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Motions

Shortcuts WP:ARM WP:ARBM This page can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Motions. Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives. Make a motion (Arbitrators only) You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment.

Geogre

Motion 4

There are currently 12 active arbitrators; Risker and John Vandenberg are recused on all Geogre motions, so 6 votes are a majority.

4) The Utgard Loki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) account is to be unblocked and clearly identified as being an alternate account of Geogre.  Geogre (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) remains indefinitely prohibited from maintaining any other alternate account without disclosing it publicly.

1. The intent of the first motion was not to prevent Geogre from editing from an alternate account when at work, but only from undisclosed accounts in a way that can be deceptive. If the Utgard Loki account cannot mislead, then I have no problem with it being used to contribute. — Coren  19:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Per Coren. More detailed comment below. Carcharoth (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I have moved Geogre's statement here, along with this proposed amendment, so that it does not get removed prematurely as the previous motions are closed.

  As a simple factual correction, incidentally, I did not propose the previous motions, nor did I post them. — Coren  19:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• Geogre, if you wish, I can respond in more detail to your statements in a few days (probably on your talk page or elsewhere, if that would be better), as there is a lot there to consider. At the moment, though, I think this is a satisfactory result (if the proposed unblocking of the Utgard Loki account passes). If you would like to contest the desysopping, or get a better idea of what has (to an approximation) been going on here, please look at this page. Effectively (if not with precise formality), what has been happening here is Level II procedures (I know it sounds terribly bureaucratic, but bear with me). "Level II procedures may be used if (a) the account's behaviour is inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions, and (b) no satisfactory explanation is forthcoming." I think it is fair to say here that the use of the two accounts in a way that could mislead (and almost certainly did mislead some people) covers the 'level of trust' bit. I think it is also fair to say that a majority of arbs have not been satisfied with your explanation (most of which, I have to say, repeats what you e-mailed us at the beginning of July). So what we have been engaged in is stage 4: "A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made once a motion to do so has been endorsed by a majority of active arbitrators." If you want to appeal the impending desysopping, see the bit right at the bottom of the page. Specifically:

  "If the editor in question requests it, or if the Committee determines that a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate, normal arbitration proceedings shall be opened to examine the removal of permissions and any surrounding circumstances."

  One thing I will respond to from your statement is that you "suggested a way that they could, indeed, come up with a council for the future". I believe you are referring to the suggestions here. Those are indeed excellent suggestions, and I hope that those ideas get taken on board and developed into something useful. Carcharoth (talk) 22:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Geogre

I will break this into sections. As I have not said anything, I hope that people read it and take it all into account. Given that this is supposed to be a "motion," or a series of them, one would hope that the only people speaking were the arbitrators and myself. I find, though, that a great group of unquiet ghosts of conflicts past have risen in glee. They add spite and spittle, but nothing to the purpose.

Background

The background is not a series of diffs, as diffs are a series of citations of single lines of difference. Instead, the background is two years ago, when there was a different cast at ArbCom and a different makeup and set of procedures at the ArbCom mailing list. At that time, there was check user abuse. I had reason to believe that there was sharing of personal data from users for personal and petty reasons. However, characteristically, I did not feel that chasing down the issues was worth the bother, because, at that time, the mailing list and decisions for ArbCom was dominated by David Gerard ("owner" of the list), whom I did not and do not trust, and "ArbCom, retired arbitrators and trusted others." "Trusted...." Not trusted by me.

Initially, I felt that I needed a second account, if I were to contribute articles at Misplaced Pages anymore. I became increasingly aware, in the words of Tennyson, that "I am become a name." While many Wikipedians relish getting "famous," I do not. I love getting respect, and I enjoy a compliment, but getting known by people who have never "met" me is a drag. I do not want to be typecast, and yet "Geogre" was "anti-IRC" was "anti-box," was "anti-citation" (!), etc. All of these caricatures meant that any article I wrote was subject to undue attention and animosity. Anywhere I went, I had watchers.

Perhaps, though, I was wrong in this suspicion, I thought. I set up a secondary account and followed the laws and rules. I labeled it an alternate account. Before a week had passed, its password had been scrambled.

That was odd!

Then I set up User:Crowbait. I think I got about ten days out of that one. I did not put the alternate user template on it immediately. I think I took a couple of days and put it on as Crowbait. Nevertheless, the password got scrambled, too!

That was odd, too, wasn't it?

The choice, to me, then, was to either stop writing for Misplaced Pages, to stop doing the only thing I actually enjoy at Misplaced Pages -- writing articles and working for readers (remember them, people? readers? do any of you think about them on a daily basis?) -- or to put up with hounding at every turn. I should point out that the miraculous, amazing congregation of people who have and had no interest in my little activities as Utgard Loki here and now more or less testifies to the vehemence of animosity I can look forward to under my proper account name. I also could look forward to, at that time, what I believed to be very corrupt checkuser practices. (I am not convinced that the reforms involved are permanent, nor do I believe that the secret archives at the list are completely secret or that a future iteration would not jeopardize past materials.) Geogre (talk) 14:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Motion One

I created and used user:Utgard Loki simply as a work account. It was an alternate account and, most emphatically, not a "sock puppet."

