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Arbitrators active on this case

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WMC temp desysop motion

• Rlevse should now recuse from this case. Spartaz 16:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
  • This is ridiculous. Here Rlevse implies that WMC's ban from cold fusion is invalid when this is a key aspect of the arbitration case that still hasn't been determined - presumably because its imposed by a single admin and then here asserting that the ban is still in place on their own authority. This is ridiculous and makes the proposal to desyspop WMC look extremely suspect if Arbiters can't even decide from one moment to the next what Abd's status is regarding Cold Fusion. WMC isn't involved with Abd outside the CF case and then only in an admin enforcement role so are yu arguing that you can be forced to recuse from dealing with someone just because they file an arbitration case? If so, its a charter for every malcontent and troll to to take any admin to arbitration just to force them off their back. Also, shouldnt Abd be banned formally from CF for the duration of the if you are positing that WMC's ban wasn't valid. What a mess. Spartaz 16:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Spartaz, I've moved your comment from the main page. If you and others post here, the arbs will read what is said here. As far as involvement goes, the very fact that we accepted the case, with WMC named as a party, and with WMC included in the title, means that the committee thinks (at first glance) that there is a case to answer. The evidence in the case may well show that not to be true, but until the case is over, Abd and WMC are very much involved in a dispute. This works both ways - Abd too needs to stop the behaviour that led to the events that led to him filing the case. Equally, Abd may be exonerated. But until the case is over, they both need to back off and concentrate on the case, and not replay the dispute. Carcharoth (talk) 16:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC) Updated: 16:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• That Rl should recuse is now obvious. CHL recused, with apparent intent to provide evidence, although it wasn't clear to me why William M. Connolley (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Possibly evidence related to Scibaby range blocks if the case headed in that direction. Also due to interaction with several of the parties. Cool Hand Luke 01:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Temp desyssop of William M. Connolley" motion (Mythdon's comment)

I have not reviewed any of the evidence of the case, but let me make this one comment about the motion.

To block someone who is a party to the same arbitration case as you is, uncalled for and non-legitimate because to do so, you're not an impartial administrator as you're an involved party to the same case as the person you block. William M. Connolley should have reported to another administrator who wasn't an involved party to the case if there was a need that Abd be blocked. William M. Connolley is not uninvolved if both him/her and Abd are a party to the same case, no matter what the evidence says. Such a block is biased, beyond doubt, and can affect the case in a harmful manner, and can affect the decision being made by the committee, because the user blocked will be unable to provide their evidence during the block or able to comment on the decision proposals by other users.

William M. Connolley being a party to this case terminates the title of "uninvolved", which administrators should have before blocking users, in order to maintain impartiality. Abd and William M. Connolley are parties to this case, and therefore, they do not have the "uninvolved" title if they block one another (note that Abd is not an administrator, however). William M. Connolley blocked Abd, but was a party to the same case as Abd, and therefore, William M. Connolley should not be allowed to act.

Wizardman, who is supporting the desysop makes a good phrase with "no question". There is indeed no question that this is necessary.

Therefore, I urge the Arbitration Committee to desysop William M. Connolley, at least until the specified time comes. What are your comments? --Mythdon 16:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

"I notice you've unblocked Abd. The obvious questions are: (a) why did you make no attempt to discuss this with me? and (b) given your evidence presented to the case, what makes you think you are uninvolved?" - A comment from William M. Connolley on Viridae's talk page. To ask "what makes you think you are uninvolved?" is not rightful to ask given the fact that William M. Connolley wasn't uninvolved his or herself when blocking Abd given the fact that they are both parties to the same arbitration case. William M. Connolley should not be question Viridae's uninvolvement when William M. Connolley wasn't uninvolved him or herself. --Mythdon 18:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Why on earth do you think he isn't allowed to ask questions? That's not how wikipedia works, and is the first step in WP:DR. Verbal chat 18:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested diffs

I am reposting this here as requested by Carcharoth (originally on User talk:Rlevse). Rlevse indicated that before posting his motion he had not located the diffs for the final conditions of the original page-ban and the role of Heimstern in the closing of the ANI thread, where the page-ban was approved by the community. Here are the diffs.

Here is the final exchange between Abd and WMC :

Here are the diffs where Heimstern clarifies the closure of the ANI discussion.

Here is what Heimstern said on July 19 when quizzed by Abd about the page bans :

Mathsci (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

He has clarified it further in 9 August . --Enric Naval (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Having read all of the above links it seems that the bottom line would be:

1. Heimstern clearly believed a the time that he wrote the close that the duration of WMC's ban was 1 month.
2. Heimstern considered his closing to be a procedural matter and he wasn't intending to compete with WMC over administration of the ban that WMC had imposed.
3. Heimstern noted clearly in his close at AN/I: "Abd has indicated that he will abide by the ban, not per the original banning administrator, but per the discussion/straw poll/whatever it was here."

Whether Heimstern accepted a role as the administrator of the ban, or not, is not really relevant. What is relevant is that prior to this point Abd had been disputing WMC's administrative ban as being improper and illegitimate and that this is the first time any community discussion of a ban had taken place. As Heimstern's close clearly indicates, it was evident to Heimstern that Abd was making a clear distinction between his acceptance of WMC's administrative ban and what he, Abd, was now accepting as a community ban based on the discussion that had taken place. None of this requires Heimstern to accept on-going responsibility for the community ban that was thus formed, but it does provide a uninvolved perspective on the situation as it existed at the time the close was written. --GoRight (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

True enough. In which case it is reasonable to assume that WMC's conditions might still stand, as Heimstern's "1 month" was based on a misunderstanding of WMC's terms and, as you say, Heimstern wasn't trying to compete with WMC for administration. Thus at the point of the second block, we were still in a situation of Abd disputing WMC's ban, WMC believing that it held, other editors going either way, and no announcement from ArbCom one way or the other. - Bilby (talk) 00:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Evidential basis

Is there an evidential basis for substantive ongoing harm to Misplaced Pages that would merit temporary removal of sysop powers from William M. Connolley? I ask this because none has been presented on the evidence pages. Such motions, in the absence of an actual removal of sysop powers due to misconduct, are rare. In view of the clear community consensus on the community ban, this proposal is very, very worrying and I urge the other arbitrators to resolve this issue quickly so as to minimize the disturbance such a shocking and unexpected proposal must inevitably cause. --TS 18:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd acknowledged that he was still some active ban by deciding his ban was over. He then made an edit, which was a violation of the ban. For that he got blocked by an, arguably, involved admin (of which Abd claims he is involved), William M. Connolley. As Abd is now again banned from editing Cold Fusion and Talk:Cold fusion, I don't see a risk that William M. Connolley will block Abd again, unless Abd again decides that the ban is not in place anymore. --Dirk Beetstra 18:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)(adapted arguably, I understand it can give a wrong meaning to my text. --Dirk Beetstra 20:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

In what sense is William M. Connolley an "involved admin"? Even arguably? Does "involved" here take on a meaning not a million miles from "agrees with the ban"? --TS 18:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I included that part because Abd says that William M. Connolley is involved, and arguably because I do not really believe that is the case. --Dirk Beetstra 19:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd says a lot of things. Does that mean they're arguable? In many ways I think that question that goes to the heart of the case. --TS 19:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)That's an unusual usage of the term "arguably;" in my experience the term is generally used to qualify an opinion held by the writer, to introduce a proposition that the writer believes has merit but may not be universally agreed with; here you seem to be using it to mean the inverse: that the assertion has been made but that you don't think it has merit. I think the use of the term may confuse the reader as to your meaning, maybe consider refactoring for clarity? Thanks, Woonpton (talk) 19:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It is really worrying to me that, without public evidence, at least three of the arbitrators are treating William M. Connolley as an involved editor. Is there some hidden evidence suggesting socking? --TS 19:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Accepting the case gives a presumption that there is a case to answer. For the duration of the case, parties should be sensible enough to halt the dispute and not repeat what led to the case in the first place. As far as I can see, both Abd and WMC have done just that (Abd by editing the cold fusion talk page, and WMC by invoking this ban that Abd contests). When we've finished reviewing the evidence and voting on the proposed decision, that will be the point when the parties are exonerated or not. In other words, there is an expectation that parties will adapt their behaviour due to being parties to a case, and allow the arbitration committee to hand down a decision, rather than acting as if there was no case in progress. Since this is all public (the fact that a case got accepted, and the norms of behaviour during a case), that should answer Tony's concerns that any of this is based on hidden evidence. Though that would be privately submitted evidence, not "hidden" per se. Ironically, private correspondence was submitted concerning socking in this case, but that was related to this. As far as I know, no other private evidence has been submitted. Carcharoth (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for any unnecessary disruption resulting from my edit to Cold fusion; however, I did not believe that there was any legitimate ban in place, the community ban having expired, but WMC had claimed on Workshop talk that his ban was still in force and he could prove it. So I withdrew my voluntary ban extension, which I had stated I would honor precisely in order to avoid disruption, while that was being all the while derided as ridiculous. However, the ban was based on charges re editing style, etc., possibly -- it never was clear -- so I thought that if I rigorously avoided anything questionable, no walls of text, no tendentious argument, the only risk was that WMC would insist on his right and "prove it" by blocking me. Since I considered it valuable for the community and myself to understand if he really would be so foolish, in spite of all the warnings and the sheer obviousness of it, I was willing to be blocked to find out. I'd say it was highly efficient compared to all this massive discussion. WMC had many legitimate possible responses, probably the most open and least disruptive would have been to ask for an injunction, as Rlevse did effectively issue by banning me pending resolution of the case. He could have gone to AN/I, though I think that the chance that a neutral admin would have blocked me for that edit was very low.

I have no problem with Rlevse's action, it's what I'd expect from an even-handed arbitrator. Regardless of what the actual content of my edit was, it's obvious that my presence at Cold fusion is seriously upsetting some editors; to determine whether or not this is due to a defect in my behavior, or to a cabal, or to some combination or other factor, could be quite complex; I congratulate whoever was behind the mentor proposal, because it finesses the problem, allowing an individual to investigate and actually solve the problem. In any case, pending, an injunction against editing, or the ad-hoc equivalent, Rlevse's simple statement, makes perfect sense.

Not only could I have figured that out for myself, I did figure that out for myself, that's why I voluntarily extended the ban. However, by doing so I was "enabling" WMC by protecting him from the consequences of his bluster. What he would do to me, openly, he could and has done to many editors, under much less scrutiny. Scibaby, 300 socks and counting, can be tracked back to his block by WMC, who had been edit warring with him, as I recall. If I had time, I'd have documented all this....

Tony, you seem to be under the illusion that "involved" means "content involved." The involvement in this case is long-term dispute over ... adminstrative recusal. Plus immediate dispute over WMC's edit reverting to the May 14 version of Cold fusion. Plus immediate dispute over his right to unilaterally declare a ban and then, based on his own ban, block for behavior that would otherwise be illegitimate to block for. I.e., non-disruptive edits. There are a lot of editors who seem to think that, yes, he could do this. So it was important to assert my right to edit the article or its talk nondisruptively, which exists unless that right has been taken away by the community, through a consensus of uninvolved editors, or by ArbComm or in the enforcement of ArbComm discretionary sanctions, none of which applied here. --Abd (talk) 11:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, when you say above "Since I considered it valuable for the community and myself to understand if he really would be so foolish, in spite of all the warnings and the sheer obviousness of it, I was willing to be blocked to find out." Did it not occur to you that this was all very WP:POINTy and generally not going to be looked apon favorably by people, like, oh, say mooning the jury? 198.161.174.222 (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it occurred to me, and I rejected that under WP:IAR. I wasn't mooning the jury, I was intuitively arranging, so to speak, a field trip for them so they could see what I was claiming in a way that a megabyte of text could not accomplish. WMC could easily have arranged for this little demonstration to fail. He didn't, and his inability to respond according to recusal policy was precisely what it was necessary for ArbComm to see. Absolutely, my edit was irregular, the normal "least disruptive" action would have been to continue my voluntary ban, but, remember, it was being claimed that my voluntary abstinence was moot, and that the ban was real and did not depend on my consent. I decided to confront that, not by an action that was a disruption in itself. I am not responsible for, nor did I anticipate, the edit warring by another party to this case that ensued on talk cold fusion, for which see

• WMC revert (on his theory of an absolute ban, he considered the community ban "irrelevant.")
• Enric Naval revert he said he was reverting me, but he was actually reverting Viridae.
• Enric Naval revert of GoRight
• Verbal comment "I would remove it if it was added, as it would be proxying for an editor banned from this page by a member of the arbitration comity, and has a long standing ban from these pages."

At the time of the edit, I was not banned by an arbitrator. That ban was declared and accepted by me afterwards as very reasonable, pending resolution of this case, after Viridae had unblocked me and had reverted my edit back in. There were two possible ban actions that applied: the declared ban of WMC, and my position is that admins may declare bans but may not enforce them absolutely, i.e., declaring a ban does not create a right to block by an administrator that did not already exist, a block for a nondisruptive edit, which is different from community or ArbComm bans, and there was also the community ban closed and clarified as "one month" by Heimstern, and thus expired; the "one month" closure was clear and accepted by Enric Naval at the time, and not challenged until well into this case, based on claims of confusion of the closing admin (by some; WMC claimed that the community ban was irrelevant, that his own declaration was sufficient.)

