cool Hand Luke (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TenOfAllTrades (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BozMo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by WavePart

It seems that there is a lot of sock puppet witch-hunting going on and indefinitely blocking of people as suspected sock puppets without any shred of evidence. In my case, without warning I logged on and saw that I was set on an indefinite block with the stated reason, "Abusing multiple accounts: fails the WP:DUCK test". This was quite surprising to me, since obviously I am not a sock puppet.

It seems my example started (without warning) with this edit by Hipocrite, followed 46 minutes later by this edit where I was again declared an "obvious" sock, given a permanent ban by The Wordsmith, and presumed without any evidence to be someone named Scibaby. Many ridiculous failures of logic then occurred on my talk page, where I was presumed guilty without a shred of evidence ever given, except repeated declarations that I was "obviously" a sock puppet. It was only on the third day that a rational admin finally removed the block declaring it "based more on suspicion than evidence".

I was also added to here as a sock puppet, which I was of course not. There appears to be a discussion here about the failures of "Duck" evidence. In that discussion, a user named User:Weakopedia challenged Hipocrite's standards for reporting "sock puppets", so Hipocrite promptly reported Weakopedia as a scibaby sock puppet, which received some criticism as a dubious action. It seems Hipocrite has indicated he supports policy changes to actively block editors with a POV contrary to his, and has stated that "all new editors that are brand newish and show single-purposed difficultness should be blocked ... that's the level of draconian I support".

Here is an example of the standards of evidence being used here by admins to support these blocks when users challenge them, such as "blatant", "obvious", and "compelling". Also, things like knowing how to use wikipedia tags, or knowing wikipedia policies, are being used as grounds for blocking. It is my understanding that wikipedia policies such as Clean Start and Privacy provide plenty of legitimate pathways for users with prior wikipedia experience to have new accounts, and thus mere familiarity with wikipedia cannot be grounds for blocking.

I mostly hope for the arbitration committee to issue a ruling about minimal standards of evidence before a sock puppet block is issued. It is my understanding that to even be a sock puppet, you essentially need to be using a new account to evade a block, ban, or injunction, or you need to be using multiple accounts at once to deceptively sway a debate. Yet clearly new users are being blocked indefinitely without evidence being shown that EITHER of those two things have been done, and that really needs to stop.

I also hope that the arbitration committee can issue an injunction specifically against Hipocrite reporting any more "sock puppets", given his apparent abuse of this process for the purpose of winning arguments.

Thank you.—Preceding unsigned comment added by WavePart (talk • contribs)

@TFD: I explained quite plainly and openly on my talk page that I have had previous wikipedia experience, and that I have edited here, not in a while, and not continuously, but for a very long time. My first edits of wikipedia were probably before those of almost everyone reading this. I've made no secret nor deception about this, have stated it openly, and never stated otherwise. BUT, and I emphasize this, by no means are Clean Start users required to specifically notify arbcom upon returning unless running for an admin position. (Which I obviously didn't!) And by no means should they be required to, under Privacy. WavePart (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Jéské Couriano: For the record, since I haven't said it to you yet, I acknowledge you were acting in good faith in maintaining the block. It is your faulty application of the rules and of basic principles of justice that I challenge, even though I did not mention you by name. I make no contest about my edit history, it is plain for everyone to see. I contest that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that edit history, and that you CANNOT treat an edit history like that as grounds for an indefinite block under wikipedia policy. There are no policies against editing controversial articles as a new user account after 11 edits and months of existence. There are no policies against "jumping" from non-controversial articles to controversial ones. There are no policies against changing what articles you focus on for a time. And there is no rational basis for giving a higher penalty (indefinite block) to someone doing these trivial things which violate NO rules, than the standard penalty (~24 hour block) for someone who does a dozen or so reverts. WavePart (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Jéské Couriano: And Hitler was an artist before he started a war, therefore everyone who is an artist is going to start wars? There's a severe logical failure in using weak circumstantial evidence to apply indefinite blocks, and there's a further damage to the encyclopedia if those blocks are being requested and applied with partiality as they are. WavePart (talk) 05:26, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

@Rievse: Arbcom doesn't need to create policy here. I think the policy is already pretty established. What is at issue here is the blocking of people from editing and contributing on the basis of poorly defined suspicion rather than policy. And the fact is it appears this blocking is being requested and done on controversial articles to influence editorial consensus, and that makes this approach to blocking as insidious as the sock-puppeting the practice is trying to combat! WavePart (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Shell: Can I ask, for the sake of clarification, what you think alternate steps are that would actually have a real chance of working prior to arbitration? It's very hard for people who are blocked to make any sort of community-based progress (which is kind of the point, people are being selectively shut out of the discussion), and there don't really seem to be many figures around here other than the arbcom with the authority to rein in admins who are on a blocking spree. WavePart (talk) 11:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

@The Wordsmith: Since you continue to make accusations, can I ask you to define what the definition of the word "Sock Puppet" is? In particular, I will ask you who I could possibly be a sock puppet of? There are only a finite number of people editing the specified article, so you pretty much have to pick one of those to accuse me of being. Go ahead. Make a real falsifiable accusation or knock it off. WavePart (talk) 11:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by (uninvolved?) Stephan Schulz

Have any other means of conflict resolution been tried? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@Collect: How many of those "over 20" have actually been blocked? And unless I miscounted, there are at least 133 confirmed Scibaby socks and 12 certain socks which may or may not be Scibaby identified in the SPI reports from January 1st to May first. If we declare a mere report with a 85% or so success rate abusive, we are putting an unreasonable burden on all other editors. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@Collect: From a short count, your 20+ in the January-May time frame include people identified as other abusive socks. Looking over the few cases where CU did not finally confirm socking, I found only 2 instances where a user was blocked due to Scibaby suspicion - one by a CU due to an error on her part (unblocked after 4 hours, indef reblocked after a week for disruptive editing) and exactly one case where a user was blocked, but the CU did not confirm socking. That block was never challenged and still stands. There are not "20 folks improperly blocked", and nobody has presented evidence that "one out of seven potential contributors off of WP". Blocks of Scibaby accounts without Checkuser confirmation are exceedingly rare, and blocks before CU confirmation that turn out to be mistaken are still more rare. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Weakopedia: I think you are confused. WavePart was unblocked without any intervention from ArbCom. As far as I know only User: ClimateOracle was blocked with talk page lockdown, and that was after two rejected unblock templates. And that still leaves unblock-en-l@lists.wikimedia.org, not just ArbCom. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Collect

The current practice of "Sentence first, verdict afterwards" could be ameliorated by simple ArbCom motion. The standards appear to be "if a person acts like they know what they are doing, they must be a sock" and usually a sock of someone who has edited in that same area. The problem is, this is not always true, and the "duck" excuse has definitely driven away a number of potentially good editors. The motion should be on the order of In order not to drive away potentially valuable contributors to the project, it is important that no editor be blocked as a sock without strong and compelling evidence more than the WP:DUCK test. It is more important that innocent users be left unblocked than it is important that socks be blocked while an investigation is underway. Collect (talk) 10:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@Polargeo: The problem is that users who are genuine users have been blocked in the past, and even prevented from contesting the block (by eliminating the ability to edit their own talk pages) in the past. This is contrary to the direct foundations of Misplaced Pages, and should not be allowed to continue, thus the proposal above. Your post does nothing to dissuade me from my position. Collect (talk) 11:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@any Looking at all the Scibaby accusations from 1 Jan to 1 May showed over 20 which were not actually Scibaby at all. "The usual" was given as the evidence in virtually every case. 20 folks improperly blocked is 20 too many. 5 a month. Clearly the system is broken at this point. Collect (talk) 15:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@Stephan -- what would you say if you were one of the "only one out of seven" who were forced off of WP? Suppose you were in a fight where "only one out of seven" got killed? Or suppose we said that "only one out of seven" wrongful convictions for murder was "acceptable"? Or that forcing one out of seven potential contributors off of WP because they hit someone's nerve - whose only "evidence" presented is "the usual"? Nope - One out of seven is far too high a ratio to continue "the usual" as evidence. And requiring more than "the usual" is not an "unreasonable burden" in my opinion. Collect (talk) 15:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC) @Stephan I realize you felt that "one in seven" inaccuracy was appreciably different from your claim of "85%" accuracy as you aver on my UT page. I feel however that the minimal difference between the two did not mislead anyone. Thanks! Collect (talk) 00:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Polargeo

What collect has outlined misses the point. I agree that if the duck test just shows some controversial edits and a knowledge of wikipedia then that is not enough to block. However, if a new user with clear indepth knowledge of policy enters into the middle of a heated debate in a way that it is highly unlikely that anyone would have done who was not already involved heavily in that debate then this screams sockpuppet. In such a sensitive area as climate change the duck test is very important. However, I agree that a simple knowledge of policy and a POV pushing edit or two is insufficient evidence. Polargeo (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a genuine concern that should be dealt with in its own right and this is not helped by LessHeard vanU (below) lumping it in to general editor problems or enforcement. In fact it should not be. This is a very specific detailled issue which is separate. Polargeo (talk) 13:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved LessHeard vanU

Either this could be accepted to be dealt with by Motion, or it could simply become part of the huge Climate Change ArbCom of 2010; Two other requests outstanding, awaiting an RfC or two to drift into stalemate, and the usual parade of characters (including me, I realise) commentating. How many more side issues need be brought here before it is realised that it is the subject matter and the participants rather than the specific concerns that require a case? LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Resp to NYB; Do you perhaps think there might be an issue whether the determining of Scibaby socks should be be one that involves admins who are otherwise determined to be "involved editors" as regards Global Warming Probation enforcement, or left to those involved in SPI. Admins who also edit CC related articles are likely the quickest to spot likely matches, through experience, but may also be more prone to positive/negative misinterpretation of a new accounts initial edits toward a skeptic viewpoint. Might the determination be left to "uninvolved admins" (per definition of CC/AE/RE) at SPI, and might this be enshrined via Motion? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Resp to Jehochman; As I understand matters, it is not viewpoint that Scibaby edits to but the disruptive way they did it that lead to the ban and the resultant sock war. Blocking accounts on the basis of the viewpoint being used as an indicator of likely Scibaby sockpuppetry is what is at issue here, since the viewpoint is (or should be) permissible if it is acted upon within WP policy and guideline. There needs to be stronger correlation to the puppetmaster than a preference for the same style of shoes. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by NuclearWarfare

A block was made. I wouldn't have made it myself. Some other administrators disagreed with the initial block and WavePart was eventually unblocked. I don't see that as anything that needs to rise to the ArbCom level.

Now, to address the larger issue, new users who exhibit signs of returning accounts/sockpuppeteers. The fact of the matter is, there is no easy way to differentiate between the two. They each exhibit much of the same signs – a familiarity when policy acronyms, a knowledge of when to cite which specific policy, the ability to use wikisyntax correctly, the ability to wikilawyer, etc. However, returning users in good standing (or even banned ones, to be honest) usually stick to uncontroversial articles and don't try to stir things up. If I see signs that a new user who exhibits all the signs of a returning one (which is not this case) acting disruptively in a controversial area, I am going to block. Unless ArbCom wishes to unnecessarily hamstring the ability to administrators to try to keep a somewhat peaceful editing atmosphere, then I suggest that they reject this case. NW (Talk) 13:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Statment by ZuluPapa5

I suspect the Scibaby investigation may be abused when folks knowingly circumvent the SPI process and submit to the ongoing Scibaby investigation. Perhaps expecting a faster response. The result is the diagnostics applied for Scibaby can be mis-calibrated and we have upset editors such as in this case.

The WP:duck test must require a second if not third opinion to proceed. Sock suspects should not be blocked for investigation, unless there is direct diff evidence they have caused a standard disruption. The duck test suffers from Argument from ignorance.

