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2/0, this seems to be the first order of business if I am to be allowed to continue at all. So please do me the courtesy of a reply. --GoRight (talk) 19:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

This remains an evolving situation as evidenced by the history of this page, so let me just list the main points and we can discuss them together in this section or severally in subsections, whatever makes the most sense.

1. Some form of civility parole, as I view this as the main issue - antagonizing other editors is just not on, even in a toxic editing atmosphere. As I mention above, I do not think that these sorts of provisions have a stellar track record, so the wording here will need to be very clear to avoid frivolous reports of violation while still having teeth that an unfamiliar admin would feel comfortable invoking. I am not at all convinced that you understand my reasoning behind each of the diffs above, but if you are willing to give it a go there is some chance that this condition could be productive.
2. Topic ban from climate change related articles for six months. This is not the maximum allowed under the community probation, but rather the minimum I see as likely to be useful to the project. I am sensitive to the concerns of systematic bias you raise in your most recent email, but this does not extend to a tolerance for disruption.
3. Some form of ban from all disputes and noticeboard threads in which you are not a named party or otherwise clearly and directly involved, with the possible the exceptions of ArbCom and RFC/U. This is also easily open to conflicting interpretations, and I would want additional input before settling on clear wording that carries the same meaning both to the two of us and to people unfamiliar with the background to the restriction. I also consider it important not to restrict legitimate pursuit of dispute resolution.

Such issues have been raised here time and time again. I appreciate the wording of your current unblock request, but I think it is time and past time for clear editing restrictions rather than pretty generalities if you are to continue contributing here. - 2/0 (cont.) 08:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I can certainly understand your skepticism regarding my pledges at this point and freely acknowledge that it is my own fault for finding myself in this current predicament. I wish to put this matter behind me as cleanly and with as little fuss and additional discussion as possible at this point. I would also like a chance to redeem myself on my own recognizance now that you have truly driven the point home.

To those ends, might you be convinced to allow me to proceed on my pledges alone if I further offer that for a period of 1 year I shall not object if you reinstate the existing block and return us to this point should you ever feel that I am not honoring these pledges in good faith for any reason? --GoRight (talk) 17:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you could be allowed to edit via a mentoring agreement. Then the above restrictions could be relaxed somewhat. If you want to edit a climate change related page or contribute to an AN/I thread, you notify your appointed mentor . You discuss with the mentor what you want to do there and then the mentor can either approve or disapprove. In case the mentor approves he/she can still impose some restrictions, e.g. asking you to change the way you want to put forward your argument there. Count Iblis (talk) 23:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I genuinely like the tone of your latest unblock statement, but I fear I must decline. These and similar issues have been raised here quite a number of times, and I would like any unblock to be informed by that history. I am sorry, but I believe that well-defined conditions as free as possible from the potential for differing subjective opinions are required if you are to continue contributing productively. I sincerely hope that this will be the last time you are blocked, and that the issues other people have had in editing with you may be resolved. - 2over0 public (talk) 07:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I understand and I bear you no ill will because of this. I was just trying to minimize any further drama and disruption. Given this, what are you seeking from me? You seem to want to have a conversation, which I welcome, but I am not clear on what exactly the purpose is at this point.

For example, is it acceptable for me to query you about the details of the evidence and the reasoning that drove you to your conclusions so that I and others might better understand where you are coming from? Such a back and forth discussion without fifty intermixed yelling voices might help others in the community to learn from my bad example, no? And depending on where such a conversation takes us perhaps you might reconsider your position?

I am asking because I don't wish to offend by starting off asking lots of questions which might make me appear defensive which is not my intent. My intent is to ensure that we (and everyone else who is watching) have a common understanding of the underlying issues and to help me feel as though you considered all of the relevant nuances before coming to your conclusion. It is also my hope that such a slow and deliberative exchange would be a tangible step towards fostering the collaborative environment we are both seeking by serving as a model for how to conduct civil interactions.

I am particularly interested in your personal perspective since it is you who has decided to take this action against me, so to that end I would ask that others refrain from interjecting comments into this section. If they want to comment they can do so elsewhere. Would you be open to such a discussion before we move on to the task of coming to a mutual agreement on the wording for specific restrictions? --GoRight (talk) 14:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Many of the issues raised by your case apply also to several other editors who have commented at this page, so I would be willing to work this out in some more detail than my original blocking statement. I have no problem with you pinging me by email or raising issues there that you would prefer to deal with in private, but for the most part I would prefer to keep this conversation here.

In many instances you were contributing to an already extant atmosphere of incivility, bad faith, and mutual antagonism. Taken individually, this can be an extenuating circumstance, but when it becomes a pattern something needs to change. The history of your block log, warnings left here, and your contributions over the few weeks preceding this latest block served to establish that pattern.