I would urge ArbCom and all others who read this, by the way, to purge themselves of that odious term. It comes from Rush Limbaugh and is freighted with his nastiness.

I did not establish the account to "do" anything. In fact, I took every pain to be honest. On one occasion only on Wiki, someone actually asked me if I was the same, and that was in the Danny RFA matter, and I admitted it, because I was not hiding. Oddly, the "alternate account" rules are something that I am in more agreement with the present ArbCom on than they might suppose. My feeling has been, and remains, that we are in a binary position. Either we should or should not allow them. Instead of that, though, we have these hypocritical and impossible rules that encourage lying.

In fact, had I deceived I would not have "been caught." I have been honest at all times in this regard. When Coren was involved, I was extremely irritated, because, instead of anyone simply asking, on either user talk page, we had to go through the "Ooooh, I've caught you now, you dangerous criminal" method. Why, I asked, does no one communicate? Aren't we supposed to talk first and then resort to arbitration when that fails? No one tried to communicate.

How can readers tell that I am telling the truth?

1. I edited the same articles, in the same fields.
2. I used the same writing style. Anyone who knows the Geogre account at all ought to know that he is enough of a writer to assume different voices as occasion demands, and it would have been simple to create a character.
3. I took the same positions, consistently.
4. I never made up fake back stories.
5. I never used one to do one type of edit.

Furthermore, I was very careful to never use my administrative powers to settle something that my editor-only account could not do. For example, as Loki I frequently tagged prods and speedies. In one case, an article really annoyed me, because the "article" as nothing but an infobox. Seriously. There was nothing else there! There wasn't even a noun. Another admin removed the speedy tag. The article had been sitting in that condition for three years, and I was very, very tempted, as Geogre, to come back and delete the article and give a lecture to the junior admin on what CSD A1 means.

The lack of template for "alternate account" was no deception. I went far out of my way to ensure that the two were obviously the same. I was as obvious as I could be without the template. My reasoning was that anyone who knew Geogre would not be confused. If people read Geogre, they'd see, instantly, that the rhythms, habits of metaphor, adjective choice, vocabulary, and structures were identical. In fact, I kept getting e-mails from people saying, "Oh, come on! That's too obvious!" I would answer, "I'm not hiding." (These can be produced, by the way.)

Motion One Nolo contendere

My understanding of the alternate account rules apparently differs from that of a majority, or perhaps consensus, of others, but it is not an irrational one. On the "same page editing," what you will find are two separate cases:

1. User talk page doubling
2. Process page doubling

In the case of #1, it is, to my knowledge, entirely allowed. However, what readers will find is that I was extremely careful not to double up on users who did not already know that both accounts were the same person.

In the second case, we are going to have a subtlety that many of you will disagree with.

A. Proposed: The sky is red. B. Answer: No, it's blue! C. Comment: It's blue as a robin's egg. A'. Comment: It is not blue!

Now, in that case, we have two positions and two comments. A' has knocked down B/C, but has not supported A. Is A' "doubling" or "multiplying" or giving "artificial consensus" for A? In two years of operating the alternate account, I rarely knowingly answered comments where my main account had voiced an opinion (or vice versa). I never knowingly doubled my position with a secondary account. By my understanding of the rules of alternate accounts, I was not "supporting myself" when I was denying an attack on my position.

If ArbCom believes that I cannot have this belief in good faith, then it can indefinitely block the secondary account. However, in doing so, they leave me with no capacity to contribute content to Misplaced Pages.

Motion One results

Utgard Loki wrote some 150 or so articles. He created the format for the XXXX in literature articles and went from 1690 in literature to 1780 in literature, by hand. He wrote a few Classical literature articles. He tweaked quite a few articles. He did the kind of casual addition of content that Geogre cannot do.

Mattisse is a good example of why Geogre cannot do it. Restoration literature got listed at WP:FAR four times. Mattisse was sure that it needed to be torn down. He listed and listed and listed. Because I had downed one of his previous tear-downs, he was on a kick to go after everything. He and others were on a tear to get rid of parenthetical citation and insist on footnotes alone as the only citational method, and any old FA that had citations in parenthetical form had to go. If one disagrees, then woe betide him.

After Coren's unilateral action, I kept going as Geogre, but, as Geogre, I can only do one sort of thing, the sort of thing I do not enjoy: wiki politics. No offense, but y'all bore me. Articles are interesting, but not people. Getting rid of a second account means that all my time has to be spent as an opinion maker and a ranter and agitator and focal point against abuses in power.

Coren's action was stupidly done. (This is not a personal attack.) The way Coren did it was with the sloppy, hamfisted "sock puppet" term (again, let me urge you folks to purify your vocabularies). Because the block log carried that, a group of people who put templates on things without knowing more about the subject were going about putting "This is a sockpuppet of the dangerous Geogre account" template on Loki. How silly was that?

Several people reverted these templateers. One of them must have asked Coren, and so he filed this Motion. <sigh> If he had only communicated, only asked people what the fuss was, it could have been avoided. However, the first reaction was, again, to go with cop talk. Geogre is hardly Amorrow or Gawp, and the template made no sense.

