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Fæ and MBisanz

Initiated by MBisanz at 00:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Involved parties

• MBisanz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Fæ (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Diff. 1

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Link

Statement by MBisanz

I opposed a proposal by Fæ, stating it was contrary to a position he took via email at an earlier date. I immediately received a second email indicating he believed I had violated his privacy by referencing the earlier email on-wiki. I responded by indicating that I did not believe I had violated his privacy and was forwarding to AUSC/OTRS-admin/Steward/Ombudsmen so that they could investigate the allegations that I violated his privacy. He continued to object via email and I indicated I did not desire to receive emails from him. He continued to object in the thread above, indicating I was being uncivil, disrespectful, untrustworthy, and in violation of my duty of confidentiality as a trusted user. He requested I withdraw the requests for review by the referenced authorities and I refused. He has continued to say I am acting in an uncivil and disrespectful manner, have violated his privacy, and otherwise made serious allegations as to my reputation as an editor and trusted user. Since he has declined to seek my recall or withdraw his allegations, I am seeking a public review by Arbcom. MBisanz 00:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Response

I do not object to the publication of the emails.

You have accused me of violating duties related to my use of restricted tools. These cannot be reviewed or adjudicated at WQA because of access levels of the responding users and the inability of those users to sanction me by removal of my tools. Only Arbcom can remove my restricted tools, so they are the appropriate forum to review these allegations.

You continue to claim this involves a highly personal matter and continue to engage in throwing your allegations at me. You cannot have it both ways. Either your desire to engage me or your desire to not be open must prevail.

You stated "I suggest you follow up with the many people you have so widely circulated highly confidential information that they will be in no doubt is none of their business, to check if your inflammatory behaviour, which could have been so easily resolved through direct personal discussion, reflects badly on someone with trusted access. The fact that you have repeatedly refused to take any responsibility for my wellbeing or that of other involved parties, and in the process have forced me to raise my concerns about a highly confidential matter in public, by rejecting email correspondence, should be of general grave concern. Our community does not work by falling back on theoretical legal arguments every time there is a problem, if you are incapable of treating people in a respectful and civil way, then expecting the community to put our trust in you is misplaced." How is that not a request to withdraw my request for review of my conduct and an accusation that I am an untrustworthy holder of advanced permissions? MBisanz 01:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I have no intention of making the emails public without your consent, but you were the one who continued to engage on AN and throw accusations, you cannot now hide behind the claim that those accusations cannot be discussed publicly. Again, you can't have it both ways. MBisanz 01:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Points of clarification. You expressly indicated I could contact Phillipe regarding your email of May 1. Your email of January 26 indicated I could contact Sue (among others) regarding that email. Your email from May 1 also indicated things contrary to your statement now, but which I am prevented from disclosing per WP:EMAILABUSE; it did not indicate "not to be shared" with other individuals via email. MBisanz 08:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Fæ continues in this RFAR to level the allegation that I am continuing to reveal confidential data in violation of my duty as a trusted user of advanced permissions. I do not know what forum I can seek the prior DR Arbcom has indicated, given these allegations directly implicate my advanced permissions and my alleged use of allegedly confidential information. If you really want, I will find someway to phrase everything in an AN thread so that it does not reveal any information from the emails and permits the community to review my conduct, but it still seems like a severely suboptimal solution, given the alleged abuse of trusted access and confidential nature of large portions of the evidence. MBisanz 08:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Fæ

I am too busy with inter-chapter business until at least the weekend to give this any real thought.

Initial reactions that I will revisit at the weekend:

• MBisanz has yet to try any form of dispute resolution, you will find the link provided to WP:AN links to a completely different matter, not the material of MBisanz's complaint which was not an AN matter and only a tangential discussion (now collapsed by an admin due to being tangential) in another thread. Raising a complaint on this page for someone so experienced in these processes as his first response is hard to fathom.
• I am puzzled as to why this is an ARBCOM issue, if MBisanz has a complaint about me, this appears a matter for WQA or for him to wait for a reply from the many email lists he has already emailed to in an apparent punitive blitz. As he has yet to exhaust those processes and made no attempt to try any other avenues first, then raising here is obviously premature and invalid.
• This involves a matter relating to my personal life and safety that I consider highly confidential and that MBisanz has failed to treat with dignity or respect. Due to the confidential nature of the information involved, I am not sure that I can discuss this openly on this page without compromising a matter that I have been independently advised, several times, not to talk about in public. I do not believe that Arbcom are in a position to advise me on these matters.
• At no point did I request that he "withdraw the requests for review by the referenced authorities", I did ask him to find a way to put things right, and that the many people he has now unnecessarily emailed a personal confidential matter to, will doubtless judge it to be absolutely none of their business. It is likely to be information that they would much prefer not to know.
  • MBisanz is aware of who else already knew the private information in question, and who they could then independently confirm the facts if they needed. To my knowledge and without my permission, MBisanz has now sent my private email at a minimum to:
    • English Arbitration Committee mailing list <arbcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
    • Audit Subcommitteemailinglist <arbcom-audit-en@lists.wikimedia.org>,
    • Private list for stewards <stewards-l@lists.wikimedia.org>,
    • "cu-ombuds-l@lists.wikimedia.org" <cu-ombuds-l@lists.wikimedia.org>,
    • "otrs-admins@lists.wikimedia.org" <otrs-admins@lists.wikimedia.org>
    • Sue Gardner <sgardner@wikimedia.org>
    • Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette@wikimedia.org>
  • I would appreciate it if someone could estimate how many people in total this represents, considering it was completely clear to MBisanz how I was concerned that this confidential information was private and not to be shared.
• "expecting the community to put our trust in you is misplaced" does not carry the same meaning as "untrustworthy". MBisanz appears to be complaining about words I have not actually used to exaggerate the situation.
• At no point have I asked for adjudication - removing a reference to a private and confidential email that had no bearing on a noticeboard discussion would have been sufficient remedy.
• If there was any action for MBisanz to take to improve his own understanding of respectful and civil treatment of confidential matters and the private lives of other Wikimedians than that is entirely his to assess and for his conscience to encompass. I have neither requested nor expect enforced sanctions.
• I have respected MBisanz's request to cease email interaction with him from when he first requested it.