So, ask away. - 2/0 (cont.) 07:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, excellent. So allow me to proceed in a deliberative manner so that we may properly explore and discuss the various facets of the problem in due course. To that end let me consider each of your areas of concern, in turn, beginning with your main concern. I shall endeavor to utilize section headings to help scope the discussion as we proceed and to facilitate the editing process. --GoRight (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

=== Civility ===

"Some form of civility parole, as I view this as the main issue - antagonizing other editors is just not on, even in a toxic editing atmosphere. As I mention above, I do not think that these sorts of provisions have a stellar track record, so the wording here will need to be very clear to avoid frivolous reports of violation while still having teeth that an unfamiliar admin would feel comfortable invoking. I am not at all convinced that you understand my reasoning behind each of the diffs above, but if you are willing to give it a go there is some chance that this condition could be productive."

==== Fundamental Principles ====

"In many instances you were contributing to an already extant atmosphere of incivility, bad faith, and mutual antagonism. Taken individually, this can be an extenuating circumstance, but when it becomes a pattern something needs to change."

OK, this seems a fine a proper statement and one which can be used to guide this discussion a bit as we proceed. I would first like to make sure that we are aligned on some of the fundamental principles at play here so that we are operating from the same perspective.

I assert that the following principles are self-evident in this context and that they reflect existing community practice:

1. All wikipedia editors are equal peers and as a result the application of sanctions or editing restrictions should be unbiased, fairly applied, and weighted in accordance with the severity of the infraction.

   In this context unbiased means without regard to an editor's points of view or who their political allies may be. Weighted in accordance with the severity of the infraction means that the punishment should fit the crime, so to speak, and that cruel or unusual punishments (actually preventative measures) are to be avoided. Fairly applied means that similar weighted infractions receive similarly weighted sanctions or restrictions.

2. All wikipedia editors should be judged by and held to the same standard of conduct as represented by demonstrably accepted community standards and norms as exemplified by editors with well established editing histories and who enjoy visible support from not only the community at large, but from within the administrative community as well.

   While I believe that 2/0 and I share a common vision of what an ideal collaborative editing environment should be, the reality is that wikipedia falls short of such an ideal. As a result the proper standard of behavior to which someone such as myself should be held is not the ideal, but rather demonstrably accepted community standards and norms as exemplified by editors with well established editing histories and who enjoy visible support from not only the community at large, but from within the administrative community as well. This means that in order to determine whether someone such as myself has crossed a line in terms of civility, as well as how far beyond that line something lies, that the line in question is demonstrably accepted community standards and norms.

Do you agree? If not, please explain. Also, we may have to expand this list, as needed, depending on the direction that this conversation takes. --GoRight (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I have read this several times, but I am still not sure where you are going with it. We are all volunteers here, and need to treat each other with respect and decorum even, or perhaps especially, when we disagree. Fundamentally, we are here to build an encyclopedia, and everything else is secondary to that goal. Neutrality of enforcement aids in that goal because people generally prefer to work in a collegial environment with clearly established standards of behaviour. To a certain extent, WP:Civility is self-enforcing, as people will tend to ignore people who habitually violate it. - 2/0 (cont.) 06:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

"I have read this several times, but I am still not sure where you are going with it." - My purpose should be plain enough. We both seek to foster a collegial environment based on mutual understanding and respect. To do that we must clearly understand and agree on what that means. In your opening statement on civility you stated: "I am not at all convinced that you understand my reasoning behind each of the diffs above..." I understand your concern, and to some level may even agree with it, and so it would seem that we are not yet at the level of a mutual understanding. So my purpose here is to clearly convey what my understanding is and then to simply ask you if you agree, or not, with the intent to clearly delineate where we are in agreement (i.e. we have common ground) and where we are not (i.e. to identify the potential sources of our disagreement). Since I have no reason to believe that we are particularly unique in this environment I also contend that there is benefit to the overall community in holding such a discussion so that we can lay the groundwork for a more lasting solution to the problems that plague the climate change pages.