This occurred within the Climate Change probation and my attempt to increase the warning to new editors was just reverted .

Arbcom should remand this to a Scibaby Investigation Request for Comment.

Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 14:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

In addition, new users who display a surprisingly strong sense of justice, are being interpreted as behavior evidence that they have sock behavior because of past enforcement experiences. This may not be wise to assume that a new user knows and respects civility that they learned it from sock prosecution as wikipedia may run in a real lawyer new user one day, if this continues. The sock enforcement business is ripe with fine line of violating AGF.Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems as if around 8 to 20 editors have been harmed in the pursuit of only one Scibaby sock. This number can only go up. Scibaby continues to wreak havoc on Misplaced Pages, not as directly, but at the expense of his pursuer's investigating innocent victims. ArbComm should watch this closely and ask the community to improve the situation. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 18:52, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Georgewilliamherbert

I urge rejection of this case. There's no sign anything requiring arbitration committee intervention happened: an apparently mistaken block was made, the review process worked. There's no evidence being presented that there's a long term problem with admins improperly blocking people based on "the duck test" or any other detection mechanisms for sockpuppets. If that evidence were presented, then the appropriate arena would be community review of policy via RFC, AN discussion, Village Pump, etc., with the intent of developing a new consensus approved working policy.

There's no sense here of an individual wrong needing arbcom intervention or a systemic problem the community can't handle needing arbcom intervention. Ordinary mistakes do not an Arbcom case make. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved B

There doesn't seem to be anything to arbitrate here, but it would be nice if those issuing sock blocks would make very clear (1) whether the block is based on checkuser evidence or just something you are doing based on contributions and (2) where to find relevant evidence or who the user is accused of being. --B (talk) 18:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved TotientDragooned

I myself was accused of being a sockpuppet about a year ago, to the point where I was banned from commenting on an arbitration case pending a review by the arbcom (who never followed up in any way). I urge the committee to scrutinize the current standard of evidence. Sadly, many people nowadays think there are only three kinds of Misplaced Pages editors: admins, sockpuppets, and "ripened" sockpuppets.

Comment by Weakopedia

The problem should be one for arbcom - admins are blocking based on no evidence whatsoever, and giving those blocked as an only option to email arbcom, so if arbcom are the ones who have to deal with the mistakes then they are the ones who should be enforcing the standards. This problem is most evident on controversial articles - the ones most likely to motivate an unregistered user to open an account and add something, and then get themselves blocked for daring to have an opinion. Probably many users just give up at that point - or actually start sockpuppeting, if in fact their editing privelages were wrongly removed and they were informed in their block of what a sockpuppet is. The act of blocking someone before they have done anything worth being blocked for and without providing any kind of evidence is just a way around all the other procedures that everyone else has to abide by to block someone when there is no evidence to support a block. And the fact that some people read up on policy before commenting is often evidence of nothing more than diligence - the fact that some do not is the issue here, and that some of those are admins. Weakopedia (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

@Rlevse - the evidence of DR is right there, and is there for every case where an admin blocks someone on socking grounds. Right now admins are using alegations of socking (alegations without evidence) to indefinitely block editors from editing, and giving them no option but to email arbcom. No evidence, no chance for other admins to review the block (unless someone else adds the blocked editors name to SPI), and often even removing the editors ability to edit their own talkpage and respond to the alegations. The blocking admin says 'take it to arbcom if you don't like it' so that is what is happening. Arbcom does not have to change any policies - the policy is already there, and admins are not always following it. Since arbcom is the only avenue for a blocked editor accused of socking it is arbcom who ultimately decide if the alegation was warranted. Arbcom therefore should ensure that admins follow policy when initiating blocks based on socking. Since the only way out of a socking block is an appeal to arbcom, arbcom should ensure that all SPI blocks are made within the existing policy, which does have some minimum standards of evidence. Weakopedia (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Stephan - you say I must be confused and that WavePart was unblocked without arbcom intervention - but I didn't say that he was. This case is about minimum standards of evidence for blocking, it was only initiated by WavePart. This case covers all bad socking blocks, and if I make a comment about this case, it is about this case, not just about WavePart. You say that only ClimateOracle had his talkpage locked down - again, this case is about all socking blocks, not just the few most recent ones. This is not the first time that an editor has had his talkpage access removed for being a suspected sock, and this case is about all those times too, so if I comment about this case, I am commenting about this case, and not just ClimateOracle. And finally, if blocked editors have other avenues other than mailing arbcom, then blocking admins shouldn't be telling them that if they don't like it they have to ask arbcom to be unblocked.

ClimateOracles unblock denial reason #1

Decline reason: "We weren't born yesterday. Email ArbCom via the links on that page if you so desire."

ClimateOracles unblock denial reason #2

Decline reason: "This is NOT a court of law - "rebut evidence", "fair hearing" are not a part of the community process. You have been advised that you are to e-mail ArbCom directly, no administrators will remove this block."

See? No administrators will remove this block. Hope that clears up your confusion. Weakopedia (talk) 07:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

@TheWordsmith - you say that you are "fairly new to adminship, and sometimes I forget things", but that is exactly what we are talking about here. You are a new admin, there are various policies that you must follow - you don't know them all by heart yet. Maybe some day you will be able to quote off the top of your head what all the policies are, but for now if you want to implement one of the policies, like blocking on socking grounds, you could better take a moment to read the policy page. That way you are 100% sure of following the policy, even though as a new admin you might not be 100% familiar with it's finer points. Well, as a new editor I did exactly that - before I opened my big mouth I read the policies that covered anything I might have to say. Before I ever edited a Misplaced Pages article I read the policies that dealt with editing - after all, what is the point of blindly adding content and having it removed by someone who does know policy?

Anyone who turns up anywhere and wades in without first appraising themselves of the rules of conduct is one type of person. Another type of person is that which makes sure they are commenting in the right way first. Wiki policy is that this new editor may not edit semiprotected articles til they are confirmed - your policy is that they can't even do that. The rules are there for anyone to read, but your system punishes new editors for doing so. Weakopedia (talk) 09:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

Even if we AGF over what seems to be a new (and more calculated) form of disruption, the very obvious cannot be ignored - utter failure to try earlier steps in dispute resolution. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by involved Mark Nutley

Totaly agreeing with Collect and Weakopedia here, when i first came to WP i was accused of being scibaby, when it was painfully obvious i had no idea on how to use WP. The evidence given was "The Usual". Scibaby has been used as a bogyman to block and deter new editors and this has to stop. Editors can`t just get blocked if they happen to have read up on policy, i wish i had. Ten of all trades has just blocked another user claiming he is a sock, with no evidence at all, he has even stopped the guy from using his own talkpage even though a CU cleared him of being a sock This abuse has to stop, blocking editors just because they have taken the time to read the rules is just not on mark nutley (talk) 21:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Kww

It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. I do a lot of sock blocks: socking is the main focus of my administrative work, although I don't deal with Scibaby. I find in general that I am often extremely certain, and fill out the SPI only as a formality after I have already blocked all the sock accounts, tagged everyone, and reverted all of the sock's edits. Sometimes I'm not as certain, and request a checkuser before I proceed. That takes more work, more time, and generally leads to more disruption as the unblocked sockpuppet continues to edit. What we really need to do is to change the system to make running checkuser far more automatic in these circumstances: if the evidence was enough to persuade a reasonable admin to block, it's enough to run a checkuser on as well. Blocking an account indefinitely while refusing to run a checkuser on it based on privacy concerns doesn't seem reasonable.—Kww(talk) 23:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by named BozMo

@CHL you say "little is lost by waiting for a confirmation on alleged Scibaby socks" but I disagree. They may not move pages but Scibaby and the other handful of CC socks are pretty good at wasting a load of community time and goodwill with spurious arguments just calculated for the ignorant to take them seriously, protests, votes, disruption etc. and currently the very small number of wrong identifications and the medium number of argumentative socks who end up getting indef blocked later after a well meaning unblock before they are found to belong to a different sock master are not clearly a greater disruption than the socks. More checkusers then, please. --BozMo talk 20:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Cool Hand Luke

Two opinions:

1. We probably need more checkusers.
2. Scibaby is not a page move vandal; little is lost by waiting for a confirmation on alleged Scibaby socks.

I don't think there's a freestanding case here, but perhaps ArbCom could write some findings in the global warming case from hell, which is festering below. Cool Hand Luke 12:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

@Count Iblis: "Opening up negotiations" with Scibaby would be a mistake. To use an over-worn cliche, he's not here to write an encyclopedia. He's trolling, and I suspect he enjoys it when he causes collateral damage. The solution is to be more restrained in our response. Cool Hand Luke 12:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved The Four Deuces

Wavepart, why are you referring to "clean start" both here and at the Sock puppetry talk page? Are you saying that you have made a "clean start"? If so you should have notified Arbcom. TFD (talk) 15:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This presents a problem to administrators. They are able to correctly identify that a new account was created by someone who previously had an account but it is difficult to determine whether the creator is attempting to evade a block or is a clean start. In one article, Individualist anarchism, there were no fewer than four blocked editors who returned as socks and it was difficult to connect the socks to the underlying accounts. Is it too onerous an obligation for a clean start editor to disclose this if challenged? TFD (talk) 08:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Jéské Couriano

As the one who rejected WavePart's first unblock request, I examined his contributions beforehand and saw an immediate red flag - the only articles he'd edited before were unambiguously unrelated to global warming in any way, and he started editing on that topic less than half an hour after he'd made ten edits, the bare minimum for autoconfirmation (since he'd already had more than 3 days under his belt). In the interim, he made only one edit, and it was to the last article he'd edited (Algorithmic efficiency) before GW. As such, I (and a couple other reviewing administrators) came to the conclusion that he was indeed a sockpuppet, of the sleeper/autoconfirmation-busting variety, and declined upon that basis.

To be blunt, this whole situation could probably have been avoided if WavePart hadn't (1) jumped from one uncontroversial topic to another, controversial one in the space of under half an hour, (2) focused solely on GW after starting editing on that topic, and (3) waited only for the bare minimum of edits to start editing the semiprotected GW article. Those three signs, to me and most of the rest of us who deal with sockpuppets (not just Scibaby's), almost always indicate a ban-evading sockpuppet intending to circumvent semi-protection. —Jeremy 18:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Breeblebrox) That isn't what I'm exactly suggesting. I'm merely stating that one of the major components of the duck test in areas where the articles most disrupted are semi-protected is whether or not an editor has barely more than ten edits before he starts editing in the disputed topic. The reason for this is because most of the banned sockmasters are more than aware of the means to get a sock autoconfirmed. (If I go any further on this topic, I'd be handing them ammunition, so I'll just leave it at that.) —Jeremy 07:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Count Iblis) Your concern is touching, but WP:DENY exists for reason. —Jeremy 08:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

WavePart) Actually, behaviorally both those things you cited are, indeed, typical sleeper sockpuppet behavior (waiting for the bare minimum number of edits and editing in unrelated topics first). Again, I could explain why, but in doing so I'd be rendering the information I give useless as they'd latch onto what I say and learn from it. Serial puppeteers (again, not just Scibaby) are more than willing to learn ways to not arouse suspicion from incautious posts. —Jeremy 18:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by William M. Connolley

Why isn't this a simple case of an error by a relatively inexperienced admin, TW? According to the block log, 2010-06-01T18:08:58 The Wordsmith (talk | contribs) blocked WavePart (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts: fails the WP:DUCK test) yet there is no block notice on the users talk page, no sock tag on the user's page and more importantly no subsequent apology by TW for the error.

There is a fairly simple conclusion here - inexperienced admins should not block users on flimsy evidence. Which is not to say that WP isn't someone's sock, or a returning user. Nor does it say anything about the many other (good) Scibaby sock blocks.

