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The purpose of the workshop is for the parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee to post proposed components of the final decisions for review and comment. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions, which are the four types of proposals that can be included in the final decision. The workshop also includes a section (at the page-bottom) for analysis of the /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

Increase evidence length

1) Because Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has made over 1,000,000 edits himself and with his bots, the evidence length in words and diffs should be increased because of the number of edits that need to be gone through and scrutinized.

Comment by Arbitrators:

As the lead drafter in this case, I think the parties should be given reasonable leeway to present their evidence. As I've stated on-wiki more than once (most recently on the proposed decision page in the last case we've voted on), I've never favored strict enforcement of rigid limits, which can have the unwanted effect of cutting the Committee off from relevant evidence. On the other hand, we can't draw much value from lengthy monologs or unwieldy collections of undifferentiated diffs, either. I would ask for input from the parties and other case participants on what length they think would be reasonable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment One problem about the number of diffs has struck me forcefully - and it applies not just to this case. Where a contention is made about a pattern of behaviour, assuming, for example 5 diffs are cited to support that, assuming they actually support the contention, then a much larger number of diffs is required to establish that this is not a pattern. Rich Farmbrough, 22:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC).

Oppose scaling the whole thing up just scales the drama and results in more TLDR. I would rather scale it down in absolute terms. Rich Farmbrough, 22:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC).

Honestly, I don't really care much one way or the other. I think I can cover most of the issues I wanted to bring up in 500/50, and others I note have already been raised by others. OTOH, adding more wouldn't hurt, since Rich does have a rather long list of edits to review. Hersfold 22:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support as proposer. Whenaxis (contribs) 00:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

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2)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

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3)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

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4)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed temporary injunctions

All bots indefinitely blocked

1) All bots owned (whether active or not) by Rich Farmbrough are to be indefinitely blocked to ensure no further harm is done to the community until a final decision is made by the Arbitration Committee. These bots include: SmackBot (talk · contribs), Smackbot (talk · contribs), Mirror Bot (talk · contribs), Chron Bot (talk · contribs), Translate Bot (talk · contribs) and Femto Bot (talk · contribs).

Comment by Arbitrators:

I agree with Hersfold. If the case is still pending around the time the block is to expire, this can be addressed, preferably informally without needing a temporary injunction. Two other points: (1) if there is a bot that undisputedly is currently operating without any problems (I haven't checked), it doesn't need to be blocked for the sake of blocking it; and (2) I could see an argument for extending Rich Farmbrough's unblock permission to allow him to edit actual article content, as opposed to edits involving any form of "gnoming" or automation whatsoever (although I don't believe he has asked for this as yet and although I'm speaking only for myself on this point). Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

His bots aren't supposed to be editing until the time his block would have expired anyway, another three weeks at least. This is redundant. Hersfold 03:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support as proposer. It's either or for these two options, not to be used in combination with each other. Whenaxis (contribs) 01:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

This would seem to be redundant and punitive besides. These bots aren't editing and Courcelle's comment has already established that they shouldn't be editing. Until and unless they edit, good faith should be assumed and they should remain unblocked. — madman 02:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of these already imposed blocks against Rich and his bots so I proposed these. Whenaxis (contribs) 22:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

That's what I figured; just letting you know. — madman 03:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Clerk Comment Femto Bot (talk · contribs) keeps on editing --Guerillero | My Talk 05:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• BAG note FemtoBot has never been problematic and several Wikiprojects depend on it. Please unblock that one / allow for FemtoBot to be exempt from temporary injunctions. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose BAG should not approve closed source bots absent compelling reason, especially if the bot is doing something important and there is no succession plan in place in case the main operator has to stop running it for whatever reason. This is the consequence, BAG shares responsibility. 67.119.15.149 (talk) 05:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I intend to unblock the bot; I've let Rich know I'd be more comfortable doing so if he would suspend its task 0 ("Creating needed monthly clean up categories"). I think it may fall within the scope of the concerns that instigated the case but none of the others do. As for the BAG being responsible for forcing open-source licenses upon developers and ensuring the high-availability of all bots on the English Misplaced Pages: Nonsense. — madman 13:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
    • BAG can't force any sort of licenses on developers any more than Misplaced Pages can force Creative Commons licenses on writers. People who don't want to use those licenses are free to not submit stuff. Considering what happens if a bot or its operator becomes unavailable should be part of any sensible approval process, and BAG is incompetent if it doesn't think about that. BAG should not approve bots (regardless of license) whose subsequent unavailability will cause disruption unless it's got a way to keep them running if something happens to the main operator. Misplaced Pages also should not depend on closed bots doing anything important, since those bots in a sense become part of the server, and letting them be closed interferes with users' rights to fork wikipedia. If you want to submit server patches, they have to be GPL, and bots that users rely on should be the same.

      I'm not too concerned about Rich going nuts with the bot, so unblocking it in this particular instance won't be an immediate disaster. However, generically, letting a blocked editor operate a bot is a bizarre concept. The only legitimate way do it is turn control of the bot over to someone else, and transfer the approval. 67.119.3.15 (talk) 18:14, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

      • I agree that if an editor is blocked then the bots should also be blocked. Whether WikiProjects or something else relies on the edits done by said bot are important in this discussion but are not relevant to whether they should be running. If the community doesn't trust the editor and don't want them editing then that is a consideration that must be kept in mind when blocking them. You can't get the milk for free if you give away the cow so to speak. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

BAG requests on hiatus

2) All requests that are not yet closed at the Bots Approval Group (BAG) are to be placed on hiatus until a final decision is given by the Arbitration Committee. These requests include: Helpful Pixie Bot Request #47, Helpful Pixie Bot Request #48 and Helpful Pixie Bot Request #50.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Per comments below, It looks like the BAG has already addressed this issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Again, Rich can't participate in the BRFAs for another three weeks or so anyway. Hersfold 03:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support as proposer. It's either or for these two options, not to be used in combination with each other. Whenaxis (contribs) 01:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

This has already been done; the requests have been removed from Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval with no presumption of what action will be taken upon closure of this case. — madman 02:23, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of these already imposed blocks against Rich and his bots so I proposed these. Whenaxis (contribs) 22:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Allow to work on own userspace

3) User:Rich Farmbrough to be explicitly allowed to work on pages in his own accounts user-space, despite nominal block. In particular to allow these to be used to gather evidence. Rich Farmbrough, 22:44, 6 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Rich, why not use your talk page or a word processor? I am not inclined to allow this request, though I am inactive on this case and would not vote either way. AGK 23:49, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

People get pissed off when I do stuff using my talk page. And a word processor can't link to WP diffs, or render wikitext properly. Rich Farmbrough, 02:39, 8 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by parties:

OK it looks like expecting anything to be passed here before the last day of the evidence phase was a triumph of hope over experience. Rich Farmbrough, 23:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Consider this an observation from the outside both on the request and the response to an Arb:

• The wiki-mark-up can be keyed in something as simple as Notepad with only the ability to "preview" is not present.
• The text can be prepared in a word processor to allow an editor to check spelling and/or grammar with the software. This can be copied to Notepad or the like to strip it down to minimal characters and the wiki-mark-up - templates, brackets, etc - can be added at that point.
• Link information, either a URL or "page#section", can be copied into Notepad.
• The result in Notepad is plain text and can be copied into a Misplaced Pages edit window.
• A "Show Preview" button exists and can be used to verify that mark-up typos or errors are not present.

With that, it seems unneeded for a special dispensation is needed to in the limitations of the block lift. - J Greb (talk) 04:22, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

If someone is unblocked for the purposes of participating in an ArbCom case it seems only reasonable to allow them to assemble evidence in their userspace. I don't see any benefit to denying this request. It seems silly to make him jump through hoops to properly format his evidence. 28bytes (talk) 04:25, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Not only that, but there's literally nothing to be gained, nor any disruption to be prevented, by disallowing personal user space edits. In fact, I'd go even farther and argue that the only real edits that really need to be curbed are bot and bot-like edits. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:40, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Headbomb and 28bytes, I see no reason why Rich should not be allowed to edit in his own namespace. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 01:39, 10 April 2012 (UTC) This user self-identifies as user:Kumioko, editing in evasion of the block on his account. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC) Matter resolved on my talk; Kumioko is allowed to edit as an IP, so this isn't block evasion. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify I am not socking, The IP 71.163.243.232 is me (Kumioko) and IP's 138.162.8.57 and 138.162.8.58 might be if I edit from work depending. The last 2 are used by thousands of people so its not always me. I used to put my name in parens but was told its not appropriate. Fluffernutter is just being dramatic adn this is off topic so I'll leave a message on their page. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 19:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with it too (I posted the earlier comment about keeping the bot blocked). The block is to prevent disruption because Rich has trouble telling bot edits from regular edits, but restricting him from his user space is unnecessarily annoying. Alternatively, he could be permitted to make some sub-pages within the arb case and work in those, so it's clearly part of the proceedings. 67.117.131.84 (talk) 05:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Questions to the parties

Questions from Kirill Lokshin

1. With regard to Rich Farmbrough's use of bots and other automation tools, are his automated edits generally (a) both substantively correct and authorized by the appropriate community process, (b) substantively correct but not authorized by the appropriate community process, (c) not substantively correct but authorized by the appropriate community process, or (d) neither substantively correct nor authorized by the appropriate community process? Kirill  03:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

2. With regard to Rich Farmbrough's conduct when his use of bots and other automation tools is questioned by other editors, are his responses generally (a) both technically correct and civil, (b) technically correct but uncivil, (c) not technically correct but civil, or (d) neither technically correct nor civil? Kirill  03:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

3. With regard to the existing restrictions on Rich Farmbrough, have these restrictions been effective in preventing recurrences of the conduct they were intended to prevent? If not, was it because (a) the restrictions were poorly written, (b) the restrictions were inadequately enforced, (c) the conduct continued despite enforcement, or (d) some other reason? Kirill  03:38, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hersfold's replies

1. Due to the large number of edits he's made, I'd have to say that in general, his edits do meet the criteria in A. However, he frequently makes edits which fall under B as part of these otherwise acceptable tasks (occasionally as part of a separate task, as with the recent category creations); edits that in full or part violate his editing restrictions as he hasn't sought out any sort of approval to make them. In the cases where it is a fully separate task, the number of D-type edits is not insignificant.
2. In my experience, D. While his technical knowledge (with respect to programming) is unquestionably strong, his interpretations of what is and isn't appropriate with respect to Misplaced Pages policies and his restrictions often differs from the community's consensus. As for civility, it seems as though he believes anyone raising such concerns is directly attacking him and not acting in good faith, and so he responds in kind. When blocked, his behavior is not unlike a temper tantrum.
3. Evidently not, and I'd say due to both B and C. There were a number of violations where Rich was not blocked; at the same time, the high number of violations indicates that he isn't heeding the restrictions. Hersfold 04:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough's replies

1. a. Bot edits: I would have to say that they are substantively correct and authorised. There may be minor glitches, such as edit conflicts, or bugs with new code.
1. b. Manual edits made with AWB. These tend to be shorter runs, they are therefore more prone error as a percentage. Nonetheless the error rate overall is low, if we are talking about actual errors that mean something is not working after the edit that was working before.
2. It is certainly true that I may have become irritable when certain editors just keep turning up and do not engage in proper discussion. There is more to civility than please and thank-you. It is perhaps noteworthy that I asked for a mutual interaction ban with User:Fram several times. I suspect I can handle him now, but it does not mean that it has been a pleasant experience- and indeed, the more successful I am in dealing with him, the more he takes stuff to AN, AN/I and makes unwanted comments on BRFAs.
3. No they are not effective. The reason is that I stopped doing the things they were meant to prevent anyway. What we have now are just a couple of editors chasing up the ERs for the sake of it. If there was a valid concern then we could do something about it, but all there is is an attempt to rules-bully. If there were a valid concern, I would have hundreds of editors all over my talk page, instead of getting complaints only when they are initiated by something posted by Fram or CBM. (I don't mean here real bug reports, I get those too.)

