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Can Ottava come back?
Hello ArbCom,
As you may know I have little knowledge of appeals processes and other paperwork, so I'll ask you in the simple-minded manner you can expect from me: can Ottava Rima (talk·contribs) come back? It's been a couple of years since a request was filed, and I don't even know if it is my place to ask for this, but I can't tackle all these literary articles by myself in between J-pop and K-pop and whatnot. I don't even know how to write a decent plot summary, and Ottava does. So please? Drmies (talk) 20:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Disclosure—I'm the one who suggested this, as Ottava's input would be genuinely valuable to Drmies's forthcoming work on Milton. You all presumably know my arguments in favor of unblocking from 2011. The reasons for converting OR's 1-year block into a permanent ban could be summarized as "he's irritating and refuses to admit he's wrong even when it's clearly the case, and sometimes has an exaggerated sense of his own importance"—if this were applied consistently about 50% of Misplaced Pages, 75% of Arbcom and 100% of the WMF would be sitebanned. If he comes back and starts acting up again, I'm sure there are plenty of people more than happy to kick him out again. – iridescent21:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC) (Yes, I know this is the wrong page for this—whoever moves this, feel free to move my reply as well) – iridescent21:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
His email is blocked, his talkpage is locked, unless Arbcom has radically changed, anything he sends to arbcom-l is ignored, and Malleus (who traditionally acted as his ambassador in these situations) is gone. Not sure how he could ask. – iridescent21:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I assumed by email to you or somebody else. I seem to recall a previous request as well. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter but it would be good to know whether he wants to come back or not before we start discussing how. Though, on reflection, I don't see a need for onerous conditions. --regentspark (comment) 22:13, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Hey RegentsPark, not sure if this matters, but the topic came up on my talk page, in conversation with Iridescent. I know that Malleus got along with OR and he's mentioned him once or twice, but I didn't know that Malleus was a kind of spokesperson (don't pin me down on this phrasing, and I don't intend this as anything but a paraphrase of what I just heard from Iridescent). I haven't had contact with OR since--who knows how long ago?--some spat I had with them years ago, before he got blocked/banned/ArbCommed (which, at the time, I certainly didn't oppose). So no, this isn't on anyone's request but mine, I suppose. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Presuming he understood the reason for his ban and subsequent extension and at least made an effort to work with others, then I'd be fine with a return. He's done plenty of great content and copyright work, and it was a call I really hated making from that perspective. Wizardman22:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I believe OR is still active in other WF entities, like here, for instance, and it would probably be possible to contact him through one or more of them, and potentially have him address the issues either by sending an e-mail as per WP:ARBCOM#BASC or by request at WP:ARCA. I personally would welcome seeing the matter at least discussed, and would very much look forward to seeing him able to return for at least the subject under discussion here, and probably in a broader sense as well. John Carter (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Ottava Rima published his most recent unblock request on Misplaced Pages Review; I have not checked to see if he also posted the Committee's response to it there, although he might have. The request was reviewed in early January and declined. Arbcom is aware that Ottava has continued to participate on other Wikimedia projects, and examining his block logs and recent edits on those other projects was part of the review. Others might also find this informative. Risker (talk) 23:13, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
As I recall the previous committee wouldn't have him back if he was the last person alive editing Misplaced Pages, unless they were all dead first. And even then they wouldn't. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, I certainly won't say you're wrong here, Elen; however, I think it's fair to allow others to draw their own conclusions, looking at the same information that Arbcom had at the time, since it is all publicly available. If Ottava had not published his unblock request publicly, it would be more difficult for others to examine the information. Risker (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Well, the information might usefully be made more accessible in this thread. This is the relevant 2009 RFAR, and note also the 2010 arbcom statement on OR's ban appeal with the consequent change of OR's block from one year to indefinite. Iridescent, I'm far from sure everybody knows your 2011 arguments in favor of unblocking; for instance, I don't. You might provide a link, unless you're referring to sekrit arbcom discussions (and using "you all" in a rather restricted sense). I'd be interested to read those arguments, especially to see if you summarised the problem then, too, as 'he's irritating and self-righteous, just like most other editors'. I think the evidence in the RFAR suggested something going a little beyond the common frailties of humanity. Bishonen | talk00:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC).