Incidentally, I fully support WP's first "terrible" edit William M. Connolley (talk) 19:18, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion by Jehochman

If I can make a suggestion, the outcome of this discussion should be that we don't indef block accounts for socking without reasonably strong evidence. On the other hand, Global warming are highly troubled by Scibaby, a persistent and prodigious socker. On balance, we should have a low threshhold for topic banning suspected Scibaby socks from GW articles. If some of these new accounts turn out not to be Scibaby, but are instead users who've come here to edit like Scibaby (also problematic), there is a net benefit in topic banning them if they fit the Scibaby editing pattern.

Am I making sense? Socking is easy to do and takes minimal effort. We should not create a situation where reporting, investigating and blocking prodigious sockers takes substantially more effort than churning out throw away accounts. Jehochman 23:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, when there are three arbitration requests pending at same time in the same topic area, that's a pretty strong signal that you should start a case. You volunteered for the job. Jehochman 14:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Count Iblis

To prevent future collateral damage, we should start cease-fire negotiations with Scibaby. We could allow Scibaby to post a limited numbers of comments per week on some wiki talk-page if he agrees to stop creating socks. Count Iblis (talk) 01:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Reply to comments

@ Atren. Yes, ignoring would work. The negatiations I'm talking about is only about Scibaby agreeing to stop creating socks. A ban can be re-imposed the moment he violates any agreement.

@ Beeblebrox, MuZemike & SirFozzy. When we ban someone, we are actually compromizing on the core principle that Misplaced Pages can be edited by anyone. We should only do that if it is really necessary. So, if we can reverse or relax a restriction, then from our POV this should be considered positive move. From our POV, this should not be considered a compromize at all. Of course, the assumption here is that we can do this without harming any articles.

The precedent argument that this is a bad idea because if you just behave very badly, you can get around bans, does not hold here. You will not be allowed to edit if you don't (promise to) behave well. Of course, we then also have to re-examine all the bans imposed on everone else as well. On the long run, Misplaced Pages would be better off if it has the image that everyone, even those people who have behaved badly in the past, can and are editing Misplaced Pages. We also need to keep in mind here that while the heated controversies of today may not exist in a few years time, a permanent ban is forever.

Who knows, perhaps we would still be hunting for Scibaby socks 20 years from now while Scibaby would have accepted AGW by that time and stopped creating socks for many years. We would be like those Japanese soldiers hiding in the jungle in Indonesia in 1975 who didn't know that WWII ended in 1945 :) . Count Iblis (talk) 14:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

@ Cool Hand Luke. We could call his bluff. He'll be re-blocked the moment he misbehaves again. This has the advantage of making it very clear to outsiders that Misplaced Pages can really be edited by everyone who can contribute constructively, regardless of any issues regarding past behavior, no matter how serious. Count Iblis (talk) 14:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

General comment

Note that in the other ArbCom request below, I made the argument that ArbCom should make new rules for science related articles. I want to see Misplaced Pages moving more in the direction of SPOV. For the Scibaby related problems that would mean that someone would be in direct violation of the rules and not mereley behave in some vague tendentious way if he were to behave like Scibaby. So, we could say that Scibaby was exploiting a weakness of the system, we blocked him and he created socks to continue exploiting that weakness and we had to repond by checking for sockpuppets. Had we not had this weakness in the system, Scibaby would not have been able to cause so much disruption. Count Iblis (talk) 15:00, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by ATren

We shouldn't negotiate with Scibaby, we should ignore him, like any other troll. From what I've seen, most of his edits are not terribly damaging; just quietly revert, and if they escalate, then we escalate, without ever mentioning Scibaby. Perhaps if we stop making such a big deal about him, he will lose interest, like any other troll. This has the added benefit of not accidentally blocking good faith editors. ATren (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by marginally involved Beeblebrox

I say marginally involved because I unblocked WavePart. When he asked to be unblocked, I looked at the reasoning in the block log, saw that there was no SPI, no real explanation, just a simple statement that he failed WP:DUCK. Seeing as his unblock reasoning was at least as plausible as the blocking reason, I felt that WP:AGF demanded he be unblocked. I have made blocks of this nature myself, and I know when you have dealt with a serial sockmaster for a long time you can develop the ability to detect sock accounts that another user less familiar with them might miss. I also know from experience that sometimes you can get too close, too involved and start chasing ghosts and getting paranoid. The toxic editing environment in the area of global warming articles is a natural incubator for that sort of paranoia. What happened with WavePart was more or less inevitably going to happen to somebody. I don't really know what ArbCom could be expected to do here however, other than maybe finding more seasoned admins to help enforce the editing restrictions on GW articles. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• @Count Iblis: That is a terrible idea and would set a very problematic precedent. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:15, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
• @Jeske: I don't think that a user being able to understand that becoming autoconfirmed allows them to edit semi-protected articles is in and of itself evidence of socking. What about a long term ip user who simply decides one day to register an account because they don't like being locked out of so many articles? That he made the ten edits required before trying to edit a protected article only shows that his brain is working. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by TheGoodLocust

I'm rather surprised that this hasn't been mentioned, but Ratel, a pro-AGW editor, was recently found to have been using a sockpuppet (Unit 5) for a very long time. If his sock's name is any indication, that it is his fifth account, and if we can safely assume that socks don't usually come in pairs, then I have to wonder why several of the other more aggressive pro-AGW editors haven't been checkusered as well based on "DUCK."

Since Ratel ironically had a habit of accusing people of being Scibaby socks, perhaps to throw people off his scent, then I'd suggest checkusering the pro-AGW editors who are most active in that arena. Additionally, I have a further concern that some pro-AGW editors are using at-work accounts w/ different IP addresses to supplement their at-home account's activities.

Live by the sock die by the sock. Cheers.TheGoodLocust (talk) 05:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

@Bozmo: Like several others here I was accused of being a sock in an unrelated topic area. The checkuser report said I had the same ISP as the sock lord, but that I was a state away and that he "didn't know what that meant." You say "only" 20, or whatever, people were falsely identified as socks, but from capital punishment studies, which presumably have higher standards of evidence, we know a huge number of innocent people have been put to death. So three questions need to be asked - how many people have been falsely banned, added to the list, and not corrected? And, in falsely banning those people, creating a larger and larger pool of ISPs/IP ranges identified with a specific sock, does it not make it easier to "confirm" future socks and thus falsely ban more people? Finally, who benefits from having these convenient bogeymen (I wonder)?

Comments by MuZemike

What's the definition of "no evidence whatsoever"? That sounds very, very subjective, and many accused users (or non-accused from time to time) use that term to merely dismiss certain proofs of allegations. This is coming from an administrator who does his share of blocking as well as his share of AGFing on SPI.

I cannot see what there is that some of the users want ArbCom to do other than hold nooses over admins' heads more prominently than what the angry community already does (and they do a fine job on that IMO). How do you define "tighter standards" to block sock puppets, keeping in mind that CheckUser is not the be-all and end-all in determining sock puppetry? Perhaps some discussion is needed (i.e. via talk page, RFC, etc.), but I cannot forsee how that would work out. Should we make sure that we have admins that know how to detect signs of sock puppetry and block or warn if necessary if it does occur? Perhaps we should; we have requests for adminship in which to vet out admin candidates for that.

As a closing note, I do not think I can support any negotiation for Scibaby to return even on a limited basis. That's the equivalent of admitting that Scibaby has Misplaced Pages and/or the angry community by the balls, dictating what he can and cannot do. That would also show that if you sock hard enough, you can win; that is a terrible, terrible message to send to the good faith contributors here, not to mention, as SirFozzie said, make the blocking and banning policies virtually meaningless. –MuZemike 07:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by The Wordsmith

I still believe that WavePart is a sockpuppet of somebody. I raised the possibility that it may be Scibaby , but I never said that it definitely was. I used the same standard for detecting the signs of socking that most admins involved in SPI would find pretty convincing: the 11th article-space edit was to a controversial topic (and semiprotected page), the first 10 were to something not even tangentially related to global warming, the 7th edit was to create a userpage with no meaningful content, so he wouldn't show up as a redlink, and his 12th total edit demonstrated knowledge of wikilinking and the finer points of NPOV. In his first 50 edits, he shows knowledge of diffs and 3RR], implied knowledge of AGF and in that same edit, telling Torontokid2006 that he would overlook the insults because TK2006 was new. In fact, if one examines Torontokid2006's contribs, he has been active for a few days longer than WavePart and displays the typical newbie behaviour just like 99% of editors do. I believe that my block was reasonable and based on sound behavioural evidence.

That said, I did apologise to WavePart for not leaving a block template. I am fairly new to adminship, and sometimes I forget things. I also told him that if he continues to be a productive editor, I won't trouble him . The Wordsmith 07:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved FT2

Misplaced Pages's nature as a collaboration between volunteer hobbyist writers using crowdsourcing, means editors do not have police grade evidence if a concern arises over bad faith or deceptive editing.

It also creates a degree of pragmatism, like the "duck" test. The community (including its administrators and checkusers) cannot access ISP records nor see through a net connection, so reasonable belief is often the standard. Not many people are interested in disrupting or editing the same topics in the same same way as a previous banned user, so behavior is often a good identifier.

The community's core editing process is a mix of be bold and consensus, means one person opines and may act on their view, and that view may in turn be challenged or cause discussion. It may not be ideal but it is basic to making Misplaced Pages work. The same applies to almost all other editorial areas. In this case a user was blocked and then upon review unblocked. The user was blocked for 1.5 days while the process took place. I'm not seeing anything to suggest abuse; although obviously for a legitimate user this would be discouraging and distressing it's within norms, not an arbitrable concern, and lesser approaches do not appear to have been tried nor failed.

Hipocrite is a user who supports stronger safeguards against abusive users and is willing to accept this may sometimes deter a small number of legitimate users. Since Misplaced Pages crowdsources its content and some abusers try "sock supporting sock" to bias the "crowd", many users take a harsh ("draconian") line on users who appear to be editing contentiously or possibly to an agenda, on one or few matters, especially if the area has previously been heavily socked. In this case Hipocrite reported his concerns, a second user reviewing concurred. The concern was not entirely unreasonable to raise in the context of a known prolific sock user though very direct in tone and lacking more direct behavioral evidence. The community further reviewed and expressed enough doubt to unconcur. None of this evidences abuse so far. Hopefully the concerns will include evidence of disturbing editing, not just of prior wiki knowhow and topic focus, another time.

This should not be read as confirming nor denying any claim of sock-puppetry nor whether any user should or should not be behaviorally blocked as a sock-puppet. It's more an observation that "normal idiosyncratic quirky Misplaced Pages community process has taken place in an unexceptional manner". If new socking is easier than the hoops needed to remove likely socks that's a bigger problem (Jehochman's comment). The more persistently socked an area has been, the more likely new accounts may be scrutinized and might be considered more sophisticated socks. In some cases it's common for many new accounts to be socks when reviewed with Checkuser (though all deny it).

These are non-ideal facts we have to work with, in the face of abusers who try clever ways to take advantage of Misplaced Pages's editorial process. Norms have developed accordingly. Should the norms change..? RFC is thataway but I'm not convinced it will get immense traction.