So, from that perspective, do you agree that the principles I have identified are representative of commonly expressed community standards, norms, and practices, or not? I should think that these are entirely uncontroversial, but if you are reluctant to agree with these principles I should think that we had better tease out why as this is likely part of the underlying disagreement between the two of us, and more importantly this may also point to part of the underlying problems within the larger community. We should always be mindful of the larger picture, no? --GoRight (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless you start arguing against full civil rights for Turing-compliant artificial sentiences, I really could not care less about your PoV. It matters when tendentious editing crosses the line into disruptive editing, but is otherwise immaterial for the probation and for administrator actions in general. I especially do not want to get into a situation where neutral enforcement (people who are disruptive in much the same way receive much the same treatment) into so-called balanced enforcement (if you ban one from that side, you must also ban one from the other). That way lies madness. I promised in my RfA that I would strive to use these buttons in the service of the community, not at the direction of any non-neutral party. The local behavioural norms in climate change are part of the reason that the probation was established. While some people have taken the hint (thank you to any of you reading this), the editing environment as a whole is still a long way from acceptable. As a volunteer project, there is unfortunately a vast divide between what the community would prefer and how far it is willing to go in enforcing that desire. Most people would rather spend their hobby-time more pleasantly, which leads to a knock-on effect as more of the more reasonable editors drift away, selecting for the most passionate and entrenched. This loss of ideas and bimodalization of the distribution is a good part of why I care enough to add my voice to encouraging the editors in the topic area to bring themselves more in line with the ideals of the project. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Assuming that this interpretation is correct we are in complete agreement that neutrality of enforcement is the order of the day, where this basically means "people who are disruptive in much the same way receive much the same treatment". I believe that the principles I expressed above constitute the very essence of neutral enforcement.

I would argue that my own behavior is basically on par with the current community norms as exemplified by editors with long established editing records, who have demonstrated a familiarity with the applicable policies, and who not only have visible support from within the community at large but from within the administrative community as well. To establish this fact I offer up three timely exemplars of such editors: User:William M. Connolley, User:Tony Sidaway, and User:Enric Naval. I contend that these three editors have all engaged in behavior which is basically on par with my own, that they have a demonstrable pattern of engaging in that behavior, and that their behavior is considered to be within acceptable community standards. So, unless a credible argument can be made for how my behavior far exceeds that of these editors my behavior too should be viewed as being within acceptable community standards and under a standard of neutral enforcement I should only be given sanctions on par with those imposed on these editors, if any.

On the charge of civility violations, there have been many recent discussions at climate change enforcement regarding the behavior of User:William M. Connolley. In several of those cases you, yourself, closed the requests with no action. In one such request you restricted him from editing others comments. I submit that this demonstrates that the behavior of this editor lies within accepted community norms, so unless my own behavior lies far in excess of that demonstrated by WMC in those requests the principle of neutral enforcement would require you to impose on me a set of sanctions of comparable severity. I argue that there is a vast difference between how you have treated me and how you have treated WMC. In my case you have unilaterally imposed a full on community ban against me (which is exactly what an indefinite block is when the general sanctions forbid other administrators from over-riding your decision and unblocking me without your permission). In the case of WMC you have required him to refrain from editing people's comments for 6 months. So, under the banner of neutral enforcement, either indefinitely block WMC for his civility violations as documented at the climate change enforcement requests OR impose a comparable sanction on me and unblock me.

On the charge of disrupting banning discussions and other important community discussions as AN, ANI, or similar venues I assert that both User:Tony Sidaway and User:Enric Naval have been equally disruptive at these venues as anything that I have done. Both continually insert their own comments throughout the entire discussion in an attempt to, as some would say, overwhelm the opinions of others. I believe that this is the substance of the charges against me. In addition TS makes a habit of editing the comments of others without their permission and in the recent discussion of my current block he managed to edit the comments of almost every poster in that discussion. I would argue that this act far exceeds anything I have done. Neither of these editors has received any sanctions whatsoever for their behavior, nor have they even received any warnings, so I argue that these facts are prima facie evidence that their behavior lies within accepted community norms. So, unless my behavior and level of purported disruption far exceeds that of these two editors the principle of neutral enforcement would require that I receive comparable sanctions to theirs. So, under the banner of neutral enforcement, either indefinitely block TS and EN for their disruption of community discussions (diffs available upon request) OR impose a comparable sanction on me (i.e. none) and unblock me.

If you believe that my own behavior far exceeds the behavior of these exemplars of accepted community behavioral norms, please provide a suitably detailed explanation of precisely how my behavior exceeds theirs along with supporting evidence. Barring such a demonstration of the justification for your actions, kindly undo them and let me be. --GoRight (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

P.S. and just to head off the inevitable mischaracterization of this argument that will inevitably ensue (from people other than 2/0 I would assume), this is NOT, I repeat NOT, an argument that bad behavior on the part of others somehow justifies bad behavior by me. It is an argument that says comparable behavior is treated comparably in accordance with neutral enforcement, and that if their behavior is considered acceptable by community norms so should mine be. --GoRight (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement should strive to be neutral rather than playing to a false sense of balance, yes. I think I lost a word in the above - sorry about that. True Neutral is, in all humility, likely an impossible standard to actually achieve, but even the attempt is worth the effort. Part of this effort is that, while I maintain a commented partial list of involved editors, my active monitoring of the probation area is performed on a per article basis or via recent changes (Global warming and Scientific opinion on climate change usually make the short list, Biochar and Fossil fuel phase out not so much). I would be frankly flabbergasted to discover that I had found and addressed every probation-relevant edit on any given day; assuming a normal distribution in the PoVs of problematic edits across the articles any given admin happens to see and hours during which they are active, this source of bias should cancel out in aggregate.