The edit itself was very reasonable (and not at all what was claimed about it, it did not reassert the allegedly rejected sources, but rather only pointed to Talk page discussion of those sources, which are secondary sources), but I simply did what I believed I had the right to do, edit that page. Once. After I declared withdrawal from my voluntary consent to a ban continuation, I did not jump to edit the page, I simply stopped believing that I was banned, and when I saw a question appear that I could answer more fully than anyone else there, I edited. In the end, one picture is worth a thousand words.

This incident also demonstrated, before the Committee, if it looks at it, the long-term behavior of Enric Naval and Verbal, both of whom previously reverted other editors who restored, partly or fully, on their own responsibility, material from the allegedly banned JedRothwell (editing IP as he had since 2006). The claims made about me in Evidence about "proxying" for banned editors was based on these incidents. As with Coppertwig in this one, and GoRight beyond a single revert, I did not edit war over such removals, beyond an initial revert. (If an editor is, in fact, banned, the initial revert by Enric or Verbal would not be an edit warring revert, but in this case, that initial revert was by WMC. On this theory, a restoring revert from an automatic removal per ban, by Viridae in this case, is not an edit warring revert, but later reverts may be considered such. --Abd (talk) 18:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it occurred to me, and I rejected that under WP:IAR. I wasn't mooning the jury, I was intuitively arranging, so to speak, a field trip for them so they could see what I was claiming in a way that a megabyte of text could not accomplish. - Black is white. Up is down. Night is day. War is peace. IAR, assuming you consider it to be a rule (I don't), is a narrow thing for helping to improve articles. Abd stretches it like taffy to cover all sorts of misbehavior on talk pages, in the Misplaced Pages space, off wikipedia, etc. When confronted with his misbehavior, Abd cites IAR to claim that rules don't apply to him because he doesn't think they should. It goes a long way towards explaining those 100+ ignored warnings and why he still doesn't think he did anything wrong. It's also a pretty good indicator of why the current proposal is wholly inadequate for dealing with him. Raul654 (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment s from me

On my talk page, Rl said While I am still looking into the details... and then there is some confused stuff about a 'it appears the one month ban by Heimstern. There was no such ban. I'm curious as to whether he has finished looking into the details. I asked that on my talk page, but he hasn't replied. Meanwhile Carcharoth suggested discussiong things here, so perhaps we should.

So, my view: one of the main questions in this case is my ban of Abd from Cf and t:CF. My view on this is in my evidence, which (snark) unlike many other peoples isn't too long to read. Alas, that hasn't stopped people not reading it. So: So I banned them both, for an indeterminate period of approximately a month, from CF and t:CF; A asserted that the ban didn't exist. I told him that it did; I reviewed A's ban . Since the ratio of useful edits to wikilawyering in the interim was well below 1%, I kept the ban in place. If arbcomm cared to suspend that ban, they should have said so. Had Abd wanted arbcomm to declare it suspended / invalid for the duration of the case, he could have asked them. Rl now appears to have re-enacted "the" ban but has failed to say what he means by "the" ban. Arbcomm (or at least, the small portion of it that speaks) has now told me not to block Abd during this case. I think that is the wrong decision, but I admit Arbcomm has the right to make it, so will abide by it.

Meanwhile, Arbcomm (but not perhaps Rl ) should consider the role of Viridae. He is without doubt involved in this case (having presented very one-sided evidence) and yet unblocked Abd without pretence of communication. A glance at his contribs suggests that he ahs unblocked and run - certainly he isn't answering talk page messages.

William M. Connolley (talk) 19:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

"Arbcomm (or at least, the small portion of it that speaks) has now told me not to block Abd during this case. I think that is the wrong decision, but I admit Arbcomm has the right to make it, so will abide by it." - that is good enough for me. I will now oppose the temporary desysop, but would ask that you please do not take any actions with respect to Abd while the case is still open. As I said above, by accepting the case, there was a presumption that both you and Abd had a case to answer. You were in dispute and the resolution of the dispute is something that we are now attempting. It is difficult to do that if the parties themselves try to resolve things during the case, or the community try and resolve things during a case. Please, you, Abd, and everyone, just present the evidence (or finish presenting the evidence) and let us decide what the evidence shows. That's how this process should work. Put down the tools (wrt Abd) and edit buttons (Abd wrt to cold fusion) while the case is in progress, and go look at the proposals made by the drafting arbitrator on the workshop page. I would propose injunctions on both WMC and Abd to formalise this, but I hope you both have enough sense not to carry on with your dispute while the case is still open (since the drafting arbitrator has started posting proposals, we should be not too far away from a proposed decision when voting will start). As for "the small portion of it that speaks" - there are 14 of us in different time zones, so if you think all of us should respond to everything happening in the arbitration pages, that will be a difficult expectation to meet! Carcharoth (talk) 20:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to answer the questions in the final paragraph - if you have concerns about Viridae's actions, please enter that into evidence and make proposals on the Workshop page. Carcharoth (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth, WMC declared his ban about two months ago. In all that time, I made two edits to Cold fusion. One was during the period of the community ban, and I had, as you may recall, suggested self-reversion as a solution to the problem of the complication of ban enforcement by "harmless edits." The occasion was a strong ban, an ArbComm -declared one, and the community clearly did not care to block for technical ban violation. I truly believed that the consensus was solid that I was safe making that one-character edit, self-reverted; contrary to what Enric now asserts, there was no provocative intent or intent to test at all, then. This time, this one time, was different, for reasons I explain below. I am now banned from the article by Rlevse, for obvious reasons, the same reasons that would make you think an injunction might be needed. But it is not needed. I was under a phony ban for at least a month, a ban declared by an involved administrator with a huge axe to grind with respect to me, personally, and you saw the one edit I made come down, and I announced it in advance (that I might be making such an edit). Originally, Rlevse said something about "it might be wise not to edit those pages until the case closes." I think he realized that this wasn't a ban, and that a ban was appropriate, pending, so he did make that explicit. I will not violate that, and I'll say right now, if I edit that article or its talk without the permission of an arbitrator or the closure of this case, whichever comes first, any admin may block me, I waive even claims of involvement. I can say that because I'm not going to do it, period. You don't need to go through an injunction. I'm essentially enjoined, by Rlevse, acting quite properly. --Abd (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement

WMC and Abd are the two primary named parties in this case, which is still open and they have a history with one another. This makes them involved to a high degree. Therefore one taking an admin action against another should not have happened. That makes WMC's block of Abd an involved block and honestly, I'm amazed anyone thinks otherwise. As for Adb, he clearly should not have edited the Cold fusion page simply because he knew it'd cause lots of drama. Mathsci admits "I think it would be hard to determine how long the page-ban was for" so that there's confusion on the issue and disagreement amongst the parties is understandable (cf the case evidence page). As Carcharoth says, I could have taken more time on this esp in regards to my initial statements to Abd but I was stepping in as no clerk was immediately around and it is ArbCom's responsibility to make sure that the involved parties of the case don't go around committing the same errors during the case that brought them to arbitration in the first place. If a party to an arbitration case thinks it is in order for him to ban and/or block his opponent during the case something is drastically wrong and it needs to be dealt with promptly. The CF page ban is a core of this case and to prevent further drama I've explicitly banned Abd from the CF article and it's talk page for the duration of the case. If the final decision rules on that, that'll take precedence, otherwise the page ban would then be in the communitie’s purview. There are other arb cases where arbs presented evidence on the evidence page (or PD talk page) and did not recuse (dates delinking, Aitias, and Geogre-WMC as three examples. I posted the evidence about the block to ensure it was documented and then in three editing sessions made a timeline of the events that led up to it so that all users could use it as a chronological reference. Prior to this case I can not recall any significant involvement with either Abd nor WMC. Furthermore, I have no axe to grind with either side. So the question becomes "does today's event in me trying to maintain order on the arb case and trying to document it mean I should recuse?". I do not think so. I have not used my admin bit. I was attempting to restore order, and ensure that both parties stepped away from the cliff. I could have posted this chronological evidence on the PD talk page and no one would have thought anything of it as this has been done many times before by other arbs, such as in the Scientology case. But instead I decided to post it on the evidence page and built a chronology with date and time stamps there because I thought the timing very important. I built this all from diffs supplied by users on both sides of the issue from various case pages and talk pages. Arbs often put something together like this in order to make the issues clearer to them. I do not think that in this instance it requires me to recuse. Note: posting on my own talk page and the case PD talk page. Respectfully to all, — Rlevse • Talk • 00:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your statement. When you say "no clerk was immediately around" it sounds like a momentary thing. In fact this highly contentious case was left unclerked for over a week, despite the fact that Hersfold notified arbcom that he would be absent, and that I requested by email to clerks-l on 2 August that a clerk be appointed to stand in during Hersfold's absence. When parties see that the case is being left to spin out on its own with no supervision it's hardly surprising that some of them (on both sides) run amok. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. I did not mean to imply it was only momentary. Lately the clerks have been in short supply (vacation, recusal, etc). Their availability lately has been spotty and we all hope that will change soon (like when summertime is over ;-). — Rlevse • Talk •

I have some ideas about how ArbComm could easily deal with this, but I won't clutter this page with them. If asked and notified of the question, I'll respond in situ. --Abd (talk) 16:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how Rleve's conduct is problematic here, nor why he'd need to recuse. Indeed he seems to acting with restraint; I don't see anyone defending the behavior that instigated Rleve's actions. IronDuke 01:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, here you have one defending the behaviour. WMC imposed the ban on Abd before the case started, Abd started the case to contest the ban, the ban was still standing until the case ended, Abd had already defied the ban before to see if WMC would block him, Abd has recognized that his edit was testing WMC's limits and he had to know that WMC would block him for defying the ban again. And, yeah, WMC shouldn't have fallen in the trap by blocking him. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Whilst Abd should not have edited the page during this proceeding, there was absolutely no reason for a block by WMC. WMC could simply have notified the alleged violation or alleged inappropriate action here. Why did it have to be him? For what my opinion's worth, Rlevse has done absolutely nothing wrong here, and both WMC and Abd come out of this looking very bad. Fritzpoll (talk) 06:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Rlevse is absolutely correct - contrary to the posts on WMC's homepage, Rlevse did not need to know any detail of the case to censure WMC; the simple knowledge that there's an open Arb case between these two parties is more than sufficient. Any action by WMC against Abd at this point, be it correct or not, is highly inappropriate and has drawn very strong attention to himself and the objectivity of his actions. Similarly, Abd's editing of the CF article at this time is provocative, to say the least. Both parties would do well to take some advice for a change instead of constantly trying to give it. Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

True enough. At the same time, it is important to keep track of the context - as Abd has mentioned before and after the event, he edited to goad WMC (or another admin) into a block. That it worked speaks badly of WMC. That he tried it speaks badly of Abd. - Bilby (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

More accurately, in response to repeated insistence by WMC that his ban was real, and he could prove it, thus aggressively asserting confidently his view of the very basis of this RfAr, I did decide to stop enabling him by voluntarily refraining from editing those pages. I did not then go there to defy him. I simply set his "ban" aside, and when an occasion presented itself, did not stop myself from commenting on the Talk page. I was very aware that there is much claim that my participation there is with walls of text or domination, or POV-pushing, or whatever, so I carefully avoided any possible reason (I thought!) for the edit itself to be considered disruptive. WMC's response to this edit was actually a very typical WMC response, and so all this may have been quite useful. It allowed WMC to demonstrate, in front of ArbComm, when a lot of attention has been gathered, how far he goes. If there were not other credible allegations of use of tools while involved, I'd agree that desysopping might be extreme. In fact, however, there is no shortage of such allegations, WMC has been warned before by ArbComm for involved tool use, and essentially dismissed that warning as wimpy (I think that's in my Evidence), and one of his blocks-while-involved led ultimately to the Scibaby range blocks, which are doing massive on-going damage. --Abd (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's be very clear - you stated, outright, just prior to editing the page and as part of your declaration that you intended to do so:

So if WMC blocks me for a nondisruptive edit, it demonstrates, in itself, involvement (attachment to his own prejudice about an editor). If another administrator blocks me for a nondisruptive edit based on WMC's ban, and not on the edit itself, it would demonstrate affiliation, that is, another admin doing for WMC what WMC might not be able to do himself. Elsewhere that's called "meat puppetry."

Without even bringing in later comments, (not to mention off-wiki ones), you were very clear that you were thinking very much about the responses that your actions would engender. Let's not pretend otherwise. - Bilby (talk) 17:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Enric Naval claims that I "started the case to contest the ban," and therefore "the ban was still standing until the case ended." I stated my reasons for the case with . It doesn't mention contesting a ban, rather, the case was about the usual administrative recusal failure, and a few other issues. I was not asking ArbComm to lift a ban, but rather to judge whether or not WMC could legitimately declare and enforce one. If he could, then, yes, the ban existed and perhaps, indeed, I'd have to ask for it to be lifted. But if not, the ban was unreal, a fantasy. There was another reason for making that edit which may actually be the most significant: it was psychologically necessary. Contrary to what some may think, I do suffer from massive criticism. Having a dozen editors writing volumes every day about what a terribly disruptive editor I was does have an effect, and I was seeing way too little support from the community. My belief is that I'm working to develop and support real consensus, which sometimes involves anticipating it and acting to bring it out. Were all these editors right? What if I'm deluded?

