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

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
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Clarification and Amendment requests

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

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Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024


Current requests

Ireland article naming dispute

Initiated by -- Evertype·✆ at 19:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

And this is just a selection of articles and sections about this issue.

Statement by Evertype

This dispute has been a festering boil on the neck of the Misplaced Pages for four years now. A hornet's nest of passive-aggressivity, good faith, bad faith, veiled hatred, not-so-veiled hatred, honest attempts at compromise, wilful stonewalling, filibustering, backing and forthing, to-ing and fro-ing, and endless bickering. The frustration level of everyone involved is high, so high that a number of editors—good editors—have threatened to withdraw from editing these articles, and some have retired already. Over the past few weeks, the word "arbitration" has come up again and again. I have made so bold as to file this request for arbitration. I trust that it is in order.

Status quo:

  • Ireland - an article chiefly about the island and the nation of people who live on it, but to which has accreted much information duplicating material in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland articles. Many but not all editors believe that this name should be preferred for the State.
  • Republic of Ireland - an article about the State which occupies 83% of the island. Republic of Ireland is an official "description" of the State, but the State's name as defined in its Constitution is Ireland. It is certainly the best-known name of the country world-wide. Many but not all editors have consistently opposed the name Republic of Ireland for this article. It appears to me that most of the more vociferous editors who favour the retention of Republic of Ireland for the name of this article reside in Northern Ireland. (That may not be an accurate assessment on my part. In any case this name has been controversial for a long time, with repeated requests to move from that name to other names.)
  • Ireland (disambiguation) - a dab page containing references to (to use the current nomenclature) Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, a number of historical political formations, and the usual other dabs.

A number of proposed re-arrangements have been made. One which was implemented a few days ago (though reversed today) was this:

Attempts at discussion and consensus lead inevitably to a lack of consensus. Whenever consensus rears its head, others come in saying there is no consensus. My own proposal for compromise was based on negotiation strategy: agree to what you can, even if it's not your preference. Compromise!

The above was 497 words; we are asked to write 500. For the love of Ireland, so that we can work to improve the articles instead of arguing about their names, I ask the Arbitration Committee to agree to hear this case and give us a solution. I have listed below a good selection of those who have been on both sides of the debate. Thank you for your consideration.

In response to the statement by SirFozzie'
I do not believe that this is a content issue. It is true that the content of the articles may be affected by the outcome, but it is the fact that the titles of the articles are disputed (and have been for at least four years) that is the problem. Because of that dispute, it is unclear what content should go into which article. Once this issue is settled, the editors will edit accordingly. Asking us to go off and try to agree for another four years is no good for the Misplaced Pages. Some of us have tried very hard to compromise. Little compromise has been on offer from those who oppose us. The Ireland pages get huge numbers of hits each day from people all over the world. The dispute damages the Misplaced Pages. -- Evertype·✆ 22:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by Tariqabjotu
You were second in the list in error. I put the admins before the users, and ordered them alphabetically. But I forgot to order the admins alphabetically. You are now third. -- Evertype·✆ 01:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by JodyB
This isn't a dispute about a misbehaving admin or user. It is community-wide. I named 2 admins and 11 users as "involved"; I could have named a score or more of other involved people. The other forms of dispute resolution cannot, I think apply to this morass. Yes, every attempt has been made to deal with the problems via the task force, and then via Requests to Move. Note please what Waggers says below: just as we had achieved some consensus, a concerted effort to overturn that was made by those who prefer the status quo: mostly by simply gainsaying with unsupported Oppose votes. It seems clear that the community cannot solve this problem on its own. We need clear-headed guidance. I am heartened by the statements of Kirill and Newyorkbrad and FloNight below. That—and nothing else—has given me hope that there could be a resolution to this endless debate. -- Evertype·✆ 12:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the statement by Scolaire
I've just had a user leave a message on my Talk page. He wants to "win" this battle. So do folks on "the other" side, it seems to me. Basically the question is wholly rooted in the ambiguousness of the name Ireland. There are essentially two camps, as far as I can see.
  • A. There are those who want Ireland to be the article about the state; these typically object to Republic of Ireland being the name of the article about the state. Ireland (state) is a way of responding to both of these.
  • B. There are those who want Ireland to be the article about the island and nation; these leads to an "overuse" of Republic of Ireland (Republic of Ireland Act notwithstanding) which is tendentious in that many people object (and are not likely to stop objecting) to this overusage. Ireland (island) is a way of responding to both of these.
  • If the two responses above are given then the next response would be to use Ireland for the disambiguation page. Compare Georgia, Georgia (country) and Georgia (US state) (no analogy is perfect). I cite again the very sensible words of Una Smith: "An ambiguous title such as Ireland should be a disambiguation page, because it is Ireland that will accumulate incoming links needing disambiguation and the task of disambiguating them is made vastly more difficult if Ireland also has "correct" incoming links that refer to one topic by that name." (See this and this.)
Scolaire's remark that opinions are split 50/50 is probably correct, depending on who stacks the deck when. (Heh.) Seriously, however, the reason I have asked for Arbitration is that mediation does not provide an end. The views about what "Ireland" means are irreconcilable and will remain so for people on both sides of the ideological divide. A compromise where Ireland is the disambiguation page which satisfies neither group A nor group B, and which disappoints both equally (with pages re-named and locked?), is to my mind the only way forward. And the only way to get that is to have a decision by Arbitration. (A different result could arise from the Arbitration process. I for my part am prepared to accept whatever the decision and result is. I understand that this is a Request for Arbitration.) -- Evertype·✆ 19:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
In response to the resignation statement by Matt Lewis
This user has resigned from the WIkipedia because of this issue, and with respect to Scolaire, I must say that the loss of this editor is an example of how this dispute damages the Misplaced Pages—that is not something I am dispassionate about. He was an active and astute editor, in fairness, respected by many on both "sides" of this issue. He lives in Britain, not in Ireland. He worked very hard to try to help the community come to consensus, but the recent moves by Tariqabjotu and Deacon_of_Pndapetzim caused him to choose to resign from activity on the Misplaced Pages. See Matt's retirement statement. I contend that the resignation of a talented editor on grounds of this dispute harms the Misplaced Pages—because the loss of a talented editor for these grounds is outrageously insane—and that, again, this particular problem requires Arbitration. -- Evertype·✆ 23:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Snowded

I fully endorse the comments by Evertype. There is no way that any agreement will be reached by the editors involved. Old disputes within Ireland are being fought out on these pages, often after they have been resolved in real life. Several of the editors involved are under editing restrictions on other articles connected with Ireland. If this is not subject to some objective arbitration then it will keep coming back again, and again and again. --Snowded TALK 21:02, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by SirFozzie

I do not endorse this, while this is somewhat related to one of the key disputes of The Troubles (exactly what the Ireland article should point to, the island, the Republic of Ireland, so on and so forth). There was a Requested Move discussion that is the root of this. You notice that there is no diffs of user conduct in the request for Arbitration, only a demand that ArbCom provide an answer to what the Ireland article should point to. I would recommend that instead of yet again fighting over these issues in Arbitration and attempting to bring it here to win a content dispute by brute (ArbCom) force, that they go back and not come back until they get it right. SirFozzie (talk) 21:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental statement

I see that Rockpocket has posted several diffs of user conduct by various folks that had the effect of inflaming discussion and making finding consensus much more difficult. I would support a limited case, aimed at (and only at) looking at the examples of user conduct that break Misplaced Pages policies, and then see what the people can do when the worst actors are removed. SirFozzie (talk) 22:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Waggers

Firstly, an apology in advance - I have just become a father again and so am somewhat busy off-wiki, so I apologise if my responses are slow and for my lack of knowledge of events over the last few days of this ongoing mess. Evertype's summary is a fair and balanced one and I join Snowded in fully endorsing it. I feel I should add a few words about the task force and my own involvement in this sorry tale.

I've been aware, but not involved in, this ongoing situation for quite some time. When User:Matt Lewis set up a task force for interested editors to discuss the usage of the term "Ireland", both within article texts and of course in article titles, I saw this as a very positive step - a central point of discussion, where previously it had taken place on a variety of pages across several namespaces, and a blank sheet of paper with which to start. I had no preferences regarding the article names, but simply decided to keep an eye on procedings - partly out of interest and partly as an admin duty.

The post by User:Ddstretch was one that made perfect sense, as it basically called all editors to follow existing guidelines unless there was a really good reason to ignore all rules. Although much discussion took place after his post, no such reason was forthcoming. The task force then conducted a series of polls, with the outcome in each case reaching broad agreement with DDstretch's original proposal - that Ireland should be a disambiguation page. This broad agreement encompassed editors who had previously and consistently been on oppoisite sides of arguments around the infamous Troubles case, the British Isles naming dispute, etc., so this was enormously encouraging - especially since the initiation of the task force, and notification of these latest discussions and polls, had been clearly signalled on the relevant article talk pages.

I then initiated polls on the article talk pages themselves, to rubber-stamp the agreement that had been accomplished. What happened next is there for all to see - I am utterly baffled that editors who proclaim to feel so strongly about these issues failed to get involved in the task force discussions and to shape the debate until the very last hurdle - the amount of time and effort their behaviour has wasted is immense, and there's still no apparent reason why WP:D should not be implemented in this case other than shear weight of votes (we're a meritocracy not a democracy so that's not a reason as far as I'm concerned). I therefore commend Evertype for making this request as this issue really does need a once-and-for-all ruling that's made to stick and puts and end to the enormous quantities of wasted effort that could be put to better use, and only a body like ArbCom have the authority to do that. waggers (talk) 21:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jza84

I too, like Snowded, endorse the the comments by Evertype. We need a solution, or rather a formal decision, on how to take this forwards. My findings are:

  1. The endless debate about titles and names is damaging Misplaced Pages, by way of fostering ill feeling between users and stifling progress with article-content.
  2. A decision on this may need to come from the very top, or as near as possible, as it needs to be binding, respected and sustained for combatting the long-term problems I've pointed out in point number 1.
  3. Again, it's imperative that a formal decision be binding this time round. Regardless of personal, cultural perspective, the debates need to be closed, so we can get on improving Misplaced Pages. The decision should not be challenged unless something major changes the dynamics of the debate.

I'm not listed as in involved party, but I have dipped my toes in Irish/British geography issues from time-to-time. Again, my main concern is that the debates need to be closed for the good of Misplaced Pages now. We need a strong, tough decision to be made and respected. --Jza84 |  Talk  21:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tariqabjotu

I don't know why I'm named as an "involved" party, especially as number two, just below the person who opened this request, and just above everyone else, who is rightfully named in alphabetical order. I closed a move request. Half of the people -- not unexpectedly -- didn't like that. After barraging my page with comments, they went to ANI and eventually got the move reversed. Okay... I'm not complaining. I have no problem with getting a move overturned that other uninvolved (let me repeat, uninvolved) people generally think was wrong. I believe the current result is more precarious than the one I (unsuccessfully) implemented, but I am not bothered at all by the reversal. So... 'involved' is not appropriate here at all; I have no opinion on the positions in this debate. -- tariqabjotu 22:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Mooretwin

Personally, I think the Task Force is the place to resolve this. I think that compromise is possible and that compromise involves any change in the name of the Republic of Ireland article being accompanied by an agreed policy that recognises that Republic of Ireland is a perfectly legitimate and sensible term to use in the text of the many articles where there is a risk of ambiguity. Regarding the Ireland article, I agree with Deacon of Pndapetzim that Ireland should be treated like Korea, China, etc., since the primary meaning of Ireland is for the island and historical social/political entity and not the current state which occupies only part of Ireland. I've no objection to radical changes to the text of that article.

As for whether arbitration will help, I simply don't know. If editors are willing to make what I think is the obvious compromise noted above, there should be no need. Mooretwin (talk) 23:27, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by peripherally involved Rockpocket

I don't think ArbCom can, or should, decide which article resides at which title. I do think ArbCom could, perhaps, put some enforceable remedies in place to assist those willing to discuss, negotiate and compromise in good faith, and deter those ideologues, banned editors and agitators who see this as another battleground in the ongoing British/Irish Troubles.

  • Like with the events leading to the Troubles ArbCom, the specific problems are a deeply ingrained lack of good faith, an alarming propensity for exchanges to dissolve into insults and incivility, and an underlying politicization of almost all content discussion, which regularly bubbles upwards and over.
  • Like with the events leading to the Troubles ArbCom, there is almost no allowable neutral ground. The few admins that attempt to assist are almost immediately tarred as pro- or anti- British/Irish, and then feathered with accusations of "being involved."
  • Like with the events leading to the Troubles ArbCom, there is a slight underlying smell of socks, which leads to an atmosphere of suspicion (particularly around IPs, which may or may not be merited).

I therefore urge ArbCom to consider hearing this with a view towards issuing a remedy, like the one resulting from the Troubles ArbCom, than will help foster an environment where this can be resolved by good faith editors. Rockpocket 01:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to offer a further statement in response to a few Arbs declining, having noted there has been no behavioural problems offered for their consideration. I am loathe to focus on any particular individual, but here a few representative examples of how discussions tend to dissolve into nasty disputes. The point is not to criticize the individuals, per se, since there are plenty more examples from others. I simply point out those that I have recently noticed. The goal is to paint a general picture, and justify why some sort of help is needed to curb the lack of good faith, politicizing, the sockpuppeteering (and the resultant culture of deep suspicion), the incivility and personal attacks. All of which are getting in the way of resolving this content issue:

Statement by HighKing

Evertype sums up well but I'd like to add that a lot of the confusion and controversy also stems from the fact that the term "Republic of Ireland" is the legal and proper term for the state of Ireland within the UK. But only within the UK - it is British law. Everywhere else on the planet uses the correct name - Ireland. Plus all the major institutions from EU, NATO, World Bank, Olympic Committee, etc, uses the correct name - Ireland. Mooretwins comments above are flat wrong - this is not the "English Misplaced Pages", it is the "English-language Misplaced Pages". This Arbcom case is very necessary. Notwithstanding Rockpocket's comments above, it's also a fact that many admins are involved and are not neutral. The reversals in particular have been performed by an involved admin editor, Deacon of Pndapetzim who opposed changes in the past. Arbcom must take this case, and settle this issue once and for all. Over 4 years of edit warring - every other route has been tried. I do not recommend a ruling like "The Troubles" since this dispute mainly centres around creating a binding resolution on terminology, not POV or content factuality. --HighKing (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental statement
Not sure how these things work, hopefully I can add a comment? I see some editors looking to revert to what they call "status quo" and RM requests. I note the use of the term "status quo". It's important that Arbs reading this should be aware that the "status quo" has not got a consensus, and that's the reason we're here in the first place. There are a number of tactics that the "status quo" brigade use to ensure that no suggested change will take place. What is very clear is that there is a consensus to change, but no way to enact a change, therefore the controverisal "status quo" remains... --HighKing (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Srnec

Can't we just limit how quickly a new move request may be filed after a previous one was closed, then allow the issue of naming to be revisited as often as some parties like through the normal route (WP:RM)? Discussion about a move that requires the moving of other pages should be centralised at the appropriate article (Talk:Ireland in this case). Starting from the status quo ante recently reinstated by Deacon, we can allow a move request—one move request—to be filed any time now, but impose a limit on how much time must elapse before the issue can be revisited once the latest request has been closed. I think it is perfectly appropriate that the issue be constantly revisited, semper reformanda. It just needs to be allowed to lie fallow for a time, and discussion must be centralised at Talk:Ireland whenever that article is implicated in the move request. This solution is purely procedural. A minimum wait time between moves would only have to be chosen: 3, 6, 12 months, or more. Srnec (talk) 03:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Eluchil404

I'm honestly not sure what ArbCom is being asked to arbutrate here. The the article naming scheme here is contentious is not in doubt but not concrete issues of edit-warring or incivility have been cited. Even if an Arb backed "final decision process" was started, I don't see how it could be truly final given the constant turnover of editors who will naturally wonder why whichever scheme we pick deviates from what they consider natural and correct, and the simple fact that consensus can change. ArbCom and the community simple lack the power the bind future communities from making different decisions, though they can counsel against it for reasons of stability. I urge rejection on the gorunds that no usefull remedies can be adopted. If there were a content or naming dispute court of last resort this could be sent there but ArbCom is not the place for it. Eluchil404 (talk) 03:29, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Narson

I'm not mentioned as a party here but have been involved in the past loosely and over the past few days. I do think an arbcom looking at the issues, and not at the editors, would be an excellent thing. Though I am not sure if that is within the remit of ArbCom, to focus just on the content/issues at hand. I was hoping a fresh RM could just be run rather than this going but people do seem to be at what you might call 'fever pitch' and this is a better option than letting people go crazy and get themselves blocked. Certainly the idea of a limit as to the time between move requests on these pages would be appreciaed, just to stop it flipping back and forth or in the constant grind it is in now. --Narson ~ Talk • 10:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ddstretch

I became unwillingly involved in this via other disputes dealt with previously by Arbcom—in particular, the use of "British Isles" disputes. This dispute was drawn to my attention, and, reading it, I appreciated why many administrators had not opted to be involved. However, I considered it useful to try to suggest relying solely on a particular strict interpretation of wikipedia's policies about disambiguation to resolve the matter as a compromise, as this would allow editors to avoid the unhelpful nature of the exchanges when accusations about motives, political agenda, and so on, tended to, or completely swamped the discussion. Waggers then took my "Statement and (semi-)formal proposal by DDstretch" found here and made an initial formal proposal.

I have kept out of much of the discussion except (as far as I recall) to counter erroneous interpretations of solutions that have been previously adopted on wikipedia and faulty assumptions about wikilinking following the disambiguation solution I suggested.

My view is that any closure of the various polls was bound to be controversial, because the drama accompanying many entrenched positions seems to have become the major driving factor behind the matter, leaving the core wikipedia principles rather in the background (this is despite people calling upon them to justify one or other of their preferred solutions). I have stayed out of the discussions about the validity or otherwise of the page moves and their reversal, as the accusations of bias and being involved I thought might follow would only tend to further inflame this desperately poor situation. I agree with previous comments that any administrator who gets involved and who has not already been accused, quickly becomes seen as biased, partial, pursuing their own agenda (even when that agenda is said to be "hidden" and not known even by that administrator). In fact, the whole area is mired in behaviour that runs counter to WP:NPA in spirit if not in fact. The disruption brought about by this dispute cannot easily be contained, and it infects or potentially will infect other areas.

Some involvement by a greater authority here is urgently needed I suggest, if only to de-personalize the attacks that seem to be directed at anyone who tries to suggest resolutions of any kind. Arbcom may think the job is very difficult, perhaps even too difficult, and individual members may be loathe to agree to get involved, but I suggest that part of their job on Arbcom is to take on difficult disputes, such as this, and that trying to provide a more senior context of authority within which new approaches, or old approaches with more authority, can be explored would seem to be exactly what the bulk of wikpedia editors would expect them to be doing.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental Statement
I would just like to add an endorsement of Rockpocket's additional notice concerning examples of the style of interchanges: the examples are just a sample, and I was contemplating doing something similar. I still could—different examples would be able to be used if I did.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Djegan

I do not support the belief that an arbcom is neccessary.