FT2  13:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Crotalus horridus

Can someone please clarify exactly when Scibaby was banned, and on whose authority? I checked the List of Banned Users, and Scibaby doesn't seem to be on there. Looking through past cases, I could find no indication thta he had been banned by ArbCom, and I am also not aware of any discussion on AN/I or the old Community Sanctions noticeboard that would indicate he was banned by the Misplaced Pages community. The block log shows that he was indefinitely blocked by User:William M. Connolley on 9/25/2007, but, of course, a block is not the same thing as a ban. The single word "sock" was the only explanation given. On the talk page, he was accused of being a sock puppet of someone called User:Obedium, who I have never heard of. Further complicating matters, Obedium's user page says he is a sockpuppet of Scibaby! Why was William M. Connolley, an involved user on the other side of the AGW debate, involved in this block? Weren't many of the early checkusers conducted by User:Raul654, another involved user? I think we should seriously reconsider whether Scibaby should even be blocked at all. If he were permitted to edit under his own account, maybe the sockpuppeting (to the extent it really exists and isn't just an excuse to ban every anti-AGW account) would end. *** Crotalus *** 15:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The single word "sock" was the only explanation given - no. Look at his talk page User talk:Scibaby#Sockpuppetry, where I explain why he was blocked. You'll notice my offer to discuss the block. Note also that CU was requested at the time, but declined by Lar per DUCK: Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Scibaby. I blocked Scibaby about 10 hours after the DUCK call William M. Connolley (talk) 16:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

So is Obedium a sockpuppet of Scibaby, or is Scibaby a sockpuppet of Obedium? It can't be both. In such cases, the appropriate solution is to restrict the user to one account, but in this instance it appears it was used as an excuse to block both. *** Crotalus *** 17:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

You need to dredge through the history. As I recall it, Obedium was the first-noticed account, and Scibaby was regarded as the sock. That, as I said, is why I blocked him - as the CU commented, he failed WP:DUCK (which explains your Why was William M. Connolley, an involved user on the other side of the AGW debate, involved in this block). You'll notice I *didn't* block Obedium; he was blocked at about the same time 2007-09-25T02:49:21 Madman (talk | contribs) blocked Obedium (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 31 hours ‎ (Three-revert rule violation) but that was for a 3RR violation , which became a violation because he was identified with Scibaby. In November, Raul subsequently blocked Obedium for a week for vandalism , and then indef as a sock. The final block as a sock looks perhaps a bit opaque - see - and I can't comment on that William M. Connolley (talk) 18:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't trying to place the blame for this situation solely on you — sorry if it came out sounding like that. It appears that Scibaby is not actually banned from Misplaced Pages. Blocked, yes, but not banned. Therefore any administrator can unblock him, and hopefully put an end to the sockpuppetry. *** Crotalus *** 13:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

For Rlevse's (1) and (2)

--Heyitspeter (talk) 04:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/2/3)

• Uh, recuse. Cool Hand Luke 12:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: The history here is that Scibaby was asserted to be so disruptive over a period of years, making thousands of edits through dozens of socks, that massive rangeblocks were instituted to try to stop the abuse. The problem with large rangeblocks, of course, is that they prevent unrelated good-faith editors from editing—over time, there was mounting evidence, from account-creation requests the unblock-l and elsewhere (including some direct e-mails to me) that many new editors or would-be editors were getting caught up in the rangeblocks. And of course, for every would-be editor who takes the trouble to write in specially and ask why they are blocked or request an account, probably a dozen just shrug their shoulders and wander off—every one a potential contributor who is permanently lost to Misplaced Pages. So the decision was made to scale back significantly on the rangeblocks, in part as the result of a thread I started on ANI. The result, of course, though was that Scibaby's sock edits were getting through and causing trouble again, at which point there was a concerted effort made to detect these efforts and revert them as soon as possible, as opposed to the worse alternative of reinstating the rangeblocks. And so, now we have the different but also serious problem of administrators allegedly being oversensitized, and reacting to some new editors as if they were Scibaby socks though there is insufficient evidence that they are, and in some instances there is evidence that they are not: not ever editor who agrees with Scibaby's general point of view about global warming is him, and not even every editor whose first contribution is an unacceptable POV edit about global warming is him, although some of them indeed are. The situation probably does not call for an arbitration case to address this specific aspect of the matter. But it does call for a renewed and serious conversation among out most experinced admins in this area as to how we can reduce the damaging effects of one (or perhaps a small handful) of individuals' disruptive editing without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: Leaning to decline - 1) where are the links to prior attempts at DR? 2) How many of alleged scibaby socks are really scibaby socks and how many are other editors caught up the the global warming fervor? 3) What are we supposed to arbitrate here-SPI/sock blocking standards? Hmm. Wouldn't that be Arbcom create policy? How well would that go over? — Rlevse • Talk • 23:42, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse. Steve Smith (talk) 00:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment In this specific area, I do not feel it necessary to recuse. While I'm not sure whether a case should be accepted or not, I can say this. I'm not for making a mockery of our ban/block proceedures by "opening negotiations" for a cease fire. If we can prove that someone's socking, they need to be blocked and or stay blocked. SirFozzie (talk) 03:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
• Decline While agreeing with most of what Newyorkbrad had to say here, I also take Rlevse's opinions that nothing seems to have been tried before this request. This may not be the best system, but changes will happen through community discussion, not Arbitration. Shell 15:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Climate change

Initiated by Ryan Postlethwaite at 12:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Ryan Postlethwaite (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Lar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Stephan Schulz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Hipocrite (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• LessHeard vanU (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• ATren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• marknutley (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• The Wordsmith (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Mackan79 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BozMo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AGK (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• FloNight (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• ZuluPapa5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Cenarium (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Arkon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• JohnWBarber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MastCell (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• dave souza (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Polargeo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jayen466 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2over0 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Collect (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SlimVirgin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Lawrence Solomon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ratel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Thegoodlocust (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Lar
• Stephan Shultz
• Hipocrite
• LessHeard vanU
• ATren
• William M. Connolley
• marknutley
• The Wordsmith
• Mackan79
• Mathsci
• BozMo
• Short Brigade Harvester Boris
• AGK
• FloNight
• ZuluPapa5
• NuclearWarfare
• Cenarium
• Arkon
• JohnWBarber
• MastCell
• dave souza
• Polargeo
• Jayen466
• 2over0
• Collect
• SlimVirgin
• Lawrence Solomon
• Ratel
• Thegoodlocust

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Lar
• Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Climate_Change

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

There is currently a request for a case below (permalink) about the actions of Lar and Stephan Schulz‎ in the global warming field. In my opinion, the case is far too narrowly focused and based on the actions of two editors who are only relatively peripherally involved in the main area on contention on global warming articles. It is sadly my belief that due to the high levels of on going bickering and poor behaviour from all sides that the community imposed probation has failed. I am therefore bringing this request for the arbitrators to take a look at the whole topic area in a bid to determine;

1. Whether the community probation has been a success.
2. Whether further measures are needed (such as discretionary sanctions) that may help in the topic area.
3. Whether the conduct of certain editors in the area is so egregious that that they require topic or even site bans.
4. Whether any administrators have used abused their tools in the area.

To that, I think it would be good to review the conduct of all editors in the field, whether or not topic bans are needed. There has been talk of an RfC - In my honest opinion, we are far beyond the stage that an RfC could help in these circumstances and what we really need are remedies from the committee that have teeth. I'm well aware that this may seem to some to be a duplicate of the request below, but I'm of the belief that a request filed on the whole topic area is needed and will most probably have a more effective response.

Please note: If I have included you as a party to the case, it is in no way a reflection of wrong doing from my perspective. I've tried to include everyone who has been involved in the probation. If others have been left out, please pop by my talk page and I'll add them - it would be best not to add them yourself (unless you are completely uninvolved) in order to stop any potential disputes. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:07, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

Premature at this point. Several arbs have suggested letting the RfC run a bit farther. Suggest a decline or place in abeyance for now, without prejudice to a later opening if needed. Ruling (via motion, since fairly clear statements don't seem to be yet having the desired effect) on the narrower request now would be helpful though. ++Lar: t/c 13:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

To NYB: Your request that statements "should focus on whether there is a reasonable probability that an arbitration case could lead to a useful outcome" requires handicapping ArbCom members as to their willingness to speak plainly to VestedContributors and to make hard and potentially divisive decisions. Because that is what will be required here, and several prized oxen will likely be gored, with the concomitant mess and fuss. So, then, aid the handicappers, would you... Are you all up for it? Risker hints that she is up for it. What about you, NYB? Are you up to it? Will we get forceful and useful findings from you? As you go, so often goes much of the rest of ArbCom, you know, and watery findings beget more watery findings. ++Lar: t/c 17:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

At this point I agree with JWB and JeH... it's time for a case. The CC probation RfC has gotten about as far as it can. Read what it says, take it into account and let's go. Dispose of the oldest request by issuing a motion on what involvement means. ( My RfC has gotten about as far as it can (and in fact your issuing a ruling via motion would finish things up nicely) Open the second request (this one). Dispose of the newest request by motion (and in passing point out it's not really related to this case per se) reminding admins and others to be a bit crisper when circumstances warrant it re sockpuppet allegations. That's my advice. ++Lar: t/c 16:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

PS: JWB, good summary of where things stand on the CC probation RfC... thanks! (I forgot to endorse some views but I don't think that would throw your summary off a lot. You are correct in characterizing my view as not in opposition to a different regime for selecting who admins the area... it's a narrowly taken view, deliberately so.) ++Lar: t/c 16:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by BozMo

Helpful, thanks Ryan. After some early success the probation has turned into too much talk and become a scene of more unpleasantness than the articles. All is smoke with very little light. I suggest

1. that enforced rotation of uninvolved admins would be helpful
2. that it should be accompanied by some agreed guide for uninvolved admins coming into a complex area on what the appropriate actions are for a given level of offence
3. that a simple target charter for dealing with requests (with time expired closures on different sections) would help move things along too
4. a limited, much slower appeal process should be allowed just to check actions against agreed guide

--BozMo talk 13:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Polargeo

Premature. There is a constructive RfC running on this very issue which has been overlooked in the hurry for this case Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC Polargeo (talk) 13:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC) I do agree with some of the statements by Bozmo above but I hope these can be dealt with without an arbcom ruling. Polargeo (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Stephan Schulz

I agree that this is premature, given that there is the open and active Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC. In my opinion, the underlying cause of the problems in this area is the organized off-wiki political campaign against the scientific opinion on global warming. Misplaced Pages conflicts are only a symptom. Therefore, I'm doubtful if ArbCom can help resolve the problem, in particular if it sticks to its traditional role of avoiding content questions. About the only positive outcome I would hope for from an ArbCom case would be a clarification of the weight of reliable sources, with academic publications, in particular overview reports and peer-reviewed journal articles given a clear primacy over the popular press, and in particular over editorials.

The list of participants, daunting as it may seem, is very incomplete. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• The list of participants, daunting as it may seem, is still very incomplete. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by LessHeard vanU

Premature, as per parties commentating. In consideration of Newyorkbrad's request, I feel that the RfC variously referred to is likely to establish a definition of the issues for a Request for Arbitration; in that most views are inclined to agree that input by the Committee is required going forward. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:44, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

While the request was premature, in my opinion, it is possible that acceptance - possibly worded so the case holds until after the RfC concludes - may not be. If events at the various pages continue as it does, then I fear this issue is going to spiral out of control; a provisional acceptance may convince a few individuals to up their game to avoid possible censure (although one or two may decide to kamikaze).

Statement by ZuluPapa5

Suspend this or the RFC, both should not be on at the same time. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 17:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Literaturegeek (Uninvolved)

Ryan Postlethwaite, is right, it is time for ArbCom to accept this case and pass fair but strong remedies including site bans and topic bans if necessary and for ArbCom to take control of enforcing those remedies. I believe that ArbCom is the only way of resolving the battle ground on these articles; arbcom has in its history dealt with other horrific polarised battle grounds with significant success. I have read over the RfC and quite predictably the community is split down the middle with no consensus emerging. It is my perspective that the viewpoint that a polarised outcome from the RfC being able to resolve a complex battleground being waged by fanatical and polarised editors on climate change articles is silly. There is no realistic prospect that the RfC will resolve this battle ground.