Fram's replies

1. His bot edits (Helpful Pixie Bot mainly) generally fall under a), both authorized and correct. His automated edits on his own account are more mixed and come more often under d), not authorized and not correct, and c) authorized (implicitly, not explicitly) but not correct. Often it is the case that in a task of e.g. 1,000 edits of minor significance (like changing U.S. to US), he makes a small number of significant errors (e.g. breaking links), with the result that the number of correct edits is higher than the number of incorrect ones, but the result of these errors is much more problematic than the very minor improvement made by these edits.
2. His replies are usually civil when people arrive for the first time, but rapidly deteriorate when people return with more problems or when people question him (e.g. at BAG requests). Note e.g. , where he uncloses his own BAG request, and claims that "most of the comments seem to have no relation to the actual request, but are just moronic soap-boxing." Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 46/ad hominem also contains examples of civility like "VeblenBot doesn't have a crazed admin chasing it around blocking it for ridiculous reasons.", "Yes it is possible to have pathological code to deal with pathological editors." Note that Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 46 was eventually denied "Per editing restriction, problems with scope, and a lack of civility in response to feedback that is utterly unacceptable for a bot operator." Similarly, on his talk page, you can find things like User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#Whitespace around section titles, where he eventually agreed to stop his unapproved (and guideline violating) cosmetic changes, but where the first reactions were less than satisfactory, e.g. when asked what approved task covered these edits, he just replies "Only on Misplaced Pages ...", and then in the next reply offers two BRFAs that don't include the objected whitespace removal in their description...
   • Here we see my prediction coming true, in a rather odd way. Though the close has been cited in this case against me the sensible perception of Anomie that one would have to be a "bit paranoid" to think this stuff would be trotted out in future, is, sadly proved doubly wrong. Not only has the close been cited four or five times, the attempt to prevent it being abused has been cited, twice I think. I forget the illustrious editor who said that if something is stated sufficiently often on Misplaced Pages, people will believe it, regardless of evidence, but I would hope it is not true of ArbCom. Rich Farmbrough, 16:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
     
     • Please indicate where I have used the original close against you? Please tell me where I abused it? I said that you reverted the close of your own BAG request, claiming that it should just be closed as "ultra vires", while the actual request had a lot of actual opposes besides the procedural ones. Yoru attempt to hide this by undoing a close against your own request instead of e.g. simply requesting that the close would be changed. And Anomie's comment just means that future requests to do mass creation shouldn't be prejudived by that BAG, not that what happened in it shouldn't be used in dispute resolution. Fram (talk) 07:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
3. C. Their have been fewer incidents, but time and again he restarts with some task that technically violates his restriction, and often such a task causes problems. When confronted with this, he usually claims that he doesn't recognise the validity of the restrictions, which had according to Rich no consensus behind them and were placed by a now retired admin (the relevance of the last argument escapes me). User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#Editing restrictions and Pixie Bot contains some of these arguments, and a healthy dose of incivility as well. At least if the restrictions would be affirmed at this ArbCom as being genuine community decided, valid restrictions, he would have less arguments to wikilawyer around them. Fram (talk) 07:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The relevance of the last argument is that I was able to have a sane discussion with RD232, despite your unfortunate interjections to our conversations. And since I have already said that several times in the past, it is strange that it should now escape you. Rich Farmbrough, 07:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

A) diffs? B) Whether the admin who placed the restrictions is retired or not has no bearing on whether they are valid and should be heeded or not. And why, if you were able to have sane discussions with him or her, didn't you discuss the validity of the restrictions. Why did this sane admin place apparently unsupported restrictions in the first place, and why didn't he remove them after discussion with you? Fram (talk) 08:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Because it was a modus vivendi. And as to why he placed unsupported restrictions and didn't remove them for the first point I suspect he didn't read the discussion closely enough (I comment there that it would take hours to understand the situation), which is supported by the fact that he simply cut and pasted someone else's words. I had thought at the time that he had put proper consideration into the matter and drafted a considered compromise, but I over estimated in that respect, and under-read. Rich Farmbrough, 08:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

So, no diffs or links. I'll reply again if you start using those, it's more useful to reply to actual facts than to your currently unsupported version of them. Fram (talk) 09:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Headbomb's replies

1. It depends on how you count things. If you look at what happens globally (several hundred thousands of edits), the vast majority of them are problem-free. However, due to the nature of the edits, problems happen in 'chunck'. For example, let's some approved task like ISBN hyphenation occurs, and the list of pages is built through scanning the database. The scanning the database for articles to fix means that the only time where RF/bots would have a chance of making a useless cosmetic edit would be if someone hyphenated the ISBN between the time of the dump and the bot's run. So you have this period of time where everything going fine. But then some different logic could be used (like fetching the pages from a category rather than a database dump), and then several pages not be in need of hyphenation fixes would nonetheless get edited or trivial reasons because the filtering is not good enough. And since so many edits get made, even something like a 1-2% fail-rate means several thousand purely cosmetic edits per month. And then there's also the issue of doing RF's personal cosmetic fixes (which even without the editing restrictions would not be OK to do, even as part of approved bot tasks), and other ER violations (mass page creation, e.g.).

   HPB will not make an ISBN hyphenation edit that does not hyphenate an ISBN. Rich Farmbrough, 08:43, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
   

2. In my experience D). Anyone raising concerns about the pertinence of the edits is dismissed as irrelevant or part of an anti-RF crusade. It's not that RF gets the technical details wrong, issues of civility/communication means the discussion just never reaches a point where technical details can be discussed.

   Erm, I'm sorry you feel that way. But it's simply not the case, if someone comes and asks a reasonably polite question - or even "Hey looks like you screwed up these edits!" they get a polite response. If they come and make themselves unpleasant, threaten blocks and sanctions, make reports to AN without discussing with me first, never admit when they are wrong and are otherwise boorish, they can expect somewhat more brusque treatment. I don't think that's unreasonable. Rich Farmbrough, 08:43, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

   This and this certainly are not examples of expected bot op behaviour. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

3. Well we're here, aren't we? The ERs, had they been followed, would have solved all problems. Edits must be tied to specific BRFAs + no non-standard cosmetic fixes. I don't really know if this is a lack of proper enforcement, but it's not exactly as if attempts to cull this behaviour was not made before. The main problem seems to stem from RF's refusal to recognize the current ERs as valid / applicable / desired by the community. Whether it means that making the current ERs official ARBCOM restrictions would solve the issue, I don't know. But it's IMO something to at least consider as an alternative to blocks or some kind of blanket restrictions on any bot-activity. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:41, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

   No we are here partly because I asked Arbcom to accept the case. Even Fram gets a civil reception if there is a real problem. User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#Helpful_Pixie_bot_mistakes_and_minor_problems Rich Farmbrough, 08:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
   

   We're here because you don't follow your editing restrictions and previous attempts to stop the problem failed to do anything about it. I'm pretty sure ARBCOM would have accepted the case regardless of whether you asked them to or not. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

   +1. ArbCom has declined cases in the past where all named parties were willing to participate because there wasn't an issue meriting their attention. They've also accepted cases where a party was unwilling because there was such an issue. The individual inclinations of a party to participate have little weight when it comes to the decision to accept a case. Hersfold non-admin 21:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

   See also User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#BOT_problem

   See also User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#Helpful_Pixie_Bot_.26_ISBN

   I could go on... Rich Farmbrough, 08:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
   

Proposed final decision

Proposals by User:Wnt

Proposed principles

Good editing deserves consideration

This is revised from a proposal at WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cirt and Jayen466/Workshop that was not accepted.

A prolific editor does the work of several average editors, and if he can be replaced, his mistakes will be replaced by those of several average editors. Thus, rare but significant violations of policies, guidelines, or other restrictions should be evaluated as a fraction of the work the editor has done, rather than as an absolute number. Otherwise, every editor, if he is not perfect and edits long enough, will eventually be sanctioned. Specifically, when a large number of actionable edits exist, they should be considered as a fraction of the total number of useful edits made in a similar context, with the threshold being approximately 1 per 1000.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Disagree. Would prefer something along the lines of "In deciding what sanctions to impose against an administrator or other editor, the Arbitration Committee will consider the editor's overall record of participation, behavioral history, and other relevant circumstances. An editor's positive and valuable contributions in one aspect of his or her participation on Misplaced Pages do not excuse misbehavior or questionable judgment in another aspect of participation, but may be considered in determining the sanction to be imposed." PhilKnight (talk) 10:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I agree with the principles stated here, but not with the hard number proposed. Rich Farmbrough, 23:55, 11 April 2012 (UTC).

I've never been terribly supportive of principles such as this - to some extent, they (and this one especially) encourage editcountitis, and imply that you can get away with even the worst of disruption provided you make an equivalent number of useful edits. This particular principle also makes it impractical to levy any sort of sanction against Rich, even the existing ones, unless everyone participating in the case are able to provide a total of 1,000 separate problematic edits; a near impossibility given we're limited to 50 diffs each.

All that said, I did not request this case because I believe Rich is "the spawn of the devil," regardless of how he characterizes my motivations here. Rich does fine as an editor, and many of his bot tasks are in fact useful. The problem is that he seems incapable of working within policy and his restrictions, and I don't see that as being compatible with adminship. Hersfold 02:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The problem is not that mistakes happen, the problem is that the same preventable mistakes happen, despite repeated requests to fix them. Feedback is dismissed, civility thrown out the window, and WP:BOTPOL ignored (particularly WP:COSMETICBOT). As a side-note, the acceptable fail-rate is also something that is usually left up to BAG's discretion, and putting hard numbers on it would create an ugly precedent. Some tasks have a 0-mistake tolerance. Other tasks can have error rates significantly higher than 1 in 1,000. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, you are wrong here in many respects. Following WP:COSMETICBOT for bot edits is a non-issue. Would that I were given that much latitude. Secondly using this proposal to divert into restating (wrongly) calumnies such as "Feedback is dismissed, civility thrown out the window" is bad form as if you consider these are issues you should submit evidence, not weasel-word them into subsidiary pages. Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC).