The issue is controversial, but repeated polls have not resulted in a change and there is little an arbcom can accomplish apart from yet more forum shopping.

This is a content issue and therefore outside the limits of arbcom. Djegan (talk) 11:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by JodyB

I ask the arbitrators to note that there has been no dispute resolution apart from the talk page. The involvement of editors outside the current troubled group should be attempted first before Arbcom becomes involved. There is no reason to leap-frog the well established principle of attempting dispute resolution fully before coming here. JodyB talk 11:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Stifle

I would hope that the ArbCom accepts this case; if nothing else, there may have been improper use of admin rights (protection and moving protected pages). Stifle (talk) 11:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I endorse the view that admin tools may have been misused. --Una Smith (talk) 16:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I endorse this view also. --HighKing (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Kosebamse

Another classic example of User:Moreschi/The Plague. Seeing that conflicts of this type have afflicted Misplaced Pages since its inception, it might be time to reconsider policies. Misplaced Pages:Don't even think about getting passionate over nationalist topics or you'll get blocked without further discussion, perhaps? Kosebamse (talk) 15:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I endorse this proposal. Srnec (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Una Smith

At heart this is a content dispute but as often happens tangential issues of user conduct have emerged. I think no one is served by commingling these issues with the content dispute, and I have no interest in the user conduct issues, so I will speak only to the content dispute. I have a longstanding interest in disambiguation pages. I was asked by Matt Lewis to comment on the current requested move of Ireland and other pages. The history there is messy, to say the least. I am dismayed by the extent to which this content dispute spills over into Misplaced Pages article infrastructure. An example is the contentious (and unnecessary) use of a map on Ireland (disambiguation). The heart of the content dispute seems to be whether the political entity known as both Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can occupy the Misplaced Pages article title Ireland, or whether that article title should be occupied by the island known as Ireland, or by a disambiguation page. I think this dispute has gone on so long in part because it has been cast in terms of win/lose, rather than resolution, with "consensus" being defined as majority rule or a ruling by a higher power. I think it is a mistake to handle this content dispute via arbitration rather than mediation. --Una Smith (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by PalestineRemembered

Dear ArbCom - please treat this in a regular fashion as a conduct issue. Find some way to score and rank and test editors on their fitness to contribute to and take this decision themselves. Make sure that the yard-sticks used concern scholarship more than civility (which is too often a cover for gaming). Think product more than process and thereby lay the ground for better articles everywhere. A solution along these lines will save you hours of ongoing and escalating aggravation at other ethnic-based topic disputes. PR 17:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Scolaire

I favour treating this as a user conduct issue—not one requiring severe sanctions but perhaps deciding fitness-to-contribute per SirFozzie, Rockpocket and PalestineRemembered. For a start, I very much regret the language in which this this request is couched. A request for arbitration should begin with a dispassionate statement of the case. "This dispute has been a festering boil on the neck of the Misplaced Pages..." hardly qualifies! The requester is one of a very small number of editors who have progressively turned up the temperature over the last few months, depite him saying to me only a few days ago, "In the Real World there isn't so much discussion about these issues.". If there is not much discussion in the RW, what was the need for the battle royal of recent weeks, and the constant assertion that Misplaced Pages is at "breaking point" or a "supercooled liquid situation"? As far as the name issue itself is concerned, my views are set out in detail here (note: I am not from Northern Ireland and I am not known as a unionist sympathiser). I have consistently called for all parties to put down their arguments in a logical and unemotional way, and I and others have pointed out that repeated polling of the same thing is not helpful but divisive, yet I and anybody else who disagrees with the requester have been constantly and angrily accused of having nothing to offer, of refusal to compromise, and of filibustering. I don't personally believe that any party has behaved badly, but the inflaming of passions caused by this culture of crisis is disruptive, and may need to be dealt with as a conduct issue. Scolaire (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Supplemental statement

Any suggestion that this is primarily an "ethnic" issue is well wide of the mark. The lobby for change is an unlikely coalition of "British POV", "Irish POV" and "Misplaced Pages policy POV" who want the same change but for radically different reasons; likewise the supporters of the status quo include an equal mix of "British", "Irish" and "NI unionist" POV who believe the current names are the best and most unambiguous. A tally of any of the RMs of the last few months (which incidentally all ended about 50:50) will show this to be so. Scolaire (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. MickMacNee (talk) 19:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by involved user:angusmclellan

I have included myself as a party to the case. Pace Daniel, I do not see any link between this matter and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine#Mentorship, but if I'm wrong just let me know and I'll happily resign.

The closer indicated here that he was unwilling to remedy himself the very large number of broken links his moves had created. "You can't be asking me to fix the thousands of links ...". But I was. And anyone closing a CfD or IfD or AfD would be expected to tidy the links up, either on their own or by getting a bot to do it. Pointing all of the tens of thousands of links from a top-500-viewed page to a disambiguation page is a mistake. Mistakes happen. Refusing to do anything when told what's wrong and how to fix it is something else.

The arbitration committee doesn't do content disputes. An poorly executed move for which there was no consensus save one of the proposals of a self-appointed committee is not egregious, and neither is reversing it, so there's no admin conduct to consider either. RfC? Mediation? No sign of those. And what Flo's diffs show I have no idea. Rockpocket's are, on the whole, much more interesting. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement from uninvolved David Gerard

This swung by wikien-l before it came here. It looked to a lot of people there somewhat closer to an ethnic POV-pushing issue, rather than a plain content issue per se. For what that's worth. The person who brought it to foundation-l and then came to wikien-l for (quite civil and flame-free, I must note) discussion considers that ethnic POV-pushing is going on in this case. Beyond that, the basic advice was "think of the readers, not the involved editors" for the content issue, and he claimed that that ideal wasn't happening for whatever reason - David Gerard (talk) 16:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Hemlock Martinis

I urge the arbitrators not to reject this as a content issue. While the underlying issue is one of content, the main issue here is the manner by which the content was changed. I'm hesitant to call this an ethnic POV-pushing case, but I do feel the manner in which the articles were renamed was counter to the wiki process by isolating it from a general discussion area and into an insular forum in which a hivemind became apparent. I concur with Jza84's statement in that country names are essential to the stability of the encyclopedia since changing them can have widespread ramifications for the community and the encyclopedia. As such, it should be done carefully, with much forethought and plenty of public discourse and preparation. Not doing so disrupts the encyclopedia. ArbCom needs to approach it from that angle, and disassociate itself from the content issues themselves. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 18:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Plea by User:DrKiernan

I would plea with Bainer and Forrester, or the new arbitrators, to accept this case. I almost brought one here myself. The constant rehashing of the same old arguments, and the constant re-nominations for page moves, is disruptive, or at least, a wasteful time-sink that will achieve nothing. There is no hope at all that this dispute can be resolved by the normal methods of discussing page names.

Though there are concerns about the way the last set of moves were performed (by a rough count I count 50% more opposes than supports at the discussions on the article talk pages and yet the pages were still moved), I would recommend a ruling from ArbCom along the following lines:

  1. No actions during the Ireland-related moves debates will be considered infractions of policy or bad behaviour.
  2. Discussion of page moves of Ireland-related articles is banned for a period of three months/six months/one year* (not longer than one year, certainly).
  3. Decision to be implemented by blanking of any discussion of Ireland-related page moves by any editor/administrator/uninvolved administrator*.

(*delete as appropriate)

User:Domer48

I would have to agree with most of the editors above in the hope that arbitrators accept this case. I will add my rational later today, thanks --Domer48'fenian' 10:49, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Procedural inquiry

Of the 12 currently active arbitrators, there are 4 left to yet give an opinion as to whether to accept this case, which currently stands at 4/2/2/0, with 8 days left to run before a decision, on the 10th.

Of the 4 arbitrators yet to give an opinion, 3 are standing down in the current election, 2 of which are not standing for re-election, and the third is looking unlikely to retain his seat. New arbitrators are to be announced on the 16th.

By my maths, unless FT2 becomes active, or existing opinions are reversed, there is already no chance of an acceptance. Can it therefore not be put on hold to await the opinions of the incoming arbitrators?

Comment by requester If this is the case, than I would like to formally request that this Request be extended to await the opinions of the incoming arbitrators. This would, I believe, extend the request time-out to 26 December 2009. -- Evertype·✆ 13:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Although obligate recused due to commenting on the renaming proposal, I think I can comment on the procedure and number calculations. The procedure last year was that outgoing arbitrators retain full powers and functions until 31 December, and then remain active on any ongoing case accepted before then; so the three arbitrators who are standing down are just as active as those whose terms are continuing. I would urge that the case is retained here to allow more arbitrators to give a view on whether to accept or reject. Sam Blacketer (talk) 15:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I can imagine that an arbitrator wishing to stand down in December might just not want to get involved in this one. So perhaps it would be better for this to be taken up by the incoming group. Something nice to cut their teeth on. :-) -- Evertype·✆ 16:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Sam Blacketer's request to leave up the request on the page for now. It is also possible that arbitrators will change their mind after reading more comments from the Community or other arbs. Also, sometimes ongoing events over take the situation. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/2/2/0)

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Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
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Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024


Request for clarification : user:Peter Damian II

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

I've also notified out of courtesy; FT2, Jimbo Wales and David Gerard


Statement by Joopercoopers

Peter Damian was given a limited unblock by Thatcher in the last 24hrs on the conditions:

  1. He may edit within his own user space.
  2. He may edit WP:RFAR and any associated pages (including arbitrators' talk pages, if appropriate) for the specific and limited purpose of appealing his ban and requesting an unconditional (or less conditional) unblock.
  3. He may contribute to and offer comments on FT2's discussion of "the situation" (Damian's edits to the Arbcom 2007 election, subsequent block, oversight, etc) at whatever page FT2 designates.
  4. He may not edit other pages without permission of Arbcom.
  5. Any harassment or wikihounding of FT2 shall be grounds for reimposition of the indefinite ban.
  6. Any admin may re-impose Jimbo's block for violation of these conditions.
  7. These conditions will remain in force until vacated by Arbcom.

He has since been blocked for attempting to improve the encyclopedia in mainspace. To my knowledge Peter's mainspace contributions weren't fundamentally at issue and he is widely regarded as a good content contributor. Have we only invited him back to participate in drama and/or dispute resolution, or whilst he's here should we allow him to contribute? I respectfully ask the committee to allow him to edit mainspace. Thanks --Joopercoopers (talk) 21:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by William M. Connolley

He has since been blocked for attempting to improve the encyclopedia in mainspace. - wrong: and it would be nice if you could show more respect for Tznkai. More accurately, he has since been blocked for violating condition 4 of the unblock parole. He was fully aware of this condition, and chose to break it, which is hardly a good sign William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


Statement by Thatcher

I believe (I hope) that this matter is already before Arbcom-L.

See my unblock message here for additional background.

Peter Damian created his new account Peter Damian II (talk · contribs) and began editing before he had been notified of a formal unblocking and before his old accounts were unblocked. He was immediately blocked. When I was available to do so, I unblocked his accounts and prepared to write an unblock message contain some minimal conditions. However, after I unblocked the accounts but before I could compose my message, I was contacted by FT2, who strongly objected to the conditions I had proposed and pressed me to either leave Damian blocked until an agreement could be reached (notwithstanding the agreement I thought had already been reached) or to unblock but impose a series of topic restrictions to which I was opposed. If Damian had not jumped the gun, this could probably have been handled by email with merely an additional 24-48 hour delay in the unblocking. However, as Damian had jumped the gun, and as I had been contacted at just the wrong moment, I found myself forced into a corner. I could not leave things as they were, and I could not do what I originally planned to do. Therefore I restricted Damian to his user space and RFAR pending further word from Arbcom.

I note also that FT2 wants to prepare an explanation of all the events surrounding Damian's original blocking, the oversight, Damian's claims against FT2, and so forth. It is his right to do so, and I understand why he still feels aggrieved, but I have advised him to let the matter go, and I advised Damian not to contribute to the discussion, as FT2 seems to get under his skin in a way that other editors and admins don't.

I have never had a problem with Damian's content contributions. FT2 feels that after Damian's first block and reincarnation as "Peter Damian" this spring, that Damian began targeting topics formerly edited by FT2 that Damian had never before shown an interest in. FT2 feels this is a case of Wikihounding. FT2 also believes Damian is taking advice from banned user HeadleyDown (talk · contribs) and acting as his proxy. I understand why FT2 feels he was being targeted by Damian, and I agree there is an appearance of targeting at least in some edits, but Damian is a smart guy and was willing to take responsibility for the edits that were being suggested, so I think the charge of proxying for a banned user is not as clear-cut as FT2 thinks it is. FT2 asked me to restrict Damian from editing a broad list of topics for the reasons of Wikihounding and proxy editing; this is one of the conditions that I objected to.

It was my judgement that Damian should be unblocked with the understanding that he was being given enough rope to hang himself with. Damian has done a number of things since the original block in December 2007 that he needs to not do again in order to regain/retain his editing privileges. Either he understands this and will be able to edit, or he does not, in which case someone will eventually ban him again. I felt I was unable to act on my judgement, so I restricted Damian to his user space and RFAR and punted the matter to Arbcom. Perhaps I simply chickened out. Thatcher 21:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

*sigh* so much wikidramah. I ask the Arbcom to unblock him for the sake of the project so he can edit mainspace, on the condition that he will re-banned ipso facto if he brings up the oversighted edits again. Also, a ban from interacting with TF2 or commenting about him could be appropiate. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • The request for clarification is noted. This situation should be addressed, but I am not certain what is the best procedural vehicle to do so. Please note that I will have very limited online time this weekend (per comment on my talkpage the other day), so no inference should be drawn from any delay in my posting further here. All persons are requested to observe appropriate decorum in connection with this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  • My understanding of the email exchange with Jimbo, Thatcher, and myself, Peter Damian, and FT2 was that we advised that FT2 and Damian needed to avoid each other. If Damian is unblocked it makes much more sense to have him writing articles then debating a year old conflict with FT2. Damian has told us that FT2 comments push his buttons the wrong way so I think that putting them in contact with each other now will scuttle his comeback before it starts. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for clarification: SlimVirgin-Lar

Statement by Thatcher

This is a request to clarify the status of Finding of Fact #5. Proposed finding #5, SlimVirgin's conduct received a final vote tally of 5 in favor, 3 opposed and one abstention. WIth 11 active arbitrators on the case, the abstention reduced the number of active arbitrators on that proposal to 10; however with 10 the required majority is still 6. The finding is recording as having passed 5-3 with one abstention.

This finding has been cited recently against SlimVirgin in another matter. I believe this was an honest mistake or confusion but the finding needs to be vacated or revoted.

Note: This matter was recently posted to Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration but the discussion was sidetracked by ElinorD's objections to the case in general and the subsequent discussion. I respectfully ask that ElinorD and other interested editors to allow this clarification to stay focused on the single issue presented at this time. Thatcher 12:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by AGK

Speaking on something of an official note here (or wearing my Clerk hat, at least).

There has been a clear metric miscalculation on the finding in question. With the thinking being that particular aspect of the SlimVirgin-Lar decision was at no point assented to by the Committee (as per this tally), I have run with Brad's suggestion (below) and deleted the finding from the final decision.

I have engaged in some light publicity of this adjustment — in the vein that notifications of general case closures are made in — at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration. (I am willing to post notifications at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard or at similar pages upon request.)

AGK 21:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • This discrepancy was recently brought to our attention by one of the Clerks, in addition to having been alluded to in the thread cited by Thatcher, and should have been acted on at that time. The finding in question, not having attained the required majority, was not adopted, and should be deleted from the final published decision in RfAr/SlimVirgin-Lar. It should, however, be noted that a primary reason the finding did not pass, as reflected on the proposed decision page was because it was viewed as an unnecessary and cumulative "piling on" or overemphasis on a situation already adequately addressed in the earlier findings, not because it necessarily was factually inaccurate. Therefore, correction of this error does not necessarily undercut the subsequent action premised to some extent upon this finding (although I lack standing to opine with much authority upon the latter question as I did not vote in favor of that action). Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I concur with Newyorkbrad on this. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: Alastair Haines

Alastair Haines arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by John Vandenberg

L'Aquatique has recently blocked Alastair, and while the block is reasonable, it is very awkward that she blocked him, as there is a lot of history between the two.

Here is the chain of events that led to the block:

  • Initial changes which set off the chain of events to the block:
  • Alastair Haines reverts, and posts to the talk page.
  • Ilkali reverts
  • Alastair Haines reverts
  • Abtract reverts
  • Alastair Haines then restores one chunk of the disputed diff.

While this was happening, Alastair did another unrelated revert: this was a revert of this, as demonstrated by diffing from change to revert - there are no changes in the Sikhism section.

Abtract has been reverting Alastair on articles with no other involvement or engagement on the talk page. The evidence submitted by and about Abtract was disregarded in the case remedies.

Update: There was a more clearly pronounced interaction between these two users on Singular they
An anon made a change, which Alastair improved; Abtract removes the entire paragraph ten days later, AH reverts two and half days later, Abtract reverts again with no discussion on the talk page; Alastair waits 7 days as he is supposed to under the editing restrictions, and reverts, Abtract reverts, and after 20 minutes without discussion on the talk AH reverts again and warns Abtract, requesting that he state his reasons for removal. Abtract takes issue with the warning and reverts once more. At this point, Abtract has reverted four times, with "remove unnecessary detail and pov on motives" as the basis, repeated in the edit summary on three of those occasions.
Finally someone else steps in, and reverts. Abtract later tags with "fact", over a period of 40 mins AH provides some good sources on the talk page and asks for other contributors to provide other examples, and two weeks later Abtract removes the uncited passages. Days later AH restored the passages, but has not provided citations yet.
There have been only a few cases of reverts occurring on this article in the ~750 edits that Alastair has been a significant contributor. In each case it looks like the matter was quickly settled.
If this was an isolated incident, it would be fair to assume that Abtract had a sudden and only brief interest in this topic on September 12, since he didnt follow up on the talk about the sources.
Sadly, here is the third article I have found where he has popped in for a visit to an article that AH has contributed to. John Vandenberg 03:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Further update: Manliness shows a similar situation. An IP removes a section from the article, AH restores days later, and then Abtract reverts 10 hours afterwards, again with no prior history on that page.
He also appeared at Galaxy_formation_and_evolution a few days after Alastair and does a intro rewrite, and it was the intro rewrite which sparked an edit war on Gender of God.
John Vandenberg 07:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Ryulong has extended the block due to the way that Alastair was managing his user talk page. Again this is justifiable, as the talk page management was not good. A big edit war there.