I needed to find out, and if I was deluded, so seriously deluded, the best thing for me and for the project would be to be indef blocked, and quickly. I needed to know, personally. So I found out.

Thanks, Wikipedians, all of you. I'm grateful. I may be wrong about this or that, but I'm not completely deluded. I was correct, WMC could not carry out his threat to block me if I edited the articles, and get away with it.

And if ArbComm wants me to "take a hint" from the decision by reading between the lines, I'm afraid I'm unlikely to do that. The ADHD is real, and we tend to read literally, we don't understand "between the lines," or at least not well. If ArbComm has expectations of me that are not being stated, and they aren't for behaviors that come naturally to me, the committee may be disappointed. I'm not demanding anything, just pointing out what works and what doesn't work. As the proposed decision stands right now, I have some level of mixed feelings, because I'd hoped to be able to address the Scibaby situation and other matters that came up, but I don't think I have the time, that ArbComm has the time, and that this case has the time. Other than that, just as some fear, as it stands, I consider this a kind of victory, that ArbComm is affirming a very important policy, admin recusal. I have one regret here, about the edit to cold fusion. If I had not made that edit and WMC had not blocked me, perhaps the issue would have been resolved at a lower level of involvement. I'd say that WMC should not have declared that ban, period, given his prior involvement, and I proposed in the Workship that recusal on request should be routine. (IAR still applies, though, and no admin should allow the project to suffer damage simply because of recusal rules; but the problem is really continued, insistent recusal failure.) --Abd (talk) 12:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(Since Abd says that he has problems reading between the lines, I have tried to be crystal clear here)

Abd, in the same link, there are other two sections above called "Summary" and "The present dispute" where it's clear that it's all about the ban and only about the ban (or, rather, about you causing disruption because you couldn't get support for your version of the article, getting banned for that, and then trying through all means to get the ban lifted).

Also, "I was correct, WMC could not carry out his threat to block me if I edited the articles, and get away with it.", that's called causing disruption in order to make a WP:POINT and prove that you were right. That's not good. We are not here to prove that we were right about some rule, but for writing the encyclopedia.

Abd, sorry that you have problems with ADHD, but Misplaced Pages is not therapy (and please don't tell me that it's "only" an essay, specially when some sections like "Unintended consequences" fit so well this situation). If you boast about having 15 years of online discussion experience, then you are going to be expected to have learned to behave online during those years.

I would like to remind you, and to remind the arbs, that Misplaced Pages is exclusively about writing an encyclopedia, period. And the issue here was that Abd was getting in the middle of writing one of its articles, and that this is the only issue here, and that everything here arises from Abd insisting in the middle again, and that I come to wikipedia exclusively to get good articles written, and that this is the reason that I oppose Abd's return so much. Everything else is missing the point that the only goal here is writing the encyclopedia, the ultimate goal is not the strict enforcement of some social club rules. So get Abd topic banned, or banned, or very restricted in some way, or whatever is necessary to let the writing of the encyclopedia continue. And, I shouldn't need to say this, don't punish the admins that do the things that are needed to keep the encyclopedia being written, specially if they acted on request of the editors that were enforcing content policies in the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

A curious statement, Enric. So you seem to feel that when you and Abd disagree over what should or should not be included in CF that (a) you are completely in the right, and (b) Abd is completely in the wrong? And so much so that you believe that Abd must be banned? And further still that the end you have set your sights on justifies any means to attain it (i.e. "don't punish the admins that do the things that are needed to keep the encyclopedia being written, specially if they acted on request of the editors that were enforcing content policies in the article" regardless of whether they are justified or not)? Strange because when I read the CF talk page I see Abd also claiming to be "enforcing content policies in the article", specifically but not limited to WP:NPOV and WP:RS and WP:V. Are you suggesting that your interpretation of those policies is the solely correct one and that those who disagree with your vision should be banned? I don't wish to put words in your mouth here, so please correct any bits I have gotten wrong. --GoRight (talk) 03:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

@Rl: I have no axe to grind with either side . I have not used my admin bit - weaselling. You have made threats to block. William M. Connolley (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh c'mon WMC irritability is not the same as partiality. You could at least assume some good faith? Given the biggest failure of arbcom is to do much having someone a bit impatient might even get something done here. --BozMo talk 20:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

WMC was clearly in the wrong and should not have blocked ABD himself. As for Rlevse having to recuse himself for pointing that out, telling WMC not to do it again, and informing him of the penalty if he does so..…well that’s ridiculous - and I'm sorry, but the diff provided by WMC above is certainly not even close to being evidence of Rlevse having an axe to grind against him. There's absolutely no reason for Rlevse to recuse himself from this case, he acted appropriately and has done nothing wrong. This entire issue has been blown way out proportion. Dreadstar † 02:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Clearly" perhaps but also not yet written down in any policy. If we want sub judice (during Arbcom cases) rules on Admin behaviour by all means lets write them but as far as I can possibly tell at the moment the only limitation on Admin behaviour is using tools to gain advantage in a content dispute (not the case here) or using tools where there is a conflict of interest (not the case here since a COI arising from use of tools does not seem to be included). Let us not forget that tools exist and are presumed to exist for the good of the project. Use of tools to slant a content dispute (e.g. banning someone to stop them voting on an AfD) is clearly wrong. No one has yet said that this use of tools by WMC was unjustified just that he should have wasted someone else's time about it in the circumstances. Now that's all understandable if you take a troll playground view that blocks are about punishment, vindictive etc but we go to lengths to say blocks are not punishments, they should not be imposed if articles are already protected because they exist to protect the project etc. From the clean view of project we aspire to there isn't an obvious COI on this block. If even in a world where witness tampering is impossible because history is recorded Arbcom or others feel that such blocks may intimidate witnesses or something then we should pass a policy. I don't know which way I would vote but we need to focus on the projects interest not squabble boards. --BozMo talk 06:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

How about Misplaced Pages:Administrators#Misuse_of_administrative_tools - With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.? Since you ask for a policy, I believe that is quite a relevant one, and is not undone by the exceptions in WP:UNINVOLVED. If you think that WMC can be a neutral party when applying a block to someone who he is engaged in an arbitration case with, then we're not going to agree here. Why couldn't he just post to AN or ANI if a block was required? Fritzpoll (talk) 07:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a better policy on relevance, thanks, but it is still rather subjective. AFAICT in this particular case Rlevse stated categorically that he was not reviewing the reasons for the block (for example he was not checking to see if it was an obvious exception) but he was objecting that a block should not have taken place in any circumstances by WMC. Wizardman supported but cited only WP:BLOCK which does not apply. WMC is one of the more rules-based administrators on the project; excepting unannounced policy changes I have not seen him break an objective WP rule in years, only there is a certain Judge Dredd tendency. I do not doubt if he posted to ANI other admins would have stepped in and blocked. Whether Arbcom's decision to hear this case should force this step was arguable but now he has agreed to anyway. --BozMo talk 08:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, BozMo. Administrative bans are really warnings, and when an editor perceives that a warning is being issued by an administrator who is involved or has some axe to grind, the warning is likely to be disregarded. Had WMC followed recusal policy, he would indeed, if he believed the edit to violate some policy, have gone to AN/I to ask for a neutral administrator to handle it. A neutral administrator would have been very unlikely to block for that edit. Rather, what would have been the likely outcome would have been either acceptance of the edit as non-disruptive (just look at the edit!), or a warning to me to not make such edits while this case is pending, to avoid possible disruption (and it is not necessary, with a pending case, to make a decision about whose fault this disruption might be). I think a block, absent a warning from a neutral administrator, would have been very, very unlikely. This points out how following recusal policy can prevent much unnecessary disruption, and the arguments that recusal rules unduly inhibit the ability of administrators to prevent disruption are thoroughly bogus. I have seen one case where an administrator recused when faced with obvious disruption, and damage resulted; in that case, in fact, I'd have suggested, because of the emergency nature of the disruption, that the admin protect the involved page, or block the editor reverting his close of an abusive AfD renomination. Instead, the admin did not respond to the reversion, but went to AN/I, which report was successfully diverted into a debate over the notability of the article, and, because the AfD was left open, it attracted comment and really couldn't be closed, and it became a huge battle between factions, the "procedure" faction and the "to hell with procedure, is the topic notable or not" faction. Recusal rules do not prevent Ignore all rules action, they would merely would have required that the admin to go immediately to AN/I after reverting, protecting the AfD, or blocking the editor for disruption, and then recusing. Had the admin blocked this editor for disruption, it would have saved a lot of trouble later; this was User:Allemandtando, nee User:Killerofcruft, a sock of User:Fredrick day, essentially banned as a result of this and subsequent incidents. --Abd (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Questions/Observations

Irrelevant comments removed. WorriedScientist (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please comment under your main account, if you have one. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Question about "talk page in any Misplaced Pages space"

I have a question about one of the terms in Abd's editing restriction. What is a "talk page in any Misplaced Pages space"? Do you mean only "Misplaced Pages talk:...", or does this include things like ANI? Cool Hand Luke 15:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I would interpret that to mean "any namespace ending with 'talk:'", and thus not necessarily noticeboards, however I'm not certain. I'd also point out that as written, this appears to be "one post per day period" instead of the usual "one post per day per page"; I'm not sure if this was intentional. Hersfold non-admin 16:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh! I misread that emphasis. It's not "any talk page in any Misplaced Pages space," but "any talk page in any Misplaced Pages space." Now that I see that, I agree with your interpretation. Cool Hand Luke 16:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I know you're recused, but if that is how it was meant, an alternate may need to be proposed that makes this clearer; and makes the noticeboard issue clearly laid out as well, since those are generally held to talk page guidelines despite usually not being talk pages. Hersfold non-admin 18:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll message FloNight. Hopefully she can clarify what she means before there are many other votes. Personally, I think a standard once-per-page-per-day limit would suffice, but if I thought it was prudent to limit a user in this way, I would also include the noticeboards. Cool Hand Luke 22:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I intended the wording to mean "any" name space ending with talk. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Once-per-page-per-day is standard, but referring to 1RR, which I have rarely, if ever, violated on any Talk page, and it is unusual in article space (but there is some unclarity for me on the meaning of revert; bald reverts are obvious, but what about attempts to satisfy an objection by making a new edit with, say, better sourcing?). 1 edit per day will simply push me toward one big edit instead of a number of smaller ones. I can handle that, easily, but is this really what ArbComm wants? The biggest problem with the proposed set of remedies is that it does not seem to be based on specific misbehavior but rather on a vague concept of overall misbehavior as alleged by one of the parties, Enric Naval, who has edit warred on Cold fusion Talk, and repeated it the other day. I will, however, review the exact evidence cited and update my evidence if needed. (I believe I responded, but only with a draft.) On the technical point, if it were meant by "any talk page in any Misplaced Pages space," any talk page at all, then the words "in any Misplaced Pages space" would be redundant. Rather, I did read it, at first, as referring to WP talk space specifically. But then the complaints were mostly about Cold fusion talk. So the remedy doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Mentorship, no problem, I'm looking forward to it. --Abd (talk) 23:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Insufficient

On the workshop, there is broad community support for FOFS that Abd engaged in meatpuppetry, wikilawyering, that he drove away subject matter experts, that he made personal attacks against other users both on and off wiki, that Abd uses talk pages as off-topic discussion forums, and that he has disrupted the dispute resolution process where other users are concerned. This proposed decision does nothing to curtail any of these misbehaviors. Is the arbitration committee planning to actually deal with these problems? If not, then what was the point of asking for evidence and workshop commentary? Raul654 (talk) 15:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The broad community support appears to be against your definition meatpuppetry (see especially the uninvolved comments at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby). If ArbCom wants to act on this claim, they should clarify that meatpuppetry requires actual coordination between the users, not merely agreeing with a few edits from a banned editor. I've no comment on the rest, but this wasn't WP:MEAT. Cool Hand Luke 16:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Nice try to rewrite the meatpuppetry policy, , but your claims didn't fly when GoRight proposed it on the workshop. Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them... Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban, and such edits may be viewed as meatpuppetry. - were Abd's edits verifiable and made independently of Jed and Scibaby? No, they were not - in the latter case, he restored a talk page edit verbatim minutes after Scibaby made it. (So his actions were neither verifiable nor independent of Scibaby's) So he did violate the rules, your own attempt to rewrite them not withstanding. Raul654 (talk) 17:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"So his actions were neither verifiable nor independent of Scibaby's" - This is a perversion of what the policy actually states as was demonstrated in my workshop proposal, . In the case of the talk page edit there was nothing that needed to be "verified" so that part of the policy was rather moot, and the policy states that Abd had to have "his own independent reasons for restoring the comment", not that his edit had to be "independent of" Scibaby's edit, whatever that is supposed to mean). In the case of restoring the comment on my talk page, Abd's independent reason was, obviously, to ensure that I saw the comment. Nothing more, nothing less. This does not make him a meat puppet of Scibaby. --GoRight (talk) 05:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's rules are descriptive, and we do not treat restoring an occasional edit as "meat puppetry," as at least three independent commentators noted at your now-archived SPI attempt. This activity cannot sanely be called editing "at the direction" of a banned user. Read the policy again: verifiability and independence doesn't matter because the editing is not at the direction of Scibaby: it falls cleanly outside of the definition. Cool Hand Luke 17:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

we do not treat restoring an occasional edit as "meat puppetry," - who said anything about occasional? Abd spent weeks/months acting as Jed's mouthpiece.