The number was proposed in the discussion at the Cirt case; in that case as I recall he would have been on the safe side by a modest ratio. The decision of what actually counts against it, though, is crucial; I don't think that every instance of a chatty comment on a talk page, or a bot edit that takes a space out, should really count against it, but I don't think the edits should have to be at the level of a 3RR violation either; from the Cirt case, more or less, "what's worth citing in the evidence section". If someone can think of a better criterion or threshold by all means propose it; with anything near a consensus I'm more than willing to strike out and revise to get some kind of standard proposed. Wnt (talk) 02:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not really something that is amenable to numerical weights. Maybe if one were inclined one could invent a scoring system, there are indeed some academic papers that work along these lines, however evaluating edits is hard, especially when there are people systematically reverting good edits - reverts is one of the key methods the academics use to measure goodness (or badness if you prefer). Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Proposals by User:Hersfold

Proposed principles

Community sanctions

1) The community has the authority to impose sanctions (such as editing restrictions or bans) on any user whose edits are a detriment to the encyclopedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Betacommand 3. Rich disputes the fact that his editing restrictions apply to him. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with this principle. However I do have a problem with citing other cases. This seems an attempt to create case law, which is something that ARBcom was explicitly meant not to do when it was formed. Rich Farmbrough, 02:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

There is a second problem here. Citing the principle begs the question implicitly, and moves the locus to community sanctions. Resolving firstly whether the complained of edits were causing the problems that were claimed seems like the first step. Secondly the other assertions made at the evidence page should be evaluated. Rich Farmbrough, 02:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Presumably he can both agree with this principle and still dispute that the restrictions apply to him, since he almost certainly denies that his edits are a detriment to the encyclopedia. It would be much more useful(and therefore unlikely to happen) to clarify who gets to make that decision e.g. "The community has the authority to impose sanctions (such as editing restrictions or bans) on any user whose edits the community deem to be a detriment to the encyclopedia" or "The community has the authority to impose sanctions (such as editing restrictions or bans) on any user whose edits Abrcom later deem to be a detriment to the encyclopedia", or amend to specify whoever it is who actually gets to make that decision. 87.254.68.92 (talk) 19:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Recidivism

2) Users who have been sanctioned for improper conduct are expected to avoid repeating it should they continue to participate in the project. Failure to do so may lead to the imposition of increasingly severe sanctions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Betacommand 3, MZMcBride 2, others. This is perhaps a bit harsher than necessary, but given the recurrence of the problems this case focuses on something like this may be useful. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I think this principle needs to be amended to somehow acknowledge the passage of time and for work done correctly in the meanwhile. If a person is "on probation" after some offense, that probation must end someday. If there is a mentality that penalties must automatically escalate, and that only demerits, never accomplishments, accumulate and mean something, then the participation of any person in Misplaced Pages must be temporary. Wnt (talk) 22:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Good faith and disruption

3) Disruptive behavior driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Editors acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Civility enforcement. Rich has stated that all of his edits address a need/fix a problem/are for the good of the project, including many of the ones pointed out as violations of his restrictions and/or useless and/or otherwise problematic. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I have never stated that. Rich Farmbrough, 08:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Administrators

4) Administrators are trusted members of the community, and expected to lead by example and behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Misplaced Pages policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained poor judgment, multiple violations of policy (in the use of Administrator tools, or otherwise), or particularly egregious behaviour, may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators are also expected to learn from experience and from justified criticisms of their actions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Civility enforcement, MZMcBride 2, others. This principle is the core reason why I requested this case; as demonstrated in the evidence (or soon to be, mine isn't quite done yet), Rich has time and again exercised poor judgment in the execution of his scripts and violations of his restrictions, and has repeatedly breached policies regarding bot and script use, civility, and use of the tools (mainly relating to unblocking his own bots). Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It is standard practice to stop a bot when there is a problem with it's functioning. It is also standard practice to restart it when the problem is resolved. For later incarnations of SB/HPB the mechanism is block unblock (for earlier incarnations, until I was forced to drop AWB by the drama-mongers a talk page message sufficed). There is no abuse of privilege here, in general the blocking admin has explicitly said the bot can be unblocked when the issue is resolved. Barking up the wrong tree with this one. Rich Farmbrough, 08:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Offensive commentary

5) Repeated use of sarcasm, wordplay formulated to mock another user, casting aspersions on an identifiable group, or use of language that can reasonably be anticipated to offend a significant segment of the community is disruptive, particularly when it distracts from the focus of an ongoing discussion on communal pages such as those in the Misplaced Pages namespace.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Civility enforcement. While again this goes much farther than necessary for this case, part of it are relevant; Rich has repeatedly responded to good-faith concerns with sarcasm, derision, or attacks. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Er... I don't think so. Firstly there is a difference between good faith concerns and long term stalking. Secondly I have by and large been extremely restrained in my responses. Thirdly you have failed completely to grasp the intent of my comments relating to process and one or two other matters, which makes me wonder if you understand any of my responses, except on a technical level. This also applies to the email Elen shared with you. Rich Farmbrough, 00:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

This is a most unfortunate principle. Prohibiting expressions of prejudice doesn't work; consider the effects of formal bans on hate speech on progress in racial and religious toleration in the U.S. versus Europe. The harder you try to enforce civility, the more rancor ensues as people seek sanctions against one another. In any case, this principle, as admitted, is apparently mostly irrelevant to the case. Please, chop it down to what actually applies here - these should be relevant principles for the case, not promulgations of ArbCom legislation. Wnt (talk) 22:52, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Surely casting aspersions on an identifiable group must be permitted where the aspersions are true and of relevance to the project? Past a certain point clearly they should be pursued only through dispute resolution though. You're casting aspersions on Rich Farmbrough, after all. I suppose you can say he isn't a group but there are plenty of similar cases that do involve identifiable groups of people. 87.254.68.92 (talk) 19:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Role of bots and scripts

6) Bots are processes that modify Misplaced Pages content in a fully or partially automated fashion. Scripts are also computer algorithms utilized to automate or semi-automate certain types of editing. These tools are extremely valuable for the purpose of facilitating the making of multiple edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually. Approval from the Bot Approvals Group is generally required before an editor may use a bot for automatic or high-speed edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Date delinking. Rich has repeatedly run automated scripts and bots from his main and bot accounts without approval for the edits being made. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

No I haven't. Rich Farmbrough, 00:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

See Hersfold's explanation at point number 4. Whenaxis (contribs) 00:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Regarding Hersfold's statement. In March 2012 alone, R.F. made 2439 edits on his main account with the summary "general fixes"; 2142 "create wanted category"; 1679 "general fixes using" (that is not a typo, he did use that summary); 1180 "track this category"; and around 800 with summaries similar to "Add ref section minor fixes". None of these tasks was approved by BAG or, as far as I can tell, discussed anywhere before it was done. In January 2012 he made 7,792 edits on his main account with the edit summary "Metadata and general fixes using AWB", and 20,245 total edits from his main account. In January 2011 he made 24,000 edits from his main account all to tag empty sections, with 38,000 edits total that month on his main account. The claim that manual attention was given to each of these edits is incredible. Large-scale jobs with these magnitudes should have had BAG approval and should have been run on a bot account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:35, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Responsibility of bot operators

7) Like administrators and other editors in positions of trust, bot operators have a heightened responsibility to the community. Bot operators are expected to respond reasonably to questions or concerns about the operation of their bot. An editor who (even in good faith) misuses automated editing tools, such as bots and scripts, or fails to respond appropriately to concerns from the community about their use over a period of time, may lose the privilege of using such tools or may have such privilege restricted.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

From Date delinking. Rich has repeatedly failed to respond to good-faith concerns regarding his scripts and bots, and has repeatedly used them (in good faith) to violate his editing restrictions regarding their use. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Er... I was never a party to that arb case (or indeed any other arb case). Looks like you are just making it up as you go along now? Rich Farmbrough, 00:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

I'm not implying you were a party to the case, nor any other I've quoted principles from. I'm simply giving credit where it's due. It's common to reuse principles and other boilerplate text used in past cases, as often the same principles can be applied to multiple cases. In this case, I feel as though this principle regarding bot operators and expectations of them applies here. Hersfold 01:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I was working my way up the page for some reason. I since saw that these are just attempts to abstract principles. Rich Farmbrough, 09:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

I think that it is a stretch to say that I have "repeatedly failed to respond to god faith concerns." I invite you to look at some sample months and compare the number of "responses" to "failures to respond". Even if you restrict the scope to bot/script threads (or any other type of thread) you will have trouble finding more than the odd "failure to respond" in all my talk page archives. Rich Farmbrough, 09:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

"Ignore all rules"

8) Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines are largely meant to be flexible and applied with common sense; limited violations of policies and guidelines are permitted when adherence to them prevents or impedes efforts to improve the project. However, this principle may not be used to defend actions considered to be disruptive by the wider community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Self-written, although I'm sure a better version exists somewhere; just not in the cases I looked through, and I don't care to dig any further than I already have. Anyway, Rich has repeatedly claimed that his actions were done with the sole intent of improving the project, essentially invoking WP:IAR whenever challenged. While valid in a limited extent, Rich has stretched "ignore all rules" to and beyond its breaking point, hence the sanctions placed against him. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

And as discussed the "sanctions" are based on one !vote, and are therefore pretty much ignoring any and all rules. So the purpose of bringing this up is to attempt to draw the teeth of IAR, however unless you clearly demonstrate significant harm to the project, over and above that caused by the continual obsessing by Fram and Carl, this principle is not relevant to the case. Rich Farmbrough, 01:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

The key point of IAR as it is currently understood is that it allows editors in specific situations to bend or ignore the rules, but not to ignore the rules chronically as if they don't exist. The original meaning of IAR was that way (the "if rules make you nervous, just forget they exist" version ), but the meaning of IAR has changed since then. For at least the last 5 years, the general consensus has been that IAR is meant to apply to specific special cases, not to general everyday editing. In particular, except in very rare occasions, there is no reason a bot operator should need to invoke IAR to circumvent the bot approval process. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Rich Farmbrough

1) Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is an administrator on Misplaced Pages, active since 2004. During his time on the project he has made nearly one million edits, more than any other human editor on the project. Many of these edits have been made with the assistance of the semi-automated tool AutoWikiBrowser.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The usual "introduction" finding common in these cases. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Editing restrictions

2) Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is subject to two editing restrictions placed by the community as a result of separate discussions at the Administrator's noticeboard and Incidents noticeboard. The first of these, placed in October 2010, prohibits Rich Farmbrough from making cosmetic changes to wikicode beyond those enabled by AutoWikiBrowser's default settings and/or those explicitly approved by the community's consensus or the Bot Approvals Group. The second, placed in January 2011, prohibits Rich Farmbrough from mass creation of pages in any namespace without approval from the community. Rich Farmbrough has violated these restrictions on a number of occasions: <diffs to come, going to add more to evidence before the period ends>

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The primary concern with Rich's actions from multiple editors is his repeated violation of and disdain for these editing restrictions. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Please note that the only support !vote for that ER was cast by User:Dirk Beestra - I'm not sure if Dirk would stand by that vote today, but I am inclined to believe form his positive and helpful comments that he would not be terribly supportive of what the ER has been used for. If any member of the community feels that one support !vote is sufficient to carry an ER, I would ask them to think very carefully about what such a position would mean. Rich Farmbrough, 00:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

I presented evidence on the validity of the edit restriction. R.F. has had ample opportunity to have the restriction text removed from WP:ER if it really is not valid, so its continued presence there after it was used to justify multiple blocks is prima facie a sign that the restriction is in effect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I take it as a sign that when you take something to AN/ANI, people do not read the original ER discussion. On getting it repealed, surely you are either joking or have never seen an ER try to be repealed. Jenks24 (talk) 10:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Once Hersfold posts the links to the AN discussions, I would strongly encourage the arbs to have a thorough read of the original editing restriction discussion. IMO there is no way that there was a consensus to place a ER on Rich. Jenks24 (talk) 10:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there were 16 people in support of much harsher restrictions, while 10 opposing that harsher remedy: some of those opposed any restriction, and some wanted a less severe restriction, which he eventually got. Taking into account the total number of people supporting either the harsher restriction or the one actually implemented, vs. the number of people opposing either one, I do believe that it is fair to say that there was a consensus for restrictions, and that he came of lucky with the one he actuall got. (This refers all to the first restriction he got, the second followed three months later). I provided links in my previous comment. The second restriction was implemented soon in the discussion (Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2011, but got support from a fair number of people as well, and no clear opposition, so no problem with that one either IMO. Fram (talk) 11:03, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The links are all here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:13, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough's conduct

3) In responding to concerns about potential violations of policy and/or editing restrictions, Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has repeatedly replied in a sarcastic or incivil tone, in some cases attacking the motivations of those expressing the concerns:

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is the second of the three primary concerns I have with Rich's actions; Rich is unable to assume good faith on the behalf of those expressing concerns that he has erred, and instead of taking responsibility for or working to improve his actions, attacks or belittles the concerns or those expressing them. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

So you continue to introduce more assertions and evidence? I'm not sure this is workshopping, it looks like abuse of process to me. Rich Farmbrough, 00:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

I'd strongly suggest you review the guide to arbitration and look through some past cases before accusing me of any further misconduct. Yes, there are allegations here, supported by evidence I and others have already posted on the Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough/Evidence page, because this is a finding of fact. It's what these are here for. Hersfold 01:32, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

But it's not fact. It's a complete lack of empathy, and a sense of humour failure. When someone says...

Because obviously there are so many other pages starting with "Michael Schimmel Center" which would be incorrectly sorted without this defaultsort. Thanks, this is a prime example of a useless edit that follows the letter of a (also useless) rule, but does absolutely nothing to improve the encyclopedia.

(<== This really is sarcasm.) to respond with a <sigh> is surely much more relaxed than to take someone to Arbcom for being sarcastic. Especially when this edotr has been beating me up with "the letter of a (also useless) rule" for two to three years. I get a lot of rough treatment, I was called a "Fucking liar" while attempting to prevent abuse of process, I did not respond to that. It's all very well for you to cherry pick a few diffs, and criticize my responses. I understand that you might not like wordplay, but it is clearly stated when you edit my talk page that you will benefit from understanding my sense of humour. Rich Farmbrough, 07:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Rich Farmbrough violated bot policy

4) On several occasions, Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has run scripts from his main account at bot-like rates without approval from the Bot Approvals Group: ; at other times, he has run tasks approved to be run from a designated bot account from his main account, while said bot was blocked:

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is the last of the primary concerns I have with Rich's actions; Rich will act against policy when he deems it necessary for the good of the project, even when the community has previously said that the actions he is taking are in fact not as beneficial as he believes. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Neither of these are against bot policy if they are done manually Rich Farmbrough, 06:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Yes they are. WP:MEATBOT. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The bot policy does make an exception for manual edits. However, as I describe in my comment dated 10:35, 18 April 2012 above, R.F. has routinely undertaken jobs on his main account that should have gone through bot approval, and which are not "manual" in any significant way. I have warned him at least once about running bot jobs from SmackBot on his main account. I realized later that SmackBot was blocked at that time (2010-11-15 to 2010-11-23). Using the bot operator's account to evade a block of the bot cannot be justified under the "manual edit" exception. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Block logs of Rich Farmbrough and his bots

5) The block logs of Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) and his two primary bot accounts, SmackBot (talk · contribs) (now inactive) and Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs), show a large number of blocks, many for violation of editing restrictions and/or editing outside of Bot Approvals Group approval.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Evidence of recurring problems. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Lets examine HPB's block log.

• (del/undel) 01:24, 2 April 2012 Courcelles (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked, autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (The main account unblock was only procedural for arbitration participation. Conditional unblock is for arbitration-related edits ONLY.) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for user blocked'
• (del/undel) 06:06, 31 March 2012 Courcelles (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked, autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of 1 month (Procedural block. The bot should not be editing while its owner is blocked. If owner is unblocked, please unblock this bot. ) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for user blocked'
• (del/undel) 02:16, 26 March 2012 Hersfold (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough&oldid=483941317#Editing_restrictions_and_Pixie_Bot - bot violating operator's editing restrictions, blocked until assurances are received it won't continue to do so) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for ER'
• (del/undel) 18:45, 14 March 2012 NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock

disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (Breaking URLs) (unblock | change block)

• • Block for bug'
• (del/undel) 12:27, 18 October 2011 MSGJ (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (previous assurances not being ahdered to) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for strange reason'
• (del/undel) 14:24, 17 October 2011 Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (temporary halt) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for bug'
• (del/undel) 11:51, 23 September 2011 MSGJ (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite (bot adding inappropriate templates to pages, no response from operator, and editing talk page does not stop bot) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for bug'
• (del/undel) 16:35, 9 September 2011 MSGJ (talk | contribs | block) blocked Helpful Pixie Bot (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of 1 week (bot operator currently blocked) (unblock | change block)
  • Block for user blocked'

So here we see one (1) block for ER. Hardly "many". Rich Farmbrough, 06:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Previous request for arbitration

6) In November 2011, a request for arbitration was filed regarding allegations that Rich Farmbrough had repeatedly violated two editing restrictions placed against him by the community. The request was rejected with a vote of 7 in favor of accepting, 5 against, and 2 recused.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Not entirely sure this is worth noting, but does seem a good marker indicating that problems were noted in the past, and that the Committee did seriously consider reviewing the matter at that time, only narrowly voting against doing so. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Or.. it could be a good marker that the problems were seen as overblown then, and the case wouldn't have been accepted this time if I hadn't asked for it to be. Rich Farmbrough, 06:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Needs copy editing. I'm guessing that the first sentence should end "was filed" or "was submitted" or something like that? Or maybe it should start "In November 2011 there was a request for arbitration..."? 87.254.68.92 (talk) 20:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Hersfold 01:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Rich Farmbrough desysopped

1) For repeated violation of community placed sanctions and Misplaced Pages policies, Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is desysopped. He may reapply for adminship at Requests for Adminship at any time.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is the primary outcome I am seeking from this case. I feel that Rich's disregard for his editing restrictions, violations of the bot policy, and poor communication regarding concerns raised about both are all incompatible with adminship. Administrators are meant to be role models of sorts amongst the community, and responsible for enforcement of the same restrictions and policies Rich has himself violated. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

And again you assume that which you have signally failed to prove. In every case there have been brave editors who have stood up even to the mob-mentality of AN/I back in 2009/10 (now, thank heavens, substantially improved), while in general those who have been "taking me to task" have been the same two or three (or I could even say one) editors. It is interesting that you came to my talk page and asked me to change my bot, which I did, and as a result you are asking for me to be de-sysopped.Rich Farmbrough, 01:06, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Because the problems continued, hence why you were blocked. Obviously we're going to disagree on this, however. Hersfold 01:37, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Elen of the Roads is kind enough to say I am "not a particularly bad admin" - in British understatement that is quite a compliment (at least reaching as high as praising with faint damns). Of course she may mean it in another dialect. Rich Farmbrough, 04:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Yeah, unfortunately, I think Rich probably doesn't have the trust of the community to remain an administrator at this time. Sorry it had to end this way. Master&Expert (Talk) 21:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Meh. I suppose this is justified by policy, but as far as I can tell, it's really the bots that are the problem. And as we saw with Betacommand, desysopping won't necessarily help. 67.117.147.20 (talk) 03:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

A good observation, 67.117.147.20 - "desysopping won't necessarily help" - it would not even address the issues. --Dirk Beetstra 05:39, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

However, it would remove automatic access to AWB, which has proven to be a problem in the past, as Rich has used it to engage in rapid-fire bot (or botlike) edits on his main account. If Rich is violating the bot policy this frequently, and yet is still allowed AWB access, then it will remain a problem even if he's restricted to his main account only, IMO. (This is why I'm not a fan of the whole "gadgets" panel concept; it makes it impossible to restrict access to them if someone is proving problematic with them.) rdfox 76 (talk) 11:36, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you folks know something that I'm missing, but I don't see how limiting AWB makes much difference. AWB is just a tool, and if that particular tool becomes unavailable, there are lots more like it, or the existing one can be downloaded and modified; and Rich is also capable of developing his own tools. Imagine dealing with a serial axe murderer by restricting his/her future access to buying some particular model of axe. It doesn't sound like that promising a solution, IMHO. 67.117.147.20 (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

While I am not sure being compared with a serial axe murderer is very flattering, it is true that, ironically, User:CBM forced me (by threats and actual blocking of SmackBot) to download and tweak the code of AWB, so indeed it would be the work of a moment to remove the check, if I so desired. This is a red herring brought up by User:Elen of the Roads, who is not familiar with stuff like C# (a state of blissful ignorance I sadly miss). Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Yeah, enough people brought up AWB that I started to wonder if I was missing something (it sounds like I wasn't). The axe thing was just a way to show how a "solution" can focus on an almost-irrelevant aspect of the problem, not to compare you personally with an axe murderer.