Accepting that edits and patterns will be missed, similar situations should be treated similarly - any editor who breaks 1RR on an article where it is imposed and does not self-revert should be treated according to best practices exhibited at WP:AN3. Balance might require that anyone else reverting also be blocked, but in practice it is only necessary to check their recent contributions for worrisome patterns, such as baiting or editing against talkpage consensus. If two or more editors all violate such a sanction, though, neutrality likely requires that they all be removed or given the same warning.

The degree of parallelism between any two cases decreases with complexity. Unless your diffs are fairly recent, I doubt that they would be actionable; I would also have moral qualms to acting on them, as it would violate the above-expressed principle of seeking unbiased information filters. Further, I am not interested in discussing any other editors; if you would like to speak with them, your email remains enabled or you may request that I or another of the 67 people watching this page bring a matter to their attention.

As a matter of completeness, there have been 6 threads at Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Requests for enforcement mentioning or substantially about User:William M. Connolley: one was closed by Jehochman; the next was malformed, and closed by me after a suitable discussion period during which issues could be raised less formally; then there is a discussion that I skipped almost entirely; next I merged two reports so we could more closely match the number of discussions to the number of issues (though as I acknowledged recently, there was some confusion following that); there followed by the section I closed by barring WMC from most refactoring and warning him against using derogatory terms; last there is the thread closed by Prodego wherein I bare and comment on WMC's recent edits. But that is for there, not for here.

The above post, if you will forgive my cynicism, sounds remarkably like a statement of intention to proceed exactly as before should you be unblocked without condition. It even demonstrates some of the very tendencies I outlined in my original blocking statement. As has previously been expressed at great length by many parties, this is not acceptable. - 2/0 (cont.) 10:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"The degree of parallelism between any two cases decreases with complexity. Unless your diffs are fairly recent, I doubt that they would be actionable; I would also have moral qualms to acting on them, as it would violate the above-expressed principle of seeking unbiased information filters. Further, I am not interested in discussing any other editors; if you would like to speak with them, your email remains enabled or you may request that I or another of the 67 people watching this page bring a matter to their attention."

This does tend to hamper any discussion of the neutrality of your enforcement and suggests an unwillingness to work together to find a fair and amicable resolution. I find this troubling. Is there, perhaps, a neutral party that you trust that we might engage as a mediator in this dispute? --GoRight (talk) 21:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"The above post, if you will forgive my cynicism, sounds remarkably like a statement of intention to proceed exactly as before should you be unblocked without condition. It even demonstrates some of the very tendencies I outlined in my original blocking statement. As has previously been expressed at great length by many parties, this is not acceptable."

Actually, if you go back and read that post again with a clear and unbiased head I think that you will see that it is NOT an argument that I should be unblocked without condition. Rather it is an argument that I should be either (a) given sanctions appropriate to the established community standards and norms as demonstrably established by the exemplars I cited, or (b) that others who have behaved similarly to myself also be given the sanctions that you have imposed on me (which currently stands at an indefinite block without the possibility to be unblocked by anyone without your sole permission). I am perfectly willing to accept any sanctions you mete out as long as they are consistent with the principle of neutral enforcement (and, therefore, consistent with the sanctions and restrictions imposed on others who act substantially similar to myself).

Arguing that you happened upon me via unbiased information sources is all well and good, but it does not remove your obligation to ensure that your enforcement actions are neutral in and of themselves independent of your methods of detection. Regardless of how you came to decide that my behavior is problematic, you cannot simply ignore substantially similar behaviors on the part of others once they have been brought to your attention. To do so completely flies in the face of neutral enforcement, as opposed to neutral detection. The two are not synonymous.

In other words, once a particular style of type of behavior has been labeled as either accepted or problematic, you are bound by neutral enforcement to mete out comparable sanctions to ALL editors equally who engage in those behaviors whenever you become aware of them and through whatever means. You cannot use the claim of using unbiased methods of detection as a shield to justify action in some cases and inaction in others. This is clearly counter to the very spirit of neutral enforcement. --GoRight (talk) 22:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)