This activity cannot sanely be called editing "at the direction" of a banned user. - the half-dozen or so editors on the workshop who unanimously rejected GoRight's proposal would beg to differ with your claims about policy. As does the typical interpretation of the policy, as applied at ANI, where explicit communication is *NOT* needed to infer meatpuppetry. Or, as the banning policy I cited above (which you apparently failed to read) says Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban, and such edits may be viewed as meatpuppetry. Notice it says nothing about being told what to do by the banned user. Acting at someone's direction doesn't necessarily mean they tell you what to do and you do it -- it's more than suffecient to follow their lead and restore their edits, as Abd and GoRight have both done. Raul654 (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's proposal was ludicrous. Evidence of direction is not needed for meatpuppetry, that's the whole point of the policy. Coppertwig's comments there capture what the policy is meant to prohibit: evasive socks and apparent canvassing. This is not an example of such apparent direction. Apart from the occasional revert, they're clearly different users acting for their own purposes. MEAT is not meant to be a cudgel to ban users for holding similar POVs, your attempts notwithstanding. Cool Hand Luke 18:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"GoRight's proposal was ludicrous." - Gee ... thanks?!? Obviously I have a tendency to disagree with this. --GoRight (talk) 05:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's proposal was rejected because it was a backdoor attempt to rewrite policy to excuse his own violations; it was rejected becasue it was flatly contradicted by policy, which does not require communication. (Despite his own attempts to rewrite that same policy a few days earlier) Per the banned policy I just cited, restoring a banned user's edits is by itself evidence of meatpuppetry.

"Per the banned policy I just cited, restoring a banned user's edits is by itself evidence of meatpuppetry." - Well, except for all the exceptions to that rule which are already IN the policy. --GoRight (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

They're clearly different users acting for their own purposes. - their own purposes? Hardly. Restoring another user's edits means you are editing for his purposes, and when that user is banned, restoring his edits is proxy editing and is prohibited. Or, to look at the bigger picture, banned means just that -- no longer allowed to participate on Misplaced Pages. The meatpuppetery policy does not mean "Go ahead and make the edit, and some like minded editor might restore them." It is not an invitation to restore comments from banned users, although you'd never know that given how frequently GoRight and Abd do it. (Not to mention their multitude of other misbehaviors) Raul654 (talk) 18:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"Restoring another user's edits means you are editing for his purposes" - So, when you restore someone else's edits in a content dispute (say WMC's, or KDP's, or SS's) on some global warming page, you are saying that you are nothing but a MEAT puppet for them and that you are editing at their direction? That seems prima facie ridiculous. --GoRight (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd concentrate on their other misbehaviors (with a focus on how it harms the encyclopedia), rather than wikilawyering some selectively-quoted language from MEAT. I don't deny they've been disruptive, but this MEAT theory has been rejected by the community enough times. The arbitrators apparently have no desire to adopt it. Cool Hand Luke 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The guiding principle here is that you don't restore banned user's edits. The wikilawyers are the ones who are trying to undermine that not-hard-to-understand principle by trying to carve out exceptions where none exist. GoRight did violate the meatpuppetry policy, on many occasions, and I see no reason to pretend he didn't.

"The wikilawyers are the ones who are trying to undermine that not-hard-to-understand principle by trying to carve out exceptions where none exist." - Proven wrong by your own statements: "GoRight has highlighted basically every caveat and exception in the above policy ...".

I don't deny they've been disruptive - gee, how generous of you, to concede what is perfectly obvious to everyone else.

but this MEAT theory has been rejected by the community enough times. - Did you actually read the links you posted? The second one found (a) GoRight violated the 3rr, and (b) If there are general behavioral issues or ongoing problems that need to be dealt with, they should be dealt with at a noticeboard other than this one. "Go somewhere else" is hardly a rejection. As for the Scibaby sockpuppet investigations, exactly three people chimed in there, and one of them (A-tren) is a long-time GoRight apologist, and one of them (Cla68) arrived because he saw it posted on WR. So you're claiming consensus based on exactly one independent person's opinion. Raul654 (talk) 03:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"So you're claiming consensus based on exactly one independent person's opinion." - And you are claiming consensus based on what, exactly? The fact that your attempt to paint me as a meat puppet failed? And let us not forget that the administrators who investigated that report and made the final determination were likewise uninvolved and independent of myself. But more importantly, if the existing policy is description of community practices and therefore descriptive of a broad community consensus on those practices, then the exceptions articulated in that policy already enjoy prima facie consensus. --GoRight (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The arbitrators apparently have no desire to adopt it. - Wow, quite an impressive non-sequitur. Abd is guilty of many misbehaviors (his wikilawyering, his personal attacks, his disruption of cold fusion articles, his ignoring warnings, his disruption of the dispute resolution process, etc) that the arbitrators are not dealing with. Using your bizzaro logic, do they think he's innocent of those misbehaviors too? Raul654 (talk) 03:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations Arbcom, I hope you are looking forward to the next Arbitration case brought by Abd against some hapless fellow who makes a small mistake in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm going to dig out my copy of war and peace instead of wasting my time contributing to the next one - at least that is well written and has a coherant and interesting narrative to follow. Probably shorter too. /sarcasm. Spartaz 16:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Should it happen that I survive this mess, I will note that I have only brought one ArbComm case, this one, plus I would have brought Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG if Jehochman hadn't beaten me to it. The editors complaining about my behavior here include (initially it was almost entirely them) those who previously called for me to be banned, for raising the issue about JzG, during RfC/JzG 3, as shown in my evidence, and that includes Spartaz. If I ever raise a frivolous and harassing RfAr for a "minor mistake" by an admin, or by anyone, please put me out of my misery. My view, however, is that no clear example of recusal failure is minor, unless nobody was hurt by it. I actually oppose the desysopping of WMC, for my view is that, generally, ArbComm should suspend administrative privileges for recusal failure, and it should do so promptly and without fuss and without blame, until it is satisfied that whatever failure there was will not repeat, the basic condition satisfying that would be that the admin shows understanding of the problem and would therefore recognize and recuse in the future under similar circumstances. It is precisely that condition which remains absent for WMC (and it did for JzG as well, which is currently moot). --Abd (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Given that Abd doesn't listen to warnings (from other users or the arbcom), doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and is looking very, very hard for any bit of vindication he can pull out of this case, I think the chances that he is suddenly going to see the light and improve his behavior are nil. And Spartaz says, given the current remedies, Abd arbitration round #3 is inevitable. Raul654 (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

From his POV, Raul654 is correct. The issue hinges on balance. If my behavior is bad from start to finish, then the only reasonable remedy would be a site ban. If my behavior is good from start to finish, flawless, then I should get a barnstar and profuse commendations. If my behavior is mixed, with some good and some problems, then the good should be noted (don't forget that, Arbs!) and the problems addressed with solutions that have some hope of success. I see mentorship, particularly mentorship with teeth, as a solution that should satisfy reasonable concerns. Discretionary sanctions covering a problem article is an excellent idea. The meat puppetry claim has long been used in an attempt to exclude POV as distinct from misbehaving editors, and "broad community support," mentioned at the top of this section, is the "faction cooperating in the frustration of policy" staring itself in the belly-button, but I'll deal with that below. --Abd (talk) 21:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The track record of mentorship voluntarily undertaken by problem editors is checkered at best. The track record of mentorship agreed to during Arbitration in order to avoid stronger sanctions is, so far as I know, uniformly negative (though I'm willing to be enlightened if there are success stories I've missed). Given the historical futility (and worse) of this approach, why should it satisfy "reasonable concerns" in this case? MastCell  22:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Picking up on a point Raul made: "I think the chances that he is suddenly going to see the light and improve his behavior are nil". I think this can be applied to more people than just Abd. Rather than focus just on one side or the other, try and step back a bit and look at all the behaviour here (that is what arbitrators have to do when considering the case), and consider what all parties (both Abd and WMC) and those who have heavily participated here, could do to improve their behaviour (or internalise lessons learned), even if it is only the smallest of changes. Then we might start getting somewhere. If anyone thinks that their behaviour will be totally unchanged as a result of this case, that would be good to know as well. Carcharoth (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You are justifying treating both sides in this case equally when they are clearly not equal. Five minutes worth of reading on the evidence and/or workshop page gives a clear indication of where the vast majority of the disruption originates, and it is from Abd. WMC might not have showered himself in glory, but any problems he might have caused pale in comparison to the problems caused by Abd. Yet, this decision punishes WMC for trying to reign in Abd's misbehavior, while doing absolutely nothing to remedy Abd's numerous misbehaviors. He still doesn't think he did anything wrong! He's already using this decision to claim vindication! So now he gets to pick the apologist of his choice to act as mentor, "negotiate" secret terms, and continue on with business as usual.

This decision is a slap in the face to everyone who has had to deal with Abd. What was the point of compiling the evidence if you're not even going to pretend to read it? Why did Bainer bother posting his proposals on the workshop if he was going to ignore the unanimously negative feedback they got and repost them here verbatim? As it now stands, another Abd case is inevitable. I would start compiling evidence now, but given the way the committee has handled this case, I'm not sure if it's worth it. Oh, there's lessons to be learned here, but I'm pretty sure they are not the ones you want people learning. Raul654 (talk) 02:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet, this decision punishes WMC for trying to reign in Abd's misbehavior, while doing absolutely nothing to remedy Abd's numerous misbehaviors. Agree. Wizzy…☎ 06:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm certain that my behavior will improve. As to others involved, some may improve, some may degenerate as they burn out, and it's up to them. Thanks, Carcharoth. My suggestion is that all parties (construed narrowly and broadly) start to more actively seek broader consensus, instead of being content with imposing their views, or the views of a faction, on Misplaced Pages. Consensus is powerful and resolves disputes instead of burying them. I can accomplish nothing without consensus, whatever I do that is actually opposed to consensus will be transient and disappear. What I do with consensus is likely to survive me. It will not require any continued effort on my part. --Abd (talk) 00:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

As Mathsci said when you proposed this principle on the workshop, attempt to justify the pushing of a fringe viewpoint by slowly tiring out mainstream. So much for improving your behavior. Raul654 (talk) 02:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

← If mentorship is being seriously entertained, then please provide some mechanism for a rapid review by ArbCom. I don't want to name names, but in previous cases ArbCom has "settled" for mentorship; the mentors don't view themselves as "police"; the problematic behavior resumes; and those affected are left with no recourse other than to start another lengthy, unpleasant round of litigation from scratch. MastCell  04:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've come to interpret mentorship as "something arbcom does when arbcom has to do something but doesn't know what to do," along with issuing 1RR restrictions when a case has nothing to do with excessive reverting. It's similar to the way that the default response of a university administrator is to form a committee. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If that is the default response of university administrators, maybe we should consider it! I agree with MastCell that establishing some rapid review procedure is a good idea. It may already exist and simply hasn't been made clear. --Abd (talk) 05:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this for real?

Has anyone thought through the implications of Principle 6, regarding the need to avoid "reasonable but inaccurate suspicions" of coordinated editing? So, constructive editors are now guilty until proven innocent when accused of being a cabal. Maybe we should just surrender the project to Randy in Boise and be done with it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. As I said in the Workshop, that proposal directly conflicts with the secret of Misplaced Pages's success - collaborative editing. If that principle is accepted, we need to abolish WikiProjects (since they exist to facilitate "collusion") and watchlists. Talk pages too, since they're prime venues for collusion. And FAs. Can you imagine - you decide to completely re-write an article that's a FAC. All around you there's collusion going on. Oh the horror! Guettarda (talk) 17:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This proposal does not seem to be related to any particular finding of fact or remedy. It would be helpful if the Arbs could explain what particular conduct that they are attempting to address with this proposed principle. I too am concerned about how this statement might be gamed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I see the principle as a sound attempt to address the "cabal" issue. That there is an appearance of a cabal is actually not deniable, I did not invent the term as applied to the particular faction involved, it is found in media source and was routine on Misplaced Pages Review, and there is evidence most recently added to my Evidence page showing clear appearance and a little more, some level of conscious coordination, not in a formal sense, but as a sense of "us" vs. "them." I did not need to establish the "reality" of the cabal, it is an instinctive social phenomenon that has, in my view, resulted in long-term damage to Misplaced Pages, and that is not to blame the individual editors for what is, after all, simple cooperation (as with WikiProjects). What is damaging is when this cooperation becomes tribal and exclusive, as it clearly has in this case, and that is what my cabal evidence shows, I believe. Solving this problem is difficult, and beyond the ability of ArbComm at this time, in my view. But this principle begins to recognize the problem, which becomes most visible with tag-team reversion, where a series of editors make bald reverts, and where that same series of editors repeatedly does this in the same articles or family of articles. Even a single bald revert is to be avoided, but they are sometimes necessary (and not only with vandalism). We can't prohibit them, but in order to deal with the problem, we need to be able to at least recognize it. An action which is prohibited to a single editor does not become desirable, or maybe not even allowable, when it is performed collectively by a confined set of editors, each contributing a piece. Neutral editors, yes, fine.