Getting back to the issue, though: Rich, may I ask your intentions following this case? Are you going to continue the unilateral bot operations? What if anything would it take to get you to cut it out? Why do you find it so important to run them? I think we are agreed that desysopping won't make any difference either way, so my own preference is that you not be desysopped, as your general admin work is mostly good as far as I can tell. But from my past observation of bot disputes, this case feels destined to become known as "Rich Farmbrough 1" sooner or later, no matter what decision is reached in the short term, if you get my drift. You do enough good stuff that the community probably will never siteban you like it did Betacommand, so I fear a Giano-like infinite drama loop developing instead, a pretty crappy outcome. I wonder if you have any advice about how to avoid that, presuming that letting the bot editing continue is not on the menu.

As for C#, I've never used it myself, but some people who use both have told me it's noticably better than Java. I guess that's not saying much. 64.160.39.210 (talk) 07:59, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Community sanctions confirmed

2) The Arbitration Committee acknowledges the editing restrictions regarding cosmetic changes to wikicode and mass creation of articles that Rich Farmbrough has been subject to, and confirms their validity.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Some reference to the sanctions likely does need to be made to make it clear that the lack of additional sanctions here does not render those void, as the precise opposite was done in Betacommand 3, where the Committee made clear it was overriding all existing sanctions. Some users may view that as precedent; this remedy, in essence, allows the existing community sanctions to stand without directly making them sanctions from the Committee that would need to be appealed solely to the Committee. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

See my comments elsewhere, on the fact that the primary so-called editing restriction completely fails to pass any reasonable test for community consensus. In particular only one !vote was in support of the motion. Rich Farmbrough, 01:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

Anti-proposal

No enforcement provisions

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

As I am recommending the Committee allow the existing sanctions to stand without assuming authority for them, and not proposing any further sanctions, I recommend that no explicit enforcement provision be enacted. Passing even the standard enforcement provision implies that the existing community sanctions may be enforced through Arbitration Enforcement; this should not be necessary, given that the current restrictions already include an enforcement provision of escalating blocks, which has already reached the one-month mark. Hersfold 03:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposals by User:Whenaxis

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Rich Farmbrough admonished

1.1) Rich Farmbrough is admonished for failing to abide by the bot policy, community sanctions and wheel warring over his bots' blocks.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

You might like to review the wheel-warring assertion, on the basis of my analysis below. The "community" sanctions were imposed without a consensus, only one !vote in support. There is no significant failure to abide by bot policy that has been demonstrated (though an edit conflict that the MediaWiki software failed to catch has been trotted out several times). Rich Farmbrough, 02:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Do you rather be desysopped or be admonished (warned) for your actions? This was a lighter remedy and the ones below were heavier remedies. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 20:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Alternative to Hersfold's remedies ("Rich Farmbrough desysopped") or can be used in conjugation with them. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 00:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Community sanctions superseded

2) The Arbitration Committee determines that the existing community sanctions on Rich Farmbrough were a valid response by the community to prior problems with Rich Farmbrough's editing, and that Rich Farmbrough was required to abide by those sanctions if he wished to continue editing. However, given that interpretation and implementation of those sanctions has led to ongoing disputes, the community sanctions are superseded by the more straightforward remedies provided for in this decision.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Why would the committee wish to endorse something they are overthrowing? Rich Farmbrough, 02:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

As Whenaxis points out, there is (recent) precedent for this, although the context of the Betacommand case is important here, and a key reason why this was passed then. In Betacommand, it wasn't clear what restrictions Betacommand was actually subject to at the time, as so many had been discussed and lifted, and few actually documented anywhere. It's not fair to an editor when it isn't clear what sanctions they are actually subject to, so the Committee solved that by (effectively) giving the community a pat on the back for a job well done, then saying "We'll take it from here." In this case, we have a clearly defined set of sanctions, so this sort of remedy isn't necessary - doubly so since the current restrictions can run concurrently with the ban you've proposed below. Hersfold 02:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

It is not clear. It is an appallingly worded edit restriction. For example it makes some specific injunction about bulleted lists. I had never done anything with bulleted lists. It is impossible in general to say whether an edit affects the rendered form of a page, and in particular I have had editors arguing on my talk page and on noticeboards about whether something falls within the ER or not. No consideration was given to edge cases, or specification. It was just "something someone made up one day". Moreover it is being abused as a rod to beat me rather than a tool to help the encyclopaedia. Rich Farmbrough, 07:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

From Betacommand. Alternative to Hersfold's remedies or can be used in conjugation with them. Optional use with remedy 2.1 below. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 00:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough banned

2.1) Rich Farmbrough is banned from Misplaced Pages for a period of no less than six months. After six months has elapsed from the date of his ban, Rich Farmbrough may request that the ban be lifted. As part of any such request, Rich Farmbrough shall be required to submit a plan outlining his intended editing activity and demonstrating his understanding of and intention to refrain from the actions which resulted in his ban. The Committee shall present this plan to the community for review and comment prior to any modification of Rich Farmbrough's ban.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Absurd. Rich Farmbrough, 02:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Unnecessarily harsh. Hersfold 02:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

From Betacommand. Changed from one year to six months due to different circumstances. Alternative to Hersfold's remedies or can be used in conjugation with them. Optional use with remedy 2 above. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 00:36, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this is too soon. What is needed is a firmer restriction to get rid of the problematic editing while allowing approved bot jobs to be run. Only if that failed to work would harsher penalties become appropriate, IMHO. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Rich Farmbrough

Proposed principles

Sanctions are preventative not punitive

1) Sanctions are preventative not punitive

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

As a general principle this is fine. However, although some restrictions may appear to be punitive, because they are focused on a particular editor, they are actually preventative, because in the community's judgment they prevent continued disrtuption by that editor. Thus, for example, editing restrictions, community bans, and arbitration remedies do not become invalid solely because they might appear to be punitive. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Consensus is plural

2) Consensus in serious matters requires explicit support of more than one editor.

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Proposed findings of fact

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1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Template

1) CBM injuncted to stop reverting "cosmetic" parts of others' edits

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Edits such as this against the consensus that this template shall be called "{{About}}" are counter productive. Moreover they are incredibly hypocritical, and since CBM often rolls back a complex edit to restore one of his "fave" redirects, constitute de facto vandalism.

Comment by others:

The {{otheruses4}} template had a deletion discussion which closed as keep. If there was consenus to replace all uses of the template, a bot would already have done it. The general principle of WP:NOTBROKEN is that redirects are harmless. In this case the specific redirect name "otheruses4" says which message the template is supposed to be generating, unlike the more general {{about}} which can generate several different messages depending on how it is invoked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Template

2) Rich Farmbrough and Fram not to interact.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

See finding of fact above. It is time for Fram and I to say goodbye.

Which "finding of fact" would that be? Fram (talk) 07:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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2) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Proposals by CBM

Proposed principles

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1) {Text of proposed principle}

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2) {Text of proposed principle}

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Proposed findings of fact

Violation of bot policy

1) Rich Farmbrough has violated the bot policy. He has run large-scale tasks on his main account without approval; has performed unauthorized edits as part of otherwise approved tasks; and has run approved tasks on his main account while his bot account was blocked.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is a repeat of what Hersfold has said - repeating something three times before breakfast may allow you to believe it but it does not make it true. Specific accusations 2 are not against bot policy and one is specifically allowed by WP:COSMETICBOT. Rich Farmbrough, 15:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

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2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Large-scale tasks restricted

1) Rich Farmbrough is prohibited from performing large-scale tasks with his main account. In particular:

• He may not use his main account to edit more than 50 distinct pages, from any combination of namespaces, in any 24-hour period.
• He may not use his main account to create more than 5 pages, in any combination of namespaces, in any 24-hour period.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Gets to the heart of the matter of R.F. evading bot policy by using his main account for unapproved large-scale tasks. He would still be free to run bot jobs after getting them approved by BAG. The motivation for the particular type of sanction is that it is very difficult to tell how an edit is being made (script, AWB, etc.) but the count of edits is objective, and limiting the edit count has essentially the same effect in terms of reducing automated editing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

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2) {text of proposed remedy}

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Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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2) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Proposals by {User}

Proposed principles

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1) {Text of proposed principle}

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2) {Text of proposed principle}

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Proposed findings of fact

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1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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1) {text of proposed remedy}

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Personal attack by Hersfold

"... acts with disdain towards ..." I have never acted with disdain towards anyone, on Misplaced Pages or off. I may have become irritable after years of low-level sniping by certain editors, that is completely different. This is a really nasty thing to say about someone in order to further an attempted de-sysopping. I am deeply hurt by this assertion more than anything else. Rich Farmbrough, 01:17, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

'Disdain' is a lot milder than a lot of other personal attacks circling around Misplaced Pages about other editors involved in disputes. In his assertion, he's merely dramatizing the community's lost of respect for you. Regards, Whenaxis (contribs) 01:32, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Drama is, of course, 90% of the problem. Rich Farmbrough, 01:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Abuse of private email by Hersfold

"... that those opposing his actions are making similar changes yet remain unsanctioned..."

This is a misreading of a comment in a private email that I sent to Elen of Roads, requesting an unblock. Elen asked permission to share the email with Hersfold, to which I replied, that she could but it would only make him more angry (this case is a sad testament that I was correct).

This was never meant as a tu quoque defence, it was merely a remark about a strange phenomenon that is part of the whole matrix within which this affaire is set. Notably, for example, Fram has made thousands of edits, one assumes manually, emulating what SmackBot used to do. (There are many other examples of Fram doing something that I have done, or very similar to it.) Of course I don't think Fram should be sanctioned for doing these things, they are far more useful than threatening, or carrying out useless block actions or malicious seeming deletions and reversions. Rich Farmbrough, 01:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Finally, an explanation of what you meant by that accusation. I recall I asked for such an explanation two weeks ago, but never got a response.

Now that you have clarified things, I do apologize. I've taken a brief look through the numerous discussions I've referenced in Evidence and can't find any comment made by you that makes such an assertion. Rereading the email, I do have to conclude that it came from my reading of that email. It was not my intention to refer to an email sent to me in confidence, and when I'd posted the request for this case several days later I'd forgotten that was the source. I'd remove it from my original statement, however at this point that likely will do little good, and at no point did I directly quote the contents of the email, merely paraphrased at the quoted point.

To address Whenaxis's point below, the policy regarding the Committee's handling of correspondence does not apply here. Elen and myself were both involved in this matter as administrators, not as arbitrators; it is for that reason we are both recused on and participants in this case. At no point (until now) was this email sent to any of the Committee's mailing lists. However, again, I do make an effort to keep private emails private.