I notice that several editors are advocating for ArbCom to not take on this case, expressing their belief that an RfC should be allowed to run its course to see if it helps matters. I am sure some of these editors are doing so in WP:GOODFAITH but I can't help wonder if others are trying to persuade ArbCom not to accept this case due to concerns that they themselves may be sanctioned. Thus I think ArbCom, should decide to accept this case based on the facts (rather than opinions of involved editors) such as the following;

Are there serious and complex behavioural problems and is there a battle ground on climate change articles and has community trust in the climate change probation process broken down? Has this poisonous battle field been ongoing for years without any sign of a let up? The answer I believe is yes to these questions and I thus think that ArbCom not only should but must accept this case as enough is enough.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Count Iblis

I agree with Stephan Schulz about the fundamentals of the problem. I think what ArbCom should do is investigate how new rules could be beneficial. For that you initially don't need any input from the involved editors. It is better for ArbCom to start a closed case where they study the situation themselves without any input from editors, as such inputs will likely lead to polarized discussions that would distract attention from the real problems. And, of course, it is better that the Global Warming Cabal edit articles and not engage in polarized discussions on some ArbCom page leading to new disputes.

When ArbCom comes up with a few proposals for new rules, these proposals can be discussed with with the group of involved editors. Such discussions will be far less polarizing because all that can be talked about are the proposals, instead of, say, who was in the wrong in some previous editing dispute. ArbCom can then make a final ruling in which they can take into account the received feedback. Count Iblis (talk) 18:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cla68

I don't think an ArbCom case is necessary at this time. There is an RfC in progress and the AGW/CC probation enforcement forum is, in my opinion, operating effectively. Cla68 (talk) 19:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

The probation quickly degenerated into a talking shop. Over the months this has intensified the battlefield mentality, and the uninvolved admins are nearly all showing signs of battle fatigue. We need less talk, more action. At this stage an arbitration case would not cause more harm than is already being caused, and could at least provide the clarity and focus the probation lacks. Tasty monster (=TS ) 00:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Hipocrite

A case is sorely needed. Adminstrators are overstepping their bounds left and right, there is no end to the sockpuppetry, and long term contributors are consistantly elevating wikipedia disputes to newspapers, while outside agitators are constantly driving their roaring masses to disrupt wikipedia. Please solve this. Hipocrite (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by newly-added Collect

I do not have any appreciable connection with edits on the topic, and my comments otherwise have been on the order of following established procedure. I see no likely positive result from using this as a case for ArbCom. Collect (talk) 21:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by AGK

I am displeased at being listed as a party to this case. In the event that this request is accepted (a prospect I make no comment on at this point) and that the final decision involves some variation of the usual "All parties are reminded to act like reasonable adults" remedy, I would be annoyed enough to retire from editing. Doubtless many of the other administrators whose involvement in these disputes is confined to attempts to keep editor conduct in line will be similarly annoyed at having been listed as parties to this request. AGK 22:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by JohnWBarber

I have hardly anything to add to what I wrote just days ago on this page. An ArbCom case would provide about as much bickering, but with the possibility of closure. At the RfC I've proposed the same Arb-appointed regime I mentioned here. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

• Roger Davies: Other than that, the Requests for enforcement board seems to be working fine Oh, fine and dandy, fine and dandy. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln ... -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• The Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC looks like it's gone as far as it's going to go. It's very doubtful that enough editors are going to comment in upcoming days in a way that will significantly change the results, so could ArbCom members who want to take the RfC into consideration please do so? Then we can get one or even two of the three (count 'em: three) requests off this page. Closing time, Last call for alcohol, Time, gentlemen please. So gather up your jackets, moving to the exits, Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end... -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

• @NewyorkBrad's 14:58, 2 June comment: The largest RfC responses, mostly from involved editors, are:
  • 1. SBHBoris (16 editors ): ArbCom should decide content matters in Climate Change articles (is that a fair reading?)
    2. Bozmo (14 editors ): There are various problems with various editors and admins, and some have reason to complain (this is so specific that I'm not sure how it applies to whether or not ArbCom should accept this case)
    3. Me (14 editors ): GSCC has not been working well enough. ArbCom should appoint the admins who oversee WP:GSCC
    4. Lar (13 editors ): GSCC has been partially successful, partially not. "ArbCom needs to come out and explicitly state that yes, there are groups here, and that their activities have been on balance more harmful than beneficial, and that enforcement needs to take that into account"
    5. 2over2 (12 editors ): The enforcement board part of GSCC is not working, abolish it.
    6. Mackan79 (11 editors ): Improving the editing environment needs to be admins' goal

No other statement received more than nine !votes. I think that to the extent these more popular statements reflect on the idea of whether or not ArbCom should take this up, they support your taking it up. The idea that there are significant problems with GSCC and it should be substantially changed or abolished is part of all but Bozmo's, Lar's and Mackan's statements, but those statements are not actually opposed to ArbCom taking up the case and taking control over GSCC. Note that Boris and Bozmo both endorsed my statement. I think you have enough of a mandate here to take this up and, if you think it best, to take control. While there's a lot of overlap among the supporters of these more popular statements, there is general support for you doing this and no significant opposition. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 15:02, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

Uninvolved administrator who quit enforcing the community sanction due to unhappiness with the apparently unfair results.

Never run for ArbCom if you are popular enough to be elected. Otherwise it might become your duty to accept a case like this one. Have fun. Jehochman 12:56, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

The RFC is pointless because the same old users are lining up on the same old battle lines. We already know what each of these users thinks. The RFC does not provide any new information. Jehochman 20:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cenarium

Premature, the community is working on the issue, and we may need some ArbCom involvement but for now not in the form of a case. And if I am listed as a party in this case I will have much less willingness to engage in probation or arbitration enforcement. Cenarium (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Mathsci

I agree that this is premature and that it's being handled reasonably by the community. I'm not a CC editor, but occasionally comment on or watch the enforcement page. I can't see that an ArbCom case on CC at the moment would serve any useful purpose, quite the contrary, The RfC on CC probation should be allowed to run its course and everything should be taken a little more calmly and less confrontationally, with lashings of tea and cup cakes. Mathsci (talk) 14:10, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by ScottyBerg

Just an aside that the Arbitration Committee needs to consider its actions as a possible impediment to wider participation. I am broadly sympathetic to the CC point of view but I don't always agree with them on matters of sourcing and such. However, I have done virtually zero editing because of the threatening-looking THIS IS UNDER PROBATION notice that appears on these articles. If you decide to accept this case, and I agree that it is probably premature now, consider steps to make these articles more editor-friendly and less intimidating. That should involve appraising the talk page notices as well as frankly reviewing actions of administrators and other officialdom. Try to take a broad look at the climate of editing at the climate change articles, and try to "change" that climate.ScottyBerg (talk) 14:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

@B: I just wanted to associated myself with User:B's comment that "it creates a chilling effect to issuing warnings to anyone who breathes in the general direction of a global warming article and then log those warnings on a sanctions page." This area is "overlitigated," as the lawyers say. All concerned should ease up. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:06, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

ArbCom are already aware of my position, but to restate it here: I think intervening would help in this case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

@TheGoodLocust, claiming extremism is one thing; your comment was something else - it was inappropriate. I presumed that it was dealt with since Jehochman's note; had I checked the page sometime within the last few days, I would've also asked that it be removed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:06, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Heyitspeter

To reiterate Ncmvocalist's point above, an Arbcom case would greatly improve the situation. The editing arena is poisonous. Neutral editors are generally absent from the topic area and are invariably polarized after a short time in such a combative environment. The probation itself is not working, as little if anything substantial is carried out in response to enforcement requests.

@Roger Davies: The RfE board certainly is calmer, recently, but this should not be taken as a sign that it is working fine. For example, many editors have left the topic area entirely due to frustration with the editing environment. Their absence makes the topic area run more smoothly, but that's not the kind of smooth running we want.

@Carcharoth's request. I am involved insofar as I have edited Climatic Research Unit documents controversy (and the RfE board). I have stopped, and not because that article's looking good.--Heyitspeter (talk) 09:46, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

addendum

No, the RfC is not helping. It's headed for a no consensus close, with one of the relevant parties suggesting a massive overhaul of the CC probation. Arbitration would be great. --Heyitspeter (talk) 17:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment by TheGoodLocust

Well, I don't really have much to say, because this should be based on evidence, which space constraints inhibit to a certain extent. That being said, here are a few points of interest:

1. The admin discussion to prevent the "malicious and stupid" Lar from interacting with WMC, easily the biggest problem in the climate change articles, includes participation by Bozmo and Vsmith, both whose top edited articles are in the climate change area, and at least one of whom I know has constantly defended WMC for years.

In short, the involved admins are helping to muzzle the uninvolved admin.

2. SlimVirgin describes the tag-teaming action and policy violations that have been going on for years. I'd describe this as a introducory primer for this issue and you can see how Stephan Schulz, Kim Dabelstein Petersen, and William Connolley will tag team to keep BLP violations in articles of subjects they don't like.

Of particular note, regarding this person, WMC has posted documents revealing his address and telephone number, linked to his blog were he calls him insane (fitting since him and his friends have slandered his BLP to imply he believes in martians), and used his talk page to imply that he is committing tax fraud.

Inappropriate comment removed by --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 15:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC) TheGoodLocust (talk) 19:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

If that was really inappropriate then it wouldn't have been up for 4-5 days and required a suggestion to persuade you of that "fact." TheGoodLocust (talk) 15:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist: Where was all this so-called outrage when Connolley posted private information online about Fred Singer?

Comment by B

I don't have a strong opinion on whether or not arbcom takes the case, but it creates a chilling effect to issuing warnings to anyone who breathes in the general direction of a global warming article and then log those warnings on a sanctions page.

Misplaced Pages's climate change articles are horribly biased. For example, Global warming#Politics blames Bush for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, but doesn't mention that the Senate voted 95-0 in a resolution to preemptively reject any treaty that didn't contain emission targets for developing countries.

Creating an environment where outsiders are made to feel unwelcome only fosters an institutional bias. --B (talk) 05:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• Recuse. I apparently am involved in this dispute. AGK 22:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/1/3)

• Awaiting statements. In my view, statements should focus on whether there is a reasonable probability that an arbitration case could lead to a useful outcome (beyond what has already been attained through community processes) that in turn would result in an improved editing environment and improved articles on global-warming related topics. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
  • This has been sitting, partly because of the long holiday weekend (in the US and UK) and partly pending developments in the RfC. Parties who have not already done so are requested to submit brief addenda to their statements addressing whether the RfC has helped or is helping resolve any issues that we would be asked to address. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse SirFozzie (talk) 16:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
• Initial comment to agree with AGK. If accepted, the list of parties would be carefully scrutinised to avoid the situation he describes. Could I also ask those making statements here to consider adding themselves as parties to the case or stating the degree of involvement. I see some people who are not parties making statements when it is possible that Ryan missed them off the list of parties to the request. For now, I would still like to see the recently started RfC run the full 30 days to see what results from that, but agree that having the option of accepting a broad or narrow case is somewhat helpful to focus the mind of the arbitrators. Carcharoth (talk) 05:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
• I too would like to see the RFC run more of its course. Other than that, the Requests for enforcement board seems to be working fine, though the discussions could be a bit more focused. Will add more once more statements are received.  Roger Davies 08:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
• Decline. Let's give the RfC a chance first. Also, since an enforcement board is already in place, I'm not certain what we could do here that the community hasn't already decided to do on their own. Shell 16:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse. Cool Hand Luke 19:38, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
• Decline; I'd rather wait for the RfC to conclude before we intervene. — Coren  01:44, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz‎ & Lar

Initiated by Hipocrite (talk) at 21:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Hipocrite (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Lar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Stephan Schulz‎ (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Lar

Statement by Hipocrite

Lar states he is an "uninvolved" admin for the purposes of WP:GSCC. Other users say he is involved, and yet other users say he is not involved. Lar is repeatedly removing statements made by Stephan Schulz‎ from the uninvolved section of WP:GSCC requests. Stephan Schulz‎ has removed statements by Lar from the uninvolved section of WP:GSCC requests. There is no reasonable way to resolve this dispute without a direct ruling by ArbCom that one or both of them are uninvolved/involved/whatever. Please limit the scope of this case to the issue of admin involvement - dealing with the Global Warming problem is a different, but related case. Trying to mush them together would merely slow down both. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 21:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

While it might seem expiditious to deal with this by motion, I suggest that ArbCom, if it intends to do so, should at the very least allow for a limited presentation of evidence from people who care (namely, not me.) Hipocrite (talk) 21:31, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

For GWH - arbcom has already stated as such - from Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley#Avoiding_apparent_impropriety:

...administrators, should strive to avoid conduct that might appear at first sight to violate policy. Examples include an administrator repeatedly making administrator actions that might reasonably be construed as reinforcing the administrator’s position in a content dispute, even where the administrator actually has no such intention...

