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Requests for arbitration

FT2-Jehochman

Initiated by Jehochman2 (talk) at 13:51, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Jehochman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• FT2 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Elonka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Alison (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Bishonen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• I have notified everybody.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• A couple hundred emails have been exchanged under supervision of three mediators. This process appears to have reached a state at which further progress is unlikely.

Statement by Jehochman

I am presently (and perhaps unwisely) a candidate in the Arbitration Committee elections. User:FT2, User:Alison, and User:Elonka have made serious accusations against me on the election pages. These accusations are based in part on private correspondence. Although this may not have been their intention, the effect is to smear my reputation, and leave me unable to respond properly and fully. I therefore request expedited consideration of this request to minimize any taint to the election.

Despite repeated requests, FT2 has refused to share with me the log files on which his accusations are based. He has however shared them with Alison, and possibly others, claiming that Checkusers are empowered to review private evidence. My understanding is that only ArbCom is the proper body to review private correspondence of this nature. There is no issue of sock puppetry here at all. FT2 has not provided any explanation why he cannot share the log files with me. In late September I suffered a hard disk failure and therefore do not have any log files from the time frames in question. Moreover, because I value privacy greatly, I often do not log conversations as I have no intention whatsoever of sharing them. To me "private" means private.

The mediators have included User:SirFozzie, User:Hersfold, and User:Lar. Through their efforts substantial disagreements were resolved. Without any quid pro quo, I posted unequivocal statements to Elonka and to FT2 in an attempt to set the record straight and end the controversy. Neither Elonka nor FT2 have acknowledged my statements as ending the dispute. Disputes should not be allowed to fester endlessly, nor should dispute resolution be allowed to consume an excessive amount of time and volunteer resources.

I request the following steps:

1. Evaluate one of the key underlying issues. Please check FT2's concerns expressed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Bishonen 3 and decide whether they are resolved or whether they deserve further review in light of my clarficiations.
2. If FT2 or any other parties have related concerns about me, please review the confidential and the public evidence to determine what findings or remedies, if any, are needed. Hopefully the disputants would instead agree to shake hands and walk away rather than take up the Committee's time with issues that are very distantly removed from article writing.

In addition, I feel that ArbCom could help minimize needless strife and collateral damage in the community. For example, User:Shell Kinney appears to have made a comment here obliquely referencing this dispute. This resulted in a case ban by User:Manning Bartlett. Manning subsequently left the project for unknown reasons. That is the sort of exceedingly harmful strife and collateral damage I'd very much like to avoid: an experienced administrator getting banned, and an exceptional content contributor leaving.

A motion setting out the events and the resolution would be an ideal result. Thank you for your kind consideration of these matters. Jehochman2 (talk) 15:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Below FT2 has violated the principle that mediation is confidential. I request he remove his characterizations of my comments during mediation, as they are unhelpful and needlessly inflammatory. He's a former arbitrator. He should know better. Wikilawyering that this is informal mediation so "The Rules" don't apply seems to me most unhelpful. Jehochman 18:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC) and 18:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

@FT2. I think my administrator activities have generally been uncontroversial and helpful. I'm not sure why you'd even raise that as an issue here. Jehochman 19:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

@Alison. My concern is that you rendered a conclusion and imputed motives to me without hearing my side of the story first. That is not a professional way to handle disputes. Your position as checkuser does not empower you to review correspondence and determine if people are liars or not. You've overstepped your mandate. This was not a sock puppetry case. Jehochman 21:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

My suggestion to all parties is to shake hands and agree to drop these matters in favor of creating free content. That will be much more fun and productive. Much was accomplished during mediation; not everything everybody wanted, but I think as much as can reasonably be expected. Further litigation of these disputes will face diminishing returns and generally not be worth the "costs" to Misplaced Pages. I cannot force people to drop a matter, but I hope they will see the logic and wisdom of doing so. Will anybody accept my suggestion? Arbitrators, what do you think? Jehochman 20:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by FT2

The viability of Jehochman's adminship has been in question a while, in the background. A dialog overseen by Lar (who was asked to opine) has been taking place some time now.