I say "until now" as now that that details of this accusation have been made clear, and I concur that it did in fact form part of the foundation for my arguments in the original statement, I would like to send a copy of the original email I received to the arbcom-en-b mailing list for the Committee to consider as private evidence. I'll await for Rich's consent before doing so, however, unless directed to do so by a non-recused arbitrator. Hersfold 02:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Since the mail contains references to matters discussed with me in confidence, albeit obliquely, I must decline, though with some regret, since it would, perhaps, put details more clearly before the committee. Rich Farmbrough, 04:32, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by others:

According to the main landing page for the Arbitration Committee (see here) under the 'Communications and privacy' heading: "Arbitrators usually seek to treat your communications, including emails, as private when possible. We however cannot guarantee against public disclosure for a number of reasons, including potential security limitations. Accordingly, you should not disclose sensitive personal information in your communications with us. Once received, your communications may be shared with committee members and, in some limited cases, with third parties to assist in resolving issues or other purposes." Whenaxis (contribs) 01:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hersfold is not acting as an arbitrator in this case. Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Analysis of Whenaxis evidence

Bot Approvals Group (BAG) flaws

We all (including BAG) know that there are flaws with BAG. However, at the moment, the composition and activity level of BAG is one of the best we have had for some years, and BAG is responsive and does its job well.

In his first bullet Whenaxis confuses a bot and a task.

Wheel warring over blocks

Bullets 2-6: The block placed by Fram explicitly allowed me to remove the block when the task was stopped. This is not uncommon with bot blocks.

Rich reacts inappropriately and breaches bot policy

• In the diff cited by Whenaxis I move ad hominem attempts by User:CBM, supported by User:Fram to a sub page. If there were doubt that these are ad hominem, it can be seen that the user attacking the BRFA has had an word-for-word identical BRFA approved. The same diff also shows examples of using the block log as a badge of shame, by the person who was the proximate cause of the block.
• In Madman's closing of the BRFA he is probably correct in saying, ab initio that I have been uncivil, however in the face of an unremitting 2-3 year campaign of obstruction, I was the model of discretion.

Rich Farmbrough, 01:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The "cause of the block" is the one making the errors, not the one reporting them or the one blocking. Continued failure to take responsability for your actions. Fram (talk) 09:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Read up on causality a bit. The fact remains that no one raised the issue on my talk page, and only you raised it on AN. And the fact also remains that you have repeatedly, repeatedly made reports to AN and AN/I often without any discussion. There are sufficient Admins that you occasionally succeed in getting some punitive action, and usually enough people that you can spread some more muck. Rich Farmbrough, 18:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

As far as I recall, I made reports to AN without prior discussion with you twice, the one that lead to your one-month block and this ArbCom case, and this one in January, where you eventually blocked yourself for 8 hours. In all other cases, I first discussed it at your talk page, and only took it to AN when you didn't respond or when the problems continued, and when there was an actual problem, not things like your continued changes of "reflist" to "Reflist" and similar useless and guideline-prohibited but not actually "harmful" edits. In a few cases, I was wrong and you were right, and I acknowledged this, e.g. in User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2012Mar#WP:ANI discussion about ISBNs and Helpful Pixie Bot. In most cases, the people at AN agreed that there was an actual problem with your edits, sometimes resulting in restrictions and/or blocks. Yoru opinion of how easy it is to dupe admins into blocking you is noted... Fram (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I do not concur that my comments in the bot request were ad hominem. However, when BAG reviews a bot request, they consider both the technical aspects of the task and the suitability of the bot operator to conduct it. In the end BAG makes the final decision, but all Misplaced Pages users are encouraged to comment and discuss both aspects on the BRFA page. The history of R.F.'s bots, and his editing restrictions, may call into question whether he is the most suitable operator for particular tasks. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Ad hominem means against the person. Splattering your opinion that I was unfit to run a bot across the page is an ad hominem argument - though you may attempt or not to justify it, there is no doubt that that is what it is. Moreover BAG are all quite familiar with my work, and I am sure my failings, they do not need an involved editor trolling on the page to tell them of that. I am amazed that you even thought that was acceptable behaviour. Rich Farmbrough, 18:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Rich, I removed the BAG flaws part of my evidence because of request by Headbomb on the evidence talk page. Whenaxis (contribs) 20:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Analysis of Fram's evidence

Links to evidence

These go way, way beyond what is allowed by the rules of Arbcom, I have asked on the talk page that they be struck.

Wanting to mass create articles despite known and unresolved problems

When I created new articles at the rate of less than 1 per hour, Fram invoked the putative ER. According to this I need BAG approval to "mass create articles". To label following the ER that was a result his previous vexatious posting to AN/I as "lack of good judgement" speaks more about Fram than it does about me.

BAG, quite rightly, respond on the BRFA that this is not for them to approve. You will also see on that BRFA my correct prediction that the BRFA would be cited against me in future - which was seen as fanciful at the time.

Expects other people to find his errors for him

Fram totally fails to support this with evidence. Rather the contrary. The edit to the template was designed to quickly show any cases where the categories had been emptied since creation, (the only case where there could be a smidgen of justification for the original complaint). The edit summary of the self-revert is not some kind of arrogance, but a reference to "the wrong version" - it could also be noted that the editor who nominated the category for deletion had offered a compromise on my talk page so I had good reason to believe that the category had been saved.

With the "Wikipdians who like..." categories Fram knows full well (as illustrated in this diff) that I took steps to resolve the source of these categories. He chooses, though to ignore that here, whereas at AN, where he describes it as "hiding some of the problems" which makes me seem mendacious. A lesser editor might have simply ignored it, but Fram uses it to further his campaign.

The last two point have nothing to do with the assertion, and are just an attempt at muck-flinging. Nontheless:

• With the "Statesman" stub, I invite the arbitrators to simply look at the talk page in question. There is clearly no substantive content, much less any that belongs at"Politician".
• Economy of Xiguan was split from Xiguan which was causing errors due to its size and nature. It was nominated for speedy, which was declined, it was then speedied anyway. Since there was a disagreement over the deletion it was not speediable.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I note that Rich finds fault with the format of my evidence section, but has failed to correct the error I pointed out in his evidence section, or to provide any evidence for claims he makes, e.g. "I have repeatedly requested Fram not to interact with me, and he has repeatedly refused." (repeated in his replies to Kirill Lokshin on this page, "It is perhaps noteworthy that I asked for a mutual interaction ban with User:Fram several times."). It is of course easier if you can silence your critics, but how that would help Misplaced Pages is beyond me.

He also claims here that "According to this I need BAG approval to "mass create articles"." This is incorrect, his restrictions states: "unless prior community approval for the specific mass creation task is documented." BAG approval is only one possible method of getting community approval, but far from the only one.

He claims in the "Expects other people to find his errors for him" section that I fail to support my assertion, and then goes on about unrelated things, instead of showing that he ha indeed corrected these errors or that there were no errors in those edits. He doesn't do either of those, but just claims that the edit to the template had good intentions. Yes, well, that wasn't disputed, the problem is that while we assume good faith, we notice bad execution and follow-up. As for the Wikipedians who like X, Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 April 17#Wikipedians who like X is the kind of thing I am talking about. If Rich had deleted these together with the three earlier nominated ones, this CfD would have been unnecessary.

• If I weren't "blocked" I would have deleted them. Rich Farmbrough, 18:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
  

Nonsense. You had time enough to delete the other ones, but the block hours later prevented you from deleting these? I would AGf on this if you had actually cleaned up after yourself at other occasions, but there as well you only did some effort on the examples pointed out to you, and failed to check other similar edits (e.g. when you listed biographies from the 1900 DNB as being about "living people"). Fram (talk) 07:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Finally, he still blames the problems on others, and fails to see his own fault in this: "following the ER that was a result his previous vexatious posting to AN/I": no, the ER, was a result of the many previous problems when Rich Farmbrough did similar tasks before, and a means to stop him from creating more of the same. People at WP:AN don't support or impose sanctions because I ask for them, but because they have looked at the evidence presented and concluded that there is indeed an actual problem that needs to be solved or prevented from reoccurring. Fram (talk) 07:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The point you rather miss is People at WP:AN don't support or impose sanctions at all. Rich Farmbrough, 18:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Have you read the actual discussions leading to the sanctions and the blocks? A lot of people supported harsher sanctions, the actual sanctions were a fair and not very strict compromise. They didn't come out of the blue. Let's take a look at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010. There was an actual proposal to restrict you like this:

"Proposed: Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely restricted: - from using AWB or any other mass-editing tool; - from running bots of any sort; - from making bot-like edits; - from making more than four edits per minute;"

This was supported (rough count) by 16 people, and opposed by 10 people (some of them opposing any sanction, some wanting a weaker one). I think you should consider yourself lucky with what was the eventual sanction, instead of this much harsher one. Your repeated complaints about the lack of support for the current sanctions, and your rather absurd claim that "People at WP:AN don't support or impose sanctions at all." go against all available evidence. Fram (talk) 07:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Fram, Rich is correct when he states he would need BAG approval to mass create articles; this is stipulated in the bot policy. — madman 16:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Only when it is "automated or semi-automated article creation", not when you do actual manual mass creation. He wanted to create pages with a script (had actaully done more than a hundred of them before, with lots of errors and problems), not manually, despite the clear problems this presented. It was not like the creation of articles on populated places from a database, this was the creation of biographies, with wikilinks, categories, ... all script-based. If he wanted to create these manually but fairly rapidly, there wouldn't be a problem, he could get permission at other places than BRFA. But if he wants to do it with a script, then he indeed has a problem. Fram (talk) 07:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Analysis of evidence presented by Hersfold

Violation of "editing restrictions"

• • Whitespace changes at the ends of lines:

This change used to be an AWB change. It would therefore have been legitimate.

• Here, Hersfold has had to go back 18 months, to a time when I am fairly sure AWB had a separate talk page list, listing the majority of WikiProject templates with their redirects.

List of blocks

Once again linking to links, means over-supplying evidence.

Note that the list of blocks is pretty much all based on items initiated by CBM or Fram.

Hersfold accuses me of running bots from my main account

• He states that these edits must be automatic because of the "variation in edit summaries while running at such a high rate".

The irony here is User:Xeno has accused me of running bots because the edit summaries were the same!

But seriously Hersfold's evidence supports no such statement, because AWB is moderately dynamic in its edit summaries (listing typos etc.) and has a drop down list of recently used summaries. Moreover this is back in 2010!

• Then some rapid AWBing gets the "it must be a bot" treatment.

• "When SmackBot was blocked once, he transferred its operation to his main account" (relevant diff)

Quite simply there were broken articles with references and no references section. CBM had blocked the bot until I agreed to edit the source code for AWB to remove a general fix he disagreed with. I saw no reason not to use AWB manually for a minor task, just because CBM was being a pain in the rear end about some changes there was widespread consensus for. I still think that fixing articles with big red errors on them is preferable to not fixing them.

• Hersfold cites the block logs of SmackBot and HPB. What he does not say is that, ignoring errors, almost all of the blocks were either by CBM or Fram, directly or indirectly. Moreover he promoted the canard, already covered by Whenaxis, that I "repeatedly unblocked his bots in violation of policy" - while Whenaxis has an excuse to think this is the case, Hersfold, as a BAGGER, Admin and Arb, should know better. Every unblock was with explicit or implicit permission.