I would prefer, myself, a deeper approach to the cabal question, that explicitly acknowledges the appearance of a cabal. I used the word "cabal" because I realized that always pussy-footing around "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction" was, shall we say, not conducive to understanding. If a better single term had occurred to me, I'd have used it, but the meaning I gave to cabal is actually quite within standard usage, and it is only a more extreme meaning ("conscious, evil, secret plotting") that is objected to, and for which I presented no evidence, because I have seen none. --Abd (talk) 18:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't believe that "guilty until proven innocent" is at all what that principle is trying to get across - it's simply a reminder that various actions can be taken different ways, that misunderstandings can occur, and users should make sure that they are aware of their own actions such that they limit such misunderstandings. Do any of you have a suggestion as to how it can be reworded, if you feel it is too easily gamed? Hersfold non-admin 18:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I stand by the "guilty until proven innocent" wording. All that's needed to be in violation of this principle is for someone else to have a "reasonable suspicion." The burden of proof is on the accursed to show that not only were they not acting as a cabal, but that they could not "reasonably" have even been suspected of acting as a cabal. (Let's not even get started on what "reasonable" means...) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Given that Abd has already chimed in above to use this principle to claim vindication for his unsubstantiated (per FOF #12) cabal allegations, I think it would be best to scrap the principle entirely. Raul654 (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The man who insists that 2+2=5 will suspect that everyone who says that 2+2=4 is in a cabal against him. And, just as he knows that 2+2=5, he will know that his suspicions are reasonable. This principle, if passed, would put real teeth into his suspicions. (After all, his opinion about which suspicions are reasonable is at least as valid as anyone else's opinion, isn't it?) Thus this principle would tend to work to the advantage of POV pushers who are outnumbered. Also, if those who disagree with him do adjust their behavior to avoid the appearance of coordinated editing with others who agree with them, then they will have just coordinated their editing. So, any attempt to obey this part of principle 6 would be a violation of it. So, no, it is not a good idea. Cardamon (talk) 20:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This finding is probably not helpful for the reasons Cardamon points out. Everyone considers his or her own suspicions "reasonable", so such a finding will not deter inappropriate accusations. I do think that Abd's employment of these proposed findings, in the face of a proposal specifically branding his allegations as unreasonable, may be useful context in drafting the decision. MastCell  21:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me point out that Flo and Bain have voted THE SAME WAY on SEVERAL PROPOSALS. They are also KNOWN to use BACK CHANNELS of communication. Block them now, I say! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Go to some real world trial and try to get rid of judge by pointing out that you have already appealed against his/her previous decision so you find him/her involved. You will uncover it is not easy this way. Is it because neutrality of real world judges is of less importance? Hardly, they do decide about real lives and real properties. But that is just it why judical system do not entitle parties to veto judges easily because this way you allow the unscrupulous ones to fish for their demanded judges and balance quickly disappears. Taad Laet (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

In real world courts, Taad Laet, at least in the U.S., recusal by judges because of prior cases is common. Newyorkbrad is a lawyer, perhaps he might comment on recusal, and correct me if I'm wrong. Recusal for any reason that could lead an observer to conclude that a judge is biased is normal. However, Taad's comment is off-topic here.

To return to the topic, the comments above demonstrate the "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction." They are based on an extreme interpretation of the principle proposed, which is then rejected, it's a classic debate technique, used when one does not accept the basic purpose of some proposal, so one exaggerates it and then suggests how ludicrous it is.

"Cabal" does not establish the illegitimacy of any particular cooperation. That a group of editors cooperate to maintain Global warming, which is where this all started for me, is not illegitimate in itself. We, in fact, could use more of that, but there are certain caveats, and as long as we deny that such cooperative groups even exist, we cannot deal with the problems.

Nobody has proposed blocking or banning anyone because they are a member of a "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction." However, it does affect our judgment of their lack of involvement, as an example. If you are an administrator, and are a close friend of an editor, and if someone, you believe, is uncivil to this friend, and you block the person, and especially if you block severely (i.e. with a disproportionate term, or with unnecessary insult as part of the block), you have quite possibly violated the purpose of recusal policy. In real life, a judge who is a friend of the victim in a case will normally recuse.

Nobody should be sanctioned for prior "cabal" behavior, nor for future "cooperation," per se. What the proposed principle does is to start to make it possible to warn administrators, in particular, for an appearance of impropriety, that they should recuse. If this principle had been previously passed, what would have happened when I and others warned JzG, long before the RfAr came to pass? What would have happened when I warned and others warned WMC about use of tools while involved, even before the JzG affair? I was neutral at first.

I proposed that it should be routine for admins to recuse upon request, and I still maintain that this is highly desirable. (Routine does not mean "without exceptions," IAR continues to apply.) It does not allow editorial misbehavior to continue unchecked, there are easy alternatives and, I keep pointing out, "recuse" is not a synonym for "unblock." It means that the admin stops touching those buttons personally, and becomes like any other involved editor, free to request administrative assistance if needed. Which, I find, when the case is clear, is very, very easy, it takes minutes at RfPP, for example. It's when the case is not clear that an admin can decide that their special knowledge is essential to understanding what is to be done with a certain editor. And that "special knowledge" is another word for "involvement." Bad idea.

If you can't convince a neutral administrator, if needed, you, possibly, should not push a block button, but it also is not a problem if no disruption results. True vandals don't cry "bias," normally, it's a total waste of time for them. And the response to a cry of "bias," where misbehavior is clear, is quite likely to be a more severe sanction from a neutral administrator. --Abd (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to just make a comment about this cabal stuff which I admit is very upsetting to me. I ended up on this cabal as you can read on Abd's evidence (so he says), for iVoting in the fringe case, for supporting his and Hippicrit's ban from Cold fusion and my comment at the very beginning of this case when I didn't think that this case was needed and it should have stayed with the community. The reason though that I am on this cabal list is easy, because I supported Abd and Hippicrit's ban as an uninvolved editor. My question on Abd talk page asking about what he was talking about in regards to some mediation that failed from the start led to more conversation , a lot more on my talk page. That question and answer discussion went at the beginning quite well until I felt threatened by Abd for even daring to comment any more about this case to him or anyone else. The conversations there was getting strained but this comment took me by surprise "If you are going to argue that editors should be banned, and especially before ArbComm, there might be some blowback. --Abd (talk) 10:35 pm, 26 July 2009, Sunday (24 days ago) (UTC−4)" Abd boldly made comments like this to me and others as ways to itimate and it worked with me. My time at this project is spent peacefully for the most part. I try to help when I can in different things but I do vandal patrol and have a handful of articles I watch, verification of this can be seen in my contributions. I didn't know most of these editors who were named in the fake cabal. I actually started looking them all up and boy did Abd put a list of very smart and accomplished editors together, a list that I no way should be involved in. They write articles, do FAC reveiws, do so many things that I've never ever thought of doing. Also I'd like to point out that I've never touched any of the Global warming articles or the Cold fusions ones because my lack of knowledge and education tells me to stay away from there and let others more knowledgeable take care of them. Abd's screaming cabals like he has through this case and apparently now for years (seen through difs provided and doing my own reading to try to understand.) is totally WP:UNCIVIL. I seriously don't understand why anyone is taking this seriously from him. But Proposal 6 shows that some are taking it seriously and my read is that if it passes then I am in danger for doing anything now that would give any appearance of collusion because I may agree with editors. I agree that the comments about cabals needs addressing but it needs to be put away as not a serious anything. I for one do not like being associated like this and feel that if this passes I can easily have an editor wikilawyer and say 'oh look a cabal member, lets get her blocked for collusion and/or bad behavior. I will not edit in fear like this, no one should. Sorry but I had to make my say on this cabal garbage now that I know that the arbitrators are reading and listening. New York Brad, thanks for acknowledging that you do read what is written. I am having problems accessing the work page so I couldn't say so until it was sent to me via email. Please, put this cabal to bed, make it a civility problem using it or something but please don't give this ugly accusation any teeth. Thank you for your times, --CrohnieGal 11:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Crohnie, you deserve a response. When an editor becomes involved on one side in a highly contentious dispute, long term, the editor should not be surprised to be named as involved in some way. Just barely, less than any other, you met the minimum standard I set for describing an editor as "cabal," when I compiled the list, which simply means "generally involved on one side of an issue," in this case, rather than specifically involved, which is easier to show when true. (And it carries the implication that the involvement is with a POV or general content or behavioral position that is, if pushed, contrary to policy.) You were never at risk, and you remain not at risk of being sanctioned out of this. There is no danger from "agreement." There would never be any danger from making a comment in a discussion stating your position, as long as it is civil, even if it were blatantly "cabal." If you were to participate in tag-team reversion, there might be a danger, but I'm sure you would be warned first, and I haven't seen you do that. And the other "danger" is that a !vote from you in some process might be discounted as "involved," by a closing admin, or perhaps by ArbComm -- which is why all the cabal evidence was presented. That's all. --Abd (talk) 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Abd, I am going to have to politely ask you to refactor the bad faith assumptions that you make above that can be seen and in the hide box. You are assuming bad faith in me for the last time. I didn't and I don't follow anyone. I look at difs and I also do my own work prior to coming to any conclusions, thus the long conversations we had on my talk page. Your "blowback" comment was used to intimidate me and I'm not the only editor who feels that way as can be seen on the evidence page under Phil's Evidence here titled 'Abd mentions process and hints at bad outcomes to those who oppose his positions or actions:' Most of the rest of the stuff has nothing to do with me, I didn't say most of what you have said above. I repeat, and maybe you hear me now, I am not and never have been working in concert with any other editor in a way as you above describe to. You are violating policy esp. civil then you have the nerve to tell me "(And it carries the implication that the involvement is with a POV or general content or behavioral position that is, if pushed, contrary to policy.)" I was uninvolved at the time of the ANI, I am not now for obvious reasons. I'm sorry but Abd has me angry and I will not respond to anything else he has said. Would someone, Hersfold or an arbitrator please make Abd do the right thing and refactor the above comments. Thank you in advance, --CrohnieGal 18:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Crohnie then went to User talk Hersfold and requested clerk intervention. I responded there. I attempted, above, to allay her fears, but obviously I did not succeed. "Pushed" in the comment she cites above refers to edit warring or use of tools, not to the mere expression of opinion. There are those who support blocking for "POV-pushing," I am not one of them. --Abd (talk) 21:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about in this statement. "Pushed" in the comment she cites above refers to edit warring or use of tools, not to the mere expression of opinion. There are those who support blocking for "POV-pushing," I am not one of them. Also, please leave my edit alone, thank you. Yes I went to Hersfold, and no it's not me assuming bad faith, though I guess now maybe I am. My apologies to everyone, --CrohnieGal 22:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume from the context above that you mean "intimidate" and not "intimate". Having read both your original statement and Abd's explanation of his actions, and given that Abd has been perfectly clear about his methodology in this case (and that you have been previously made aware of it, and ) I am sorry but there is absolutely nothing that should be considered intimidating in his comments. Offering cogent explanations of one's position and clearly attempting to allay one's fears is not the typical style of one who wishes to intimidate anyone. Quite to the contrary, in fact. Continuing to persist in the claim of his having bad faith intentions is ridiculous, IMHO, and that itself borders on a show of bad faith, also IMHO. This is all especially true given your own accusations/implications toward others, . --GoRight (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Concern regarding "Bans" finding

I'm concerned about Stephen Bain's endorsement of the proposed finding on bans, which reads:

Policy as it stands does not authorise administrators to impose bans by themselves, absent available discretionary sanctions. Misplaced Pages policy need not be written - the description follows the accepted practice - but there needs to be some actual indication that a practice is indeed widely accepted and utilised before it can be considered policy. For example, one would expect to see substantial evidence of the practice being used and supported, or well-received efforts to document the practice. In this case there has been no indication shown that there is such a widely accepted and utilised practice.

At the outset of this case, when the issue of administrative authority to impose such bans was under discussion, Thatcher, Shell Kinney, and myself all clearly indicated that we had used this approach, and that it had been an effective and relatively drama-less part of our admin toolbox (discussion). Without being overly self-congratulatory, I think it is fair to say that the 3 of us are administrators with generally positive records and experience in addressing and resolving difficult disputes. I am therefore at a loss to understand the assertion that "there has been no indication shown that there is such a widely accepted and utilised practice."