Unknown to the community, Jehochman was on the verge of admin conduct RFC (a mutually agreed outcome, possibly via self-RFC) to allow wider review and to determine an appropriate final resolution.

The evidenced issues due to be raised were that, as an experienced administrator and self-described "senior editor", Jehochman:

1. Used dispute resolution processes such as RFC, recall and RFAR for "political games" (his own candid admission). He did this mainly out of personal pique and anger at another user, to try and get that user desysopped.
2. As an administrator, gave unequivocally false or misleading statements to the community at WP:ACE2008, and again at WP:ACE2009, knowing they were false, in seeking a role of high trust.
3. Improperly by poor adminship and unfounded claims helped derail an RFC, where he now agrees he acted improperly, made unfounded claims and did not check any evidence. He now admits the RFC issues should have obtained serious review. The issues in that RFC remain open.
4. Privately knowing all these matters were accurate and fairly stated, he further denied them at ACE2009, and made repeated (and untruthful) claims that they were just bad faith and unfounded, and he was sorry to see others act this way.
5. Continued making these claims even when another Checkuser/Oversighter (Alison) labeled the evidence as "unequivocal", and his posts as "deliberate community deception".
6. Appears to have "gamed" privacy (claiming on little or no grounds, that the matters were old, irelevant, or would infringe others), apparently to prevent other users seeing the evidence of his own poor position, and to continue make his own unfounded claims without contrary evidence.
7. Another functionary (Lar) was therefore also shown the evidence and asked for an opinion. Faced with questions by Lar, Jehochman engaged in productive dialog, and although unwilling until forced, he has now finally admitted the substance of these matters to the community.

However a further concern then arose. Having made the agreed disclosures, at the point of setting up a previously agreed RFC, Jehochman suddenly "flipped" from amicable dialog to wild and irrational floods of ludicrous claims. This ran across several emails, suddenly maintaining "out of the blue" that others are showing bad faith, weird conspiracy theories, not having seen the full evidence, withdrawing permission to quote, etc. If I hadn't seen it I would not have believed it. Lar appears (by his emails) as surprised as I am.

Lar can confirm there was no provocation nor visible dispute at the time; the email dialog was consistently amicable, and precisely and smoothly followed prior explicit agreements on what would be done next -- so much so that Jehochman had already been discussing RFC titles. I WP:AGFed his outbursts and Lar has offered dialog. But Jehochman admits that he had a "hot temper" and could at times "turn " (agreed paraphrase). He repeated the same in another email, then filed RFAR instead, naming people as parties regardless of involvement and claiming that it was going nowhere.

All this is categorically evidenced. Lar can confirm Jehochman's past willingness (before the recent reversal) to show the log snips to the wider community. A copy of the entire email thread will be submitted as evidence to the Committee. It speaks for itself.

The community was due to be asked within days to help conclude Jehochman's case by reviewing the agreed incidents and evidence, asking questions, and determining any final decision. Jehochman appears to have "flipped" and instead suddenly decided to seek RFAR without any especial good reason or desired result. That's fine, if Arbcom want to consider it. Personally I'd have preferred community review, but it's his choice, and the severe concerns are probably suitable for this venue. If he's going to add his own twist to any private dialogs, then this venue is correct.

I'll add diffs for all of this in a bit (and may refine it), or evidence them direct to Arbcom. Lar and Jehochman have seen it all anyway.