"You all" was aimed at the arbs, but there's nothing super-secret there—even if it wasn't included in the leaked emails, my original post here pretty much summed it up. Ottava could be an insufferable prick at times, but no more so than plenty of others; the "go, and never darken our sheets again" treatment—normally reserved for the industrial-grade headcases, serial copyright violators and hardcore vandals—to me seems disproportionate; at present, Ottava is under stronger blocking terms than Mattisse or Scibaby. I hold no brief for Ottava—last time I encountered him he was spewing semi-incoherent abuse at me—but I don't feel the current position of simultaneously saying "you can't post anything" and "demonstrate that you've changed" is consistent. I have yet to understand how restoring talkpage access so Drmies can ask him for suggestions is going to break Misplaced Pages. – iridescent00:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Iridescent, both Mattisse and Scibaby socks are blocked upon identification; they're no less unwelcome on the project than Ottava, and they both have been caught socking on several occasions (hundreds, for Scibaby). Ottava has never socked to my knowledge. Ottava has also taken the opportunity to work on multiple other Wikimedia projects, and his activity there is publicly reviewable; anyone can do so, and I urge anyone doing so to keep in mind the significant variation in the culture between different projects. Risker (talk) 01:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Neither Mattisse nor Scibaby have the blocked from editing/blocked from emailing/blocked from talkpage hat-trick which Ottava has. Yes, I know why all three were imposed; yes, I think there's a chance he'll cause problems if he comes back; but yes, I think he should get the chance. The decline of his original appeal was a matter of bad timing—Mattisse had made everyone involved leery of any "mentoring" or "rehabilitation" schemes—rather than anything else, and people do change—give him back access to his own talkpage and see if he can go a couple of months without insulting anyone. As someone once said long ago, "indefinite" was never intended to mean "infinite"; if Shalom can come back I don't see why Ottava shouldn't be given a second chance. (FWIW, I don't think "got in arguments on Meta, Commons and Wikiversity" is a valid argument for keeping an editor blocked. While there are plenty of fine people at all three, there are also large numbers of full-blown whackadoodles who would try the patience of a saint.) – iridescent02:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, neither Scibaby nor Mattisse have regularly abused their talk pages after blocking; however, Mattisse and her socks *do* have email disabled because of abusive emails sent to people. And if you're going to slam editors on other Wikimedia sites (and I do understand where you're coming from), you might want to give some consideration to why you would argue Ottava does not fall into the category you've identified. Of course, you've just indicated in your edit summary that you aren't going to respond further. Risker (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Last time I let a banned editor use my talk page as a kind of medium the shit came down like rain. Maybe Ottava can find my very literary blog and post there, claiming to be one of my students and communicating in code. Drmies (talk) 00:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
You don't need to communicate in code off-wiki, Drmies; it's certainly not Arbcom's business, and you can pretty well guarantee none of us are going to look for your blog. You don't even need to communicate in code on other projects, provided that Ottava continues to be unblocked on them; I am fairly certain he has email enabled on at least one or two other projects, and you could email him from there. What I'm not seeing here is any evidence that you've already communicated with Ottava and received his agreement to assist you. After the initial unban discussion, to which Bishonen linked, some users did try to work with Ottava to import his work from other Wikimedia projects onto this one; however, that dried up fairly quickly, and anecdotally this seems to have been related to Ottava's private communication with those editors. I would hope that has changed. Risker (talk) 01:28, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Risker, you should be very interested in my blog since it talks of big books using really big words: just the way you like it. :) No, I know I don't need to use code. Honestly, I don't see why he couldn't communicate with me here, but them's the rules, I understand (well, I'll follow, I don't really understand). I'm really blissfully ignorant of Ottava's other work elsewhere: I'm very monogamous, wiki-wise. This is why I'm probably a terrible advocate for him or anyone else--I really just want him unblocked on principle, bearing in mind some of the points Iridescent brought up re:gravity of offense, and I would have preferred to do so without his agreement (that's part of the principle; it's unorthodox, I suppose, and probably silly).