It should be noted that even as this request is live Lar continues to make determinations that other admins are involved. Hipocrite (talk) 13:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

And those determinations are being challenged by those other admins. I would ask that a clerk add Polargeo to this case. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Lar has now threatened to block another admin if that admin undoes Lar moving his edits out of the uninvolved admin section. Arbcom - this escalation (admins blocking eachother) is your narrow remit. Please step up. Individual message to each of you. Hipocrite (talk) 14:19, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Polargeo has promised to stop reverting his views back into the section. Will deescalation be rewarded, or will this be like poorly-implemented page protection, where the last reverter before protection "wins?" Hipocrite (talk) 14:29, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

I think a case is overkill, a clarification of this matter by attaching to the right existing case would be more efficient, I suspect. But I leave that to others to deterime

Simply put, while there are those that would find it convenient to remove me from the enforcement action, and who have labored hard to make it so, I'm not involved in climate change matters as I do not edit in the area. There is an RfC running about this, Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Lar. I think my response is instructive. I think that all the other uninvolved admins have said they consider me uninvolved is also significant.

On the other hand, Stephan Schulz by no stretch of the imagination can be considered to be uninvolved. His placing material in the uninvolved admin section is apparently provocative baiting.

I ask for a quick finding so we can get back to the real matters at hand. ++Lar: t/c 21:26, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

SirFozzie: Apparently your view that I am not involved isn't enough for some folks, who want another bite at the apple, and in taking their bite, are emitting all sorts of distortions and unfounded allegations. They should know better, but it's part and parcel of the tactics used by some in this area. Folks shouldn't fall for it. ++Lar: t/c 04:01, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not one to give up, I usually try hard to make things work, but you know what? Maybe JohnWBarber is right. Maybe it's time to pull the plug and knock some heads. It'll be a horrific case but maybe finally something will be done. ++Lar: t/c 04:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

SirFozzie II: (in regards to his narrowboat vs supertanker query) - My desire initially was for a narrow finding, to wit: "Lar is not involved, Stephan Schultz is" (As has been found before in previous requests here, talk page comments, and the like) and that would be that. But I despair of getting that, or, if I did, whether it would be enough or whether WMC, SBHB, Polargeo, et. al. would want yet another bite at the apple. JohnWBarber, Jehochman, et al. may be right and a big case is needed. I had hoped that the RfC pending on the progress of the probation so far, and the feedback and good ideas and new admins that participated as a result, might do to get things back on track. Perhaps not. If a big case is needed, so be it. It will be bloody. But perhaps it will at last level the playing field. At least for a while. ++Lar: t/c 20:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Stephan Schulz

The climate change probation explicitly spells out that For the purpose of imposing sanctions under this provision, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic with the user receiving sanctions. I have not commented in the "uninvolved admin" section in any case in which I am engaged in any conflict with the user under discussion. In fact, I have contributed there rarely and usually only to correct misunderstandings. I don't think any of my contributions in that section can be considered particularly biased, either.

I have today moved an inappropriate comment by Lar on another clearly uninvolved editor only after Lar refused to amend or retract it and detached my comment on that from its context. The relevant discussion on Lar's talk page is here. I have not, to my knowledge, ever moved any other comment by Lar.

In my opinion Lar is clearly involved in the one way that is relevant: He came to the area with a strong prejudice, he has acted almost entirely one-sided, and he has rejected input and opinions from other editors on the flimsiest grounds. While any administrator who is willing to engage in that area deserves respect, Lar is not helping. He is escalating when he should de-escalate, he is sniping when he should consider his position, and he has the unfortunate habit of trying to declare "facts" by fiat without even a modicum of tolerance for other opinions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

• I've put down a somewhat longer statement on my problem with Lar as an uninvolved administrator at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Lar#View_by_Stephan_Schulz. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
• Reply to Rlevse: Dead animals don't quite translate into cyberspace, but harassment does. See ,, , . I can add any number more, including at least one series with personal information on a pseudonymous Misplaced Pages editor. Sadly, several of these off-wiki smears are contributed to by users who play the same game, if more demure, on Misplaced Pages. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by likely involved LessHeard vanU

As this is a fairly narrowly defined request I feel it might best be dealt with by Motion, and suggest acceptance on that basis. I would also suggest that a definition of "uninvolved admin" might follow that as suggested here. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Resp to SirFozzie - I am with regard to the narrow question; when the big one happens nobody is going to need ask... LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment to Coren; there is a RfC being set up by 2/0 to gather the views of participants and others in respect the perception of the effectiveness of the Probation and what are the options going forward. It may be that returning it to ArbCom, a very likely option, will be the preferred course of action. It might be awaiting the outcome of the RfC, unless there is a meltdown in the meantime, would be appropriate? LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by likely involved ATren

Here is a recent capture of Stephan's top 30 pages, by edit count:

Top 30 pages:

• Talk:Global warming - 1532
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Science - 655
• User talk:Stephan Schulz - 630
• Global warming - 512
• Talk:List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - 303
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents - 253
• Talk:Global warming controversy - 243
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard - 224
• Talk:Waterboarding - 212
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Humanities - 194
• Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement - 150
• Talk:Jesus - 144
• Global warming controversy - 141
• Talk:Scientific opinion on climate change - 124
• Talk:William Connolley - 108
• Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy - 100
• Global cooling - 98
• Scientific opinion on climate change - 91
• Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy) - 90
• Talk:The Great Global Warming Swindle - 85
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Computing - 83
• The Great Global Warming Swindle - 81
• Effects of global warming - 78
• Talk:Medieval Warm Period - 74
• Kyoto Protocol - 71
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Mathematics - 67
• Talk:Global warming/FAQ - 67
• Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby - 65
• Talk:Holocaust denial - 65
• List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - 63

I've highlighted the CC-related pages: 17 of 30 total pages for a total of over 3000 edits, more than 20% of Stephan's total of 14,000 edits.

Lar has never significantly edited a CC page before this probation, and I don't believe he's edited any during the probation either.

I have followed this debate for some time, and I can vouch for the fact that Stephan is an active participant on these pages -- in other words, it's not 3000 vandalism reverts. Certainly, given the amount of vandalism on these pages, some of those edits will be janitorial in nature, but on the whole, editorial debate has been a significant portion of Stephan's CC edits. If this case gets accepted, I will present a more thorough analysis to justify this statement.

Stephan is involved. Lar is not. ATren (talk) 21:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Collect

In the past, "involved" has generally meant "editorially involved in a topic area" - else the instant any person who had not editted significantly in the area would be accused of being "involved" as soon as he or she acted as an admin in the area the second time. Catch-22, if you will. This case, therefore, is ill-suited for an ArbCom discussion as such, though at some point in a case where the actual disctnction becomes important, it may decide to adopt a formal position as to what point makes a person who is not actively editing an area (making the normal exclusions for formatting edits, spelling etc.) become "involved" when this has not been the status quo ante on Misplaced Pages as far as I have been able to determine reading past ArbCom findings of fact. Collect (talk) 21:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Georgewilliamherbert

Point of information - the sequence of edits did not result in either editor removing the other's edits - they were both "move to section I believe they belong in" moves. Several intermediate edits had a section removed but in both cases they put it back in, somewhere else.

I think that this doesn't come close to justifying a real case. It might be useful to see if a wider community consensus could be developed around Sandstein's proposal wrt admin neutrality and appearance of bias, at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Lar#Outside view by Sandstein in the conduct RFC on Lar from earlier this year. Appearance of bias, even while one is completely technically compliant with the existing admin bias restrictions as written, can be as corrosive as any other real or perceived admin abuses. I don't think it's in Arbcom's remit to impose that as policy, but a good word towards discussing it might be helpful to prod things along. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Cla68

Stephan Schulz clearly knows that he is involved and shouldn't be posting in the "uninvolved admin" section of the enforcement requests. He only does so, as far as I can see, when William M. Connolley appears to be facing an imminent sanction for yet another violation of Misplaced Pages's policies. Thus, I submit that Stephan's interference in the admin decision-making process at that board is in bad faith and disruptive. In sum, I think this constitutes a misuse of admin privileges by Stephan Schulz. Cla68 (talk) 22:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I note that several people here have gone on record as stating that there are bias problems with most of the admins currently helping enforce the AGW probation forum. I think there is some evidence of this. For example, here it appears that 2/0 is hinting to Hipocrite that he should file an RfC on yours truly. I disagree, however, that the probation isn't working. Just today, in fact, WMC was banned from the Fred Singer article due to disruption and BLP violations. Actions like that will slowly but surely correct the problematic behavior involved in the AGW articles. For the probation to continue to work, however, heavily involved editors like Stephan Schulz need to be stopped from purposely disrupting the proceedings as he has attempted to do. Cla68 (talk) 05:14, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Clarification: 2/0 has stated that he was not trying to encourage Hipocrite to start an RfC in the diff I mentioned above. I believe what 2/0 is saying and withdraw my allegation of bias as regards to that example. Cla68 (talk) 15:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Mathsci

In the current RfCU on Lar, Short Brigade Harvester Boris has made a statement that many editors have agreed with concerning Lar's views on groups of editors. I think that Lar is very well meaning. However, because the same names and games recur on the CC probation enforcement page, like other administrators who have tried to police problematic pages (eg Chiropractic or Homeopathy), friction between users creates a "relationship" and various unspoken assumptions. Possibly after a while the administrator develops a mental picture of particular users or groups of users which is not particularly helpful. I don't recall that Stephan Schulz has been sanctioned so far in any way at all. Atren and Cla68 spend a lot of time themselves on the CC probation enforcement pages, so again may possibly have developed their own idées fixes. The best that could happen here is for ArbCom not to accept the case, not even to pass a motion, but gently to remind administrators to take note of complaints and, even if they don't quite agree with them, quietly to move on to something else, with no loss of face. I also agree with the view expressed by many other editors that it would be a good thing to find a way of rotating uninvolved administrators overseeing CC probation enforcement. Mathsci (talk) 23:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

@ SirFozzie: here's what arbitrators wrote when Cla68 filed a similar request 2 months ago. Mathsci (talk) 07:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@ Carcharoth: That was the diff immediately prior to the case being discarded by Ryan Postlethwaite as ArbCom clerk . I'm not sure I can do much better than that :) Mathsci (talk) 12:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Popping over here to briefly explain things... The original diff you provided was the one of Rlevse accepting what became the Russavia-Biophys case. The diffs that work best for me (and all users regardless of their settings) are the following: and the second one you provided. If you look in your preferences, there is an option under "misc" that says "Do not show page content below diffs". I have that option ticked. I presume you don't, and hence when you load a diff you have a table of contents you can click on to generate links like this, which combine a diff (the "&diff" bit) and an anchored link to a section on the page (the "#..." bit). For those who don't have page content shown below diffs, those sort of links won't work. Does that make sense now? Carcharoth (talk) 17:23, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment by TheGoodLocust

Stephan Schulz (and indeed others on his side like WMC) often break/bend rules with the full knowledge of their actions. The intent is obviously to evoke in others, through constant provocation, diffs which can be used as "evidence" of bias and therefore banning. I wish to highlight another example of Schulz's insistence that the rules don't apply to him by noting this enforcement discussion (Note: Schulz was involved in the edit war discussed; Bozmo overstated my reversions while understating WMC's).