--Fæ (talk) 08:02, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• Risker's question I have no intention of making my private emails public, particularly as these emails contain the confidential information in question that MBisanz's actions has put at risk. I want to re-enforce this point, if you have this information please do not post it here or elsewhere. I am distressed at the risk that MBisanz has presented for me and others without this being realized because MBisanz unfathomably has tried to raise an Arbcom case out of a situation he created and could easily have resolved by civil discussion by email. --Fæ (talk) 01:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

• General point MBisanz is using this Arbcom case a reason to gradually reveal more of the contents of my email of 26 January. This is the precise matter that I want kept confidential. There is absolutely no good reason for MBisanz to do this, it is not essential to any case he might want to take up in dispute resolution and it is causing me distress. This is not the respectful behaviour I would like to see from people with a high level of trusted status on Misplaced Pages. --Fæ (talk) 08:27, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Snowolf

I urge the committee to decline hearing this case, it seems to me essentially a dispute on whether it is or is not appropriate to reference emails on-wiki, even in generic terms. Yes, it has other connotations, but those are not essential to the nature of the dispute. I would suggest that a RFARB is at this stage premature, as the problem has evolved only in the last few hours, and neither of the parties is asking that any action be taken against the other party. This dispute, removing its specific details concerning privacy which make a public RFARB unsuitable anyway, can be normally discussed in other, more appropriate forums. The privacy violations, if any, can be privately discussed by the Arbitration Committee and the other relevant authorities if Fae feels the need to make a formal complaint on that matter, but I believe that is not the case. The broader implications of "uncivil, disrespectful, untrustworthy" are not for the arbcom to settle, imo. Snowolf 01:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by MZMcBride

You could open a case against just Fæ.... --MZMcBride (talk) 01:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by SB_Johnny

Given that Fae has (1) a track record of not responding to DR attempts (other than to make a rather inaccurate comment on the proceedings), (2) made it clear that whatever it is that's at the heart of the conflict should not be discussed, (3) has apparently received legal advice not to discuss something or other in public, and (4) has on other occasions (e.g.) discussed seeking legal recourse when he is (sometimes rightly) unhappy with the direction of a discussion, it seems unlikely that the normal DR processes will be able to be undertaken in an effective manner. --SB_Johnny |  09:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Peter Cohen

As per MzMcBride and SB_Johnny, there is potential for a case here about Fae. There have been at least two RFCUs about him in the past. In the case of the one on his Ash account, he sabotaged it by pretending to retire from Misplaced Pages during the RFC while throwing accusations of homophobia in his retirement statement and whilst already having his new account up and running. In the case of the RFC on his current account he failed to post anything on the main discussion page. This RFAR has been triggered by a typical piece of mud-slinging on his part and that mud-slinging took place in a thread which Fae had started because of WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude to certain websites.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Statement by {Party 3}

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/6/0/1)

• Question to both of you: Do either of you object to the publication of the email exchanges between yourself? Risker (talk) 00:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline No other DR, and the statements do not convince me that this reaches the high bar of "Unusually divisive, even amongst administrators" that we require for case requests that don't have prior DR. SirFozzie (talk) 02:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, as MBisanz states in his statement, he emailed AUSC/ArbCom with this issue, and to the best of my knowledge, at this point, none of the arbitrators who have commented on it have any problem with it. I would suggest Fae simply drop the issue and accede to MBisanz's request not to email him any further. SirFozzie (talk) 02:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline The matter at hand does not involve the use of advanced permissions at all; and in fact the comment MBisanz made doesn't appear to violate any sort of privacy at all that I can tell; honestly, Fæ, you did all that yourself responding to him. I don't see that there is a need to arbitrate this particular incident, as none of MBisanz's actions require review. To MZMcBride: On what grounds do you suggest we do so? Hersfold 04:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline at present, as other steps in dispute resolution have not been tried. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline per above.  Roger Davies 05:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline as premature. Jclemens (talk) 05:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
• Decline - this particular disagreement isn't sufficiently serious to require an arbitration case. PhilKnight (talk) 14:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)