Rich responds to concerns and criticism with derision

Hersfold says My statement requesting this case was "character assassination" and characterized him "as spawn of the devil"

Firstly there is a complete failure to be literate here. Obviously the statement about "characterising as spawn of the devil" means "assigning a level of wrongdoing completely in excess of not only what was done, but of what was alleged to be done". ZOMG.

Secondly character assassination, it is, if only by degrees. And there is a key point here. I don't really care if "everyone" thinks that I am a bot, a bad editor, or "spawn of the devil" per se. When, however, these unfounded accusations (or even founded ones - for example my typing is not what it should be) become common currency, so that I am faced with people on IRC thinking I run bots on my main account, and, moreover, these beliefs can result in harm to the project by preventing me from contributing, or imposing unreasonable limitations on my contribution, then there is a problem. Let me here demonstrate some of the phrases from Hersfold's "Statement" that are false, and constitute character assasination.

1. "linking dozens of users to IP addresses in a manner that can be parsed by internet search engines"
2. "I had to threaten to block Rich – and did block his bot – to force an end to yet another series of violations."
3. " Rich has proven to be extremely dismissive of the community’s concerns"
4. "insisting ... that those opposing his actions are making similar changes yet remain unsanctioned"
5. "Rich has adhered to neither of these policies."
6. "On two separate occasions, the community has placed restrictions on his ability to edit"
7. "on numerous occasions, he has continued to defy the community on these grounds."
8. "He has repeatedly violated policy"
9. "acts with disdain towards any who oppose his actions."

(There are more that are expressed in ways that make them non-falsifiable, but still present a negative view "I believe that Rich has lost the trust.." "I urge.." etc. etc.)

Taking these by turns,

1. Is simply factually wrong
2. The blocking of the bot was, apparently, caused by Hersfold's impatience and he mentions his trouble controlling his temper.
   1. It is moot that the edits were a "violation"
3. The community had concerns back in 2009, which I spent a great deal of time over. The archives to my talk pages contain literally thousands of threads where I have helped and responded cordially, and many barnstars. Sadly not every visitor can go away happy, but the vast majority do. If there's a problem I fix it, if they need help I provide it, if they are wrong I tell them cordially and gently.
4. This is discussed elsewhere. I have never insisted anything of the sort.
5. Broadly I have been far more of an adherent to WP policies than those who chose to make process the king, and have no respect for other editors.
6. This is discussed elsewhere.
7. There is no defying the community. I am not happy to have two editors following me around, creating the situation where I am worried with every edit I make that I am going to be castigated for "no change to the rendered page", whereas if I make an edit that results in something actually breaking, that is, in theory, perfectly fine.
8. Again an unjustified and unsupported assumption. Assuming this to be true, Hersfold then believes his evidence to support it.
9. This is discussed elsewhere.

• Hersfold says Responds to concerns with sarcasm or derision:

Let us look at one of Hersfold's diffs, : Here I would say that the user I am replying to is being sarcastic "Because so many pages begin with....".

In another Fram is informing me he is reporting me to ANI (yet again). I don't see that any response more than a sigh is appropriate.

WP:POINT-y conduct during this case

The common mis-use of WP:POINT...

• Hersfold says Sarcastic comments directed at other parties: title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich_Farmbrough/Evidence&diff=485637063&oldid=485575492

This isn't sarcasm. I'm sorry that you don't like having your bot's errors reported. It is nonetheless ironic that the bot of the editor raising the Arbcase over issues allegedly to do with mis-performing automation, should malfunction on the very arb case in question, even if it was a trivial malfunction (a bit like removing an un-needed space when another piece of software has had its specification changed not to do so?).

• Hersfold says Frivolous clerking requests:

"As stated in the last diff, Rich is making these requests to ensure strict adherence to what he observes as ArbCom's "rules", since he is accused of ignoring actual rules and restrictions elsewhere on Misplaced Pages."

This is to completely misunderstand due process. I don't care if the rules are strictly enforced or laxly enforced, but I do care that all parties should know what to expect. If one party is attempting to perform to the letter of the rule and the other's aren't then that party is at a disadvantage. It is somewhat worrying that you cannot see this.

There is no suggestion of linkage here, as should be plain to all readers.

I'm not sure either what the distinction between 'Arbcom's "rules"' (as if they were not real rules) and 'actual rules' are. This sounds like an attempt to have one's cake and eat it.

Hersfold says Rich's restrictions have community support

(section "Review of Rich Farmbrough's cosmetic changes restriction")

Seriously? Let's analyse the contributions to that section:

• Xeno raises two questions in one "Was this restriction duly imposed and should it remain in effect?"

The first question is answered by precisely two of the twelve editors;

• Jenks24 says "Reading over the restriction, I do not see a consensus – rather the closing admin deciding "This Gordian knot clearly needs cutting, and I hereby cut it: the restriction proposed above is enacted" with seemingly no regard as to what the actual consensus is"
• CBM says The fact that the restriction remained on WP:Editing restrictions is evidence that there was consensus for it, as it would have been removed otherwise.

I may be biased, but, to me, one of these statements is rooted in fact, one in wishful thinking.

As well as the angry comments, we have

• DJSasso "at this point I think you are just picking at him."
• Kumioko says "I have seen edits blaming Rich for violating a rule that the accuser either doesn't understand or is choosing to interpret in a way that misrepresents the problem."
• Od Mishehu " I don't think that him changing the "r" at the beginning of a {{references}} between upper and lower case, as part of a relevant edit, is harmful"
• 28bytes says "After reading this whole conversation, I have become convinced that the editing restrictions are more trouble than they're worth and should be dropped. I'm really not seeing a benefit to the 'pedia in keeping these restrictions active."

• We also have Fences and Windows quoted as saying "Blocking for capitalisation changes from {{reflist}} to {{Reflist}} is punitive and provides no benefit to the encyclopedia."

There is much much more meat here for those interested in Wikipedian sociology. For example, why does Rich Farmbrough not put up more of a fight, as CBM says he should? And why do three of the editors who seem to be condemning him at the beginning of the section change to defending him by the end? Could this be WikiHonour? And who is the mysterious Elen who appears so briefly and is never heard form again?

(Note: 28bytes also accurately prefigures my plaint that the ER does nothing about real errors, while penalising over trivia. "A worthwhile restriction would do precisely the opposite.")

Regardless, if this is section is described as "community support" then "one wall and no roof make a house".

Summary

A mixture of misunderstanding (one hopes) and extensive digging into the past that has failed to come up with anything concrete or much that is recent. If diffs from 3 years ago are needed to damn me, then the evidence is scant indeed. When in addition those who are presenting evidence against me need to share some of their diffs, it might be said to be vanishing.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Analysis of evidence presented by CBM

Edit restriction not supported by community

We have already seen all these diffs cited above. They are no more valid here

Once again CBM advances the slightly ludicrous "status quo" argument, that since I did not go and remove the ERs from the list I must have agreed to them. Simply because I choose to avoid confrontation, it does not make that which is wrong, right.

Cosmetic changes

CBM uses the link-to pages of links method to avoid the limits on links. And I trust anyone following the links will draw their own conclusions to the reasons someone would want to have these sort of minor fixes suppressed, unless they are in AWB. Also note that at Elen's request I stopped many of the changes Carl was complaining about, and got consensus for others. Every one of these edits was making a substantive change to the page.

Mass creation

R.F. was endeavoring to create practically every red-linked category on the wiki.

We need to not have red-linked categories. In some cases the category needs to be created, in others the members need to be removed. I have done both. On the last attempt to open an ArbCom case, John Vandenberg remarked "The creation of the ISO templates, and edit to template:interwiki, is absolutely ridiculous to be brought up here. Rich did the right thing by creating those templates." I am not arguing that Jon would necessarily say the same thing here, I do however think that given that comment, it shows that there should not be an automatic presumption that everything I do is wrong.

One example is the joke category Category:Wikipedians in red-linked categories. R.F. created it anyway, and it went to CFD, where R.F. said that by creating it he was actually fixing a problem . He said that someone else needs to actually address the underlying problem, which supports the claim that R.F. sometimes expects others to clean up after he makes a series of blind edits.

This is simply untrue. I said someone needs to address the underlying problem, not someone else. I would have been glad to do it myself. Note also that no-one has addressed the underlying problem - which I would have done if not psuedo-blocked.

Multiple users have attempted to counsel R.F.

CBM uses this header to attempt to dig up dirt from 2006. And yet the damage is done by the weasel words "attempted to counsel". How different the identical content would have been with a more friendly wording! "R.F. discusses his edits with anyone who cares to visit his talk page".

Best practices for bots

• CBM cites these two edits:

This is a known MediaWiki bug. The edit conflict with AnomieBot is not picked up, otherwise these would be valid edits/not done. Unfortunately AnomieBot tunes itself to the same edit delay as HPB maximising the number of edit conflicts.

• CBM says "Bot policy requires preapproval for mass article or article category creation" but actually it says "where those categories are visible in the article space".

Infeasible to 'cross the street'

CBM says An editor cannot simply 'cross the street' to avoid R.F. Here "an editor" presumably means CBM. Historically CBM has stated he only looks at my edits if they are on his watch-list. This statement would seem to be a roundabout way of saying the same thing - without actually saying it. Nonetheless it has been shown recently that CBM does stalk my edits, despite his earlier assertions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Bulleted, including some of my analysis of my evidence:

• In my evidence, I do link to three reports I made to Elen of the Roads about the chronic edit restriction violations by R.F.. However, those three posts together have under 40 diffs if I count correctly, and I have 9 diffs in my evidence, so I could copy all those diffs into my evidence and still be under the 50 diff limit. In any case I did not expect arbcom to look at all the diffs within my diffs, I just linked to the summaries I reported to Elen of the Roads, and expected the arbitrators would do their own investigation into the editing restriction. I will happily make any changes to my evidence that are requested by a clerk.
• The edit restrictions for R.F., unlike those for Betacommand, apply regardless whether there is also a substantive change in the same edit.
  • That doesn't stop people implying that I make a significant number of cosmetic only edits. Rich Farmbrough, 17:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
    
• Rich says that, at Elen's request, he stopped "many" of the changes that were inappropriate. This on its own demonstates that he did not make an effort to simply eliminate all the cosmetic changes, as the edit restriction requires. However, if you look at the text I wrote in the three reports linked in my evidence, you will see that the same sorts of problems occur in all three, which goes against the claim that the initial reports were acted on.
  • Here is a typical chopped logic. One would think that successfully using proxy block threats to prevent the type of edit that CBM finds so offensive that he regularly reverts any editor making them (thus making cosmetic only edits that do nothing other than what he complains of, or often reverting real fixes to vandalize articles) would result in his laying off and getting on with something useful. Instead if I stop I am damned and if I don't stop I am damned. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
    