Despite being directly involved in the edit war, Stephan Schulz claimed he could comment in the "uninvolved administrator" section through WP:IAR.

On a side note, if this case is accepted then I believe it should include a review of the actions/involvement of several administrators such as Bozmo and 2over0. For example, 2over0 has been a staunch defender of WMC, unblocking him without consulting the blocking admin, while diff mining/misrepresenting and avoiding the climate change enforcement page in order to unilaterally topic ban, for draconian lengths, climate change skeptics like myself and several others. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@Vsmith: Your comment does not apply, at all, to my comment. Stephan has shown that he is willing to flagrantly violate the definition of "uninvolved." Additionally, the terms of the climate change probation have consistently been altered/ignored/extended in order to topic ban people like myself, but in contrast, regarding those you've defended for years, only a strictly literal interpretation is allowed - and even when that is violated we can be guaranteed enough shouting to drown out any presented facts. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@Bozmo: Agreed - especially Horologium's comment. In fact, to extend his own comment somewhat, I can think of several long term contributors who've been driven off of not only the climate change articles, but wikipedia itself (e.g. rootology and unitanode off the top of my head). TheGoodLocust (talk) 07:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@Bozmo2:Astute observers will notice that Lar's support was not "focused" on a single statement and over a few days, but spread out over a long period of time and over several comments - with a far greater sample of truly outside observers. In fact, counting everyone who supported him brings his number closer to 30. TheGoodLocust (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@Okip: He sounds like someone who is tired of letting people slander BLP's of skeptics as believers in "martians" and who argue that the New York Times is unreliable when it doesn't fit in with a certain agenda (proudly violating core wikipedia policy of WP:VERIFY) - all while quoting their own blogs as "sources." TheGoodLocust (talk) 17:27, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@CountIblis: Incorrect. AFAIK climate change skeptics have almost all been either banned or driven away - the subjects of the current quest for ideological purity actually believe in AGW, but don't think that has anything to do with the constant BLP violations, wikilawyering, baiting and rampantly unapologetic incivility.

Comment by ZuluPapa5

This is a petty issue which can be handled by the CC Sanctions Project. The real issue is that William M. Connolley (talk · contribs) has repeatedly caused disruption (20+ cases) such that Admins are siting involved as a straw-man distraction. ArbCom's time would be better invested in reviewing William M. Connolley's disruptions to determine if his involvement in so many cases is the root cause. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk) 01:58, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Forming a group of appointed or elected admins at the sanctions would moot this issue. Zulu Papa 5 * (talk)

Comment by Vsmith

Stephan Schulz above has quoted the "definition" of "uninvolved" from the probation page. That is the definition he is operating under in his edits to the Results section of probation cases. He has pointed that out in his comments on that page in the past. All others commenting here and in dispute with him seem to be using a more general definition of "uninvolved" - whether they haven't read the probation page or just disagree with it, I don't know. All here need to re-read the probation page. If that definition needs to be changed, then work on that - meanwhile it is the definition in effect for admins on that probation. Vsmith (talk) 02:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

It seeems almost everyone is continuing to ignore the definition given on the probation page. Lar has basically stated that policy is made up on the fly and what is written down is irrelevant . That is a recipe for confusion and conflict and a disturbing comment directly relevant to the narrow scope of this arbitration request. Lar and Stephan Schulz are involved in a conflict based primarily on this point. I urge the committee to address this limited conflict and avoid (for now at least) the drama of a broader case. Vsmith (talk) 13:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment by JohnWBarber

Pull the damn plug already on WP:GSCC. It isn't working, and it's obvious it isn't working. Replace it with five or so appointed admins and rotate one out each month. That would ease the pressure on admins who, frankly, sometimes seem to be getting a little punch-drunk with the strain. If the admins are appointed by you, they'll have a mandate and confidence that self-selection doesn't give them, and you're more likely to select careful, discreet people than self-selection will. Appointed admins know they can be removed by ArbCom if they go to far out of line (and they can be reminded by email), but they'll also know that there will be a time for them to gracefully exit. The main problem with this request is that it's narrowly focused when the disaster that is WP:GSCC is very broad. I agree with ZuluPapa5 that you should include William Connolley in this and look into topic banning him because the constant complaints that his behavior generates are an enormous time sink. Look at Polargeo's recent disruption (an involved editor posting in the "uninvolved admins" section of a complaint) and the thinly veiled personal attacks in his comments . The admins at GSCC are bickering among themselves and find it difficult to come to consensus on various cases. It's an unholy mess. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Cla68's opinion on whether or not GSCC is working is much too rosey. It's true that Wordsmith banned William Connolley from editing one BLP. This was the result of -- what? -- the 20th or 21st or sixteen dozenth complaint about Connolley at GSCC. And there was disagreement from other admins over whether or not Wordsmith's action had consensus. If GSCC were working, then Cla68 should not have been able to gather all these diffs about the conduct of WMC, Short Brigade Harvester Boris, Guettarda and Stephan Shulz here or about Polargeo here No editor should have to put up with this kind of abuse. But if Lar exits GSCC, he leaves it in the hands of open to more influence from admins like the one who put this on my talk page. If you think 2/0 was possibly being reasonable in his what looks like an effort to intimidate me, please follow the diffs he and I provided in that discussion. Frankly, under the present set-up I don't believe any admin is likely to be able to do this job without making significant blunders. When many drivers get into accidents at a particular spot, traffic engineers are called in to see whether or not a redesign of the spot and the traffic rules for it may be necessary. We are at that point. ArbCom appointment would help: each month a new admin, to serve for five months on a five-member board. Cracking down on some repeat offenders would also help, pour encourager les autres. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2010 (UTC)small revision for clarity -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC) -- softening the language a little on 2/0. It's possible that his comments were good-faith, although I still don't think they were reasonable. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

@Iblis: There are a gazillion disputes having nothing to do with the scientific point of view. I'm not a skeptic. Lar says he isn't one. Not everything boils down to outside-Wiki POV. Having a house POV would not have made WMC's edits to Fred Singer any more acceptable, or any incivility any more acceptable. Or any gaming the system any more acceptable. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Mackan79

Simply put, if Lar is involved, then so are the majority of administrators who have worked in the area. Nearly all hold and have expressed views about what is responsible for the poor editing environment in this area. Some, including 2/0 and Bozmo, clearly come from within the movement of anti-fringe editors. Lar comes from the view that some "vested contributors" are also creating a problem. No claim has even been made that Lar is more involved than those editors; he is far less involved than several by any measure.

Stephan Schulz is in a completely different category, not just because of his extensive ongoing involvement in the area, but because he has also commented as uninvolved in disputes where he is involved in the dispute itself. He then argues that if he is involved, then so is Lar. In my view this is part of the same gamesmanship that has been continually attacking admins who are seen to have disfavorable views in order to suggest that they are biased and therefore "involved." I would like to clarify that there was similar criticism of other admins in the area; however editors including myself attempted to play a moderating role, which unfortunately has not been reciprocated. If ArbCom did look at that issue, my best realist take is that ArbCom would find significant cause to admonish editors including Stephan Schulz and William M. Connolley for this type of gamesmanship, which would be a slap on the wrist, but may help. Mackan79 (talk) 04:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

On possible routes for an omnibus case: It strikes me that ArbCom mainly has the options of directly applying sanctions, or of empowering admins to do so. The main benefit of the first route (direct evaluation) seems to be that ArbCom could give a real look at some evidence, and make a clear statement about what types of behavior will or won't be tolerated. The weakness is that its real impact would either be draconian or mostly implied, given the impossibility of dealing with all current and future editors at once. The obvious weakness of the second route (discretionary sanctions) is that it has already been tried; nevertheless, maybe by tightening the terms, and maybe even with with some findings, ArbCom could create a better ongoing system for enforcement (maybe with broader admin input as well if it were brought over to AE). Either could help, in theory. Mackan79 (talk) 06:30, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by BozMo

I think rather than repeat things here, people should be referred to Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Lar where many more people have thoughtfully contributed (there is a lot of duplication but as at today 21 people have endorsed Lar's defence and 23 have endorsed this summary of the issue. Good luck. --BozMo talk 05:47, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by AGK

I see no merit to this case. Lar has not edited within the climate change topic area, and thus cannot be claimed to be not-uninvolved. I was briefly active in this topic area's enforcement page earlier in the week, upon being asked to comment on a peripheral issue about general philosophy with respect to enforcement requests—as were many other administrators who frequent the main enforcement board. What struck me there was the ferocity with which debate on any topic, significant or not, is pursued by many parties. Lar especially was spoken to in an abrupt and markedly unfriendly way. That kind of heat cannot be conducive to good editing.

The climate change enforcement board would benefit more than anything else from some fresh eyes. Lar, from what I gather, has been active there for some time; he may like to take a break from enforcement duties there, and have some other administrators cover in his absence. But that clearly is his prerogative, and as an uninvolved sysop with no prejudices on the topic or its contributors, he is under no obligation to do so. Irrespective of the outcome of this case, I'll be messaging a few of the other sysops who are active on the main AE board to enquire as to whether they would like to devote some attention to GS/CC.

A healthy dose of calming-the-hell down is needed here. I don't think another arbitration case would administer that, by any stretch of the imagination; but the careful attention of some uninvolved administrators not previously active there might. AGK 11:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

@SirFozzie: In what was a moment of obvious insanity, I took the case request at face value. Silly me! I maintain my opinion with respect to both a narrowly-framed case to look at this specific incident and a case of wide scope that would re-examine the wider climate change subject area. I do, however, fear that we are headed for an omnibus case (at best, in six months or so) if things don't improve. If the Committee were to examine the wider subject area, perhaps it would be better to do so sooner, not later. I'm on the fence for now. AGK 23:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Cenarium

As this is a contentious issue, a determination by motion as to whether Stephan Schulz‎ and Lar are involved and in which respect may be needed. No case is needed for that determination, and I don't think that a broader case on CC is warranted, I'm pretty sure that would not be beneficial and severely increase tensions in this area. I agree with AGK that the CC probation needs more uninvolved admins. That's why I've decided to participate as uninvolved admin, funnily it seems that this specific incident was induced by a comment directed at my own (non-)involvement. Cenarium (talk) 14:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Coren made good points on the perspective of taking a general case on CC. I'd prefer that the community make a review of the probation before any arbitration. Cenarium (talk) 16:55, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by ScottyBerg

I'm confused as to why this case is being brought at this time, at the same time that there is an RfC running on one of the parties. Apart from that, which is more of a question than an objection, I agree generally with Hipocrite. I also wish that this case wasn't brought.

My feeling is that there is generally too much adjudicating/beefing/whining in this area. One of the underlying issues is the personal animosity between the users, and the high degree of incivility that seems to be tolerated on both sides. I don't think that formal tribunals are the way to deal with such problems.