Part of me thinks that it might have been useful for the drafter to contact or poll at least a handful of sysops who work at administering difficult on-wiki disputes, to see how widespread this practice really is. On the other hand, I'm to blame since I didn't submit any formal evidence documenting the ongoing and successful use of this practice. I will plead only 2 mitigating factors: 1) it did not occur to me that ArbCom would seriously entertain the idea of unilaterally overturning an active and previously undisputed standard practice, and 2) the evolution of this case depressed me to the extent that I couldn't muster the will to post any evidence. If the description does in fact follow the accepted practice, then I don't see how this finding is tenable. MastCell  22:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to say that this finding disappointed me the most, though I was surprised by many of the workshop motions that were carried over. Bainer's initial proposals seemed completely out of touch and I don't see that's been tempered much by the copious feedback received at the Workshop. As MastCell points out, there were several assertions during discussion on this case that administrative page or topic banning was a widespread and accepted practice. I'd posit that whomever proposed the finding didn't put much effort into investigation. General sanctions don't yet exist for every contentious area on Misplaced Pages and they shouldn't need to - clueful admins with a mind to help out in difficult areas can re-purpose sanctions already determined by ArbCom to help in similar situations. These bans, unlike ArbCom sanctions, are open to simple community review as happened in this case - more importantly, the community absolutely upheld this ban. Perhaps best illustrating this point is the fact that not a single person commenting during the community review batted an eyelash - if these bans were unique or untested, surely someone would have noticed? Its telling that the only participants contesting the ability of an admin to ban are the banned user and two others who support him so blindly that they are unable to see any fault in any of his actions - this is not a solid foundation for a FOF.

Second to this is a swath of findings/sanctions that seem to put disruption of ArbCom over disruption of the encyclopedia. Sorry guys, we all love you, but you're taking yourself too seriously if you're ready to admonish people over a single case of edit warring simply because it occurred on these hallowed pages. That you let the case get away from you in such a manner should prompt consideration of how the system is failing heated disputes such as this. Put down the stick and back away from the horse - we get that you were properly shocked that, left completely on their own, personal disputes simply fester. Lets use that energy to talk about how to prevent a repeat occurrence instead. Shell 23:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

MastCell, could you (and others) give examples of what happened when page or topic bans imposed by admins were contested? Was an independent review of the page or topic ban carried out if requested, and what has the standard of discussion and evidence presentation been like? i.e. How formal or informal were such bans? Carcharoth (talk) 23:23, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oy. Now you're asking me to do work instead of just talking. :) It has been months and perhaps even a year since I've undertaken anything beyond an occasional half-hearted administrative action. But let's see what's in the archive... TStolper1W (talk · contribs), an editor with a conflict of interest having issues at Randell Mills (curiously, I notice in retrospect the overlap with cold fusion...) back in 2007 when I was more active. Randell Mills is now a redirect, so take a look at the relevant page history. The following is reconstructed from what I can find on-wiki, since my memory of past events is worse than Alberto Gonzalez's.

• Taken to WP:AN/I by another editor here. Little or no response (except for me). I notice that the situation has previously been brought to AN/I, but no one seemed to care about it (here). I look over the situation and decide that while a block might be warranted, I'd prefer to start with an article ban and allow talk page edits (see User talk:TStolper1W#Notice).
• Subsequently, the editor takes up the same cause at hydrino theory (also now a redirect). After some aimless discussion at WP:COIN (can't find link), I impose 1RR on hydrino theory here. Not sure where things went after that.

Sorry, I think there are better cases in my archives, but I'm not up for digging right now. I think this is a reasonable example, though - an editor with a conflict of interest and a previous block for edit-warring and abusing Misplaced Pages to promote his claims. Multiple requests for outside eyes at AN/I were essentially ignored (here, here, here). I thought these were reasonable approaches (restriction to talk page, 1RR) that stopped short of a block. Maybe Shell or Thatcher have better examples handy. OK, you can desysop me now. :) MastCell  00:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If I may, let me make one small distinction here. In your example, MastCell, you are citing explicit policies and specific violations of those policies as being the basis for the bans you issued. This seems perfectly reasonable. As far as I can tell no such reasonable counterpart exists in the case of the WMC ban of H and Abd. WMC merely declared a ban to be in place and deflected queries regarding the basis of his declaration. This make his ban clearly distinct from the type of thing you are mentioning here. --GoRight (talk) 06:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

But that's exactly my point. The proposed finding does not make the distinction you propose. I'm not defending WMC's action; I'm concerned about the overall effect of this finding going forward. It would outlaw any administrative page or topic ban. MastCell  20:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I was quite surprised to see this interpretation by Stephen Bain. I ran for arbcom with the platform that admins would do more sanctions and relieve ArbCom from needing to do as many cases. In my opinion 3 years ago, they were being used well by admins and we needed to encourage more admins to wade into these situations and do them. The point of us (ArbCom) doing "discretionary sanctions" was not to authorize admins to give editing restrictions, but to point out the areas of Misplaced Pages where admins were needed to step in more often. I see no reason that a Community discussion needs to happen to make an admin's editing restrictions against an user valid. In any case, I feel that we are overstepping our role by binding the Community to stick to a narrow rigid interpretation of policy. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Examples of topic bans

1. Here is a discussion that led to the imposition of a 3 month topic ban, here is a discussion one month later where the banned editor asks for the ban to be lifted.
2. A community ban from DYK (first discussion, second discussion), The most important underlying problems were concern about plagiarism and writing articles that just weren't right. The intent of topic banning her from DYK was to get her to slow down and do a better job herself, instead of depending on the rest of the community to repair her articles to an acceptable standard after the page has already been on the main page. Lifted upon improved behavior (warning, loooonnnnggg discussion, interesting list of participants).
3. Topic bans reimposed by the community after Arbcom topic bans had expired.
4. Topic ban proposal that failed after discussion. Note that there is no objection to the idea of a community-imposed topic ban assuming it had been supported by evidence.
5. Topic ban Reviewed and endorsed, you can follow the links posted at the review back to the original ban.

It appears to be more usual that topic bans are proposed and discussed on the admin noticeboards before being enacted by a closing admin, although that may be an artifact of my search method. I do not have any problem with an admin applying a ban first and then bringing it to the noticeboard for review. As I said on the Evidence talk page,

Thatcher 17:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that an inability to postpone editing for 48 hours normally shows a problem, that is hardly proof that an editor "deserves a ban." Nevertheless, in our present case we aren't talking about 48 hours, we are talking about an ultimately indef ban as was declared by WMC. There are lost steps in much of this discussion. I've agreed that an admin may "declare a ban," but simply claim that this declaration does not create any right to block that did not already exist without the ban (assuming a warning, and admins may block without warning, it is merely discouraged). To say, generically, that there is "no need to edit the article" is to deny that need ever exists, because if need exists, it must exist at a time, and that time might come during the supposed effective time of the ban. So an admin may do as Thatcher describes, that's not being denied, but should the editor make a harmless correction, as an example, during the discussion at the noticeboard, and the same admin blocks, that is a block for defiance, not a block for actual disruption, and that's punitive and shows involvement by the admin. Rather, the admin would properly bring the edit, if concerned about it, to the discussion for review and possible block by a neutral admin. By asking the community to support a declared ban, the admin is no longer strictly neutral but is asking for support of a prior action. What Thatcher reports, that it is much more common for a ban to be discussed first before being declared by a neutral closing admin, based on evidence and arguments, matches my experience.

In the present case, there was no emergency. There was a problem with the article being protected in a damaged state, but Hipocrite and I had already agreed to a voluntary page ban on the article, pending, in order to facilitate fixing the article, it could simply have been unprotected so it could be fixed by others. If WMC had asked me to abstain from editing the Talk page as well for a few days, or had gone to AN/I to request a ban, I'd have either abstained from editing entirely, or would have confined myself to a notice as to what was happening. WMC, by using a sledgehammer, a "month or whenever I feel like it" ban, to resolve a fairly simple problem, made it all worse, and, by continuing to insist upon his right to remain in the position of ban administrator, created this case. Note that if he had gone to AN/I, say, and asked for a ban, he might have gotten it, because of the phenomena I've described, I'd have probably appealed to ArbComm but the appeal would have been of my ban, and would have included no charges of admin abuse by WMC, his situation would have been like that of the rest of the "cabal," I might have claimed "involvement," but only as needed to follow WP:BAN, i.e., "consensus of uninvolved editors." There were very simple ways to have dealt with whatever legitimate problem existed, but they were not chosen, and requests to take one of those paths were ignored. If we leave it ambiguous about the declaration of "bans" by administrators, we will encourage other admins to fall into this same trap. I'm not out to punish WMC, I am much more concerned about future incidents that don't involve me at all. It's even possible that by continuing to offer my opinions here, I will sufficiently irritate some arbitrators to increase the risk of a ban decision for me, but I have to take that risk. I do follow IAR, which requires me to place the welfare of the project above my personal editing "career". --Abd (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I really hope the Arbitrators are reading every word you write, abd, because there are some things you just don't get. If Admin A bans editor B from editing an article, and editor B edits the article, that is a violation of the ban and is absolutely blockable by any admin including Admin A. Period end of sentence. There are no exceptions for "minor", "helpful", or self-reverted edits. Partly because "minor" and "helpful" are often in the eye of the beholder, and partly because boundary testing by banned editors is simply not tolerated. Your argument is not grounded in any serious interpretation of any policy or practice. Topic bans imposed by Arbcom are not subject to this special "minor helpful edit rule"; editors whose accounts are blocked are not allowed to make minor helpful edits. Why do you think this rule uniquely implies to admin-imposed page bans? As a matter of course, blocks and bans are enforced at the admin's discretion, a block might not be placed for various reasons even if there is a clear violation. But if it looks like an editor is gaming the system, or testing boundaries, even by making helpful edits, then a ban is appropriate.

The other thing I have to object to is your characterization of WMC's page ban as "month or whenever I feel like it". The wording is, after all, available to every one. The solution which will please no-one is: User:Hipocrite and User:Abd are both banned from editing cold fusion, and its talk page, for an arbitrary time of approximately one month, during which time we'll see if a stable version developes. There are at least two specific durations listed there, one month and when (and if) a stable version develops. Had you not appealed to the noticeboard, you could have contacted WMC after a month and asked him to lift the ban. If the article stabilized beforehand, you could ask then. Since you appealed to the noticeboard, the ban was confirmed for a month duration. Why is this confusing? Thatcher 22:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd didn't appeal. Enric Naval took the ban to the noticeboard to get community review. Admittedly, Abd was the second person to reply to Enric Naval's post at ANI, but the point stands that when a big step like that is taken, it should be the banned person making the appeal or request for review, not someone doing it on their behalf. Carcharoth (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher, thanks for those examples. That is helpful. To pick up on one point here that I think is important, you say: "I do not have any problem with an admin applying a ban first and then bringing it to the noticeboard for review." That sounds too much to me like an admin carrying out an action and then going to a noticeboard for validation or rubber-stamping of their decision (especially if that noticeboard is AN or ANI). The correct action would be for the admin carrying out the banning action (whether page ban or topic ban) to inform the editor so-banned to, in the first instance, talk to them (the admin) about the ban if they have any questions or objections, and to let the editor so-banned know where to appeal. That gives the editor who is page-banned or topic-banned the opportunity to make their own appeal in their own time, rather than letting the admin (or other editors) present the appeal in the form of an "endorsement".

Sure, both editor and admin might describe the circumstances differently, but consider the situation where an admin turns up at a noticeboard and presents such a ban for community endorsement (maybe while the editor so-banned is not around). There is a very real chance that there will be pile-on supports before the editor who is banned has had a chance to say anything. This is similar in some ways to admins who carry out a controversial block, and then immediately start an ANI thread to (take your pick) defend the block/pre-empt someone else starting the thread/allow a genuinely independent review.

If an admin feels their actions are solidly based in policy, there should be no need to start a noticeboard thread to get their actions endorsed. They should be prepared to wait for any appeal or objections, and defend their actions at that point, rather than trying to pre-empt things by turning it into a community topic or page ban.

Compare the situation of a page or topic ban to that of a block. We have the {{unblock}} template that in theory attracts an uninvolved admin to review the block. Now imagine the blocking admin placing the 'unblock' template on ANI and asking the community to endorse the block. That is what you are proposing be done with admin-placed page and topic bans. As I've said, that is not ideal. What is needed is to allow a page-banned or topic-banned editor the time and space to make their own appeal, and for the banning admin to take responsibility for the ban (and the consequences if the ban was inappropriate), rather than asking the community to endorse the decision (that is a waste of time for the community until the banned editor is ready to appeal).

In other words, the culture of asking noticeboards to endorse decisions made by individual admins undermines the responsibility individual admins need to take for their actions. Carcharoth (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC) More in next post...

Interesting argument about endorsement vs appeal, I had never thought of it that way. Thatcher 00:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Never ever? What about the point that admins should stand by their actions and only defend them when objections are made, rather than asking for community review and endorsement? Can you imagine an admin turning up at a noticeboard and saying "I've banned editor Jones from this page, and they've objected. I've told them they are free to appeal to this noticeboard. Before I present my case for the ban, I will let editor Jones have his say first. Once we've both had our say, could the subset of the community who is present at this noticeboard please discuss the page ban and either endorse it or reject it. I suggest allowing at least 48 hours for the discussion (timed from the point where we've both had our say) to ensure a wide range of editors see the discussion, and an uninvolved admin can then close the discussion and enact the result. Oh, and if you participated in the previous discussions on the talk page, have heavily edited the page in question, or have any past history with either of us, please state that so the closing admin can take that into account." Does that sort of thing happen often? The last bit, about people disclosing their prior participation and history with the parties, is too idealistic, of course, but you can hope. Or an admin being told they are going to be "taken to ANI" following a controversial but necessary block replying "sure, no problem, just make sure to leave a link to the discussion on my talk page so I can give my version of what happened", as opposed to the pre-emptive "I've blocked you, and I've started an ANI discussion about it here". Carcharoth (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I do recall blocking someone for revert warring and being harrangued, "don't you know that when you block an established editor you are supposed to post it for review?" But I suspect that was a special case. Best not to go into it. :) Thatcher 00:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Following on from my 23:51 19 August 2009 post above, there is an alternative approach, which is that of imposing a temporary page or topic ban until there has been a community review. But that still runs up against the problem of admins (or editors on the 'other side') presenting the case for the ban first and (even with the best of intentions and efforts to be objective) skewing the result their way (this 'first mover advantage' is seen in RfCs as well, where the first view posted often gains disproportionate support compared to later options). In my view, the only real way around this is to either: (a) wait for the banned editor to submit their own appeal (there is a certain logic to this, since as the restricted party, it seems fair that they get to present their case first, and also because in a review by the community, some will be more willing to wait to hear what the banning admin has to say, than they would be to wait for an allegedly disruptive editor to answer allegations made by an admin); or (b) arrange for the banning admin and the banned editor to prepare their arguments and present them together (or, more practically, to hold off from discussion and any expression of support or opposition, until both sides have presented their case for or against the ban). This might seem incredibly bureaucratic, but it is standard practice in many places on and off Misplaced Pages to let the main parties to a decision have their say before commenting for or against that decision. Some of these points were being made by Abd, but they rather got lost in the noise, I fear. Carcharoth (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Findings regarding recusal

While I'm not comfortable with a few of the proposals, I guess it depends on what direction the votes go. But I'd like to suggest that a finding for or against (obviously, I lean towards against) the claim that WMC was involved prior to banning Abd would be wise. As I see it, the case was brought on three questions:

• Is an admin permited to topic ban a user?
• Should WMC have recused based on prior involvement with Abd?
• Did Abd warrant being topic/page banned?

In the end these issues seem to have been largely dropped in favour of WMC's behaviour during the case and his behaviour in the past, (an approach I'm uncomfortable with), but currently there are two proposals tackling the first issue, there are some that tackle the third, yet the only proposal which tackles the second is Allegations of a cabal. My concern is that a finding in relation to WMC's behaviour in the case will be read as supporting the claim that he was involved prior to the case, and this is likely to prove problematic. - Bilby (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, there are lots of reasons to consider WMC as involved. Certainly he wasn't involved in the article, directly and defenses of him based on his not having edited the article for a long time missed the point. My claim of involvement centered upon two pillars: one was personal dispute in the past, mostly over his use of tools while involved and his long prediction of and support for a ban of me, as most clearly manifest during Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/JzG 3. He wasn't "neutral." He may be asserted to be "content neutral," but that then takes us to the second pillar, the cabal. The cabal was defined based on content positions, as to general principles. In the actions he took with respect to cold fusion and me, he was supporting cabal editors, as they have supported him whenever his prior actions-while-involved were questioned. "Cabal" simply refers to habitual support that reflects a bias, a preference for the positions of friends and an identification of others as "outsiders," them, not "us." Absolutely, I'd like it for ArbComm to address this issue, but it is a complex one; my plan had been to present specific proposals, but it became personally impossible for me, I was overwhelmed. I'm content to have been able to raise the issue without being immediately banned!

To answer the questions posed by Bilby, my views:

Strictly, no, an administrator has no right to block an editor for a nondisruptive edit, and there is only one exception: bans. An administrator cannot create such a ban, alone, and then strictly enforce it by blocking for a nondisruptive edit. Administrators may block for ban violations, but only for bans where they are not involved, where there has been community or ArbComm process establishing the ban. Discretionary sanctions are a subcategory, but WMC did not depend on any discretionary sanction, and no such sanction existed. (I approve of the establishment of discretionary sanctions for Cold fusion. It's about time, actually.) An administrator may, however, say, "I'm banning you from the topic," but this is really only a strong warning that the admin considers all edits to the topic, or nearly all, to have been disruptive; however, the misbehavior should eventually be specified, and, hopefully, addressable by the editor. It is this kind of ban which has been considered common practice, and I'm pointing out, it's an error to treat this the same as the other kinds of bans.

Were it not for the enforcement problem, we would not block for nondisruptive edits even if they did violate a strict ban, because this would be, clearly, punishment for past misbehavior. But because we ban to avoid problems, and we don't want to have to consider each edit, it is impractical to require specific nondisruptiveness for true ban violations, because we want such bans to be community enforced, by neutral administrators. Thus we do allow (but we don't require!) that admins block for harmless edits under ban. In fact, blocks by neutral administrators for such edits seem to be rather unusual. While it is possible I would have been blocked for the edit to Cold fusion that WMC blocked me for, it is probably unlikely that a neutral administrator would have made that decision. I might have been warned not to repeat it. Or not even that. I didn't see any administrator warning ScienceApologist for making spelling corrections, only his friend, Hipocrite, and he certainly wasn't blocked for those edits, he was eventually blocked for clear expression of disruptive intention.

Yes, WMC should have recused. His edit under protection was an improvement over the version as protected, and that, alone, would not have been a problem. However, his ban of me was based on his very strong prior opinion about "walls of text" and my alleged meddling in policy; I'll note that he specifically suggested I stay away from policy for a month and maybe, then, he would consider lifting the page ban. Page bans by specific administrators are problematic if maintained for any substantial time, they create involvement and a coercive relationship, it's a formula for recusal failure. WMC was attempting to coerce me, to keep me away from policy by holding forth the carrot of being able to return to my favorite topic if I "behaved." I don't know what he was thinking. Recusal policy is more important to me than any particular article, I am not an SPA, I merely focused recently on a topic where I became particularly qualified, semi-expert.

I have yet to see any evidence that I did anything at Cold fusion that warranted being page-banned. Certainly WMC did not present such evidence at the time, even when asked by another editor, and that's in my Evidence. Nor was a bannable offense cited in the AN/I discussion that community-banned me. I have been unable to understand FloNight's proposed findings; perhaps my mentor will explain it to me, if they pass and I'm still around for it to matter!

Bainer has it more accurately. Definitely, my style is a problem for some people, that is undeniable. Whose fault that is does not really matter. (I also support the principle about good faith not being a reason to not sanction. There could be rank incompetence, for example, and the welfare of the project require even a site ban.) If I want to work for consensus, and I do, then problems with my style must be addressed. It's unclear to me that a page ban, or any ban, will accomplish this. However, please note, if I were allowed to make self-reverted edits, if these edits were explicitly declared to not violate my ban, and that any registered and responsible editor could revert them in, taking responsibility for their appropriateness, I could handle any ban and still do my work. And it would address all those complaints about my long posts and claims that nobody reads them but they drive "experts" away (I doubt it!). However, I still wouldn't, based on evidence presented, understand the ban, in comparison to how other editors are treated, and sanctions against me for pursuing what was my right, ArbComm consideration of administrative recusal failure, could be chilling to others who see such abuse. Indeed, I encountered, during this process, an editor who told me, by email, that I was right, but he wouldn't be presenting evidence because he expected there would be retaliation, he didn't want to end his wikicareer.

The original case was filed based on recusal failure. It was not filed as a ban appeal; at the time of filing, I had no reason to doubt that the community ban had expired, so there was only WMC's allegedly involved ban, so determining recusal failure would address that, or alternatively, the same would be accomplished by holding that administrators cannot unilaterally ban, i.e., threaten to block an editor for a nondisruptive edit. --Abd (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is why I believe a finding on whether or not WMC was involved prior to the ban is worth adding. Clarity would be valuable. Every issue raised above has been addressed in the proposals bar this one. Personally, I stand by my belief that insufficient evidence was presented to show prior involvement by WMC, but that is for ArbCom to decide now. - Bilby (talk) 01:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The above is the reason why currently suggested remedies for Abd are insufficient. It's the classical WoT, with the same classical Cabal allegations, the same wikilawyering, and the same waste of everybody's time as before. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC) (for the Cabal)

Thanks, Stephan, you make my point, efficiently. This is the edit summary for the comment above: "TLDR". If he did not read it, how can he confidently describe the contents? This kind of knee-jerk assumption and repetitive, automatic response, is exactly what a "tribal affiliation" generates. Multiply this by a dozen editors piling in to a discussion, you get serious participation bias, and repeat it over many incidents, "cabal effects." Without any specific "collaboration," but the effect just as if there were. --Abd (talk) 11:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What this shows is that you are incapable or unwilling to recognize sarcasm (or, to be fair, that my sarcasm is too obscure). It also shows that you are prone to jump to wrong conclusions and overgeneralizations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Unlike anyone else? What was the sarcasm, the TLDR or the text above? Go ahead, defend your own sarcasm, it's befitting. That has been, indeed, the norm during this case. I'm not being sarcastic. Remember, TLDR on Talk or other discussion pages is the core of the only basis that is reasonable at all for my being banned from anything. If my comment above is truly too long, then, of course I should be sanctioned. I agree with Bilby that it is up to ArbComm to decide now, but I don't agree that insufficient evidence has been presented about WMC involvement, but I do see it as possible that it has been buried in the noise. I have offered to answer questions from arbitrators, and I remain open to that, but none have been asked that I can recall. --Abd (talk) 18:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You're somewhat incomprehensible. I'm not claiming you are being sarcastic. What "has been the norm during this case"? My "TLDR" comment was sarcastic and your reasoning from it faulty in assumptions and execution. I don't need to defend the occasional sarcastic comment - why should I? And no, your walls of text are not "the core of the only basis that is reasonable at all for being banned from anything". What is similarly disruptive is your permanent use of veiled, semi-veiled and open innuendo and threats against nearly any editor who has a different opinion from you. May I suggest that you spend part of your energy to reflect on your behaviour towards Crohnie, retract your comments about her, and apologize profusely? Ask some people you trust if bringing her into this can possibly be justified in any way if you cannot see the absurdity of this yourself and don't trust me on this. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Content dispute?

I noticed Stephen Bain wrote Blocking a user you are edit warring with so as to 'win' the content dispute is a large error in judgment. That's true as far as it goes, but it's not clear what specific content dispute you're referring to. Clarification would be helpful to us onlookers. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly my thought. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Good question. --Dirk Beetstra 12:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know which situation he was referring to, but this would apply, for example, to the blocking of an IP during this case that I refer to in my evidence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"Purported"

Can we do away with the word "purported", please? I have occasionally applied topic or page bans where no Arbitration remedy exists, and topic and page bans appear to be accepted by the community when reviewed on the appropriate noticeboard. Most often such bans are applied after discussion, but sometimes topic and page bans are applied first and then brought to the noticeboard. To me, the use of the word "purported" undermines the entire concept of topic and page bans when applied outside of Arbitration remedies, and as long as the community is accepting of these bans, it is not Arbcom's place to undermine them with loaded language. It would be more appropriate to say, "WMC applied a topic ban, which was later affirmed by discussion on the noticeboard" or "WMC placed (or even declared) a topic ban on abd, which was later confirmed" (to distinguish from the case, "Smith applied a topic ban, which was overturned by the community two days later after discussion.")

Admins apply blocks and bans, which may be affirmed or overturned by other admins. Calling the page ban "purported" gives it the stink of illegitimacy, which it does not deserve, especially as it was affirmed by consensus. Thatcher 13:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

While "purported" remains neutral on the legitimacy of the ban, in theory, attributing the ban specifically to WMC, as with "declared a page ban" does adequately express the situation, even more so if it is noted that the validity of his ban was challenged. (And not just by me.) My view is that admins cannot "strictly" ban, i.e, independently set themselves up to block for non-disruptive edits. Thatcher, if you personally banned someone, then blocked them for an edit that was useful or harmless in itself, you acted improperly, in that sense, but the usual case is that the block is for continuation of disruptive behavior, not for harmless edits, and that is proper. So probably most blocks for violation of "administrative bans" are proper. Using the term "ban" for both kinds of bans (administrative warnings and community/ArbComm strict bans) is what causes the confusion over this. It might be better to use "strict warning," such as "I am strictly warning you that I consider your involvement with (topic or page) disruptive, and by continuing to edit in that topic, you are risking a block from me. Please discuss this with me before making any more edits that might violate this warning, I will not warn you again."

Noticeboards don't use deliberative process, they are terrible places to make decisions where there is any controversy. Involved editors pile in, quite effectively, because they already have their minds made up and can quickly comment. Truly neutral editors will see the report and not comment until later, if at all, unless evidence presented is clear (and the first evidence they see is typically presented by the complainant). I'd urge a review, for the present case, of the AN/I report that resulted in a community ban for me, apparently confirming WMC's block. One of the reasons I knew this was headed for ArbComm, and the reason I asked for a rapid close, accepting the ban, was that I knew this would have to be resolved by ArbComm, for most of the editors voting to confirm the ban had already called for me to be banned, previously, with RfC/JzG 3, as shown in my evidence on the "cabal," and that included WMC, so his mind, as well, was already made up and he merely found an opportunity to express it, as did most of the others.

So, sure, even most of the time, an administrative ban may be just what the community, upon even careful deliberation, would confirm, but the exceptions can be doozies. Truly, we won't know if the ban was actually properly confirmed ("consensus of uninvolved editors" is how the policy reads currently) until this case determines a ban or not, and it seems that, at this point, there is not yet any ArbComm consensus for that, there is difference of opinion (from a very small sample). RfC/JzG 3 showed that there can appear to be a clear community consensus (2/3 majority in that case, 25 editors supporting that I be banned, vs. about half that, not) for something that a wider community, which ArbComm represents, would not confirm, and did not confirm, upon examination of evidence and arguments, indeed, the opposite. I've seen problematic "community bans" before, based on biased discussions at AN/I, the "uninvolved editors" requirement is frequently ignored in closes. --Abd (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

We could go with stated Abd was banned or declared Abd to be banned if a simple statement is not good enough. Given that the act of banning comprises solely the statement, I am not clear on why this matters or even of what a "purported" ban would consist. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the ban was subsequently confirmed during discussion, it is simply misleading to say anything implying that the ban's legitimacy was or is in question. --TS 16:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Two different bans. Yes, WMC declared a ban. Yes, a group of editors on AN/I confirmed a ban. However, WMC's ban was a bit confusing. A month. Or not, whatever he felt like in a month, based on his judgment of my entire wiki behavior, in matters that had nothing to do with Cold fusion, the pages covered by the ban. And I already knew, and the record shows, what he thought of that other behavior (his prior opinions, expressed, about my warnings to him about usage of tools-while-involved, when I was completely neutral, and his prior comments supporting that I be banned, in RfC/JzG 3, all of which is in evidence, are the basis for my claim of involvement, not his POV on the article itself, beyond the relatively minor matter of dispute over his edit under protection, which was based on political considerations and his "amusement," I believe he used that word.) (WMC is quite honest in the sense of being frank. If anyone was surprised at his block during this case, they hadn't been paying attention to what he'd been writing. I still couldn't be sure that he would go ahead and block, but he simply went ahead and did what he'd been saying he could do.)

So when the editors piled in at AN/I, and I knew that this was going to have to go to ArbComm anyway, because, from prior experience with the RfC mentioned, I could expect maybe 2:1 for a ban even after neutral editors started showing up. I asked for speedy close for several reasons, and I stated them. One was to obtain a neutral closing admin, who would have the authority to decide on matters like term. Heimstern popped in and said he was granting my request, and declared the ban. He was then asked by Enric Naval, a party to this RfAr, what the term was. I wrote that if the term was one month or less, I would not challenge it, I would be completely content with his decision; if it was more than that, I'd want to talk about it and consider my options.

Heomstern chose one month, and Enric Naval accepted that, as did I, and nobody challenged that at the time. Challenges to this only arose during this case (other than WMC's continued insistence that he remained in charge, and he ignored the closing admin's statement). Two different bans, one a community ban that expired more than a month ago, the other by WMC that he claimed remained in effect, to be personally enforced, and which did not stand, and that was demonstrated during this case. If a strict ban by an administrator is a bad idea, one allowing an editor to be blocked for a non-disruptive edit, a community ban that places a single admin in the position of being an ongoing sole judge of an editor's behavior would be worse. I'd have been at ArbComm absolutely ASAP. But that isn't what happened, and I doubt that a neutral administrator would have so concluded.

There is a third ban, declared by Rlevse, which was, explicitly, only pending resolution of this case, declared after the blocking flap that demonstrated that WMC was inclined to completely disregard recusal policy, no matter how blatant the situation, which I knew already but which was difficult to prove. That ban I likewise accepted as reasonable. So when we talk about "the ban," what ban? Which one? There were three. All were page bans, but with different terms and maintained in different ways. Two were placed by neutral parties: Heimstern and Rlevse. One was placed by an admin with an axe to grind, not about Cold fusion, but about me. I think it's pretty clear. Any questions?

On the other hand, I don't see any disagreement at all about "declared by WMC." Hopefully, the decision will address the issue in detail of what administrators can and cannot do on their own "declaration," aside from emergencies. --Abd (talk) 19:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The most correct move would have been to take myself the ban back to ANI after one month, but since Abd was saying that he would respect the ban and since he said that he wanted to appeal it to Arbcom.... I certainly didn't expect him to declare at mid-case that the ban didn't exist and try to post again at the page.... Had I known how this would end I would have dragged him to ANI for community endorsement of an indef ban on the page (which I suspect that I would have gotten) so that he couldn't wikilawyer his way out of his ban. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:19, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Being taken to AN/I twice by Enric Naval, as would have been the case with the above, and unless a second ban were declared by a "consensus of uninvolved editors" -- which I read as meaning editors who do not already have an axe to grind with an editor to be banned -- the only difference would have been (1) Enric Naval would have been made a party immediately by me, instead of adding himself as he did, and my evidence would have focused on his abundant misbehavior, as it has not, and (2) there would have been an active community ban, during this case, and I would not have made that edit to Talk:Cold fusion. Arbitrators have noted that my continuation of abstinence from editing that page was voluntary, and if it was voluntary, I could change that, and I did, providing notice in a very public place as well as, I think, on my Talk page. That is not "wikilawyering" at all. From the beginning of this mess, back in January, Enric Naval has taken an intransigent position, and he came to the point of edit warring a few days ago on Talk:Cold fusion, basing his repeated reversion of the restoration of my comment that had been removed by WMC, as against other editors, not me, on his claim of a valid ban. There has been no authoritative confirmation of an valid ban standing at that time, and quite a bit of evidence and opinion to the contrary, hence Enric's action during this case would,in fact, be sanctionable, at least by admonishment, and should not be ignored. --Abd (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Further, the claimed right to total exclusion of material from banned editors, even when restored by independent editors, is one of the issues raised in this case. To my knowledge, that right never existed. Editors are allowed to revert content from banned editors, but not to edit war with other editors to keep it out! --Abd (talk) 22:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd is back engaging in wikilawyering, and also making wild and unsupported claims that there was some kind of "piling on." We simply must ensure that this blatant attempt to delegitimize our Misplaced Pages processes is knocked down. --TS 22:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Tony's comment ignores the evidence that was already presented. I'm willing to answer questions from arbitrators should any doubt that "piling on" is a real phenomenon. The evidence is there, but perhaps I didn't explain it well enough or provide enough detail. I've done analyses like this in the past, it's simply a lot of work, but if it is important, I'll do it. I can show it with incidents that don't involve me at all. --Abd (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Suppose I present a petition to my workplace cafeteria demanding that they stop serving meat, and it fails. Later I present a petition demanding that they only buy meat products from a list of approved humane vendors. Should anyone take seriously the claims of "pile-on" or "cabalism" if the same people signed both petitions? Thatcher 22:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It might be selection bias at work. Ideally, you would want to not ask the questions at the same time of day when the same people are in the cafeteria. There is a lot to be learnt from the way people in the real world carry out surveys, or carry out medical studies, in ways designed to avoid bias in the results. Misplaced Pages isn't very good yet at really surveying properly for opinions, or presenting things in such a way as not to skew the results. Carcharoth (talk) 00:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

But RFC participants are not a random sample of Wikipedians and have never pretended to be. Of course the people who self-select to comment on Abd's RFC are likely to self-select to comment on a page ban, and are likely to have the same views. But that's not evidence of a cabal, that's evidence that Abd has annoyed a bunch of people. Abd can't legitimately argue that the page ban is invalid because the people who endorsed it are the same people who commented against him at his RFC. Thatcher 00:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. But it might be an argument to move further up the dispute resolution ladder. If it was exactly the same people, there might be a case for asking that at the next stage, some attempt is made to get uninvolved editors commenting. If someone went to three different venues to raise an objection to an action taken against them, and the same five people turned up at each venue and argued against that editor, is that forum shopping or wiki-hounding? Whenever I look at a discussion, it is the truly outside views, from those not previously involved, that I look to, in addition to the opposing views. There is always a good argument, in my view, for getting fresh views at each stage of a dispute. Rehashing the same arguments between the same people just perpetuates a dispute and often escalates it or makes it personal. Carcharoth (talk) 00:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone, in this case, toted up the names on the ANI thread and the RFC? Are the any noteworthy new voices? Thatcher 00:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

General comment

I expect to be voting on this case by tomorrow. I will be reading the threads on this page and taking the input there into account in casting my votes and posting any alternative proposals. I know that there will be rolling of eyes that I am the one saying this, but comments that are reasonably straightforward and succinct will have the greatest likelihood of influencing me and, perhaps, the other arbitrators. There is also no need to repeat on this page any point that has already been made on the workshop more than eleventeen times. Thanks to all, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Did you mean "eleven"? Mythdon (talk • contribs) 22:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No, eleventeen is an Indeterminate number between "For God's sake shut up already" and "Why did I run for Arbitrator?" Thatcher 22:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

;-) Paul August ☎ 22:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of "eleventeen" before. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 23:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Try Wikitionary: eleventeen. Paul August ☎ 23:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I use Wiktionary a lot. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I never edited the workshop...Thatcher 22:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Eleventeen is bigger than Umpteen or is it the other way around? How about a Finding of Fact on that issue? --Abd (talk) 23:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Desysop

Temp desysopping seems to me to fall into the punative category. If an admin has lost the trust of the community to the point where desysop is required, they shouldn't have the tools returned without a demonstration that the trust of the community is regained. If they haven't lost trust to the point where permanent desysop is required, temp desysop is simply a punishment. Viridae 23:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Good point, though not commenting on William M. Connolley's case. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with Viridae. I've proposed that, when an admin fails to follow recusal policy, ArbComm suspend the status until the admin can satisfy ArbComm that the offense is not likely to continue, presumably by showing, as a minimum, an understanding of the problem such that threat of "punishment" isn't the only reason the admin refrains. Suspension would be a public thing, showing how seriously we take recusal failure, but the "satisfaction" could be, and probably should be, private. It can be difficult, sometimes, for a person to publicly admit an error, but administrators are also extremely valuable resources for the project, and we should provide an open path, relatively easy, to "rehabilitation" without humiliation, that at the same time fully protects the project, and that does not depend on the function of "admonishments" -- which, frankly, don't work if the admonished adminstrator does not understand the basis.

The same principle could apply to any sanction or admonishment or advice. ArbComm gave me advice in RfAr/Abd and JzG. It's entirely possible that I did not understand the advice. I can certainly say that I tried to follow it. Were any steps taken by ArbComm to ensure that the advice was clear and understood? If I started acting in ways that showed a failure to follow the advice, was I warned by anyone connected with the committee? No, but for me to say this is not to complain about the committee, for the committee may not have the resources to do what I'm suggesting; however, becoming aware of the problem might lead to solutions. There has been much moaning on these pages about the uselessness of admonishments, and I'm sympathetic. Telling someone that they did a Bad Thing rarely does much good. Making sure that the message has been effectively communicated and understood, which probably requires personal back-and-forth, is what has the potential for effecting change.

I would be happier with a remedy that "Abd is topic banned from Cold fusion until the Committee is satisfied that he will not repeat offenses there," than "Abd is topic banned for one year." If I can show, and have shown, that I understand and therefore am unlikely to re-offend, to continue the ban even another day is punitive. On the other hand, if I don't understand, one year is not enough and probably will just increase resentment or various negative beliefs about Misplaced Pages, on my part and maybe that of others. ArbComm can delegate the "negotiation" involved, with the delegate bringing back any proposals for changing sanctions. It can be quite efficient. --Abd (talk) 00:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts) In practice, temporary desysops are for cases where it is recognised that an admin has gone too far, and that message needs to be sent to other admins, but the admin has done and does good work, and a full desysop might risk that admin either not asking ArbCom for the bit back later, or running an RFA and failing. A temporarily desysopped admin could run for RFA anyway, but the temporary nature of the desysop argues against that course of action, whereas a fully desysopped admin will often run and fail, or lose interest in the project or in being an admin. Of course, a temporarily desysopped admin who gets into trouble later, will almost certainly be desysopped with prejudice. In a way, temporary desysops (there haven't been that many of them) are more like a final warning for admins. Something in-between an admonishment and a full desysop. I personally appreciate the arguments that it should be all or nothing, but that makes adminship too much of a big deal. It should be easier to remove and restore the admin bit, and temporary desysops are part of that process as far as I'm concerned. Carcharoth (talk) 00:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Not that I am commenting on William M. Connolley's case, but, let me say this. If an administrator does not get the job done, then shouldn't they lose their privilege as one, and be required to show that they've regained community trust? "A full desysop might risk that admin either not asking ArbCom for the bit back later, or running an RFA and failing. " - In case that happens, we'd just have to deal with it, and, if they haven't learned their lesson, actually be happy with it. "I personally appreciate the arguments that it should be all or nothing, but that makes adminship too much of a big deal. " - Adminship is a big deal, but not so big of a deal that it should be restricted to a special set of users like Oversight and Checkuser are. Ryulong was an example of an administrator who tried to clean up the mess, but yet when that mess is cleaned up, he created another mess. If you cant get the job done as an administrator, you should not be an administrator. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mythdon, you shouldn't be commenting on Ryulong. That almost certainly breaches your ArbCom sanctions. Could someone please check that and deal with this, please? Carcharoth (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)