I think there are three amendments that would help this case work better:

  1. Blocks should be from uninvolved admins
  2. Ilkali, LisaLiel, Alastair Haines and Abtract should not permitted to revert each others edits, or if that is too strong, they must accompany any revert with justification on the talk page.
  3. Alastair Haines should be given no room to move in the management of talk discussions, as he is his own worst enemy in that regard. This is primarily in regard to his own user talk, but a broader restriction would be preventative of similar problems occurring in other namespaces. He must not remove or later comments left by others, except by way of removing an entire thread after a reasonable period. (i.e. archiving)

@L'Aquatique, the mediation last time did not end well. Those scabs were healing, but now there is blood everywhere again. It is suffice to say that any warning or block by you will not be headed; I wish it was not so, but that is life. You may be right that another admin would have been rejected in the same way; it depends on whether they were guided by the fact that Alastair is a massive content creator, and should be treated respectfully even when he has broken the rules. I am not suggesting that you dont treat him well, but you are not uninvolved, at least from his perspective. I hope people can see past the arbcom situation, and see that his heart is 100% in the right spot.
I'm not disputing that the block was fine, I very quickly saw that, and because Alastair had said on his talk page that he wanted to be left alone, I emailed him privately and told him the block was fine and started brainstorming on how to resolve this. FWIW, he is in full agreement on the first two of my suggestions being helpful - the third will come as a surprise to him, but I hope he sees the intent behind the third is not malicious. John Vandenberg 06:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

@Miguel.mateo, please review the diffs I provided above. Alastair is under editing restrictions that prohibit him from making two reverts on the same page for a week. Take note of the unrelated revert I mention under the bullet points. There can be no doubt that he broke the technicalities of the editing restriction, but the circumstances of the reverts placed Alastair in another situation where he was being overruled by the number of opponents. He needs to learn that he can not go it alone, and that he must take these problems to a noticeboard for admin consideration/intervention. The first block was fine, and escalating blocks will hopefully address this problem. John Vandenberg 08:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist, L'Aquatique is involved due to an attempt to mediate on Gender of God, when it quickly escalated from there to L'Aquatique taking Alastair to arbcom, due to the mediation going wrong in lots of ways, and much of that was beyond the control of the mediation. It was probably heading to arbcom anyway. We can predict that unnecessary drama happens when involved admins continually address the problems arising with a valued user. It looks like a vendetta even when it isnt. It should not be too much to ask that involved admins to take a matter to Arbitration enforcement rather than tackle it themselves. John Vandenberg 08:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

@L'Aquatique, I didnt mean "tackling" in a bad sense ("addressing" would have been a better choice of words), and I think it is fair to call him a good faith contributor. I've revised the sentence; sorry that it came across wrong. John Vandenberg 11:08, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

@Kirill, Alastair has survived two months since the case closed without a block, and the original problem this time was a few reverts, and it was accompanied with discussion on the talk page. And now you see no alternative but to ban him for a statement he made two months ago, two days after the arbitration case closed? Even if he still holds that opinion, and he holds that position beyond the context of the discussion it was framed by, surely you can see room in his comment for a better outcome? John Vandenberg 21:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist irt Abtract: My point is not that Alastair is a saint, nor was I concerned about Abtract as I wasnt aware of the outcomes of the recent case. Wikis are not perfect, and passionate editors often end up in scuffles - Religious topics are a hotbed. I am trying to establish that Abtract was very involved and it was an oversight to exclude him from the remedies of the last case, and it is one that Abtract appears to have taken advantage of.

The interaction after the last case is Singular they, Manliness, Galaxy formation and evolution, Gender of God and Virginity. In all cases Abtract appears after Alastair and without any prior involvement or discussion, except in the case of Gender of God, where the has been no involvement since the RFAR closed.

Based on my analysis, there are not enough pages with interaction to establish that Abtract is wikistalking, and the intro rewrites have been good, however the number of similar pages suggests he is occasionally dipping into AH's contrib list, and removing an entire paragraph without discussion or explanation, as happened on Manliness and Virginity, is a concern.

I would like to see more effective remedies looking forward: a level playing field and an uninvolved referee. I think the amendments I am seeking should help, but would welcome other ones. As the Gender of God page has caused this to flare up two times, it would be reasonable to page ban them all from it, however Alastair has indicated to me that he is happy to move away from that page voluntarily if I jump in and keep an eye on it, so maybe that will be suffice to prevent major drama again on that page.

John Vandenberg 07:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist irt suggested Abtract remedies: I agree with "must not revert AH"; that will help, but to be effective, they all must not revert each other. They are all good faith editors with various issues when working together - there should be no reason that they need to revert each other, as it will always end badly.

However limiting the Abtract 1RR to only "religion" articles misses the point. Alastair is a scholar, and often comes in and helps on a really wide array of articles, especially where linguistics and languages play a part (which is everything except Pokemon?), and Abtract has followed him to pages which are not religious in nature. Abtract's stated opinion of AH during the last case, and even here again, is that he feels that this constant monitoring of AH is his duty, from which we can deduce he will continue to follow AH to the ends of the wiki. As this is the second instance that he has pushed buttons of another editor, 1RR should be enforced across the wiki to limit the opportunity of this happening to a third editor. John Vandenberg 04:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

@Abtract: you added "" at the top of a section, which is not what that the {{fact}} template is for. Richard Arthur Norton restored your misuse of the template when he reverted me, and now AH removed only your erroneous use of the template. You have now removed four paragraphs from this article that were missing inline citations, which of course has spurred us into action to find appropriate sources, etc. This poking is annoying, especially considering you are doing the removals without disputing the accuracy of the text in question. We are very willing to discuss and critise these paragraphs; AH has already critically assessed parts of the text that you removed, as have I, and sources are appearing on the talk. You could have obtained the same result by asking nicely. John Vandenberg 01:39, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yet another update, Abtract has now removed an interesting and sourced paragraph that was added to Virginity a few hours ago by a user with four contribs since April 2007: T dawwg (talk · contribs). Alastair and I welcomed the user, and then Abtract reverts their addition with an edit summary of "rv v". Please do something about the motions that were proposed or I will need to ask administrators to start helping instead. John Vandenberg 08:46, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by L'Aquatique

I agree with many of John's points- I particularly like the idea of not allowing the major parties to revert each other although in practice that may be difficult to regulate. In addition, although it is somewhat unorthodox, we must put some method in place to prevent Alastair from entirely having his way with his userpage: during this dispute he erased many of my statements and then selectively quoted sections out of context in a method that, frankly, stretched my AGFifier. If for no reason other than transparency's sake, he should not be allowed to do that. Removing comments is one thing, removing them but replying to them makes it incredibly difficult for someone uninvolved to understand what is happening in a neutral way.
I do not agree with the statement that "uninvolved admins" should not be allowed to place blocks. For one thing, who decides who is involved or not? I've had no contact with Alastair since the end of the arbcom case, I forgot to remove Gender of God from my watchlist and I happen to notice a revert on it- not by Alastair but by Ilkali. I looked into it, noticed that there was an edit war, gave both parties the same warning. Ilkali apparently listened to me, Alastair did not. His claim that I have it out for him is patently, and obviously false and I expect anyone looking at this situation to realize that I'm being honest here: I don't give a damn what he does, as long as it's within policy. Thems the rules of the game.
It's easy to say that an "involved admin" shouldn't have made the call, but is anyone here actually disputing that it was the right call to make? From his comments and reactions to other admins that have dropped by it's clear he would have reacted this way to any admin who blocked him. Since it was the right call, it doesn't feel relevant to me who made it. L'Aquatique 04:55, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to NewYorkBrad: I do believe it was done in a way intended to mislead. If you get a chance, you should take a look at the history of his talk page, it's pretty much spelled out there. L'Aquatique 05:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Response to John Vandenberg: obviously, I disagree. This user may contribute a lot of content but that does not, as he seems to think- put him above the rules. This is not a newbie who does understand our social mores, this is an experienced editor who has been here long enough to know better- he's been the subject of an arbcom case and is on civility parole, for goodness sakes! There is no reason why we should be accomodating him. L'Aquatique 07:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Response to JV's response to Ncmvocalist: I'm tackling a good faith user? Don't you think that's a bit of a stretch...? L'Aquatique 10:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Kirill: while I do believe that his behavior has been inappropriate and his conduct towards me obnoxious- I don't know that we're to the point of a yearlong ban yet. If we had newer evidence of his intention to wholly disregard his arbcom sanctions, I would feel more comfortable about it. Just as we don't block vandals at AIV who haven't edited recently, we shouldn't ban someone based on three month old diffs. He should be coming back from his block what, tomorrow? Let's see what his response to all this madness is. L'Aquatique 05:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I also just want to point out the thread on this page's talk. It's really quite telling. Ryūlóng and Haines. L'Aquatique 00:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Response to Abtract's most recent post: that's not the same edit- the material is completely different. I don't think that qualifies as violating his arbcom restrictions- clarification from an arb might be helpful here. L'Aquatique 12:42, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Note by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

  • I made a note re: the inappropriate removal of L'Aquatique's comments at Alastair Haines talk page prior to the block extension.
  • I'm not too fond of the idea of changing the existing restrictions to reduce the number of administrators who may enforce them in this particular case.
  • Will look into Abtract's conduct with one of the involved admins - I don't think the majority are aware of this so will notify them too.

Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Newyorkbrad

Both myself and LessHeard vanU looked through this and per User_talk:LessHeard_vanU#Abtract, we couldn't find similar issues between Abtract's conduct here and that found in the Abtract-Collectonian case. Rather, it seems a case of reverting with minimal communication. Cheers, Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

After further review and discussion with a couple of others, I've struck my above post (and apologies for the delay). This has taken a lot of time already, and I note the further edits that were made since my last comment below - John Vandenberg has presented enough to demonstrate cause for concern. I also support the second proposal, and prefer it being enacted by ArbCom rather than by the community. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to John Vandenberg on Abtract-Alastair Haines evidence

This is indeed concerning - but it does not help Alastair Haines case in a great way either. A bold edit was made by an anon and improved by AH, and Ab reverted. The next course should've been discuss this edit rather than reverting over the bold edit. The fact that instead of discussing this, AH chose to see his restriction as an inalienable right to revert, is problematic. This is especially given the principle on editorial process, and the finding of him edit-warring, and what the remedy was intended to target. This seems to have occurred before Ab popped up in the third article (which although was later, isn't looking good either). Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

My view
Wikihounding can have a detrimental effect on valued contributors, and I don't think it's wise to set a limit or quantity of pages before contributors are protected from it. This is especially so for editors who've recently had restrictions imposed upon them to prevent wikihounding. That said, I think a similar expectation needs to be imposed on editors who were restricted on reverts.
AH's first editing restriction (that is specified in his remedy) has two requirements - 1/ limit of one revert per page per week, and 2/ discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. AH on more than one occasion has failed to discuss content reversions on the talk page and he needs to ensure he complies with the restriction to the letter. I disagree with Newyorkbbrad's comment below that suggests that there has only been one violation; merely asking another user to open a discussion isn't helpful , nor were the reverts on Gender of God as I noted above, nor was this. The fact that there was a lack of enforcement does not mean that there has been compliance with the restriction and what it was intended to remedy. The lack of enforcement is a problem, which is why I still do not feel comfortable supporting a change to the enforcement of the remedy. There are certainly times where there will be an appearance of a vendetta, but this wasn't a borderline call or a one-off violation.
Therefore, I see a few things that can happen here:
  1. Alastair Haines
    1. is banned per Kirill's motion below. If that fails, then the following:
    2. is indefinitely topic-banned from editing Gender of God;
    3. is topic banned from religion articles for a period of time that is definitely greater than one month;
    4. is banned from removing or refactoring other people's commentary on any page. The only times Alastair Haines may move commentary is when he is archiving his talk page, per Jayvdb above;
    5. is banned from reverting edits made by Abtract. Should he violate any of these bans, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling
  2. Abtract
    1. is banned from reverting edits made by Alastair Haines;
    2. is limited to one revert per page per week (excepting obvious vandalism) on religion articles, and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page. Should he exceed this limit or fail to discuss a content reversion, or violate the ban, he may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling.

My view so far. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Additional comment to John Vandenberg

I can appreciate the point raised and agree; I've therefore struck the on religious articles bit from the remedies I suggest that are imposed on Abtract.

On another note, both yourself and Casliber have requested for some consideration, but before that, both of you may need to assist him so that these concerns are resolved. This is the second time there are a problems, but more troubling than that (which is perhaps the cause of my reluctance), Alastair's statement(s), particularly the one below, seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding or even appreciation of the fact that many users have found problems with his conduct. There's a much greater need to make him understand that he has an obligation to make time: he needs to ensure that any edit he makes are in full compliance with his restrictions. Of course, I expect that he may find it inconvenient to spend time to ensure complicance, but his current editing style is a problem - what is needed is a substantial change so that this will not be a problem in the long-term. Absent of (1) an understanding of what those problems are, and (2) a willingness and ability to deal with them, the change will not happen and this situation is likely to deteriorate; he may find himself preveted from editing, whether voluntarily or non-voluntarily. He'll probably be given rope this time, but it's all in his hands as to how he will use it to his benefit or detriment. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment to Abtract

The statements by Anish and Redtigerxyz have not been helpful due to a failure to look into these incidents carefully enough (or for failing to understand the wider conduct concerns here). Personally, I'm under the impression that this would be resolved if Kirill's motion was enacted (but I'm waiting to see if Jayvdb/Casliber/someone can get through to him).

But that aside, I wasn't impressed by your own revert behaviour (and lack of accompanying discussion) either: - this was despite the revert being disputed for the third time (regardless of how many days apart) . If you made an undertaking to discuss your content reversions more appropriately (in fact, discuss as opposed to revert repeatedly), and confirm that you will strictly stick to it, then the sanction suggestion may be unnecessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment to Anish

I've been discussing this with the person who initiated this request, and I don't think we'd have gotten beyond a greeting if either of us predecided any relevant issue. I hold a wider view; my above comment notes under what circumstances a ban may not be necessary. However, to call a ban unjustified in this case is at a stretch and confirms my doubts regarding your understanding of the issues and concerns here. Rather, what's being considered (or should be the only things left to consider) is the the requests for clemency (which is reasonable), and any relevant factors/evidence. I am aware of the large amount of time and effort others are putting into this to try to get those factors, but it's all in AH's hands now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Miguel.mateo

I do question the first block given to Alistair. Not only the admin who did the block is inappropriate, the block itself is not justified. Please check the evidence given in User_talk:Alastair_Haines#Me_too. Miguel.mateo (talk) 07:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)　

@John: I am not disagreeing with you, but the evidence provided by the admin who blocked Alastair is here: User_talk:Alastair_Haines#Gender_of_God, the second evidence is a revert Alastair did on his own edit. I think the admin in question had definitely quick fingers to act. Then check again to her answers in User_talk:Alastair_Haines#Me_too, she still believes that the second evidence provided is "within policy". Anyway, you have shown extreme professionalism so far in this case, I know it is in good hands. I will leave you guys alone now, I am sure you all need time to analyze. Miguel.mateo (talk) 08:53, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear admins, apologies for interrupting once more, but you can see some evidence of Alastair being attacked blindly (even when he can not defend himself) by one of those people that want nothing but to get him off Misplaced Pages, here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Ry.C5.ABl.C3.B3ng_and_Haines. Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 13:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

@Ilkali: unfortunaly, we are all entitled to give our opinion, and in this case we, "the cheerleaders", are not the only one that felt that it was not handled properly. The fact that you and your buddies are constantly assuming bad faith against Alastair will never fix the issue. Why do you have to think that a random comment from an IP, in this talk page, has to come from Alastair? BTW, I suggest you to read sarcasm. Miguel.mateo (talk) 15:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

@Casliber: Please do me a favour and review again, L'Aquatique blocked Alastair and later she asked another admin to review that block. Look at the evidence she placed in Alastair's talk page: the second Alastair's revert is a revert he did to himself. When I asked why she counted that as a revert, her answer was "that is the policy". I honestly believe that she acted too quickly against Alastair, but that is for you guys to judge. Miguel.mateo (talk) 04:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Abtract

Just to clarify my position. I have edited Gender of God many times over the last year or so - indeed it is there that I had the misfortune to meet Haines for the first time. Naturally, the article is on my watch list; when Haines (or anyone else) makes unhelpful edits, I revert them. I would not support any relaxation of the restrictions on Haines who likes to use his undoubted intellect and knowledge to control the content of article he feels he owns. Nor would I support any restrictions on other editors to allow Haines more freedom to act - he is a bully who needs less, not more, freedom imho. Abtract (talk) 10:31, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Newyorkbrad

My views on Haines are, I hope, well known and well documented: he is a bully of the worst kind - he uses his superior intellect, knowledge and charisma to overwhelm lesser mortals. I first had the misfortune to meet him on Gender of God and then again on Singular they, both articles have been on my watch list for some time. I was highly relieved when he was restricted but frankly not too surprised when he completely rejected the restrictions as being beneath him and certainly not to be considered when he edits. His aggressive stance towards any admin who crosses him is all part of his arogant I-walk-on-water style; be warned this guy will not change his spots unless forced so to do, or you banish him. So far as my actions are concerned I want to be entirely open here: in an unrelated case (with C........n) I was guilty of some petty revenge-seeking minor edits mainly designed to annoy Cn. I admit it, I am human - I felt wronged, I was hurt, I hit back. I have learned my lesson and would draw your attention to this edit (and the two by Cn that preceded it) to demonstrate that I did not take a golden opportunity (handed to me on a plate) to pursue the vendetta any further. My interactions with Haines have been quite different: mainly they have been on articles where we share an interest (I don't edit much nowadays because I have other fish to fry which explains my infrequent visits to certain articles), I may well have edited on a pop-in basis on new article because I do watch Haines' edits occasionally (I stress occasionally), but I only edit, or revert, if I think the edit or rv is fully justified (someone above said my changes to intros were "good", I think I quote correctly). I watch his edits because he is a convicted bully and it is all our duty to stand up to bullies - if I had time I would watch more of his edits. I am guessing that quite a number of the editors, admins on this page also watch his edits (indeed one or two may well watch mine), so be it. I have been at the brunt end of his bullyboy tactics and I know what it is like; protecting others where I can occasionally (but only if I disagree with his edits, be clear) is a worthwhile cause - much better than being bitchy with Cn. My attitude to Haines is what any decent editor would support if they knew all the facts - as you guys surely must. Abtract (talk) 16:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Respose to Ncmvocalist

I am disappointed that you consider it necessary to restrict me (and others) for standing up to a convicted bully. If, each time someone stands up to Haines they are restricted, this simply gives him more freedom when surely he should have less, for the good of wp. If no-one stands up to him, he will just continue on his merry way - is there no system for checking what he is doing? The last thing I want is to be bothered policing Haines but no one else seems to be doing so.

I am also keen to know on what grounds restrictions might be placed on me - I can find nowhere that says that watching edits is wrong, indeed:

Many users track other users edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. Proper use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in requests for comment, mediation, WP:ANI, and arbitration cases. The important component of wiki-hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason. If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.

That seems to support my, meticulously polite, actions in checking that Haines is not continuing his bullyboy ways (a violation of policy if ever I saw one).

Do what you will but I urge you to think very carefully about the message you give to him and other bullies "It's OK, we will protect you by restricting how ordinary editors interact with you so that you can act pretty much as you want". Abtract (talk) 09:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

To anyone who thinks Haines may be reconciled to acting within the restrictions

Please read this diatribe. Abtract (talk) 00:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

And as though to prove the point

this revert of a tag just replaced by Richard Arthur Norton followed less than two days after this one on the same article. He is currently limited to one revert per week per article but, as he keeps on telling us, he has no intention of depriving wp in that way. Abtract (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts about resticting me

I see that a rather draconian restriction on me has been proposed. Even the proposal must give considerable heart to Haines ... were it to be enacted, you will never be able to control him or his cheer-leaders again. Please think carefully about the message this would send him and the freedom it would grant him. I have no particular desire to keep an eye on Haines but, unless someone does, he will continue his bullying rampage and get his way on all articles he chooses to own. Abtract (talk) 07:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I am so saddend by the likelihood that this restriction will be enacted. Do you guys actually read the diffs? On what basis am I "wikihounding" Haines? This simpy beggars belief. I watch his edits, I make changes to articles, if I find them interesting, if I feel they need it and I certainly stand up to his bullying ... where is the harm in that? Where does it say I must not do that? Can anyone point to an edit I have made on a Haines related article that was not a good faith edit? I think not. Think about this very carefully; Haines must be laughing all the way to his "get out of jail" card. Abtract (talk) 22:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ryulong

I don't know if I'm actually an involved "party" in this. I reviewed the reverts Alastair Haines made after L'Aquatique requested someone to review her block of Haines. I looked into the block and made my comment on his talk page, and warned that if he continued to purposefully remove the comments left by L'Aquatique to skew the view of the discussion in his favor, I would prevent him from editing his user talk page. When I returned to Misplaced Pages yesterday, I found that he persisted in his activities and did the same to my message, I decided that the course of action was to (instead of protecting the page) block his account for 48 hours from that point such that the editing of the talk page was disabled. This added 12 hours to his block in total. If others feel it is necessary, I can restore the original block length and keep the user talk page editing disabled.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 11:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ilkali

Problems like this will continue as long as Alastair wilfully and explicitly disregards the sanctions placed on him ("I do not feel in any way party to whatever conclusions may have come to"). L'Aquatique's actions in this case were fair and generous. Alastair's violation of his 1RR was objectively verifiable, leaving no room for bias, and she did not even block him at his first offense; he was given a warning and contemptuously rejected it. The only reason we would restrict L'Aquatique from enforcing Arbcom's rulings is to protect Alastair's pride, which is at best unnecessary pandering and at worst encourages an attitude that has already proven itself disruptive. Ilkali (talk) 13:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Re John Vandenberg's comment: Would you endorse a requirement that Alastair both: 1) accept that he violated his sanctions (thereby warranting a block), and 2) agree not to do so in future? If an editor is allowed to openly ignore the sanctions placed on him with no greater result than an occasional short-term block, then what was the point of those sanctions? Ilkali (talk) 22:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Re Miguel.mateo's comment: I have never called for Alastair to be banned, and on multiple occasions have even argued against it. You, like Buster7, have come into this matter knowing nothing about the circumstances and with the sole interest of defending your friend by demonising everyone you perceive as his enemy. Ilkali (talk) 15:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I continue to insist that the best first step is to talk to Alastair. It is far too early to consider a ban. In my opinion, all of the problems with this editor stem from his pride and inability to view his own actions critically (this is not helped by the presence of cheerleaders like SkyWriter/Teclontz, Buster7 and Miguel.mateo). By far the best approach is to either shake this attitude or persuade him to change his editing pattern so it cannot cause conflicts. Ilkali (talk) 15:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The following was recently added on Alastair's talk page:

"The heat is off ArbCom in my opinion, but that means it comes back on us to be bold in assisting one another in conflicts", "I hate to ask people to waste their time on conflict to help me, but I need friends to do this for me and they are willing. I will aim to assist others in their conflicts, but my own are going to be fought by my friends"

What exactly are you enlisting these people to do, Alastair? Ilkali (talk) 12:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Buster7

The fact that Administrator L'Aquatique is blind to the negative personal involvement and the animosity that she has toward Alastair is most upsetting. She went after him as her very first act as an Administrator. It was almost as tho she had him in her sights from the very beginning. She should be banned should recuse herself from any contact whatsoever having to do with Editor Alastair Haines. Her animus toward him certainly seems irreconcilable. --Buster7 (talk) 14:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by LisaLiel

Everything I had to say about this case was said in the original case. -LisaLiel (talk) 15:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by not-impartial Casliber

I have been too busy to examine the article material in depth, and I am nonpartial as I am a friend of Alastair (so if anyone feels this means this should be disregarded so be it). I note that (a) if I were blocked by an editor I had previously had a confrontation with after (b) two editors I had previously had run ins with turned up to revert changes of mine in a tense situation, I would be pretty enraged. Now whether this is justified or not is another matter, but what I do see here is a heated situation. Many actions are done and later regretted in the heat of the moment, so I would take this into account with respect to events and statements after this point. I appreciate L'Aquatique did ask another admin's view before blocking, which was a wise move and I respect that, but I do think in these cases that even the semblance of a COI can be bad - i.e. another admin should have done the blocking. End result, what am I asking for? A plea for clemency for Alastair, who is a valued contributor and has much to give. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Alastair Haines

So long as ArbCom members appear to endorse unsustainable criticisms of my editing, that amount to personal attacks, there will be problems.

Since my editing is, and always has been impeccable, it is easy for me to overlook any restrictions placed on me. They only ask me to do what I've always done anyway. There is no evidence, anywhere, that suggests I have done otherwise than act in a way that any reasonable member of the community can find consistent with improving and maintaining Misplaced Pages, either in incidents refered to above, associated with the original ArbCom case, or in any other editing at Wiki.

I have absolutely no problem with the restrictions ArbCom proposed, except two—one practical, the other more abstract. Regarding practicality, it is simply unreasonable to keep a diary of all reverts I make, and consult it. I simply work too quickly for that. I revert multiple times and quickly while copy-editing and receive no complaints. Additionally, when people repeatedly vandalise a page, it is impractical to keep a diary of what they did and when. Again, I never receive complaints about this.

That brings us to the abstract issue. L'Aquatique, Ilkali and Abtract are not credible witnesses, all have demonstrated personal animosity and gaming the system. These things are obvious even to casual observers. All make a point of seeking to paint a picture of my editing as though it had been broadly agreed to contain questionable elements. This is simply not the case. No credible witness against my editing has ever been brought forward.

I will not deal with it here, but the ArbCom case bearing my name, and its conclusions, are not credible evidence of anything much, for a range of reasons. This is a serious problem, that I would like to help ArbCom members resolve in another forum. Current handling of the case is creating embarassment for people (namely the arbitrators) that I would like to spare from that. I love volunteer workers, and can imagine few jobs more challenging and uncomfortable than addressing the sorts of disputes that are accepted as ArbCom cases.

However, while a handful of people's untennable misrepresentation of my editing (which are simply personal attacks) remains uncorrected, a fundamental principle of Wiki editorial cameraderie is being blatantly "bucked" in front of the noses of responsible parties. Unsurprisingly, the ir-responsible parties are making, and will continue to make, sport of this oversight. It's only my problem in the sense that I have to experience it, in reality it is the problem of my fellow Wikipedians to protect me from it. Is it easier for it to be endured, or for it to be corrected? I've been enduring, please correct it. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

PS I just remembered, I did make one edit that was not aimed at improving or maintaining Misplaced Pages. My apologies to everyone for my playfulness on that occasion. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

PPS I've just been glancing over this page. ArbCom members have way too much work. I am embarassed that I only notice this now. I think the decision in my case was unhelpful, but with the deepest sincerity, now I don't care. ArbCom members have volunteered to do a task that is almost impossible, as far as I can see. Make whatever decisions seem best to you in the limited time available to you. I am not going to hold you accountable to live up to what are, in my revised opinion, unreasonable expectations in the circumstances. You have made it difficult to support you, but support you I will. I have plenty of resources of wise and good friends at Wiki who can ensure peace and that you are not troubled again. My apologies that you have once more been troubled by this case. Very inconsiderate. Make sure you get enough sleep, stay faithful to real life friends and take breaks when you need them. I doubt you'll be hearing from me again, but I'll be thinking of you. Cheerio. Alastair Haines (talk) 09:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Sam has lead the way for me to say something more helpful. Please feel free to change your vote and ban me instead. Your comment that my opinion regarding the ArbCom case is not a matter of enforcement, strikes me as profoundly Wikipedian. It is extremely easy to respect and strive to co-operate with that kind of thinking. "I am willing to endure your criticism if you are willing to endure mine." That's a realistic, mature and egalitarian view of life isn't it? How it bears on details of the case itself is interesting food for thought. Best regards to all in your deliberations. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:06, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Response: I think it is important that I acknowledge that I've heard Florence' comment. I may well have misread it, but if I've heard correctly, it extends a great generosity—a legitimate opportunity to influence a vote. I may be in error to do so, but in the nicest possible way, I take it personally—as a gift. There are many ways to honour that, and I will pursue as many as I can. Perhaps being more open to influencing votes is something I should think of incorporating into my "style". Everyone else does it! ;) There are complexities, but I think that's all I should say, right here, right now. Alastair Haines (talk) 06:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Accept: I accept the proposed urging of ArbCom to not interact with Abtract, and will cease as of this post. I am heartened that there are no restrictions proposed for him, save in reference to myself. I would protest on his behalf if there were. He has a keen mind and clear expression, I wish him well in his studies ... and at Wiki. Alastair Haines (talk) 10:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Anish Shah

Although, I have never been involved in this dispute nor with the other editors, I have been involved with Alastair many times and hence in the interest of wikipedia, I feel compelled to make a statement. Any proposal to ban Alastair or put any restrictions on his edits, spell a big disaster for Misplaced Pages. Most editors on wikipedia are either mass editors or intellectuals, Alastair is those from a rare breed who is both. His edits have a compelling effect on those editing with him. It raises the quality of edits and discussions on the pages edited by him. I have found him a team player and hence fail to understand why certain editors are after him. I am sure that L'Aquatique is a good wikipedian and a good person to work with, but as stated by John Vandenberg there is no denying the fact that she has a history with Alastair. In such cases even good admins tend to lose objectivity and do get trigger-happy. In real life we do have cases like – Judges recuseing themselves in interested cases or interested directors not voting in board resolutions. So I do support Vandenberg’s view that block should be from uninvolved admins. Secondly, the case of Alastair editing his own talk page is so trivial that I am surprised that it is even discussed. We should not be worried as how a discussion thread is going on a talk page. In most cases I see persons replying to the other talk page rather than in his own page under the question. In such cases no one worries about the “transparency” on the talk pages. Everyone should have the authority to manage his own talk page and remove any edits or warnings that he deems to be defamatory or bogus. --Anish (talk) 06:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I am disappointed with User Kirill and FloNights decision to support the motion to ban Alastair. While they may have some valid reasons, I feel following things need to be considered:

  • Alastairs contributions here . With more than 20,000 edits, they are a veteran’s contribution befitting an administrator. As can be seen he has raised the standard of the articles that he has edited.
  • Is a ban on Alastair justified? Is he a vandal, or incivil, or a spammer or indulging in harassment to anyone? Or a sock puppet? Of course not.
  • The only issue it seems some people are targeting him because he is not confirming to their idea of some behavior. And these are the people with whom he had some history and hence have totally lost objectivity of the issue. These are the only people who are opposing him. As for the revert war or edit war it takes two parties to indulge in it. So Alastair cannot carry the blame single handedly.
  • There is nothing wrong in saying with conviction that ones edits are impeccable. If he were arrogant, Alastair would not have apologized in one case where he playfully made some non-serious edits.
  • Skywriter/Teclontz, Buster7 and Miguel.mateo are not the only so called “cheer leaders” A lot of people have shown support and appreciation for Alastair. If these can be called “Cheer leaders” then his victimization can be called “Witch-hunt”
  • A one year ban is like a life-time ban……I have seen good people leaving wikipedia in such cases. Mostly vandals come back after one year bans.
  • Alastair has not done something wrong…..kirill only worries that he will do something wrong in future..and hence the ban. This is like unjustified pre-emptive strike.

--Anish (talk) 10:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment to Ncmvocalist Its not that I have not understood the issue being discussed here. I am looking at much much wider issue here that is likely to result on account of unjustified ban on Alastair. The question is, are you willing to take a wider view of the issue or have already pre-decided on this issue?--Anish (talk) 10:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Redtigerxyz

I am not directly associated with the case, however I have been involved with Alastair as he is currently copy-editing Vithoba. I am a major contributor to the article and "maintain" it. Alastair has considerable contributions to religion-based articles like FA Anekantavada (Alastair was the FAC nominator) and Vithoba. So i am against the idea of Alastair being "topic banned from (all) religion articles for a period of time that is definitely greater than one month" and "banned from Misplaced Pages for a period of one year". I also support the view that only uninvolved admins should enforce a block. Also, about the removal on his own talk, wiki-policy allows it - Misplaced Pages:Talk_page_guidelines#User_talk_pages. --Redtigerxyz 14:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Leszek Jańczuk

I am not directly associated with the case, but Alastair copy-edited some of my articles (f.e. Codex Coislinianus, Papyrus 110, Uncial 0212), and I can say one: He is very good wiki-editor. Every article copy-edited by Alastair became better. He also created a lot of important articles. He is one of the best editors, we know, and this discussion is not a good idea. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 13:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Awaiting statements. Note that a user's "removing warnings" from a his or her own userpage is generally not blockable (or "block-extendible"), although I can imagine some situations (was this one?) where it would be inappropriate to allow removal of comments in the middle of a thread so as to deliberately make the remainder of the thread grossly misleading. On a different issue, I'd appreciate someone's making sure there are no parallels between Abtract's behavior here and his conduct discussed in the Abtract-Collectonian case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm still reviewing the comments and will vote when I'm done. Hopefully today or tomorrow. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:01, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm not going to change my vote now, but I'll continue to review the comments and evidence presented, and if I see something that gives me confidence that problems will not continue then I'll change my vote. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Motion re Alastair Haines

1) Alastair Haines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from Misplaced Pages for a period of one year.

Support:
  1. Since he rejects the restriction placed on him, and state that he has no intention of abiding by it, I see no alternative here. Kirill 21:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
    FloNight♥♥♥ 21:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC) Strike vote for ban after reviewing the recent comments by Alastair Haines. Fuller comment about this situation, later. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Oppose:
  1. The cited statement of defiance is obviously unhelpful, but it is two months old and I do not see evidence that Alastair Haines has actually violated the restriction except once, so I don't think this is necessary. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
    Well, he's repeated it just above: "... my editing is, and always has been impeccable... the ArbCom case bearing my name, and its conclusions, are not credible evidence of anything much...". A limited restriction is hardly of use if it's both going to be ignored in practice (the lack of previous violations being an accident, in my view, rather than evidence of Alastair actually keeping the restriction in mind) and rejected in principle as an indication of an area which needs improvement. Kirill 13:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. The fact that Alastair Haines has declared his rejection of the restriction is neither here nor there; he is not compelled to like it. What we saw on 22 November was simply a breach of the existing restriction, and I do not think a routine and singular breach of an arbitration remedy is grounds for escalating to a one year ban. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Abstain:

Motion re Abtract

Abtract (talk · contribs) is directed not to interact with, or comment in any way (directly or indirectly) about, Alastair Haines (talk · contribs), on any page in Misplaced Pages, or to harass Alastair Haines such as by editing (including but not limited to reverting on) pages that Alastair Haines has recently edited but Abtract has not previously edited. Should Abtract violate this restriction, he may be blocked for an appropriate period of time, up to one month, by any uninvolved administrator. Alastair Haines is urged to avoid any unnecessary interaction with Abtract.

Support:
  1. Proposed. I am concerned about the interactions described above by John Vandenberg, in light of the prior history of Abtract's harassment of another user as documented in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Abtract-Collectonian. I will add that Abtract's belated admission that he deliberately sought set out to harass and annoy Collectonian and his promise to stop doing that would have been better received if they had been made before this arbitrator had to spend several hours analyzing the evidence and drafting the proposed decision in that case. Despite Alastair Haines' own issues, there is no reason to allow him to be subjected to similar misconduct. Abtract had better drop his pursuit of vendettas against other editors, whatever he thinks of them, right now if he wants to retain his editing privileges. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support. The diffs collected by John Vandenberg are compelling. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support. Will leave Alastair Haines fate as an editor in his own hands instead of having it unduly influenced by Abtract. This is only a stopgap measure to deal with the immediate issue. Additional wikihounding from Abtract will bring more editing restrictions or a ban. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Oppose:
Abstain:

Request to review User:Jack Merridew's ban

Jack Merridew has asked the Arbitration Committee to review and lift his ban. (arbcom clarification, User:Jack Merridew, SSP case, RFCU case, Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive136#Community sanction or ban for Jack Merridew, Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive142#Jack Merridew).

On Oct 24, 2008 Jack Merridew started a dialog with the the Arbitration Committee and some Misplaced Pages English administrators (name of email: thread Mentorship, take 2?) about returning to Misplaced Pages English with editing restrictions and a mentor. During the discussion, Merridew was counseled about the exceptions for his return, in particular the absolute requirement that he will stay completely away from White Cat.
On October 28, 2008, White Cat was notified by email that the Arbitration Committee was reviewing Jack Merridew's ban. Since then, White Cat has given his thoughts about the potential unblock in several talk page threads, (, , and in an IRC chat (In the ArbCom list email thread, White Cat- Jack Merridew (Davenbelle) situation)


Question from Risker

I note Condition #8, in particular "Should Jack Merridew violate the restrictions imposed upon him in this decision, he may be blocked for one year by any uninvolved administrator" (emphasis mine). Am I correct in interpreting that any deviation from the remainder of the editing condition will result in a one-year block? Risker (talk) 02:06, 16 November 2008 (UTC) Note - refers to Condition #8 in Motion #1, as it was initially proposed by FloNight.

Comment for FT2: I note that you have changed the section I quoted above; could you please include that in your comment? Risker (talk) 04:14, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by LessHeard vanU

I am concerned at the timing of the proposed return of Jack Merridew - with whom I have previously had some convivial interactions - given that White Cat is a candidate on the 2008 ArbCom elections. I would seek reassurance that the conditions of the return of Jack Merridew includes a constraint upon him not participating in the aforementioned Election in any capacity; his voting for and advocating for candidates other than White Cat possibly being construed as acting against that party. I would point out that if Jack Merridew were not permitted to regain their editing privileges then they would not be permitted to participate in the election, and that under the circumstances being prevented in doing so while editing under restrictions is not as prohibitive as might at first appear. I regard this as a necessary extension of the restriction that Jack Merridew should not interact with White Cat, as proposed by FloNight. LessHeard vanU (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg

IMO, Jack Merridew has earned a "final" chance. It is not just the work he has done on other projects, but also the manner in which he has communicated with others about his prior behaviour. He has been open and honest, and a hard worker to boot. *fingers crossed*

It should be made clear that this is his final chance, and that he will not be enjoying the benefit of the doubt, so it is on his shoulders to ensure that there is no even the slightest appearance of relapse. It looks like FT2 is going to proposed something along these lines.

In regards to the Arbcom elections, raised by LessHeard vanU above, the discussion about this motion started prior to the elections, and I am pretty sure that it also predates any indication from White Cat that he was going to run. I think it is safe to say there is no possible chance that it was was a motivator in this case. It is a given that Jack Merridew would oppose White Cat if he could, and think it is sufficient "punishment" that he wont be able to that. Limiting him from participating entirely isnt something I would have even thought of, but now that you have raised it, it seems reasonable. It "cant hurt". As you say, if this motion doesnt pass, he wouldnt have been able to participate anyway, so he is no worse off if he is prohibited from participating in this years election. John Vandenberg 03:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by White Cat

I am of course less than thrilled at the thought that Davenbelle (aka Moby Dick aka Diyarbakir aka Jack Merridew) would return editing on this site. This isn't something I have any control on, I know that. I do not have to like it but I think I can live with it. All I want to do is not to deal with any more harassment. If only arbcom can pass measures and enact mechanisms to insure that...

I will however say this. Moreschi is not an uninvolved third party on this matter. I would recommend arbcom to pick a mediator that does not have a past quarrel with me. I'd be extremely uncomfortable in asking Moreschi for help. I really do not want to be put in a situation any more uncomfortable than it already is. PLEASE!

Also in my view Jack Merridew should at least have three different mediators. If one mediator is unavailable (leaves the project, gets ill, gets hit by space debris, does a head-on with a planet and anything else equally unlikely) others would be there. This would also be in the best interest of Jack Merridew too me thinks.

-- Cat 06:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

To Lar,
What do you mean I clashed with "a long list of people"? Please stop treating as if I am the disruptive party. I am sick and tired of facing accusations any time I bring up an issue concerning Davenbelle. Give me a freaking break!
We aren't exactly in a shortage. There are plenty of editors and admins out there who have not alienated themselves from me. Unfortunately Moreschi is not such a person. I do not believe what I am requesting is unreasonable. I am not trying to win a wiki-enemy and I mean no disrespect to Moreschi. I just do not wish to see him in the helm of this very fragile issue.
-- Cat 21:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Also victims do not need "parole officers". And in actual legal systems if the parole officer has a conflict of interest, he or she is of course recused. I'd have thought Moreschi would recuse himself from such a task... -- Cat 21:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To FloNight:
You were having connection problems and seems like I only got a partial post from you. We can discuss this in greater detail if you are online now.
-- Cat 22:57, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To arbcom:
Can the case be called Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jack Merridew? Shorter the better. No real reason for this though.
-- Cat 06:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

I am in favor of this. I have seen this user in action on other wikis and I think he truly is committed to making a successful return here, and truly understands what will be required to do so. Further, as a steward, I've reviewed the unification of accounts other than Jack Merridew (which have all be explicitly directly disclosed to me although they are public record) and if there are any issues (there are some accounts that are in use by other users) I will do my best to assist in resolving them.

Finally, if the ArbCom desires that more than one mentor be appointed I am willing to so serve (this matter has come up in private communication already). However, I have confidence in Moreschi. He and I have already communicated and I have offered him whatever assistance he may choose to ask for that is in my power to give. ++Lar: t/c 07:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

To Pixelface: Wow. I think you might want to refactor your words just a bit. ++Lar: t/c 18:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To Tznkai: I think your analogy is a bit off... neither victims nor perpetrators get a veto over who the parole officers are, and I'm not sure it's a good precedent to establish that anyone (other than ArbCom) gets a veto over who the mentors are. Input? Sure. And ArbCom should weigh that input carefully. But in this particular case, the list of people WhiteCat has clashed with over the years is rather long. Are all of them to be disqualified? Is everyone who Jack Merridew clashed with also to be similarly disqualified? ++Lar: t/c 18:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To Tznkai: (I feel like we're having a dialog, maybe we need to thrash this out somewhere else) First, we are none of us perfect, and that includes both JM and WC. So perhaps it would be generally better if neither party had a veto over who could mentor and who could not. I'm with you in wanting to trust ArbCom to be sanguine about this matter. However, perhaps more than one mentor is a better approach here? I'm starting to really like that way of doing things. As for disenfranchising completely, that does seem a bit punitive to me, doesn't it? Either he's returned or he hasn't. ++Lar: t/c 23:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Question to whoever: Where do things stand? I see the main motion has apparently passed and none of the others are close, correct? Thanks for clarification. ++Lar: t/c 21:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Casliber

I would also be happy to mediate in unbanned. I found Jack Merridew's behaviour infuriating at AfD, and I guess my views are more aligned with White Cat and other inclusionists. However, like some other deletionists, Jack has some very valid points on systemic bias and addressing it, is good with layout and has been contributing constructively on much-needed article content elsewhere. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Pixelface, KWW, White cat, A Nobody - all these editors make valid points, and if the consensus were to remain banned I would not oppose. I am merely pointing out that if Jack Merridew were unbanned, I would be happy to mentor as I have seen some good work. I concede that it is a long period of problematic behaviour, and like a Nobody, found the AfD participation troublesome and unhelpful. I think if White cat feels uncomfortable with Moreschi then a different person needs to be selected. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:27, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Pixelface

Oh dear God no. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Wow. What a horribly bad idea. I can't believe any arbitrator is even considering this. Y'know, why don't you just really shit on White Cat *and* WP:HARASSMENT and make Jack Merridew an arbitrator while you're at it? Jack Merridew would be a great arbitrator — he's obviously good at manipulating you clowns. How can you people be so fucking stupid? Y'know, that may be too salty. Can I get a mentor pretty please? This isn't just about the constant stalking. This isn't just about the constant socking. This isn't just about the constant lying about the socking.

Please, come to your senses and look at this graph, this thread on Jimbo's talk page, this AN thread, this AN thread and also Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2/Workshop (I know it may be the first time for some of you). Search for "Jack Merridew" on the E&C2 workshop page and think about what you'd be doing. Pay special attention to this thread and keep in mind Jack Merridew's later admission of sockpuppetry. After I made a motion to add Jack Merridew as an involved party of E&C2, he responded with insults and by following me to AFDs. This isn't just about harassment of White Cat (although that really should be enough, don't you think?) This isn't just about the constant lying. If you unblock David aka D73733C8-CC80-11D0-B225-00C04FB6C2F5 aka Senang Hati aka Moby Dick aka Diyarbakir aka Davenbelle aka Note to Cool Cat aka Thomas Jerome Newton aka Jack Merridew, you might as well open E&C3 now (and proceed to sit on your thumbs for 3 months). Now let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a woman named Allison Sudradjat, AusAID's Minister Counsellor in Indonesia, who administered aid from Australia to Indonesia, boarded Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 in Jakarta and when it went to land on March 7, 2007 in Yogyakarta Indonesia at Adisucipto International Airport, it overran the end of the runway and crashed and burst into flames and she died, along with 20 other people. Two months after the crash, David (aka D73733C8-CC80-11D0-B225-00C04FB6C2F5 aka Senang Hati aka Moby Dick aka Diyarbakir aka Davenbelle aka Note to Cool Cat aka Thomas Jerome Newton aka Jack Merridew) from Bali (or a kampong near Bali), who started editing October 31 2004, who has in the past repaired the roof on the Senang Hati Foundation, and was perhaps momentarily bored of stalking White Cat at the time, wrote an article about her and it was deleted. In anger, instead of improving the article, he then sought to delete every article related to "pop culture" he could find (although I don't really see how that fits with David's problem with "Jimmy's other pocket"). Congratulations David! Now when anyone wants to learn about D&D, Wikia thanks you for the page views! For his all-around assholery, David received death threats and impersonators. I guess harassment begets harassment.

At one point, after he had gotten his lulz, Jack Merridew admitted to being Davenbelle and he was blocked indefinitely. In March 2008, David asked that the article about Allison Sudradjat be placed in his userspace and David finally decided to improve it. Casliber placed it in the mainspace and Pegasus deleted it under G5. Casliber took it to DRV in April 2008 and the article was re-created. Am I warm so far David? Or are you full under a bridge somewhere? After the Senang Hati Foundation and Allison Sudradjat articles were improved, perhaps David is less bitter now and trusts in the editing process on Misplaced Pages. However, why should anyone trust David after the unmitigated bullshit he has pulled? You do not trust people who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy over and over and over again. Fool Arbcom once, twice, three times...how many times does it take? Seriously? David sure isn't making the Senang Hati Foundation look any better. If I ever get in a plane crash in Indonesia and end up paralyzed, I'll be sure to go to the Senang Hati Foundation for my free wheelchair and complimentary stalker.

What are the risks of unblocking Jack Merridew? What are the benefits? Are there any? How could you even consider an unblock without a topic ban in fiction? If Jack Merridew is unblocked, that is a clear message by the arbitration committee that WP:HARASSMENT means fuck all, that users can do anything they want and always be forgiven, and that ArbCom is a joke — just in time for the 2008 elections. Yeah, unblock Jack Merridew right before the elections where White Cat is running. White Cat's the pig! Run White Cat run! --Pixelface (talk) 12:11, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tznkai

I did some minor clerking on this case before hand, but I have recused myself from further such edits, this is a personal opinion

I am not familiar with the gory details of this case but I take the following two things as fact:

  1. Jack Merridew has harassed White cat
  2. White cat has in good faith stated he would not be able to turn to Moreschi for help concerning this matter.

That there has been harassment is a serious problem, and needs to be dealt with the utmost of caution. That we see the ability of any editor to reform is noble, enacting this belief with caution would be most wise. Using a mentor-cum-watch dog is sensible, but it is certainly not sensible to use a mentor that the victim of harassment doesn't trust. This would be roughly equivlent to having a stalker's parole officer be the ex-spouse of the stalkee. I make no comment here on Moreschi's actual ability or lack thereof, I am simply pointing out without White cat trusting Moreschi, this rehabilitation is too dangerous and prone to spectacular failure. Unless the mentoring position is given to (a) individual(s) White cat can trust, these motions should not pass.--Tznkai (talk) 17:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

To Lar: In this case White cat is a wronged party and Jack Merridew has already breached community standards. He is essentially our equivalent of a felon, or at least an undesirable, so his concerns on who his mentor is are of very little weight compared to White cat. Do either of them get a veto? No. Is it a good idea to go against the victim's wishes? Also no. If we accept the possibility that harassment could reoccur, we accept that we need to actively monitor for it. The primary way to detect harassment is by the complaints of the victim, (even when every on wiki communication is logged, there is off wiki communication and information overload to worry about) and if White cat won't report, we've cut out the principle source of information.--Tznkai (talk) 18:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
And as far as precedent goes, I think its a good precedent to show that Arbcom is attentive to all the nuances of a situation.--Tznkai (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
FloNight, since there is a pending clarification on Everyking below that states flatly that Arbcom election voting and question are exceptions to the "No comments on" restriction, it would probably be a good idea to explicitly restrict Jack Merridew from voting or posing questions on White Cat's current and/or future elections.
On a related note, it may be worthwhile to deny Jack Merridew suffrage in this election entirely. The timing of this coming up shortly before an election unfortunate and the denial of suffrage is harsh, but I remind everyone that Jack Merridew was removed from the community for harassing another user and there are few more serious breaches of community standards. It is also clear that not all of the community is willing to forgive and forget just yet. Jack Merridew quite frankly, has to earn community trust again, something that will be considerably easier for all involved after the elections are over.--Tznkai (talk) 22:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To Lar: (I think the dialogue is productive for the consumption of the public and the Arbitration Committee, but I'll be happy to also do it else where if you wish) Disenfranchising someone is very serious, and given the opportunity to decide it, I'm not sure if I would. I do think however, that the kind of harassment we're talking about here makes it an option worth considering. Suffrage is at the most basic level a way of saying someone is a fully fledged community member and conversely, being disenfranchised is a way for the community to set certain users apart. It is an ugly mark to bear, but Jack Merridew has earned it. Whether or not it is necessary, proper, or proportionate, I do not know, I will defer to those more familiar with the case than I.
As to the mentor issue, multiple mentors is of course the way to go, and if it is genuinely hard to find say, three upstanding community members able and willing to ride herd over Jack Merridew that White cat also is comfortable with, then sure, the Arbitration Committee should simply press forward. I do not however believe that there are significant practical problems of finding mentors who are acceptable.
What is left is the philosophical issue of whether or not Arbitration should allow any user to veto a mentoring structure, in substance or appearance. While the Arbitration Committee must make the best decision free of the whims of any one editor, it should likewise not make decisions simply to contradict the whims of any one editor, it would not only be counterproductive, but it would be petty as well.
We must finally remember that this "veto" from White cat is not a whim, demand, or opinion, but an involved editor showing us a genuine roadblock. Imagine for a moment that an outside editor, you or me, had pointed out that white cat had conflicts with Moreschi in the past, and that White cat would be unable to communicate effectively if he were harassed. The implications of the point raised are the same, and have practical consequences. Merely because it was White cat who brought it up doesnot make it any more or less true, and it is the point itself, not who brought it up, that should determine the course of action. In summary, if at all possible, lets find some more mentors that White cat is likely to trust and get this show on the road.--Tznkai (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by A Nobody

I support Jack Merridew being mentored by Casliber, but I also strongly recommend a ban from AfDs (way too much dishonest use of WP:JNN style of non-arguments) and instead advise that he focus on constructive article development for which I would be willing to colloborate. Just as I have avoided commenting in AfDs for some time now, anyone else should have no problem taking a step back as well as that was clearly one of Jack's conflict areas and for his own good, he would be wise to avoid areas where he is likely to run into conflicts. Actually, it's probably best that the more pollarizing and controversial figures step back from commenting in those discussions and focus on article development anyway as there are plenty of other non-controversial editors who can comment one way or the other. Best, --A Nobody 19:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Moreschi

Clearly arbcom have not been reading their mail. No interaction or public commenting on White Cat was already explicitly agreed upon in the discussions which have been cced to arbcom-l. By all means vote on it formally, but we had already thought of this one. Otherwise, I will simply limit myself to pointing out that JM is a reasonable fellow, he can be kept away from White Cat, and that I am fully committed to doing so for his own benefit and for that of the encyclopedia. Yours, Moreschi (talk) 21:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kww

This is one of the only things where I wind up aligning with Pixelface and White Cat. Jack maintained a pattern of deceptive behaviour that lasted for years. It wasn't just passive deception, either: he actively lied to all of us. We always need good editors, but there is no need to welcome back the chronically deceitful.—Kww(talk) 03:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Fram

He is doing good work on other Wikimedia projects? Good, he can continue to do so. But he has used all chances he deserved here, and more. I don't understand the bending over backwards to give some people an umpteenth chance. What message are we supposed to be giving here? Keep him banned from en.wikipedia ad infinitum, and don't waste anymore time on chronic trouble makers. Fram (talk) 09:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jack Merridew

Statement re Jack Merridew ban review motion

It is fully my intent to comply with the terms proposed. Since I was en:blocked, I have discussed the situation with a variety of experienced editors. I have made a great many much appreciated edits to projects other than en:wp; I have more edits elsewhere, than here. I have found the experience on the wider gamut of projects enlightening. I expect to keep a significant focus on the other projects.

I have no issue with FT2's amendments; it has been understood all through these discussions that further interaction is the issue here. I will leave it to others. As to the AC elections, no, my appeal is not motivated by any particular candidacy; as John says, it predates. I have no intention of making the given oppose; it would only serve to inflame. I do object to a complete disfranchisement. I've seen the current discussion re Everyking and what seems a similar situation and I do not feel that my otherwise participating in the process is inappropriate. If such an editing restriction is passed, I will abide by it. It would, however, be a poor precedent to set.

Please noted that;

remains in effect; this has been discussed in emails and should be a part of this.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:14, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

addendum;

re: Moreschi's role:

The term 'mediator' has leaked into the discussion; Moreschi's role is as a mentor to (and monitor of) me, not as a mediator between White Cat and myself. My discussions with Moreschi about this whole situation go back to March. I don't really know just what the dynamic between Moreschi and White Cat is; sure, I have seen bits of disagreement, but nothing much, really. I see the concern about this as moot; if White Cat has a concern down the road, there are 1,600+ admins he could consult, and there's the AC itself. FWIW, when he was placed under mentorship, his mentors included Tony Sidaway who was not a disinterested party.

re: FloNight's and FT2's discussion:

This seems to me to be an internal issue about the AC's role spilling out. It is certainly true that a large volume of counsel resides in my inbox; I've read things carefully and believe that I've gotten the appropriate take-away.

re Pixelface:

Oh, dear, good show. Thank you for reminding me that Elizabeth O’Neill warrants an article, too.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Browsing Misplaced Pages (still on holiday) I happened to spot this case. I've some history here, having witnessed the harassment of White Cat by Jack Merridew under his various socks for what amounts to White Cat's entire history of editing Misplaced Pages.

A last chance is deserved by someone who has come clean about matters he previously concealed, denied or equivocated about, and who wishes to do good work. But please, let it be the last chance. Merridew's persistent and malicious harassment of White Cat for more than three years shows that he has an obsessive streak, and White Cat was for too long almost alone in bearing the weight of this obsession. Let Misplaced Pages be clear: the slightest sign of a return to past form must be the end of Merridew's career. --TS 01:32, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


Statement by Web Warlock

I find this action to be unfathomable and highly questionable. User:JackMerridew entered into a campaign of fraud and deception for the purposes of pushing his own point of view on various articles and to engaged in sockpuppetry of the highest order. He also, and far more disagreeable, engaged in a campaign to stalk and harass another editor. This is beyond the call of merely pushing a POV this is harassment. Had User:JackNerridew and User:WhiteCat been employees at the same company he would have been dismissed without a moment’s notice. Everyone deserves a second chance, JackMerridew however has demonstrated that he has used all of those chances. I urge this group to keep the ban on User:JackMerridew. Web Warlock (talk) 19:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • After reading the suggestion for handling the case, I'm proposing a motion here (Clarifications and other requests section of the RFArb main page), and then announcing the proposed motion on AN. Since the precipitate for the last ban was socking in violation of an ArbCom sanction, ArbCom is the venue for a ban review. But in this instance, White Cat and the rest of the Community should have the opportunity to give the Committee feedback before the close of the Committee's vote. There is no need for privacy in this case and maximum transparency will serve the best interest of the Community in this situation.
  • The editing restricts were written based on the comments of the above administrators and have been previewed by ArbCom. The main purpose of the mentorship is monitoring Jack Merridew's account for any editing that will bring Merridew into contact with White Cat. No topic restrictions are spelled out in the restrictions but potential topics for problem editing have been identified and will be monitored. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
    • White Cat, I showed you the proposed motion before I posted it so that you could make suggestions. I wish that you would have let me know about your strong view about Moreschi during our chat so we could have addressed then. Adding several more mentors will be a good approach since it is something that was going to happen in an informal manner, anyway. As stated by others, this request for a ban review pre-dates White Cat's announced candidacy so I don't see that as a particular issue in this situation. Since Merridew can't make comment about White Cat, then voting would be out of the question. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


  • This is a banned user appeal where the Arbitration Committee are acting as route of last appeal. "JM" has a long and serious history of harassment, leading to a ban. The question is, can he decide to avoid White Cat now, and can conditions be crafted that ensure he is non-disruptive if given the chance. Those are fair questions; if the disruption has a fair chance of ending, then fine. If it were to be trialled and it were found that he cannot or would not, then the ban would (and should) be reinstated. Because harassment can be as simple as subtle digs, appearing on the same pages, and so on, the only condition that makes sense is complete avoidance of anything that might even slightly give that appearance - and the responsibility for ensuring that, to be JM's alone.

    Users are banned (by the community or Arbcom) usually for serious and persistent behavior issues. When a user has a long term ban (say 3-6 months or more), and behaves during it, then in most cases they may eventually be trialled back as part of the community. This is not a green light for disruption. Relapse risk must be considered, as must the higher barrier for continued trust in their reformation if there were evidence of relapse. Unbans in these conditions should contain some form of strong probation/mentoring if there is any risk of relapse, and a clear understanding that if the behavior resumes, then the ban may very easily be reinstated. This helps them (boundaries), their victims or users the conduct impacts on (deterrent), and the community/project (avoids issues of huge legalisms if they do begin to game or relapse). In brief, a user who is banned, is given good faith trust that they will behave from now on, but is also "on ice" for a long time after, may be more at risk of resumption, and must make sure that the old behaviors are history, as the "unban" hopes that they are. If they do not, then they must expect a reblock/reban may have a much lower "bar" (and unblocking a higher "bar") than it would for a fresh user without such history.

    Having discussed this internally, I am content to give JM a try at unban. However I also feel the unban conditions are grossly inadequate and do not protect White Cat from harassment, the community from resumption, or make it direct or simple enough that a relapse will mean the ban resumes. I therefore propose a further motion 2 which is in addition to motion 1, to remedy these. FT2  03:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Motion to lift User:Jack Merridew's indefinite block and editing restrictions.

1) After reviewing User:Jack Merridew's ban at his request, the Arbitration Committee agrees to unblock his account with the following conditions:

  • 1. User:Jack Merridew agrees to edit from one account only "Jack Merridew" on all WMF wikis and unifies that account. (already done)
  • 2. User:Jack Merridew discloses all prior socks. (already done).
  • 3. User:Jack Merridew agrees to not edit using open proxies.
  • 4. User:Jack Merridew agrees to completely avoid White Cat on Misplaced Pages English pages. No editing the same pages, no comments about White Cat by name or innuendo. No harassment of White Cat in other venues. This restriction will be interpreted in the broadest way with no allowance for any attempt to skirt the restriction in any manner.
  • 5. User:Jack Merridew agrees to avoid all disruptive editing.
  • 6. User:Jack Merridew agrees to a one year mentorship by Moreschi who will closely monitor for any contact with White Cat.
  • 7. It is specifically noted that this is not a "clear your name" unblock, but rather is done on the recommendation of Misplaced Pages English administrators that are knowledgeable about Jack Merridew's past disruptive editing and now support his return based on his good editing record on other Foundation wikis where White Cat and Jack Merridew both have accounts.
  • 8. Should Jack Merridew violate the restrictions imposed upon him in this decision, he may be blocked for one year by any uninvolved administrator, with any blocks to be logged at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jack Merridew ban review motion#Log of blocks and bans
There are 12 active Arbitrators with respect to this motion, so a majority is 7 (assuming no abstentions).

Support:

  1. After reviewing the comments of all involved users, I support lifting the ban with these strict editing restrictions. It is my sincere hope that Jack Merridew will honor his promise to stay away from White Cat and over time White Cat will be able to move past the his current understandable suspicions and worries be able to edit with less stress than he's had during the past few years. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. If and only if 2 and (probably) 3 both pass. Otherwise strong oppose. We should only unban serious past harassment risks if administrator concerns about a relapse or breach of unban conditions will be taken very seriously. We should paint in the clearest black and white what the returning user must (not) do, to reduce the risk of ambiguity, gaming, or fault-shifting. If Jack Merridew is truly sincere, then these will present no problem to him and he will understand why they are required. FT2  03:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support. --Deskana (talk) 08:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support. This is a difficult issue but I find myself on balance agreeing with John Vandenberg that Jack Merridew has done enough to warrant a final chance. The conditions imposed here are among the most onerous the committee has ever imposed. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. bainer (talk) 11:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. I find this to be an extremely difficult call. I accept the assurances of those, including my fellow arbitrators, who report that Jack Merridew has done good work on other projects. I have also carefully reviewed the e-mails that this user has sent to the committee containing seemingly sincere assurances of good conduct going forward. However, it cannot be denied that the conduct in which Jack Merridew engaged was vicious and egregious. The record reflects that this user persisted in intentionally seeking to ruin the Misplaced Pages experience of a chosen victim over a period of years, for no particular reason other than that this fellow-user seemed easy to get a rise out of, plus had different views from JM on some policy/deletion issues. To this end, Jack Merridew engaged in a persistent and varied pattern of misconduct, including but not limited to incivility, trolling, "wikihounding" (f/k/a wikistalking), serial sockpuppetry, and making intentionally false statements to the Arbitration Committee. Not only did White Cat have to expend considerable time over the years in dealing with the mess and compiling evidence, but many administrators and arbitrators did as well; and White Cat's relations with other editors were damaged as they came to Jack Merridew's defense and accused White Cat of "paranoia" and the like for making allegations that turned out to be entirely justified and true. To his credit, Jack Merridew eventually, if most belatedly, confessed to his misconduct and stepped away from Misplaced Pages. As noted, his work elsewhere has earned him a final chance to return. We can accept nothing less than the complete avoidance of any conduct that could reasonably be perceived as harassment of White Cat or any other user, now and permanently. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  7. Seven restrictions plus one dealing with any possible violation of the aformentioned ones are sufficient to make sure that JM (aka Davenbelle) has no single chance to get back to old tactics. -- fayssal - wiki up 20:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

2) In the event that Jack Merridew is blocked by any administrator for a matter relating to breach of the above terms, any unblock is only to be decided by consent of this Committee, following any communal discussion in the usual place.

Rationale
Unblock "gaming", or uninformed/low-clue unblocking, are unfortunately far more common these days. If a user is banned for serious harassment, unblocked on trial, and then behaves in a way that any administrator feels a reblock is necessary, then that is not a block I would condone being reversed without the committee having the opportunity to consider the behavior first, in light of what we know of the harassment case history, and any promises made.

Support:

  1. FT2  03:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. I think that the community is perfectly capable of handling the unblock requests of someone that is blocked for harassment. But at the same time, it's perfectly acceptable for us to monitor this. --Deskana (talk) 08:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support; I hope this procedure never happens. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support. -- fayssal - wiki up 20:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

  1. First, I don't think that special enforcement is needed in this situation. It is significant to note that no admin unblocked the Jack Merridew account despite it not having a special enforcement clause as proposed. If you look through the block log, everyday admin block accounts for harassment and personal attacks. Admins are sensitive to these issues and deal with them regularly. The indefinite block on the Jack Merridew account was done during a Community discussion so there was some ambiguity about how this unblock request should be handled. During a discussion about how to handle this unblock request several ideas were suggested with all of them being reasonable ways to address it. I decided to make it a formal ArbCom ban review instead of having one of the involved admins open an unblock discussion at AN. I did this because I think that AE is a better venue for handling any question about enforcing the sanction or re-writing them if needed.

    Second, the Committee does not have a good track record for managing our cases load in a prompt manner. Until we address this problem, I'm not in favor of excluding alternative methods of handling a situation unless there is an absolute reason for doing it (such as an privacy issue or extraordinarily sensitive issues such as pedophilia related account blocks.)

    Third, alternative methods of dealing with unblock requests need to be addressed in a more systematic way with the Community. An ban review committee or another alternative way to comprehensively address the growing backlog of requests. Each of these cases deserve to have the attention of experienced impartial users who can craft editing restrictions that will be enforced. This is not something that the Committee should be doing on a regular basis because it is too time consuming.

    Fourth, if an individual administrator is using their tools outside of Community norms then it needs to be addressed with them in a direct way. If there is wide spread disagreement in the general Community and among admins about whether a block is appropriate, heavy handed enforcement is usually not the best approach for the Committee to use since the default should be less enforcement not more.

    Fifth, more comprehensive discussions about how to handle the different types of harassment, wikihounding, and bullying need to occur in appropriate venues on site.

    Last, the Committee needs to guard against putting in place provisions that might lead to more insular thinking. We need to make sure that our policies and practices do not make it more difficult for the Community to reverse a poorly written decision. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

    Whether or not it may have been needed in past reviews of this user,
    1. I do not know whether it will be needed in future ones. There are strong communal concerns (see above), and when it comes to a serious harassment case I want the ability to put a foot on the brake with no risk of gaming, "unblock pile-on" or the like, if there were a potential problem, until we have reviewed the incident.
    2. I emphatically don't accept "we're too busy" as an excuse for not giving the project an a harassed user the appropriate level of protection - if that is so then we'll just have to make time when it comes up, as we did for this appeal.
    3. If processes change then good; this is not a "usual case", it is a serious harassment case, and needs unusual safeguards in place.
    4. (4 onwards) The community has had consensus on poor unblocks before. Not one thing you've said explains how you will prevent gaming, politicizing or pile-ons of an unwise unblock if some admins decide to do this.
    To underline the issue, this is a user with a past history of serious harassment. We are trialling his reintroduction to the community. If he acts well (as we hope) then thsi is academic. If not, then this is very far from academic indeed, given the activity surrounding some other unblock AE cases. In brief - I disagree completely with your line of thinking. Rosy glasses and "it'll all work out anyway" are no substitute for being a bit blunt at times and allowing for the prevention of plausible unban problems. FT2  23:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
    You might be making some false assumptions about how the situation will play out. There is a danger that the Community left to there own devises would have decided to keep him blocked but the Committee might vote to reverse the block. After we unblock, there may be bad will between the Committee and users that feel that their concerns were not addressed. This just as likely to happen as the reverse. This error would not happen if the Community is permitted to do the initial review. I strongly prefer to keep to our ordinary role of assisting in settling disputes when the Community can not decide and some mechanism must be used to settle the situation. It is not our place to substitute our opinion for the Community's. FloNight♥♥♥ 02:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. I largely agree with Flo. Further, as I have elsewhere indicated, if there is a culture problem in relation to unblocking, then that ought to be dealt with directly; trying to evade it indirectly by some preemptive flanking manoeuvre is unlikely to be productive. --bainer (talk) 11:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Abstain:

  1. I have no strong view one way or the other on this issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

3) Condition 4 is amended to add the following explicit clarifications:

"User:Jack Merridew agrees to completely avoid White Cat on Misplaced Pages English pages. No editing the same pages, no comments about White Cat by name or innuendo. No harassment of White Cat in other venues. This restriction will be interpreted in the broadest way with no allowance for any attempt to skirt the restriction in any manner."

"In particular, if White Cat is editing a page, Jack Merridew is responsible for not editing that page, its closely related pages, or commencing editing on closely related topics elsewhere. If it is a well known page such as ANI, and both have genuinely valid reasons for editing it, Jack Merridew is responsible for ensuring he edits it only on a matter different from, and with timing or manner that has no connection to, any of White Cat's posts there."

Rationale
Clarification, anti-ambiguity, and anti-gaming on the main condition #4.

Support:

  1. FT2  03:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Deskana (talk) 08:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

  1. As discussed on the mailing list, the editor has been counseled about his editing restrictions in an much more extensive manner than this extra wording adds. In general extra wording on our cases leads to more confusion and adds to the potential for wiki-lawyering. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
    Again, the point slips. A concern is expressed about conditions, your response is we don't need to set conditions because the editor has been "counselled". This (off-wiki) "counselling" carries minimal weight, and be far more open to disputing or "disagreeing about what lines were drawn", than a plain and direct statement of clarification, if there were a problem. FT2  23:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
    The comments by people looking at the editing restrictions prior to my posting them did not suggest that more details were needed. You were the only person out of 20+ people reading them that suggested and supported this change in wording. Traditionally Misplaced Pages has used less details in policy and sanctions because real life experience shows trying to nails down details with wordy passages causes more problems than it prevents. This point was made to you by another arbitrator to you during ArbCom's discussion of the proposal. So that was the reason that I did not change the wording that you suggested and instead suggested that you offer it as an alternative if you still thought it was needed. The role of the mentor(s) is to counsel the editor. There has been a large amount of discussion with Merridew in anticipation of this request. Past and ongoing counseling by a mentor is a necessary part of this situation. I have confidence that the mentor(s) will set good guidelines for him. FloNight♥♥♥ 02:46, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Per vote on #2 above, per Flo's comments, and per my comments elsewhere. The present wording already indicates that the restriction is to be read as broadly as possible, and that is sufficient. --bainer (talk) 11:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Abstain:

  1. Arguably redundant, arguably harmless. I have made my points to Jack Merridew above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Important but it is too circumstantial. -- fayssal - wiki up 20:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Request to vacate Matthew Hoffman case

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

I've also notified a couple people who were tangentally involved, they can decide if they wish to add their names. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Shoemaker's Holiday

A few months ago, Newyorkbrad encouraged me to open a new request related to the core of this case, but the wounds were too raw, and I was unable to set out my evidence calmly at that time, so delayed.

I ask that we reopen the matter now.

In this case, the arbcom, while I was suffering from severe depression, illness, and on the verge of nervous breakdown from the monetary situation at the time - I was literally faced with being homeless - opened a case with no prior dispute resolution - I had never had so much as an RfC on me - and chose me to be a test case. In the end, combined with the other events, this forced me to drop out of university. I left Misplaced Pages over it, and it was only the active, constant encouragement of User:Newyorkbrad, User:Durova and a few others that brought me back after several months.

A sitting arbitrator launched a campaign of harrassment throughout the case pages, unchecked by the other arbitrators. Here are some samples. This all took place over a single bad block, made two months before the Arbcom case was opened.

In the initial lead in to the case, I had offered to let Charles Matthews take over the block, in e-mail, because there was no way that I could review it competently at that point in time. He said that was "not good enough", so I put it up on ANI.

Charles Matthews specifically says at one point that my refusal to simply to defer to his judgement is why he opened this case and pushed so hard for my desysopping:

Bear in mind, please, my approach. I intended to get Vanished user to correct this mistake, voluntarily, in such a way as could appear a personal realisation that something had not been right, something had been excessive. In such a way that no review process had been needed. An admin had reconsidered an indef block, had read the log - "gosh, that was too strong - a month is enough - didn't mean to put it that way". Unblocks, leaves a Talk page note to MH. Vanished user and I would have had a little secret. End of story: MH might have left the site, but the matter would have ended in no fanfare. Why do we have a test case? For precisely this reason: the indef block was made in such a way as to obstruct this entirely humane and non-accusatory private review, discussed as between colleagues. Now, I would treat the next bad block just the same way: private email; talk page note, "did you have a mail from me?", no topic mentioned; another private mail, saying more clearly waht the issue is; another private mail asking for attention to the matter; a further mail saying you really ought to give this some attention, and, no, we should talk before you take this to any forum. Tell me, please, whether I'm not acting in the interests of everyone? As opposed to - I start an AN/I thread saying "Vanished user blocked badly here, and here's my case", and we get an adversarial discussion. Charles Matthews 21:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

As he did not get my consent immediately (though I did unblock in the end), Charles Matthews then launched a campaign of harassment against me, using the power of the Arbitration committee to harass without fear of rebuttal. A complete read through of the case pages would be necessary to see this in full, so I'll just give a couple typical comments by Charles.


His harassment was not devoted to me, he also referred to other editors in the same over-the top terms:

To quote MastCell's response to the last:


“ [http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Matthew_Hoffman/Workshop#Charles_Matthews_has_failed_to_assume_good_faith Since this case seems to be focusing an unusually intense magnifying glass on the minor failings of everyone even peripherally involved (see Chaser above), it seems fair to note that describing an established, good-faith editor as a "meddling hypocrite, at best" is remarkably poor conduct for anyone involved in an arbitration, much less an sitting Arbitrator. Unless that makes me a meddling hypocrite as well. MastCell Talk 18:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

... and really. Describing someone as a "busybody" and a "meddling hypocrite" for voicing an opinion on a block at WP:AN/I? What sort of message are we aiming for here? MastCell Talk 18:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)]

”

However, Charles did not act alone, he was aided and abbetted by the other arbitrators, who actively defended his right to harrass me:


Furthermore, the arbitrators were clearly not interested in anything I had to say in my defense: The case opened on 17:40, 2 December 2007 . Within 13 hours of this, and before I had had the chance to provide a single word of evidence in my defense, Uninvited Company set out proposed decisions saying my statements were not borne out by the facts, to sanction Chaser for not having unblocked Matthew Hoffman, and to suggest I be desysopped.

The problems with this case have been pointed out for several months, but the Arbcom have refeused to deal with it, even to simply remove the harrassing comments by Charles Matthews.


A proposal I made during the case that I be desysopped immediately, in exchange for the case stopping, because of the health and RL problems being severely aggravated by having this case going on as well, was rejected by the Arbcoim in favour of dragging it out, coninuing the case, then opening an RFC. However, in July, the personal details I had volunteered in an attempt to get them to agree to my proposal were thrown back in my face:

"Since the full circumstances of the de-sysopped user were disclosed to the AC in confidence, the only appropriate way for this user to regain the tools is to convince the AC – the only group of users with full knowledge of the situation – that the circumstances have changed such that we have confidence in his ability to handle adminship without problems." - Morven, on WP:RFAR, 23:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC), seconded by Kirill.

The arbcom have very consciously put me in a situation where only a full discussion of my private problems will prevent them from using them to say that the community is unable to comment on my situation, and that they should have the sole right to discuss what should be done with me. I do not trust myself to comment on their behaviour regarding that matter. Suffice to say that when I DID make a disclosure of some of the health problems of that time, e-mails I received from them afterwards criticised me for not being detailed enough, because I had still wished to maintain some sense of privacy.


Other users have agreed that there are problems with this case:

“ At this juncture I wish to remind the Committee it has been my opinion for many months that the Matthew Hoffman case was the worst-handled arbitration I have ever seen, and rather than remedy any of its numerous errors the Committee appears intent upon compounding them. Hollow apologies mean little; I would like to see for starters Charles Matthews withdraw the repeated personal attacks he posted to the case pages. Ideally you ought to be vacating this case because it was requested in a non-emergency situation with no prior attempt at dispute resolution--thus outside your mandate.

Virtually the only other recent case that closed with a prohibition on RFA was the Alkivar case; the off-wiki evidence regarding Alkivar was entirely or almost entirely my own submission and I assembled it from public records. I have been never been under any pledge of confidentiality regarding that material. Until now I have chosen to handle it with discretion because of its sensitive nature; that does not oblige me to remain silent. DurovaCharge! 23:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

”

Likewise Raymond arrit et al, Filll, and numerous others, see the last third of the Proposed decision talk page.

I do not care about getting my adminship back, and I accept that the block was incorrect. However, for my own mental health, I want to put this behind me. Likewise, the campaign of harassment is a blight on the arbcom, and I ask the arbcom to vacate it, in full. As it stands, this case remaining is a statement that, if you upset an Arbitrator, the Arbcom reserves the right to open a "test case" against you with mno proevious dispute resolution, and allow the arbitrator to harass you off the site.

Furthermore, the Arbcom's self-regulation is clearly not working. A basic principle needs to be put in place that all Arbcom decisions can be appealed by the community.

For obvious reasons, I will be crossposting to WP:AN, as I'm afraid that for some reason, I don't really trust the arbcom to judge this case fairly.

Thank you,

User:Shoemaker's Holiday, a.k.a. Vanished user. 14:00, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. If the committee would like, I can send them copies of some of the e-mails I got from Charles, or provide other evidence.

Response to Tznkai:

I am requesting the entire case be declared a miscarriage of justice, or, in less inflammatory language, a mistake. That doesn't mean the actions would necessarily be reversed, e.g. me getting sysop back, but the pages should be blanked or something, and the decisions declared no longer part of Arbcom case law. At this point, any other action validates the three-month harassment I went through as part of this case. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:15, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Kirril: Just blank all the pages and leave a note saying it's been withdrawn. That, or something similar, would be sufficient. There's some very nasty stuff on there. I am sorry about this, and I had really hoped we could have dealt with this less publicly, but, well, now that it has been, it's hard to see any other path forwards... Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Sam

In this case, the findings of an arbcom-initiated RfC Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Vanished user were overturned to make a provisional desysop. I am not asking for adminship back and am fully aware that under the current RfA culture I probably never will. What I am asking is for the committee to accept that keeping up an attack piece, where a sitting arbitrator calls people "moral midgets", "dogs", and worse, and in which they harassed a user into a complete breakdown, and then in July unethically used confidential information about that user's health to continue their harassment is something they should not be doing.

What, precisely, in the current decision is so important that it must remain a year afterwards, and how does it justify the gross personal attacks, harassment, and other such things? The only thing that would change by this case being vacated, is that, if I triedd to run an RfA - which I would of course, have no chance of passing, the Arbcom, out of concern for my mental health, would not be able to villify and continue their harassment, by pretending to know anything about my current state of mental health, now that I am not facing being homeless and starving to death, because they knew what my mental health was like when both those things were true. I will urther add that the committee ignored all this information about my health during the case, but only gave any sign they had any knowledge of it at the point they used it to attack me.

The Arbcom has violated my privacy, been part of a harassment campaign against me, and, in July, insisted that I must make a public statement of my private medical details or they would continue holding power over me forever. Show some basic ethics, and stop trying to justify the harassment. The Arbcom has violated basic confidentiality by snidely revealing my health details in July in such a way to make things sound even worse, forcing me to reveal them. Please stop compounding your offenses and let's make a full break with the past, so we can all move on. The longer the Arbcom continues to defend their past bad actions, the more these actions begin to look less like mistakes, and more like intent. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:09, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

However, I am willing to have Newyorkbrad or FT2 as a mentor if that will help ease the committee's misgivings about making the basic ethical decision.


Second response to Sam

Very well, let's put it aside. You have evidently not looked at the remedies in the case, or it would have been clear that there is very, very little that would be overturned The only restriction that came out of that case was my desysop, (which would not change) and the right to regain the sysop after 6 months by appeal to the committee, with a probation to follow. FT2's commentary makes it clear that this was intended to protect me, in order to assure that I can get adminship back again.

The actual change in consequences is only to remove a proposal that was intended to make sure I could get Adminship back, which I do not want because it involves the Arbcom, and, after what has happened to me in regards to the Arbcom... Well, let's end this statement here. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)


Per Kirril's Motion

I am willing to be bound by an informal agreement that I will consult the committee, and, perhaps even seek a mentor in order to prepare myself, should I wish to seek adminship. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

To FT2

There had never been an RfC, and no real hint that I was doing anything wrong. Had either of those happened, I would probably have agreed to be much more careful. This is why Arbcom is meant to be the LAST resort in dispute resolution, not the first.

Let's review the finding of facts you mention


Finding of fact #3 justify his block of MatthewHoffman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) include claims of harassment, POV pushing, extreme rudeness, and vandalism... None of these claims are borne out by a review of Hoffman's contributions.

He was clearly a POV-pusher. No reasonable person would deny that. The issue was that there was not sufficient time given to demonstrate a problematic pattern of POV pushing

As for the rest, as described here, I missed some context that mitigated his comments, but there was, at least, rudeness and attacks on others, justified by the context of a grand battle. I looked at diffs, and failed to consider the full context, and, in the typical manner this case was handled, all these mitigating factors were thrown out, even to the point of claiming he was not a POV pusher.

Finding of Fact #4

4) Vanished user's block of Matthew Hoffman for 72 hours, and the subsequent extension of the block to make it indefinite, were both outside blocking policy. The reasoning used to justify the blocks was fallacious, and Vanished user was involved in a content dispute with Hoffman. Further, the justification for the blocks in part is to encourage Hoffman to "cool down," which contravenes blocking policy.


This contains an utter untruth': I had not edited Irreducible complexity since January, as a search of the page history will show. In order to claim I was in a content dispute with him required claiming that having ever expressed any opinion o a subject, even before you became an admin, worked out to a content dispute. Secondly, only blocks with the sole purpose to make people cool down is outside policy. WP:BLOCK makes this very explicit:

Blocks intended solely to "cool down" an angry user should not be used, as they often have the opposite effect. However, an angry user who is also being disruptive can be blocked to prevent further disruption.

The emphasis is in the original. Indeed, the block policy also makes a clear distinction between content disputes and conflict of interest, and, while the latter is discouraged, is not actually forbidden.:

Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators. Administrators should also be aware of potential conflicts of interest involving pages or subject areas with which they are involved.


FT2 asks for evidence that the decisions made about the Hoffman block were unreasonable. The committtee scraped the bottom of the barrel in order to justify a finding that I was in an active content dispute with Hoffman, mentioning a 7 month old edit to the page as proof. Carcharioth lays out a time scale here Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Matthew_Hoffman/Evidence#Content_dispute_at_Irreducible_complexity_and_Talk:Irreducible_complexity, I presume that, ignoring the actual dates, this is what the Arbcom used to justify its claims of a content dispute.

In short, the heart of the Arbcom decision with regard to the Hoffman matter - which FT2 declares unassailable - is based on a claimed direct violation of policy that never happened. This was pointed out at the time, , , etc. - FloNight even responded to a seperate point in the first post. The Arbcom pressed forwards with this anyway, enshrining a lie into a decision about me.

Finding of Fact 9.1 This finding implies there's a lot more that could be found, when, in fact, it is the result of an exhaustive review of every admin action I had made, thus making it almost certainly a complete list of what could possibly be found. Every single one of my blocks was reviewed on the evidence page of the Hoffman case, and Kirril can confirm whether he analysed all page protections, but given Finding of Fact #9 taking examples from my entire time as an admin, that's probably the case. If this is, in fact, all there was - and all evidence points to that - it is a much weaker finding than is implied by its similarities to similar findings of this type. Exhaustive or reasonably exhaustive searches should really be clearly labelled as such, anything else will be read as a representative set.

Furthermore, while at least some of the decisions were mistakes, there were mitigating factors:

  • Let's have a look at one of these in detail:

semi-protected Homeopathy a second time, citing IP "vandalism". A review of IP activity from Nov 27 - 30 2007 shows the edits related to POV differences and minor edits, not vandalism (WP:VAND refers)...

However, let's have a look at 25 November:

  • - Vandalism by 202.168.239.186
  • Vandalism by 75.153.9.52
  • Vandalism by 90.203.64.154
  • Further vandalism by 90.203.64.154
  • Vandalism by 81.86.135.171

All of these are oobviously and unambiguously vandalism.

There might have been an arguement that the vandalism was not recent enough to justify semi-protection, however, the finding of fact says there was no vandalism, and claims that "The effect was to exclude IP editors with whom he disagreed as well as IP editors adding valid formatting edits." - implying that was my intent, when a review that covered just a two more days would have shown multi-IP vandalism and people having difficulty getting the reversion levels correct, reverting some of the vandalism, but not all. In a poorly-monitored subject, as Homeopathy was, this is problematic.


We could review the others. These had never appeared in evidence, and, by the time they appeared on the finding page, my health had crashed so far and, the arbcom having ignored all my previous comments, it did not seem that the arbcom cared what had to be said. Clearly, some more care would have prevented an appearance of conflict of interest, however, I was literally the only admin watching many of these pages, and most administrators had been scared off of all action on those pages, due to the poor editing environments there. Conflict of interest might have been an issue, but remember that the Arbcom case was the first procedural discussion of conflict of interest related to me, had any other dispute resolution occurred, I would have very likely accepted the problem and stopped doing the behaviours in question. The arbcom stated, upon taking the case, that the lack of any prior dispute resolution related to me would be taken into consideration.

I believe all the actions are defensible - not that they were correct, but that they were understandable mistakes, given the poor guidance I had, and that, as an inexperienced admin, I was working in one of the most contentious and poorest-monitored sections of Misplaced Pages. Had the arbcom cared to ask, I would have attempted to give my reasoning.

Here is what the community thought about these findings in the RfC that arbcom arranged to run, then ignored. Uninvited Company - I'm going to simplify this thread a bit, but I believe my summary is accurate - later claimed that the defense of me consisted solely of Scientific-point-of-view proponents and was thus ignored in favour of unnamed and unnumbered people who e-mailed the Arbcom in order to attack me. (Who clearly lacked a point of view?)

On blanking I was told this would be done in February. This is far too little, far too late, and does not even deal with the errors of fact in the findings of fact mentioned above. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

On Flonight's proposal This looks fine. I might prefer it a brief statement saying the new statement replaced the previous content and decisions as well, but I think that I can bend a little bit to meet the Arbcom in the middle. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

On thinking about this, the "no longer active" is so ambiguous that it could be read as meaning anything. If we're going to make a decision on this, it probably needs to be one that won't simply cause more confusion. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by involved party Jehochman

This case was handled badly. I think it would be a very good to erase it completely, on grounds of procedural unfairness. As there is no request to restore adminship, I see that the only action required is for ArbCom to acknowledge this open secret. Jehochman 14:11, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Thebainer, the remedy sought is to have the case vacated. The person in question is not asking for their admin tools back. Given the severe incivility contained in that case (moral pygmy, meddling hypocrite), and the very poor treatment by the Committee of the person making the request (RFAR with no prior DR, insufficient time allowed to present defenses), I think the request is reasonable. By failing to correct these problems when the request comes before you, you all assume responsibility for these events, even if you were not on the Committee at the time they occurred. Jehochman 14:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be best for the Committee to pass a motion stating: 1/ personal abuse directed at named parties is denounced, 2/ you recognize that handling of the case was poor, and the Committee will endeavor to do better. Blanking the case would also be a good idea, because it is a poor example. The result can stand because nobody is disputing the outcome. I think these actions, which might appear symbolic, would have the effect of stopping further reference to the case. I for one am very tired of hearing about it. Jehochman 17:11, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Sam Blacketer, allowing the person in question to go back to RFA is hardly a concession. Their chances of passing RFA are dim to none. If they want tools back, the easiest way is via the Committee. Perhaps the case can be replaced with a statement that the user gave up the tools under a cloud and can get them back via RFA or appeal to the Committee. Jehochman 14:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Important note to FT2

This case started with the posting of a remedy, before the accused had time to fully respond. Then it was suspended to run an RFC that generally opposed what the Committee was doing, selective enforcement or making one individual into an example to deter others. Then the Committee proceeded to disregard the opinions expressed in the RFC. A variety of us have asked for personal attacks within the case to be denounced or refactored. Thus far, these requests have been ignored. I am asking for two very specific things: 1/ the Committee blanks all the pages. 2/ the Committee makes a public statement recognizing the poor treatment of those involved. Public insults or abuse require a public retraction. Three wrongs don't make a right. The fact that the block was bad does not excuse Committee members to personally abuse those involved, nor does it excuse the Committee as a whole from culpability for conducting a kangaroo court. Cheers, Jehochman 16:21, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved party Barberio

The manner in which this case was accepted is at best inappropriate opening of a case without allowing it to go through normal channels of having a block overturned. At worst, it appears to be an attempt to game the system by a sitting arbitration member pushing for a speedy resolution in his favour without giving a chance for rebuttal or defence.

I'm also unsettled by the use of 'secret reasons' for the desysop and block on re-admitance. Nor does the remedy sit well with the committee's actions towards more 'establishment figure' administrators who have had similar 'isolated bad decisions'.

In my eyes, the case wasn't taken on correctly, and not enough time was given for a defence. So this case was not legitimate, and none of it's findings or remedies should be active. It should be erased and apologised for.--Barberio (talk) 15:37, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Sam Blacketer

With all due respect, the Arbitration process is a quasi-legal process, and claiming it isn't makes you appear to deny the reality of how your own committee works, much in the same way people claim there is no bureaucracy in Misplaced Pages. This is not unusual, quasi-legal processes exist in many associations, such as 'courts' that rule on FIA motor sports rule infractions. You need to recognise that this is a quasi-legal process, and act appropriately.

So since it is a quasi-legal process, you need to make sure your actions don't prejudice someone's case, you need to be as clear and open as you can be, and you need to apply suitable fairness.

You are explicitly not the fire-fighting team tasked with making quick emergency actions. You are supposed to act deliberatively, and urgent injunctions should be injunctions not rushed rulings. If you do not know the difference between an injunction and a ruling then you probably shouldn't be ruling on cases.

It is well within your power to make a temporary injunctions, and then investigate a case deliberatively. Failure to do so puts the legitimacy of the rulings at risk. --Barberio (talk) 11:46, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, it is my opinion that the current ArbCom claim they do not set precedent, while acting like the do. This appears to be a misunderstanding of what the word precedent means... If you have used the same 'principles' from one case, to another, to another, that is use of precedent. This is standard practice by the ArbCom.

Again, denying you use precedents when you clearly do signals a misunderstanding of your own role.

Combined with the growing attempts to create policy, and hang 'resolutions' such as Motion of clarification in the Tobias Conradi case up as binding rulings, is troubling. --Barberio (talk) 11:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Durova

This request was opened overnight without my knowledge, and I read it on my first cup of coffee. In the interests of avoiding another arbitration, I urge the Committee to consider this motion. In addition to other objections, I have reason to believe the case was initiated upon misleading representations. Durova 15:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Where a user is being disruptive...the key issue is the disruption... Sam, Shoemaker's Holiday was an administrator in good standing until this out of process case opened against him. He is now an administrator in good standing at Wikimedia Commons. He has been instrumental to getting Misplaced Pages's featured sound program off the ground, is doing stellar work for the new 'song of the day' main page section on Wikisource, and is in good standing in all other WMF projects where he participates. There has never been any formal dispute resolution action against him, except related to this case. Shoemaker's Holiday has contributed over five dozen featured content items across multiple projects. What more must a man do to demonstrate he is not disruptive, once a bad arbitration case labels him as such?
The case was opened based upon a single month-old block which he had long since put up for noticeboard review, while he was offering to submit it for a second review. He answered all other relevant concerns to the satisfaction of community consensus, during the RFC for which the arbitration was suspended. Yet the arbitrators never substantially changed the proposed decision that had been posted in the first twelve hours of the case, before he had any chance to defend himself. Voting proceeded despite his requests for time to study for university final exams, and the time it took away hurt his grades. I fail to see what purpose is served by retaining this case, other than as a showcase example for critics of ArbCom to demonstrate the Committee's inability to correct its errors or rein in its members, when they level personal attacks. Durova 01:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Kirill, I agree that Misplaced Pages arbitration does not observe the precedents of case law. So far as I know, no prior case has been vacated because there has never been so much cause to do so as here. Durova 04:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Amending: Orangemarlin is a precedent, although an unusual one. Durova 01:18, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
To FT2: a single block and a short noticeboard thread is scant grounds to suppose that a 'newbie biting' culture existed. What did exist--and was well documented in case evidence--was a series of offsite campaigns by people who held a particular POV to manipulate Misplaced Pages articles toward their POV. The degree of organization varied, but they occurred across muliple fora whose participants were persistent. This created a significant dilemma for Wikipedians who contributed to the topic, since that manipulative element had already learned to exploit AGF by abandoning accounts after a few days or weeks and returning under new guises. How does one address that exploitation while maintaining a friendly welcome for genuine good faith newcomers? Shoemaker's Holiday's approach did not work, but neither did the community do well (imo) when consensus directed that indef block reviews occur on high traffic noticeboards where a percentage of threads inevitably get buried in the shuffle, and more pertinent to this review--the Committee's attempted solution wasn't any better. There has been a shortage of sysop attention for the site's touchier topics. A wise administrator who reads this case would take one very pertinent lesson from it: close CSDs, enforce 3RR violations, work on the image permissions backlogs, and don't even comment upon anything controversial. Eventually those festering messes will come to RFAR where the Committee that failed to assume good faith of site culture can cope with the result. We still need better site processes and policies, but that falls outside the Committe's remit. See fundamental attribution error. Durova 05:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Again to FT2: the case was opened under circumstances that would normally merit admin conduct RFC, and the only argument for bypassing prior DR was an allegation that a pernicious culture existed among the admin corps. That the person who initiated the request and made the allegation failed to substantiate it, and instead left a series of personal attacks on the site pages for two days before disappearing on an unannounced wikibreak, weighs heavily. Note too that the RFC for which the case was suspended established clear consensus support for the admin who was under scrutiny. He addressed the community's concerns to the community's satisfaction. The only remaining issue is his admin bit, and although the Committee's opinion is at odds with the community's he does not seek its return. The RFC was a proper RFC and will remain available for reference should that ever become necessary. The best portion of your concerns is sufficiently addressed there, and to the extent that this case is a valid one with reference to him (which I doubt) it is redundant with the RFC. Durova 02:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Martinphi

I seriously question whether he stayed away from Misplaced Pages for several months. My memory is that he was logging into the admin IRC network under his real name immediately after his case closed. Yes, Shoemaker appeared 18 February 2008 , while the case was closed 13 February 2008 . Yet, Shoemaker states above "I left Misplaced Pages over it, and it was only the active, constant encouragement of User:Newyorkbrad, User:Durova and a few others that brought me back after several months." Whether or not he believes this to be true, I cannot say. If he believes it, he's in no condition to be an admin again. If he doesn't, he's in no condition to be an admin again.