If ArbCom wants to leave me with no way to edit Misplaced Pages for content, then leave it as it is: block Loki indefinitely (with "account creation blocked" checked... dangerous sock puppeteer, you know). If not, then we can go on and let me label the account with the proper template. Geogre (talk) 14:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Amendment

I'm told I have made mistakes in date and fact, above. This does not surprise me. I often make mistakes. "I am a man, that is sufficient reason to be miserable," as Euripides said. The FAR with Mattisse was Augustan lit.

Further amending, for those who note that Crowbait and Geogre speak to each other, please note that the alternate account label was on the page, and there is a difference between abuse and self abuse. (If you expect something high minded, my model is Henry in The Dream Songs) Geogre (talk) 17:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Motion Two

The admonition is dependent upon the central finding, and so is the third motion, of "sockpuppeting."

This relies exclusively on the idea that an account was developed and/or used to abuse and subvert Misplaced Pages's processes. Such a finding is without basis.

What can be found, and what I will admit to, is in one case knowingly allowing both accounts to speak (the Mattisse FAR). Otherwise, we're looking at mistakes, like the above. As Washington officials like to say, "Mistakes were made," but a mistake is not the same thing as a crime.

For those who believe that it is, consider this. Since the "Motion" format is adapted from law, let us look at what constitutes crime. It requires mens rea and res acta. I would argue that it also includes harm. (I will get to "harm" more on Motion Three.)

Did I have the intent to deceive? If I did, I was mentally deficient. I have many detractors among the undersigned, but I doubt very many would call me stupid. If I had set out to subvert with a second account, I believe that I would have cultivated multiple accounts, the way sock puppet users actually do. I believe that I would have ensured that the accounts did not stick around, the way sock puppet users do. I would have offered lavish lies about relationships, the way meat puppets do. Instead, I stayed with the second account during work hours, always during work hours, and my primary account at home, always at home. Every action looks precisely like a person with two accounts.

Was there the criminal act? I would say that there was not. The criminal act requires inflating votes or swaying consensus. I would ask for a single example where the presence of that second voice made even a difference in outcome.

Motion Three

Oh, absolutely not.

The "threat" was that I had better come and argue. I had been ignoring the first motion because I regarded it as a dead issue. If Coren were going to unilaterally block my second account, I did not want argument and drama. See above: the politics of this place bores me, and the egos of the people are none of my concern. If David Gerard, Fred Bauder, and FT2 want to promote themselves as the three wise men, they're free to do so. I do not care. I was cherishing silence and working on actual governmental bureaucracy at the time. Crisis after crisis have been blossoming in actual living world life, so the self-image and wounded pride of this or that account name was not interesting, and yet here came an e-mail telling me that, if I knew what was good for me, I'd come and take my licks.

Why does no one communicate? Why are people on ArbCom incapable of speaking to people as peers? Is there a requirement that they see everyone as a criminal? Is there some demand that they shriek and threaten? Is there some law that they can't just ask people questions? Is there a style guide that maintains, FT2-style, passive voice and circumlocutions?

User:Geogre has been here since 2003. During that time, I have been a witness to most of the rules as they have come into existence, and I have been a consistent proponent of principle. My chief principle is that power is the enemy of the good, that it is always tempting to invoke exigency and the presence of "enemies" (BADSITES, anyone) to justify power, but that Misplaced Pages came to be and grew to popularity on the flat hierarchy. (I recently saw that folks were stumbling around, again, unable to think outside of hierarchies, and suggested a way that they could, indeed, come up with a council for the future, if they'd only shake this reliance on being in charge.)

Before anyone decides that my actions were sock puppeting, he or she should see that there was a conscious, rather than mistaken, use of a second account for a malicious goal, as that is the definition of a sock puppet, as opposed to a stray edit by a legitimate second account. Barring that, there would need to be devastating effect of these edits. (I.e. mistaken edits in good faith could amount to the need for demotion if the effect were severe.)

However:

1. No edit made by Utgard Loki drew a comment from any of the now-aggrieved editors to the user talk page of either account.
2. No edit made by either account "settled" any of the debates.
3. No edit or action by either account used or threatened administrative power.

For the mistaken edits to rise to the level of misuse of tools, they would need to, it seems to me, to have the effect of power. I have seen no evidence, as no evidence has been presented, that any thing said or done by either account had any substantial effect on the outcomes in question, much less that it was the determining factor.

If ArbCom wishes to "make an example," simply for someone going out of his way to be honest and not have a "role account" or play the silly buggers games that our current policy encourages, then I would volunteer for a three month suspension of administrator status. At the same time, without a secondary account, I will not be adding article content to Misplaced Pages. If others believe that I will or will not be harassed in article creation is not their problem: I am sure of it, and I do not feel like going through more of ... this. I detest it. Geogre (talk) 18:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment from Ottava Rima

I would like my comments to Motions 1-3 carry down in regards to Motion 4. Specifically, my statement that Geogre should be allowed the use of a disclosed secondary account for standard use. Additionally, it would only make logical sense for Geogre to be allowed use of Loki as said secondary account. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes