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WMC temp desysop motion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Requested diffs

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

Here is the final exchange between Abd and WMC :

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

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

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

Evidential basis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment s from me

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

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

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

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

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

Statement

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

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

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