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Requests for arbitration

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Resysoping of FCYTravis/Polarscribe

Initiated by Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER at 20:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Dennis Brown (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Polarscribe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Nihonjoe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Everyone notified: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• See talk page of WP:BN for full discussion. No other remedies are available for this particular issue.

Statement by Dennis Brown

FCYTravis / Polarscribe was desysop'd due to inactivity in 2011, last activity was in 2008. A discussion was ongoing regarding whether or not "a cloud" existed when he left Misplaced Pages in 2008. There was some question about his edit warring with Dr. Blofeld before the request to recapture the admin bit, after changing accounts. Questions also arose about why he deleted his own talk page in 2008, which was against policy even then and one of his last acts before leaving us. His activities in 2008, including threatening to mass delete files and other behavior that Bureaucrat WJBscribe then described as "outrageous behavior" . Other examples exist.

Bureaucrat Nihonjoe came to the discussion and immediately resysoped him before the discussion could be completed. While surely in good faith, it was unnecessarily hasty as the policy doesn't require it be granted within a few hours time. By acting too quickly, there wasn't an opportunity to review such an old case, to which myself and others are still pouring through diffs on. While the Bureaucrats enjoy the right to make the final decision, it should not be rushed into while there are legitimate questions being raised and a civil and constructive discussion is ongoing. I would ask ArbCom to review to insure it qualifies as "not under a cloud" and take appropriate action if needed, as the community has no other recourse in this situation. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:44, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• @Risker I trimmed the list. Sorry, never had to file an Arb request before today. On point:In addition to threatening to go on a rampage and deleting his own talk page, a serious abuse of tools worthy of at least an admonishment:

• Unilaterally deleted Historical pederastic couples (see delete history) after an AFD was closed to no consensus/keep , literally two hours after the AFD closed. I already linked to this whole ANI discussion.

• Of course, he just got off edit warring with Dr. Blofeld , who is one of our more prolific editors and now has a retired banner on his page. Polarscribe did this under a different account User:Polarscribe (usurped), requiring another user warn him . This alone shows questionable judgement, but was under another account and might not have been seen by the Crat. It wasn't disclosed in the request.

• I'm assuming others will have other other links as well, I need to run for a bit, and ask that others help with this.

• And this issue isn't solved by a one month delay in using the tools. It isn't up to Dr. Blofeld. The entire process shows that current policy isn't well equipped to deal with long delays, and maybe requiring an RFA is the best course for future policy, but in this case, it was rushed, there is a claim that Nihonjoe has an involvement with Dr. Blofeld, who was the complaining party, and the discussion was literally dripping with Bureaucrats, so there really was no justification in rushing here. It is my opinion that the entire process was fatally flawed. I had hoped Nihonjoe would have reversed himself and allowed discussion to simply continue, but since he won't, we are forced to look at the whole process. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 22:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Aymatth2

On 5/6 November 2012, FCYTravis became engaged in an edit war with Dr. Blofeld over the featured article Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, e.g. this diff. The article has a small section on "Alleged haunting", which FCYTravis objected to on the basis that haunting is unscientific. Edit warring over a trivial issue like this is inappropriate behavior for a sysop, and has seriously annoyed Blofeld, a very productive contributor. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Kumioko (uninvolved in previous dsicussion)

I realize my opinions probably aren't wanted here but here it is anyway. I also have very little knowledge about the individuals case I can only speak in gernalities here regarding the situation in general so take it for what its worth.

I have mentioned several times before that I believe anyone who is an admin and leaves for a prolonged period (years especially but anything over 6 months potentially) either needs to get the tools back under a probationary period or go back through the RFA process. Its nothing personal but things change very quickly around here and what was common practice 4 years ago may not be anymore. These things need to be relearned before they go tearing around.

In regards to this particular case. Maybe the user left under a cloud and maybe they didn't. Either way, that was 4 years ago. If the user comes back in good faith and edits in good faith and isn't a vandal I think we need to give that user the opportunity to participate. It appears that this user has voluntarily asked for the tools to be removed, in good faith it seems after looking at the Beauracrats noticeboard because they acknowledged that they might have done something in error when confronted by another user. In my opinion, this being the case, I recommend the tools be removed as requested (perhaps with a note) and we move on. I really don't see the need or validity for a long dramatic arbitration which will likely lead to desysop anyway, probably a block and potentially a ban. Were just wasting valuable time with this. Kumioko (talk) 21:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by polarscribe

I feel that this request is premature, and that other levels of dispute resolution should be allowed to be attempted. The current situation was primarily precipitated by a conflict with User:Dr. Blofeld, who has proposed, and I have accepted, a one-month voluntary/without prejudice relinquishment of my administrative tools so that I may re-familiarize myself with the community. I posted a request that this be done, but it is currently tied up in even more debate. In the meantime, I have self-imposed a condition that I will not use administrative tools during that period. I would also note that there is no allegation that I have abused administrative tools since they were re-granted.

In the situation with User:Dr. Blofeld, there was an editorial dispute, both of us briefly reverted each other and I stepped back with the article remaining in Dr. Blofeld's preferred version. We have then had fruitful conversation on my talk page, resulting in greater understanding between us and reaching a mutually-agreeable conclusion.