FT2  18:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Response to Jehochman: Official mediation is confidential (WP:AP#hearing, wikilinked to WP:MEDCOM). Provided it's not taken advantage of in bad faith, that is. But this wasn't official mediation -- I'd question if it was "mediation" of any kind. Lar was asked for a formal opinion on some evidence as an admin and functionary, he emailed us both questions, and stayed in the loop as we considered the answers. It's 100.00% citable. FT2  19:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

@ Lar: I had no expectation of privacy in the dialog we had, nor did I ask for it. I think you'll find that's a retrospective notion, inserted after the fact. If you check, I actually stated explicitly, very early on, that privacy of dialog (beyond the minimum required by site norms) was absolutely not possible as an expectation here, since it had previously been gamed to cover up misconduct. FT2  20:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Hersfold

Placeholder for an eventual statement. As Jehochman mentioned, I was involved along with some others in trying to mediate this dispute through private email. Unfortunately, I've gotten a new computer since then, and my email client is refusing to download emails that my old computer's client already grabbed. They're not deleted, I just have to go read them through Gmail which is a little more inconvenient. Hersfold 18:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

I was asked to review material. I contacted both parties and offered to be a sounding board. (an informal mediator if you like but I didn't use that term and I certainly don't consider myself covered under official mediation guidelines per se) I thought a productive dialog was taking place, at a reasonable pace, but I decline to give specifics. I consider material sent me as private correspondence during the course of this dialog to be private since both parties entered into this with an expectation of privacy and I will not be releasing anything sent me regarding this matter without the permission of the party that sent it. I have nothing further to say at this time. ++Lar: t/c 19:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SirFozzie

I am posting a statement to confirm that I was involved along with some others in trying to mediate this dispute through private email. The terms of my involvement in the email mediation was that the discussion was going to be held under similar terms as to those involved with on-Misplaced Pages Mediations. Therefore, I am going to have to decline to speak further on this. SirFozzie (talk) 19:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Alison

As FT2 states below and on the ACE2009 candidate's page, I was contacted out of the blue by FT2 on the matter of this personal correspondence. He pointed me to the then page containing Jehochman's and his statements and asked my would I evaluate some personal messages between himself and Jehochman, then state my opinion on the matter. As someone who regularly reviews privacy-related material and as someone who is used to keeping such matters private, I agreed. This is something that happens amongst other functionaries; checkusers are asked for second opinions on IP-related info, oversighters ask for sanity checks, etc. Privacy is implied and, as per any other such issue, I have not and will not share the information I was given without the prior consent of the parties involved. Having said that, if Jehochman agrees (FT2 and Elonka already have), I will be happy to forward on the messages I was given to ArbCom. I entered this matter from 'cold', having not been previously involved in any of the Bish/Elonka/Jehochman/FT2 stuff, and was unaware of any of the history there.

Anyways - to the issue itself. On reading and comparing Jehochman's statements in the message logs to what he stated on his ACE2009 candidate's questions page (since updated), I saw major discrepancies. I posted one single message to that page, over three edits, detailing my findings.

It was clear from my reading of these logs and from the on-wiki discussion, that FT2 was in a complete quandary. He knew that Jehochman had been saying one thing off-wiki, but stating another on-wiki at his ACE2009 page. These were blatantly at variance but FT2 had no way to challenge or refute these statements without posting excerpts of their chat logs or forwarding them on to others. Jehochman was relying upon his being bound over by copyright rules re. posting of personal messages on-wiki. That's why he called in two neutral parties (myself and Lar) to review them. I actually didn't know about Lar's involvement until much later.

What I found was that where Jehochman accused FT2 of misrepresentation of what he had said, in fact FT2 had not misrepresented his statements at all. Indeed, it couldn't have been clearer, in my opinion. He also stated that FT2 of having been motivated by "personal grievances" However, less than a minute after posting that comment on -wiki, he stated unequivocally in the log that FT2 may actually be 100% correct in what he had said. I simply cannot reconcile these two positions; one off-wiki and one in the public view. As I stated, that plus the comments about "grudge bearing" can only lead me to conclude that Jehochman is being duplicitous in his on-wiki statements; he is expressing one thing privately whilst saying something completely different in public. I viewed that as deliberate community deception and stated that at the time. I still maintain that. There is a lot more detail in my comments posted at the ACE2009 questions page, linked here.