I think that there needs to be a greater appreciation of the appearance as well as the actuality of bias. Administrators need to show more self-restraint, not become involved in personal squabbles with editors, and not engage in name-calling or labeling. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, it is certainly possible for an Internet discussion moderator, which is what administrators here basically are, to become involved in a subject through his/her moderation as well as participation in the discussion. I don't think that this principle is sufficiently recognized. There needs to be a broader definition of involvement, and greater intervention by genuinely uninvolved administrators. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Pessimism by Jehochman

Global warming conflicts are intense, and involve teams of pro and con forces who'll stop at nothing to get their way. The lobbying, goading, and gaming is a big turn off for uninvolved editors and administrators. It is long past time for ArbCom to investigate these behavioral issues. Jehochman 18:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Timid comments by arbitrators are disappointing. Jehochman 14:32, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

The timorous may stay at home.

— Benjamin N. Cardozo

Statement by Literaturegeek (uninvolved)

Jehochman, sums up the problem well. We all have views on climate change but the extremism, aggression, gaming the system, BLP violations, tag teaming, edit warring etc on climate change articles, seems never ending and trust has broken down within the community with allegations of bias and misdeeds by admins. I feel it is time to accept a full case into climate change. I think that a case just looking into climate change probation will not be possible as climate change probation is about misdeeds on climate change articles so arbcom will end up looking article diffs to understand the background and context to CC probation actions. It is also in my mind unfair to single out a couple of admins, who don't even edit the articles, for special attention when there are teams of POV pushers behaving much worse on these articles who require looking into rather than just a couple of admins who are dealing with POV teams; look at all alledged problem editors and admins fairly and squarely. Also a full case is needed to sort out the climate change problems once and for all; rather than chop at the branches, chop at the root causes of the problem. The climate change battle field is perhaps the worst and longest lasting of chronic disuptions on wikipedia. It is time to get it sorted out. I would like to see as Sirfozzie puts it "The Great Climate Change Omnibus case of 2010".--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Count Iblis

The driving forces behind all the trouble on the climate change related pages are the simple content disputes between climate sceptics and the people who support the mainstream scientific POV. The probation system, as it is set up now, leads to this main content dispute to dissipate into a myriad of micro disputes, each on some stupid triviality.

The fundamentals of the dispute are robust. The climate sceptics are not going to change their opinion anytime soon, nor are the other editors. So the situation is analogous to thermodynamics where you have a first law (problem is not going away) and a second law (the main dispute can either stay as it is or it can spread into a larger number of smaller disputes).

This means that the only feasible solution is to tackle the main dispute. ArbCom can simply ignore the details of the present disputes and look at the general issue of editing climate change related articles in a climate where you have many sceptics. My proposal would be for ArbCom to declare that all climate change related articles have to be edited from a SPOV perspective. Count Iblis (talk) 23:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

The request as framed (is one specific admin uninvolved?) is unsuitable for an arbitration case. But as a look at WP:GS/CC/RE shows, the topic has reached Balkanic levels of contention and battlegrounding, and would benefit from Committee intervention. A case should be opened to examine everyone's conduct. Ideally, this case should result in a topic ban for the most problematic editors (although I don't know who that is), discretionary sanctions, and an expeditious means of reviewing further disagreements about involvedness (perhaps referral to a panel of one or three arbitrators).  Sandstein  06:31, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

I first became involved in editing in this area at the beginining of the month. The situation there is very bad, as Sandstein describes, and it's unlikely to be sorted out without ArbCom assistance. My main concern is that it's affecting the BLPs of scientists and others who express minority views.

It would help if, as JohnWBarber suggests above, the committee could appoint a group of experienced, uninvolved admins to enforce the probation. As things stand, CC editors who also happen to be admins are claiming to be uninvolved (Stephan Schulz and Polargeo, for example), and are causing significant disruption on the probation page, to the point where it has become difficult to follow discussions, or work out what the decisions are. For what it's worth I haven't seen any diffs that suggest Lar is involved.

Failing that, I agree that a full ArbCom case may be necessary. SlimVirgin 09:01, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by William M. Connolley

You can choose to make this a huge case, but I (along with others including LHVU) would like you to decide on the narrow issue: just what definition of "uninvolved" should be used. As Stephan Schultz has pointed out, the probation was set up with a clear definition of uninvolved: For the purpose of imposing sanctions under this provision, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic with the user receiving sanctions. Others, including Lar, have chosen not to abide by that definition. Who is right? Note also that the issue is being discussed at Wikipedia_talk:General_sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement#Involved/uninvolved William M. Connolley (talk) 09:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Casliber

Addressing the crux of who is an involved admin would not be too arduous for the arbitration committee and at least put an end to a few arguments for the time being (including the RFC on Lar which is split with two sets of views and unlikely to reach consensus.) I think once this is settled, the framework is there to allow matters to continue. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by 2over0

When the GSCC were established, several editors opined that the community should review the sanctions in a few months. I have opened Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/RFC, which may have some bearing on this case. On the matter at hand, my opinions are set out at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Lar#View by 2over0, which venue I think is a better way to address this question. No particular opinion on the merits of opening an omnibus case except that I think it should be started as such rather than allowed to morph into one. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Tryptofish

I have been completely uninvolved in the climate change editing area, but have participated in the RfC/U on Lar. I suggest that, for now, the Committee decline the narrowly-defined case requested here and, instead, pass by motion a clarification of the definition of "uninvolved" for these purposes, reflecting the definition given by Coren. I also think that, subsequently, an "omnibus" case will be inevitable. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Request to add parties

I would like to add Polargeo to this request persuant to the flareup detailed in my section. Is there any objection to this from the arbs/clerks/parties? Hipocrite (talk) 14:32, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/3/3)

• Recuse on all AGW. Steve Smith (talk) 21:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse.. but didn't we just deal with Stephan Schultz and uninvolved admin section? We're back here again? Two months later after several arbs commented that Stephen should not be posting in the uninvolved admins section.... SirFozzie (talk) 03:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Just as a comment, I'd like the parties and onlookers to comment on whether they expect this to be solely focused on the Stephen Schultz/Lar/"Uninvolved Administrator" issue, or if they're expecting "The Great Climate Change Omnibus case of 2010". Because I think some people are expecting one, but may get the other. Just making sure that everyone's ducks are all in a row. SirFozzie (talk) 19:20, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

• Cautious recuse on AGW. Cool Hand Luke 14:13, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
• Providing it hasn't been mentioned previously (this is a long thread I have yet to finish reading) Could someone please provide an update on "the RfC pending on the progress of the probation so far". Is that likely to arrive soon and will it help? Mathsci, your link doesn't work for me (it is a diff on my settings which don't give the whole page version when loading a diff). Carcharoth (talk) 08:41, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to William M. Connolley for providing the link to the nascent RfC. It's only really just started being drafted, so I'd be tempted to let discussion continue there for a bit, but there would need to be signs of real progress being made there. For now, would any temporary injunctions help keep things calm in this area? Carcharoth (talk) 11:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

To follow up on Coren's later comments below, as I said in my earlier comments, the RfC being drafted to allow review of the community probation sanctions board that was set up in this topic area is probably the way to go, but there needs to be wide-ranging input on the draft from all those who want to collaborate at drafting the RfC. A one-sided RfC will not help at all. Get the RfC set up to be balanced and comprehensive first, and only then open it for comments. If that fails after good-faith efforts from all involved, then come back here. As setting up the RfC will likely take some time, I am going to repeat my earlier question: "would any temporary injunctions help keep things calm in this area?" To respond to another point Coren made, I don't think it is impossible to have a case in this area and focus it on conduct and hence avoid ruling on content. It might be that the conduct of some is worse than others, but that would be on their own heads, and other (hopefully calmer) content editors would then replace them if they were asked to step away from the topic area. Carcharoth (talk) 17:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

And to follow up some more (retracting my earlier comments about taking ages to draft an RfC), I've commented here about the RfC that has been opened, and would encourage people to give carefully considered comments there (not knee-jerk reactions) and to try and work together to improve how things are working in the current community sanctions in this topic area. i.e. Consider the bigger picture, and don't get hung up on specifics. Carcharoth (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

• Without commenting on the specific case at hand, I think it's fair to say that there is no question that "uninvolved administrator" means an administrator who is not involved in the editorial dispute itself, not with the editors engaged in the dispute. Pretty much by definition, any administrative action (especially arbitration enforcement) requires interaction with editors that will be seen as negative by those editors; requiring administrators to recuse every time someone is displeased at an administrative act would mean that any admin could do exactly one action at most.

  Regarding this particular request, it seems little more than judge shopping and I'm not inclined to accept it except perhaps as a motion to affirm the current definition of "uninvolved admin". — Coren  13:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

  • On a different note, I see a number of requests for ArbCom assistance in the wider dispute. It is possible that ArbCom could help there in a suitably framed request, but this would necessarily involve a long and difficult case and would almost certainly end up editorially affecting treatment of the entire topic area (and, almost certainly by extension, many other areas where a scientific mainstream position clashes with vocal and strongly expressed dissent). We are reluctant — not without good reason — to accept cases that end up making content rulings (though we have occasionally done so in the past). For us to accept such a case, it needs to be made clear that:
    1. The problem cannot be solved by the normal editorial process;
    2. the situation is unlikely to improve, or likely to deteriorate over time; and
    3. that the community actually wants ArbCom to make a ruling.
  • If those conditions are met, the parties understand that the case is likely to be arduous, and that it may well lead to a resolution that they might find unpleasant, then I would be willing to accept a case. — Coren  13:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
    • To LessHeard vanU: Yes, an RfC is probably a good idea, and likely to help scope ArbCom's involvement (if it is needed). — Coren  15:21, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: I think, to be honest, that everybody on this page actually knows the answer to the question that is being posed, but there is a great deal left unspoken here. So let's get down to brass tacks. It's pretty clear that the community was not satisfied with administrator or editorial behaviour in this area some months ago, which is why the community imposed sanctions. This should have told both administrators and editors in this area that behaviour must change, and that it must change to less combative interaction and reduced wikilawyering and gaming of the system. The question being brought forward at this point indicates that there are at least some who have been unwilling to change their behaviour. The other unspoken request here is "please desysop Admin XXX" (where XXX could be any combination of a number of admins), since it is well-known that Arbcom has not historically imposed topic-area restrictions on administrators. Coren's summation of "involved admin" is more or less my thinking here; administrators who have been actively and extensively editing in this topic field will generally be considered to be involved, no matter that they may not have edited the specific article that is the current locus of dispute.

  I am not willing to accept a narrow-focused case involving individual aspects of this dispute, and the initial request here is so narrow-focused as to be pointless. I note the impending RFC, and would be interested in its results, but it will only be particularly meaningful if community members who are generally uninvolved in this area voice the opinion that there have been improvements; the same voices repeating the same opinion will not indicate any significant change. A full case on this topic area will take several months, hundreds of thousands of words, probably interim injunctions prohibiting editing (and possibly administrative actions) within the topic area, and will likely result in a harsher outcome than if the individual editors and administrators would take personal responsibility for their own actions, and for actively and openly attempting to moderate inappropriate behaviour by editors with whom they generally have a shared viewpoint on this topic area. It is within the ability of those who play a role in this matter to resolve this issue short of such an Arbcom case. I hope that enough of you seize this opportunity, which is pretty well a last chance, because nobody is really looking forward to the next steps if you fail to do so. Risker (talk) 18:21, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

• Accept: to examine wiki behavior of all involved. Largely agree with Sandstein and Risker. Yes, this will be a long case and it reminds me of the Balkans cases. This is hardly the first or second time this topic and its participants have come to arbcom. The parties have not shown a willingness to work out their own differences and uninvolved admins have not been very successful. On a side note, factionalism in global warming was on the US national news last night; it was really sad, people on one side are getting death threats, dead animals on their doorsteps, etc from those on the other side. Let's pray it doesn't get that bad on wiki. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
• Hold pending (1) further development of the RfC and (2) a decision on the broader global-warming request just filed by Ryan Postlethwait. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)