Now, in the meantime I did in fact receive an email from Ottava, which was very nice. (For the record, I believe this is the very first time we ever communicated off-wiki.) It was not a ringing endorsement of my proposal, nor did it speak out against it. I'd like an unban on the following, very simple (or simplistic, you may think) grounds: he wrote a lot of good articles and made us look better, and three years is a long time. So what if he acted like an ass too often; plenty will feel the same way about me, and maybe when he comes back he'll rub fewer people the wrong way. We won't know until give him a chance, and if it doesn't work, well, he'll be reblocked and banned in a jiffy, no doubt. Thanks Risker, Drmies (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I would also append to Risker's statement that I gave Ottava full permission to post my response to his appeal; whether or not he actually did is not something I can answer. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs00:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I was thinking of the response from the previous committee, to clarify. It's possible it was phrased a shade more tactfully - I wouldn't have said the above was verbatim :) Am I right in thinking that a community unblock discussion at this point would carry no weight? Is it worth continuing the discussion if so. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:12, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I left a rambling note on Ottava's talk page informing him of this thread. I hope I didn't ruin anyone's weekend. Drmies (talk) 00:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I also would support Ottava returning. I know that he can be a royal pain in the ass at times, but he also has done a lot of work for this project, and has the capacity to do a lot more. I have been friends with him for almost three years, and at least twice a month he messages me asking me to help revert some vandalism or misinformation that has been placed on pages. Keep in mind this isn't just asking for a revert, as he often sends detailed messages explaining what's wrong. Clearly, he is still invested in this project, even if he is blocked. Returning to him being a pain, I also have seen him show remorse for his actions, in person. At Wikimania, he was able to diffuse a potentially volatile situation with another editor from a spat years ago by apologizing in person. To be able to come from an online community and apologize in front of someone whom you have only known over the internet is pretty damn impressive, because for anyone to admit a mistake shows that they are conscious of their actions. It is different to show this feeling over the internet, but he knows that he is wrong and admits that he has a tendency to overdo it at times. On the flip side, he also knows that if he messes up again, he will also be blocked. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Ottava is that most problematic type of user: the prolific content editor who can write a really great article but sucks at getting along with just about everyone. As demonstrated here even those who want him to come back have had conflicts with him, but he is so darn useful they would be ok looking past it. In my few encounters with him I rapidly found him to be an insufferable bully with a massive ego. (Which is exaclty the type of person who brings out my own worst qualities, or at least those qualities which it would seem may work for me in the real world but no so well on Misplaced Pages) The community as a whole has clearly demonstrated that they have not a clue how they, as a group, prefer to deal with such persons, so ArbCom can't exactly take their lead from consensus on this one. So, I dunno, good luck figuring this one out. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Comparing OR to Malleus or Giano is very unfair to the latter two. There is a reason why OR is banned and they are not. I think OR, at least the OR of 3 years ago, is best described as a recognition junkie. Basically, he will do anything for it. If it means asking a teacher or getting loads of books from the library and reading them to help with an article, then that's to Misplaced Pages's benefit. If it means making wrong stuff up and then insisting against all experts and all evidence that it's correct just because he says so and he is a scholar, then it isn't. In fact, last time I looked he wasn't a scholar but a graduate student whose pomposity on Misplaced Pages was matched only by his immaturity on IRC. Unsurprisingly, he is also extremely prone to the false consensus effect. He is young enough that he might well have improved sufficiently in the years since he was indeffed. As he has been active on other projects, we don't have to speculate. I haven't looked recently, and have never looked very closely, but I suspect that the result would not be in his favour. Hans Adler10:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Comparing OR to Malleus or Giano is very unfair to the latter two. It would be beyond unfair, but yours is the first suggestion of it on this page. The first mention of Giano altogether, I just did a search. Why bring them into this discussion? Was there something above that has been removed? Bishonen | talk10:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC).