I have been the victim of his continued harassment since I took part in his ArbCom and RfC. If any action would give him back his admin tools, then I strenuously object, as he has continued to be an abusive editor since his desysopping. He already tried, by the regular means, to get his tools back at an RfA. He lost. He has lost the trust of the community. ——Martin Ψ~Φ—— 20:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

My memory is also that while the ArbCom did not adhere to strict protocol in the case, it nevertheless went out of its way to ensure a full and just hearing of the case. It actually suspended the case pending an RfC. I have absolutely no doubt that if the ArbCom had seen anything in the RfC which indicated that Vanished user should keep his admin buttons, the ArbCom would have revised the case. Indeed, I am fully convinced that there were things which Vanished user could have done to keep his buttons: he could simply have said he was wrong and wouldn't do it again. He didn't. I told him how to keep his buttons, and he didn't do it. I believe the ArbCom was open to being convinced that their initial judgment was wrong, and the RfC failed to convince them. Certainly, Vanished user had many friends, who essentially said "he fights trolls, so excuse him." But that's not an excuse, and the ArbCom knew it. ——Martin Ψ~Φ—— 21:29, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved party Verbal

I have only recently become aware of this, and fully endorse Jehochman's view: it would be very good to erase it completely. This was bad procedure and sets bad precedent. It should never have happened. Verbal chat 21:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Krill: I think blanked and vacated would be the best option here. Verbal chat 09:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Response to Kirill by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

A case was vacated earlier this year, though I'd prefer slightly different wording. If it is to be vacated, perhaps the Committee can vote on a motion that will replace (blank) what's on the case pages: "The Committee declares that the decision viewable in the history is vacated and not in effect. The history of the case pages are preserved for transparency." The Committee may need to issue a further report, or further statements that can hopefully help heal the wounds of those involved. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, it would involve removing the case from the archives. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
(I'm still reviewing this request, but meanwhile a question.) What case was vacated earlier this year? Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Brad, I think he is referring to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin. MBisanz 13:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, that's the one - granted, the circumstances were of course somewhat different in that case, I bring it up as an example of how one has been vacated in the very recent past. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Addendum

It is time to embrace the change in approach that the rest of Misplaced Pages (heck, the rest of the world) have been pushing for more and more recently - this will become even more evident in the next couple of elections. A case was vacated earlier this year; this is another one that needs to be vacated in the manner specified in Kirill's motion.

Tendentious editing, civil POV pushing, problem editing, or whatever else you want to call it, is by far, one of the biggest problems this project is facing. Nothing can be compared to the detrimental effects this has on Misplaced Pages, the community in general, or those individual users who unfortunately encounter this sort of behaviour regularly.

I've read through this case a couple of times in the past, as if it were any other case. When I noticed many uninvolved members of the community engaging in heated discussion about it off-wiki and criticized certain members of the Committee in an extreme manner, my curiosity was sparked to read it again. I read part of it again just now and this finding got me emotionally charged.

The experience I had when handling a particular problem editor (not that long ago) was disgusting. A number of checkusers (including arb emeritus or arbitrators), as well as admins and editors should have some recollection of who I am referring to. The amount of red tape and formalities I needed to go through (and the time and effort taken) were immensely horrible. It took weeks before there was enough evidence to justify a ban on that problem editor for disruption from sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry - and even that was with some luck. It took months before I was able to demonstrate (for the purposes of red-tape and formality) that the editor had been engaging in POV pushing, extreme rudeness, harassment and general disruption. In any case, I am certain we have all learnt from it. I'm not unexperienced in identifying problem editors - particularly from the sorts of expressions they use, the way they approach a dispute, and the way they approach a dispute. And I'm pretty sure I've been AGF'ing in this regard too. That said, I have no doubt that Matthew Hoffman was one such problem editor based on his contributions.

I was lucky to get through it because of a handful of users from different categories. However, many editors, including one very recently, was not so lucky and left Misplaced Pages as a result (an arbitrator was made aware of this recently). I appreciate the help the Committee provides in trying to resolve this problem, but this case does not do that; it does the opposite. A large number of the community are afraid to take action due to what may happen to them (i.e. what happened in this case). We're willing to desysop an admin for using some clue and taking action quickly, but we're unwilling to desysop admins who take no action at all? Yes, there were errors in his admin judgement sometimes, but RFC is supposed to provide a 2nd chance. In any case, it's a moot point anyway, as adminship isn't the point of clearing the case.

The case is having a causal effect on editors leaving the project due to the lack of support for community ridding the project of problem editors as early as possible. Such an outcome is not compatible with the goals of this project, and further shakes what confidence the community has in the Committee. I request that the case is vacated in the manner specified in Kirill's well-considered motion so that we can all move on. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, I request that the active members of the current Committee do something - we cannot afford to put it as a last priority item or as one that can die without being enacted. Editors are having to handle this problem far too regularly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Chaser

I was tangentially involved in this case. For the reasons stated by Durova above, I think the committee should simply blank the case, leaving Shoemaker's Holiday without his bit, but removing the restriction on how he might get it back. His not asking for it back gives ArbCom a good opportunity to correct their error without forcing them to the logical conclusion of making him an admin again.

The comments below belie how ArbCom decisions are treated in the community. ArbCom de-sysopping has been called the kiss of death for former admins returning to RFA; this was true for Shoemaker's Holiday despite the name change. Negative FoFs in a case follow editors (particularly project-space heavy editors) around the wiki. The final decision included adding a note to Hoffman's block log that ArbCom found the blocks to be unjustified. Shoemaker's Holiday, still an active editor, deserves at least the same consideration as someone no longer contributing here. He is asking for the Committee to once again officially acknowledge a mistake, but this time its own. In practical terms, replacing the page's contents with a big notice that the case has been vacated, à la Orangemarlin, is appropriate.--chaser - t 22:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not enthused about the appearance, if not the reality of rewriting history in the last sentence of 1.3. But I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.--chaser - t 19:16, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


Comment by JoshuaZ

The central claim made in the decision to desysop SH was that he was involved in a content dispute with Matthew Hoffman. Given that the last time SH had edited the page in question was 7 months prior to Hoffman's block, does the ArbCom acknowledge that this claim is incorrect? JoshuaZ (talk) 23:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Sticky Parkin

I have said before that having negative findings of "fact" against them is very vile for the individual, especially if it involves judgments about a person's character, dismissiveness or other obnoxiousness (not saying this is the case here, but in general.) It would be difficult to 'vacate' an entire case, but I think the person should be allowed right to reply at the bottom of the decisions page if they feel false things have been said about them, otherwise a final judgement is made against them which will stand on wikipedia for years to come. Definitely an addendum should be added by the arbs if some false things they said about someone are later seen to be false- or those comments the arbs made which are later seen to be false should be struck out. Or is there Arbcom Infallibility? Clearly not as I like to think we're all partly human, and that arbcom can sometimes admit any errors or excessive obnoxiousness. Sticky Parkin 02:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Statement of common ground by MastCell

It seems like significant common ground exists, though the emotions inspired by this case seem to have everyone talking past each other. I sense from the Arbs' comments that they see at least some validity in the idea that this case was poorly handled. The resistance to vacating it seems to stem from the belief that the case's conclusions were valid, even if its execution was suboptimal.

Why not just append a resolution indicating that the Arbitration Committee recognizes deficiencies in the handling of this case (ideally, the deficiencies could be enumerated; I offer a modest example here)? That the Committee intends to learn from those deficiencies, in the interest of quality improvement, but at the same time affirms the final remedies as valid? I hear SH saying that the case was handled unfairly, and I hear FT2 saying, "Well, maybe, but the end result was valid." Folks, those are not mutually exclusive viewpoints. MastCell  18:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


Clerk notes

Arbitrator comments

  • I'm open to doing something constructive here in principle; but I'm not quite sure precisely how that might be framed. Arbitration cases are explicitly not binding precedent (and not really even advisory precedent); so the "case law" analogy doesn't really work. We don't, therefore, have any established method for vacating a case, per se—overturning it, yes, but not vacating it. What would you like to see in practical terms? A blanking of the case pages? A motion naming the case as being "vacated"? Or something else? Kirill 01:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Commenting in general, I think that there is here too great an assumption that arbitration on wikipedia works in a quasi-legal fashion with notions of fairness to the parties applied as they would be in a criminal law case in an adversarial court system. That is not how it works. The concept of fairness applies primarily to the project as a whole. Where a user is being disruptive for matters outside their control, then arbitrators must still act to restrict them to prevent disruption even if doing so appears to be unfair or harsh on the user. To express it another way, the key issue is the disruption and not what lies behind it. In this immediate case the active members of the committee at the time (I was not participating, having only just been appointed) have apologised for the way the case was handled, but not for the decision.
Where that does come in is when we assess whether to remove restrictions. If a user has been disruptive because of some definite cause, and that cause no longer applies, then we ought to remove any restrictions placed on them because they are no longer needed. In this case I see a great deal of argument about whether the original case was decided appropriately but I see precious little to inform me about what positive actions are requested, and how they would benefit Misplaced Pages. I would like to see this point argued before I go to vote. I endorse everything Kirill says above about the uselessness of 'precedent'; the committee refuses to be bound by precedent so in effect it does not exist as such. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:41, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Response to Shoemaker's Holiday: I'm afraid that yet again a request for information about how to benefit the project going forward has been met with information about how decisions in the past were wrong. The most that I think can be done is to courtesy blank the Matthew Hoffman case, and I'm willing to support that, but formally 'vacating' it would be a meaningless act. I am at a loss to know how you interpret Morven's comments as an invitation to disclose confidential information to the community: they are instead plainly a statement that any application for your resysopping should go to the committee in order to preserve confidentiality. As you are not at present applying for resysop the issue does not arise anyway. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:37, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
  • What remedy do you seek? I doubt the Committee would consider revisiting the outcomes, given the facts as they existed then and now. Blanking would achieve little, given that your account was already renamed, the case of course existing under the username of the user you blocked. If people are in a mood to be revisiting things, then let's revisit the discussion of problems in our admin culture that was the substratum to the case, which has not proceeded in all this time. --bainer (talk) 02:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I joined Arbcom a month into the case, and so one of my first questions was to review it carefully. The case was initially brought to get a review of the rise in "newbie biting" culture, by reviewing the behavior of those involved in the Matthew Hoffman block and its declined unblock, and assessing if Shoemaker's Holiday had acted properly as an administrator. By itself, this was one block 2 months previous to the case. It would probably not have led to a serious result of the form Charles Matthews had requested. The case was formally accepted due to the divisive issues and to help resolve doubts, a reasonable view. Charles' Matthews also stated that a good explanation was still outstanding despite email requests chased up on the users' talk page in November.

    On that basis, I would consider the case valid. But that wasn't all. By the time I reviewed, I found that there had not been just one mildly questionable block 2 months before the case. There had been multiple clear misuses of admin access, not just one, documented – easily sufficient (in my book) to show a pattern, and easily enough for an RFAR or a request to the Committee to take action. (See for example Findings of Fact # 3, 4, and 9.1.) It is common for a case to be accepted, and then adjust to take account of new factors that are presented in evidence. In this case the new factors included a worrying number of "bad" blocks, not just one. The most recent had been mere days before the case opened, ie at the end of November (and 19 hours before the RFAR case request was posted), not 2 months previous. Any one of those blocks alone might have been enough to formally warn an administrator at RFAR.

    It is obvious and clear that the case process, handling, and so on, was extremely upsetting to Shoemaker's Holiday, some of which I agree with him on, some of which I think he's leaning on too much and isn't merited. Most of the case is history, and that's good. Shoemaker's Holiday has gotten past the issues mostly and that's good. But vacating the case would be asking for agreement the case was not valid, and should never have been heard, and I can't agree on that. I can only agree it should have been heard better in terms of handling than it was - a state of affairs for which numerous statements of apology have been sought and given and I'm at a loss to see what yet another can do. The case (and its final decision) were viable; the "how it got there" which is the issue, is secondary and has been discussed at length. The notion of "I need this case vacated for my own personal peace of mind" doesn't work for me since arbitration cases exist to serve the project, and there was a clearly reasonable and well evidenced project need for it (since bad adminship is a serious concern), even if this could have been processed, documented and followed up a lot better than it was. FT2  06:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

(On a side, even if one looks at the initial grounds of the case (the block of Matthew Hoffman) alone, and nothing else, not one user has shown good evidence that 1/ Matthew Hoffman's block was in fact correct, 2/ The decision that condemned that block was unreasonable, or 3/ That an administrator who makes such a block, leading to controversy between administrators, should not have their block directly reviewed at RFAR. In fact it is the norm for desysop requests to go to RFAR without "prior dispute resolution". That Charles may have spoken poorly in his comments, does not change that the case was valid and accepted. FT2 06:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC))
Update - I also reviewed the "remedies posted within 24 hours" claim, since it seems pivotal to the complaint. In fact one arbitrator did clearly jump the gun - Uninvited Company, who posted the proposed findings of fact and remedy on December 3rd. However if you look closely, not one other arbitrator followed suit. Principles are easy to agree (they don't change much, it's often obvious on day #1 what principles are involved, and they act as "recitals" of policy points likely to have been considered). But the next support for any finding of fact or remedy was on December 8, almost a week after the case opened, and well after much of the evidence (including personal disclosures by Vanished user) had been posted and examined.
I anticipate and accept though, that to Vanished user the post on Dec 3 by Uninvited Company might well have looked like a decision was already made, and may have made him feel there was no point posting a more robust response. I feel that post was exceptionally unhelpful, since there was no way at all that it could be more than a largely speculative proposal at that time, and prone to significant amendment. But this should not be read as endorsement that the case itself finally was wrong; the final finding was of misuse of admin access and when I reviewed in January on joining, and again this last week, this conclusion was very clear and exceptionally well evidenced.
(As a side note, one of my first recommendations for change in January 2008, was that a proposed decision should not be posted until 7 days into the case at minimum, for most cases, exactly because of my awareness of this matter.) FT2  16:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Motions

There are 11 active arbitrators (excluding one recusal) on these motions, so the majority is 6.

1) All pages of the Matthew Hoffman case shall be blanked and replaced with a notice that the case is vacated. This is done with the understanding that Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs) shall consult with the Committee should he wish to become an administrator.

Support:
  1. Kirill 21:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. After reading the discussion that are happening all over Misplaced Pages on this topic now, and remember the past discussions, I think that we need to step up and recognize that we got this wrong and fix it. We need to vacate this ruling. If needed we can write a short factual statement that explains the reason for the desysop. This is better than having a standing ruling that much of the Community thinks is dead wrong. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC) Second choice. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Oppose:
  1. Would not vacate, for reasons above. Whatever the closure value of this might be, and however much upset some parts of the handling may have caused, the roots of the case itself were serious, valid, and the case appropriately brought to RFAR, when I reviewed it. Many users have objections to an RFAR case where they were parties, but vacating a case implies more than "some process lapses". It would imply the entire case had no grounds, or that a massive mistake of fact that was later recognized, means that the beliefs the decision was based upon, were grossly mistaken. Even if one looked at the initial grounds of the case request alone, and nothing else, the case was valid. FT2  06:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. No. I would support courtesy blanking but not 'vacating'. Sam Blacketer (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Per FT2, Sam. James F. (talk) 01:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Abstain:
  1. Prefer 1.3 below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:51, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

1.1) All pages of the Matthew Hoffman case shall be courtesy blanked. This is done with the understanding that Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs) shall consult with the Committee should he wish to become an administrator.

Support:
  1. Second choice, although frankly I can't fathom what the benefit of blanking but not vacating is, at this late stage. Kirill 05:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support although I do not think we need a motion to do it. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Oppose:
  1. Not enough. If we need to start over and write the an accurate factual statement about why he lost the tools, then we can do it. Blanking a ruling helps, but there are real issues with the ruling that need to be addressed, I think. FloNight♥♥♥ 18:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Per Flo. James F. (talk) 01:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Abstain:
  1. Prefer 1.3 below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:51, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

1.2) All pages of the Matthew Hoffman case shall be blanked with an edit summary saying, "The Matthew Hoffman case ruling is no longer active", and will be replaced with the statement, "After receiving feedback about the use of his administrative tools, Shoemaker's Holiday voluntarily agreed to give up his tools and in the future to consult with the Arbitration Committee should he want to have them returned."

Support:
  1. Adam and I discussed wording and he agreed to something along these lines. (Adam, I tweaked it a little but don't think I changed the meaning of our agreed wording. Let me know if you think differently.) I think that this is a fair statement about what happened. Mistakes were made by many people in this situation. It is for the best if we all put it behind us and move on. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC) First choice. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Kirill 01:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Oppose:
  1. Oppose on grounds that "the case ruling is no longer active" is a meaningless phrase. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Per my opposition to 1.0. James F. (talk) 01:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Abstain:
  1. Prefer 1.3 below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:51, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

1.3) In light of all the circumstances presented, the findings and remedies contained in this committee's decision in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman are withdrawn insofar as they reflect adversely on the editor identified as "Vanished user." A notation to this effect will be made on the case pages, which have already been courtesy blanked. This action is based on the cumulative circumstances, and does not constitute a precedent for the routine withdrawal or vacating of arbitration decisions based on later disagreement with the decisions reached. The committee notes that after receiving feedback about the use of his administrator tools, Shoemaker's Holiday voluntarily agreed to give up his tools and to consult with the Arbitration Committee should he wish to become an administrator in the future.

Support
  1. After careful consideration, propose this wording as the best expression of what should reasonably be done. Uncharacteristically, I will not add further to the very substantial discussion that the case has already received. Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. This is fine too. Kirill 06:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. I can accept this wording and hope it helps remove some of the hurt in this case. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Works for me. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. I can accept this, though per FT2, I have concerns that this will be seen in the wrong light. James F. (talk) 01:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Oppose

  1. On principle. Findings that were properly decided, and accurately represent principles, actions, incidents, decisions, and communal norms related to these, would remain valid. I'm not quite sure how one "unfinds" that admin tools were misused, for example, when the evidence even on review makes it clear to an uninvolved administrator or user that this was the case. While I am acutely aware of the hurt felt (I've been a strong supporter of Shoemaker's holiday for as long as I've known him), any party in any case may feel "hurt" -- this isn't a good enough reason for removing valid verifiable findings of a case even if the processes that case followed leave a lot to be desired. This would be the same regardless of any standing of the requesting party.

    The aim in this motion is to reduce the upset felt by a user, which I support... but at the cost of "unfinding" matters that genuinely took place and that were rightly deemed improper by the Committee, undertaken by that user. Specifically, multiple other users were blocked, and multiple other users were prevented from editing by utterly wrongful protection applied by an administrator who was heavily involved in editing "against" them; some users were described on the wiki as vandals who were not. These users mattered too. The level of pragmatism required to "unfind" these points is not one I feel is good precedent, or a wise compromise. I am unable to endorse a proposed decision to do so. FT2  15:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

  2. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:08, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Abstain
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