Since posting that, I withdrew from the page and refrained from commenting further, though Jehochman's initial response was kinda snarky and confrontational. He would later change that significantly, instead thanking me for "helping to shed some light on these matters", and asking me to redact parts of my statement. I have since not posted anything Arb-related to other candidates though hope to post a few questions of my own to all candidates soon. I have not shared any of the private correspondence with anyone else, nor will I without clear assent.

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I just want to clear up a misconception here. The only mediation on Misplaced Pages which is privileged is formal mediation, which the Mediation Committee coordinates. All other mediation (whether it be through the mediation cabal or other forms of informal mediation) is not privileged in nature - it's the key thing that sets aside formal mediation from other types of mediation on the project. Not one part of this case came through the Mediation Committee and was therefore not formal in nature, therefore privilege is not enforceable here. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:12, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• Jehochman, I went through the RFM archives and could not find any case in which FT2 participated. Only mediations formally conducted by the Mediation Committee are privileged. Could you email a link to clerks-l if it is indeed just the case that my searching skills are subpar. MBisanz 18:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Lar presented himself as a mediator. It is not a formal case, but I don't see why we'd suddenly start posting the contents of private correspondence on wiki (even in summary form) without consent of the participants. Jehochman 18:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Ok, to clarify then, Lar is not a formal mediator, so we aren't discussing the privilege of mediation then, we are discussing the privacy of correspondence. If I recall correctly, off-wiki comments made privately may be summarized or referenced, but may not be quoted on-wiki as the controlling factor is respect for copyright. I believe Doug KnightLago might be better informed on this matter since he did just clerk the similar EEML case. MBisanz 18:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Whatever the case may be, I operate under the principles of common sense and common decency. If somebody presents themselves and a mediator and says, "Let's talk about this", I expect that conversation is not going to be repeated elsewhere. Jehochman 18:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
        • I understand your concerns, however I'm somewhat limited to ministerial actions of things either in policy or as directed by the arbs, and since the only guidance I have is the past practice of permitting summaries and admissions of non-privileged mediations, my hands are tied fairly strongly here. You might try emailing arb-l as they would have the discretionary power to change their own guidance. MBisanz 18:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
          • Thank you. I understand the constraints. Jehochman 18:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Note on Lar. The reason Lar became involved was not official mediation, nor did he approach us to offer mediation, nor was he asked to mediate. After Jehochman claimed (now withdrawn) that the concerns raised were bad faith, I asked Alison (as a Checkuser/Oversighter in high regard) to review and opine. She did so - and was scathing. Jehochman continued to deny the matters, so I approached another uninvolved functionary (Lar) to review them independently. Lar asked us clarifying questions about the evidence, and we kept him in the loop thereafter. That's how he came into the case. (Disclosure: I also asked one or two other functionaries less formally as well, in the past. But Lar and Alison were the only two asked formally and without any prior "chat" to opine, for the purposes of WP:ACE2009.) FT2  19:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• Recused as one of the mediators between the disputants. I'll probably make a statement in the next few days. Hersfold 18:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I'd also like to add that by virtue of my activities and the nature of the case, I think I've actually interacted to a deep level with all named participants. But, I can't figure out what exactly all the veiled and referenced material is. If any of it involves me, could someone let me know so I'll know if I should recuse. MBisanz 18:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think any of it involves you. Jehochman 18:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Confirmed. None involves you. The private material covers Jehochman's admissions about himself and his actions, and his activities related to Elonka (who has consented to their disclosure). FT2  19:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
• Note I've emailed the arbs and other clerks asking them which standard I should apply to comments (absolute privilege of mediation, semi-strict privilege of private correspondence, or the standard "don't use naughty words" baseline.) MBisanz 20:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to leave all content on the page. Leave the evidence of indiscretion. It serves to highlight the reasons why I'd like the Committee to help implement a formal end to this dispute. Jehochman 20:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/1)

• Jehochman, if you missed this reply, please read it now and adjust your statement accordingly unless you are aware of the facts of the matter and believe it is necessary to incorporate it into the requested case. John Vandenberg 21:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)