• Rich says that is a "known Mediawiki bug". But the "bug" is that his bot changed the whitespace of the page. If it had not, and had made an edit identical to the one that AnomieBot made, then the edit by his bot would have appeared to be a null edit and would not show in the page history. R.F. is blaming Mediawiki for a problem that would not have occured if he followed his editing restriction.
  • Er... no. The combined edit could be perfectly permissible even under your rules. Get a grip. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
    
• The point of the "infeasible to cross the street" paragraph is that it is impractical to impose a sanction that asks R.F. not to interact with other editors, unless there is also a sanction that drastically restricts the number of pages that he edits. There is no way that any other editor (me, Fram, Hersfold, Elen of the Roads, or anyone else) could avoid encountering R.F. when R.F. and his bots edit thousands of distinct pages per month.
  • Ah I see. You want to be allowed to continue your campaign? Because despite your protestations, even when I have avoided editing any articles that you edit, you still complain about what I do. Moreover you are not compelled to follow me to pages I create, such as BRFAs.
  • Strange that you cannot see that by sabotaging BRFAs you are forcing me to make my edits manually - which you apparently dislike. Rich Farmbrough, 15:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
    
• The point of the "attempt to counsel" paragraph is that R.F. has been asked may times to change his editing, and has declined to so to. I view this as demonstrating a long-term pattern of incollegiality and disruption rather than a temporary mistake or an argument between only one or two editors. I personally decided a while ago to recuse from any more admin actions on R.F.'s bot to see whether other admins agreed that there were problems -- and they did.
  • I have not declined to do so. I have made innumerable changes to my editing patterns. And yes, you recuse from "admin intervention" but you still post on other admins talk pages, and on BRFAs and other places, until you get a response. I would rather you had the guts to say that you fight improvement wherever you can, as shown by mindless reverts of other editors which litter you contribution history. And I notice since you derailed my recent BRFA - leading indirectly to this Arb case - you are now taking over the task yourself - wasting the time and effort that have gone into coding the task. Rich Farmbrough, 17:58, 18 April 2012 (UTC).
    
• Regarding Category:Wikipedians in red-linked categories, it was deleted and emptied, and then other editors added themselves to it.
• — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

BAsically edits such as this are edit warring and vandalism. And CBM has made many of them. Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

If you consider that to be vandalism, I am even more in favour of desysopping you. Fram (talk) 13:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

IMO FRAM, CBM and several other editors are just as guilty for perpetuating the cycle. You and others have adamantly opposed these types of minor edits as being pointless. Regardless of whether they are or are not, if that is the case, then reverting it is even more wasteful than simply leaving it alone. If these would have been left then the bot would not go back and try and change it again and half the problems with arguments and edit warring would be solved. You are helping to perpetuate the cycle by doing these reversions. In the end, regardless of wether they are necessary or not there is no harm done by doing these minor edits and therefore no reason to revert them other than to instigate an argument. Kumioko (talk) 17:08, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Analysis of Rich Farmbrough's evidence

Suspected sockpuppets categories are harmless

Point #1: "User:Fram "reported" me to AN for creating these catories." He reported you because you breached your editing restrictions of making mass changes to any namespace. In addition, the problem with making unnecessary suspected sockpuppet categories are that you are defacing the editor who the category is the subject of, especially when there is no compelling evidence that they are sockpuppeting. For example, if there was a category created called, "Category:Suspected sockpuppets of Rich Farmbrough" and it's completely empty, it's unnecessary. Further, they are harmful because immediately when someone sees that category without looking through it, your reputation is tarnished already because they have prejudged you as a bad-faith editor who sockpuppets.

Point #2: "User:Elen of the Roads blocked me on the basis that these categories related expired IPs to suspected sockmasters, and this was very serious." Yes, this was very serious for reasons explained above. Expired IPs is very serious when categorized into sockpuppet categories because the sockpuppet probably has a dynamic IP and has changed IPs by the time they are categorized. However, persistent sockpuppetry at one IP address is reason for a category. Obviously, when an IP sees that they are in a sockpuppet category and they're acting in good faith they'll be worried, because it wasn't them that did those actions.

Point #3: "User:Hersfold thought that was not enough, and decided an Arbitration case was needed as this created "crawlable pages"." It wasn't just one occurence. It was the same problem happening consistenly over and over even after you being warned.

Sub-point #3.5: "(all without discussing the matter on my talk page - so urgent it was)" You've been warned enough times probably in the past. It'll just be resolved (when it really isn't) and disappear in your archives.

Point #4: "None of these editors, deleted any of the "Suspected sock-puppet categories" nor indeed did any of the many other editors and admins who must have seen the discussion (with the exception of one clear test category)." No diff was provided. Merely opinion, this evidence should be excluded.

Point #5: "The only person who deleted any of these "monstrous" categories was me. I also removed the incorrect tag that had been allowed to sit unmolested for years." Well, perhaps, you only deleted it to destroy evidence.

Point #6: "No further discussion took place to resolve these apparently enormous problems that had been created." What are you talking about? This Arbitration case was filed. And you even said so in point #3, that this was the result of your actions.

Point #7: "The Suspected sock-puppet categories are, explicitly "noindex" and so are treated exactly the same as redlinked categories by search engines, since July 2008." It's more than a privacy issue as I explained in point #1.

Point #7.5: "Had there been any real problems, I would have dealt with them, as I have in other cases." Like I said for sub-point #3.5, you've been warned enough times probably in the past. It'll just be resolved (when it really isn't) and disappear in your archives.

Mistakes made by me

"There is no doubt that I have made errors, both technical and in the handling of other editors. Firstly I would like it to be clear that I have always accepted both possibilities, more so, I venture to say, when approached in a friendly manner notably absent in some cases. Nonetheless I don't believe that these are egregious faults."

After the same faults occur, there's reasonable doubt as to whether or not that was a good faith error or purposeful misconduct. There are consequences for your actions and you are responsible for them, as paraphrased from the Bot Policy.

Request for non-interaction with Fram

"I have repeatedly requested Fram not to interact with me, and he has repeatedly refused. The exception is when he wants to put a complaint on a noticeboard, then he justifies doing so without talking to me first."

Just because somebody reports you for doing something that's wrong, is not a reason way to get an interaction ban.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Analysis of evidence presented by Charles Matthews

Charles Matthews claimed that I at first only raised a "technical issue", which is incorrect: what I wanted was information on how we could best attribute the articles created by Rich Farmbrough, since they weren't properly attributed despite being near word-for-word copies. This is not really a "technical issue" but a basic requirement.

When PBS gives two examples of articles RF made in that context, congratulates him on the effort, and notes some problems with them. I then don't "change tack" or use "a single instance" as "proof" of anything, I take one of the two examples given by PBS and indicate that there is more wrong with them than may at first be obvious, and that he IMO should not really be congratulated for these. This is a normal response to what was said right before, not a change of direction (if anyone changed direction, it was PBS; Note that I hadn't even mentioned RF, the bot request, or anything else related to these problems before PBS started about it. My reply to PBS caused him to change his position: "Silly me, I had assumed that these were proofread pages. Given that they are not, we seem to have to things that we can do. Either fix them here on Misplaced Pages, or put them up for a mass deletion."

For some reason you then interject your edit between my edit and PBS' response (making your evidence claim that "the threading now makes it hard to reconstruct the chrnology" rather ironic), and start out of the blue with "Please assume good faith", without indicating where or how I haven't done this.

Next you claim that "despite this spat prompted by Fram saying we didn't care, PBS helped Fram with the solvable problem." This conveniently ignores the pôst before that which has the edit summary "A thankyou for the work of PBS, the response of the others leaves me rather disappointed though" and also the text "Thank you to Philip Baird Shearer, who effectively did something to tackle this and works on it, but the other responses here leave me rather disappointed." I think this makes it rather clear that I did appreciate the work PBS had put into it, contrary to what the evidence by Charles Matthews seems to suggest.

As for "There was no mystery at any point which the "pilot project" articles were, so it began to look like a personal attack wrapped in technical issues. Purism on Rich's part meant he didn't apply {{DNB}} to his pilot articles as WP:PLAGIARISM would suggest. But he gave the sourcing: Fram's point was about tracking. That's it, for policy.": wrong, there was no easy way to find the articles created by Rich Farmbrough in this manner, and using a reference instead of an attribution is a serious problem, which is easily understandable for a newbie, but not so much for an admin who wants to mass create such articles. Attribution is not optional but policy-required, despite what you seem to believe.

Finally, when you do a pilot, you don't create 100+ seriously deficient articles, don't check for errors, don't correct errors after they have been pointed out by others, and then request permission to use a bot to created thousands more of the same. If you can't see what the problem is with this approach and why it needs to be stopped, then I can't help you. Fram (talk) 14:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Template

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

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General discussion

Query: Has anything good come out of these so called editing restrictions? Rich Farmbrough, 08:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Yes, the abundance of problems before and in October 2010 has been reduced to more occasional but still too regular lapses, and the editing restrictions make it clear for people less familiar with the situation that when new problems are reported, they aren't a first time occurrence but part of a pattern. Fram (talk) 09:01, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

That's how you see it. From my perspective I voluntarily changed the way my bot worked, and the ER was imposed some considerable time later. Endless fun for you, of course, and other wiki-lawyers. But no actual benefit, in fact dis-benefit, since even more of my time is wasted on you, and the blocks you inspire, than before. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC).

Diffs? Links? All I see is that the restrictions were swiftly imposed after you repeatedly made problematic edits, not "some considerable time later". Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010 started on October 20, 2010, and the ER was placed on October 26, 2010, after 16 people supported and 10 opposed a much harsher sanction. The second restriction was placed on 13 January 2011, the same day that Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2011 was started. In both cases, the final straw that led to the restrictions was not your bots, but actions done with your own account. That you "voluntarily" changed how your bot worked obviously didn't really solve the problems you made on your own account.

And no, trawling through your thousands upon thousands of edits (user and bots), doing the work you should have done in the first place (checking your edits, correcting your errors), and often getting abuse instead of thanks as a reply for my diligence and my attempts to improve the way you work, is definitely not what I consider to be "fun". Starting AN and ANI discussions, or participating in ArbCom cases, is even less fun. But because you are an admin and bot operator, and because you make an enormous amount of edits, there are few people looking at your edits, never mind looking at patterns in them and repeated problems. Most people never see your edits, many others accept them in good faith (since your are an admin or a bot), never questioning whether your improvements actually improve anything. Some people notice a problem with one of your edits, and bring it to your talk page. You correct that one error, they are happy, and the other similar errors get by unseen and uncorrected. Only a few people take the time to actually make sure that you don't go off again with hundreds or thousands of problematic edits, and since you don't like this, you want these people to stop doing this, instead of changing your own behaviour and adhering to community standards and guidelines. I don't do this for fun, I do this beacuse it is necessary and few other people are willing to do it. Who can blame them? Fram (talk) 08:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Comment by others:

No, nothing good has come out of it. Because you're not abiding by them, Rich. Whenaxis (contribs) 21:08, 18 April 2012 (UTC)