As for the 2008 situation which precipitated my departure, I accept that I improperly used administrative tools at that time in deleting the article outside of process. However, it was not an ordinary content dispute - it revolved around questions of reliable sourcing and statements relating to pedophilia. When faced with the clear community opposition expressed in the ANI thread, I undeleted the article after scarcely more than one hour and removed myself from the dispute. There was consensus that I acted improperly, but absolutely no consensus that my actions rose to the level of desysopping. I would ask ArbCom to take judicial notice that the article in question was primarily edited by a user who has since been banned for pro-pedophilia advocacy and that the article has since been deleted by community acclamation. polarscribe (talk) 21:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Youreallycan

• - Disappointing resyop by User:Nihonjoe - no reason at all to rush to jump in while discussion was ongoing - I expect more from Crats and my personal position is that User:Nihonjoe has lost my trust and should resign - a claim of previous dispute was alleged against User:Nihonjoe by User:Dr. Blofeld creating an involved position that the user should have avoided advanced controversial action in. - I also fully object to the user now called User:Polarscribe from automatically being granting advanced permissions as per the consensus / many objections to such.Youreallycan 21:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't remember where exactly but I'd noticed Nihon had surfaced several times during past events when I was involved in something and I noticed he seemed to show an obvious dislike to me. I wouldn't have recognized him and why he seemed to dislike me but seeing the Pokemon thing on his user page it twigged. I have a strong feeling this originated after I once had a tiff with the Pokemon project which I believe he is involved in when I made a point of AFDing a shoddy article on a Seiyu and other times I have said things like Pokemon cruft has no place in an encyclopedia. I thought I had patched things up and agreed if it is reliably sourced it is fine but I think he still resents me for it. I believe Nihon did believe he was following policy with granting this editor admin rights and I'm not particularly critical of him personally over this, but I'd by lying if it hadn't concerned me the haste at which he did so and that my immediate thought was that he relished a chance to pull one over on me. As I say I don't know exactly what our history is but I have noticed he showed a clear dislike to me in the occasional odd discussion when such conflicts occur which usually sees a turn out of people who have long standing grudges against me, people like Sudoghost who obviously has issues with me over Gibraltarpedia turned up to criticize my use of rollback for instance too.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:13, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Coren

The only involvement I have in this matter is that, when the request was initially posted, there was some question about the interplay between the older account and the newer (declared) alternate account. I simply checked that checkuser data was consistent with FCYTravis's representations, and asked him to clarify the matter.

Additionally, and at around the same time, I was consulted by a 'crat on IRC as to my opinion whether this was the same editor that was originally in control of the administrator account. While checkuser data regarding the old account is long gone and would have been hardly probative either way given the long time interval, comparing the editing styles and areas of interest gave no indication that this was not the same editor, and I opined as much. — Coren  21:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by involved IRWolfie-

I too share a deep unease with this, where Nihonjoe seems to have given next to no time for the issues to be looked at. Has the deleted talk page been restored? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Leaky Caldron

Nihonjoe acted with unnecessary haste by stepping into, cutting across and attempting to curtial the active discussion. He should accept admonishment. 'Crats in general appear to have began treating requests for reactivation with cavalier haste in recent months with requests fulfilled within minutes. Numerous examples and jokey discussion contained here . This was a shambles waiting to happen and 'Crats should review their approach and look once again at introducing a fixed minimum period for consideration. There is no rush. The editor involved should consider an RFA. Leaky Caldron 22:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• Clerks, please reduce the list of parties to the re-sysopped user, Dennis Brown, and the bureaucrat who did the resysop. Risker (talk) 21:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

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

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

• Awaiting statements. Commenters should be aware that in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Giano#Return of access levels, this Committee adopted the principle that "determining whether a user left under controversial circumstances is, in most cases, to be left up to bureaucrats' discretion." The relevant policy, Voluntary removal, although not quite as clearly worded, appears to be to the same effect (as the filing party observes). Both the Giano decision (2006) and the policy I've quoted predate the community's decision in 2011 that administrators inactive for one year should be procedurally desysopped, but may have the tools back on request to the bureaucrats subject only to satisfactory confirmation of identity. There does not appear to be any policy governing the interplay between the "controversial circumstances/under a cloud" proviso and the new "inactivity desyopping" procedure (if there has been any community discussion on the issue before the current dispute arose, I'd appreciate being pointed to it). I am also concerned about some implications of a set of rules that would have the effect of requiring either the bureaucrats or this Committee to judge the merits of an otherwise-long-forgotten dispute that ended more than four years ago. I'll await input on the request and on these observations before commenting further. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC) I've struck one sentence as Courcelles noted a sentence of the policy that I'd missed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: I have asked the clerks to reduce the list of parties to the actual parties. Dennis Brown, please explain why you think that FCYTravis left under controversial circumstances as opposed to leaving while a deletion discussion was following its acceptable course. ANI threads do not automatically confer "controversy", nor do deletion reviews. Links to the actual deletion discussions involved will help, as will the subsequent deletion discussion that ultimately resulted in complete deletion of the article involved. Admins have deletion decisions questioned on a regular basis, and that is not only acceptable, but provisions for doing this are built into our policy. Risker (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
• Contra what some have said, WP:ADMIN does not require a resysopping if the crats are satisfied the account is still under control of the same person, in fact, it says, "If the user returns to Misplaced Pages, they may be resysopped by a bureaucrat without further discussion as long as there are no issues with the editor's identity and they stopped editing Misplaced Pages while still in good standing or in uncontroversial circumstances." As far as I can see, this was a error to resysop, and should be able to be undone quickly by us. Courcelles 22:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)