No, there wasn't. I just felt that Beeblebrox' "the prolific content editor who can write a really great article but sucks at getting along with just about everyone" would be read as an allusion to these two by those who 'suck at getting along with' editors like Giano and Malleus. I guess I shouldn't have mentioned them, especially Giano, who wasn't mentioned here before. Hans Adler11:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
sulutil:Ottava Rima tells me that Ottava has been blocked at various points on Commons, English Wikisource, English Wikiversity, and Meta. Some of the blocks were as late as 2012 (Commons was for 5 months, en.wikiversity was for 7, Meta was for 1). From my knowledge of Commons and Meta, they're much more relaxed than enwiki; not as familiar with the other two, but I know that they're fairly small. Those commenting may want to take this into account. --Rschen775410:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
That's useful research. I'd agree that it would be good to get Ottava back eventually. But I'd like to see either a track record on other projects that shows he's ready to come back or a commitment from him that he won't repeat the behaviour that got him blocked. Simply reiterating that he can do great work should not be sufficient, not least because he was blocked despite the quality of his work not because of it. ϢereSpielChequers11:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I remember very well how he was blocked on Commons since I participated in the discussion with him which eventually got him blocked. The discussion was less than enjoyable, and kind of lifetime experience. The guy just does not know how and when to stop. On the other hand, he was later conditionally unblocked and from what I can say as an active Commons participant did not create any problems so far. I discussed things with him on Meta, also recently, and that was constructive. May be smth like the full ban on everything except for Article and Article Talk namespaces could work.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
As I remember it, article talk pages were where he was most problematic. I think something like a ban on making more than one comment per section per week in any discussion would be more helpful. That way he could still give potentially valid input, and everyone would be free to just ignore him when he is wrong. I guess it would have to come with something like 1RR as well, as he wouldn't be able to fully discuss reverts. Hans Adler13:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
The record at other sites outlined by Rschen is concerning. As Ymblanter says, Ottava just doesn't know when to stop. Some sort of circuit breaker would be a good idea though I'm not sure 1RR will work because what Ottava needs is some sort of control over what, and how often, he posts on talk pages. --regentspark (comment) 14:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not familiar enough with the specifics of this case to have a useful opinion on whether OR is allowed back or not. It's my observation that, in general, overly elaborate schemes to allow editors return to editing often consume significant wiki resources to manage and often aren't successful. I recommend either "Sorry, no, not yet" or a hopeful AGF "Yes, you can return to editing." NE Ent15:06, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Cassandra in front of the burning city of Troy at the peak of her insanity.
I certainly agree with the Ent about complex mentoring schemes. This is where I bore everybody with some Cato the Elder-type nagging: remember the Mattisse mentorship! Compare also Cassandra. "While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies since no one believed her." Bishonen | talk16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC).
You're right as usual Bishonen. But, the thing is, we've slowly kicked out all the interesting Wikipedians (or !Wikipedians), either by banning them or by repeatedly dragging them to arbs over imagined civility issues! --regentspark (comment) 16:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
So...so far, the only idea anyone has come up with to reduce Ottava's problematic interactions is to heavily restrict him from the article talk page. How will this result in collaborative development of articles? If people cannot communicate appropriately about the content of the articles they are editing (and yes, there are plenty of examples of that in this case), what is the benefit of their return? I'm very serious: we *know* skilled and knowledgeable editors stopped working on articles in order to avoid Ottava. Why would we want to recreate that environment? Risker (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Strawman: No one has said lets let OR back and hope he was just as disruptive as he was before! The original idea was more along the lines of perhaps enough time has passed that OR can contribute without being a significant disruption.NE Ent17:00, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
The above link to his posted request on Wikedia Review shows him blaming others for his woes rather than admit responsibility for past actions. As this was just a couple of months ago, I think it's pretty indicative of the answer to the question if he's matured or changed significantly. I agree Ottava was an asset to the project. My question is, if an editor contributes 10 FA's to the project, but runs off 10 editors who each would have contributed 1 FA to the project, and consume a large amount of project resources with the drama created in the process, are they still a net benefit to the project? Dave (talk) 17:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
If Ottava actually does change, he could come back, in my opinion. It's reasonable to look for evidence of a change based on his behavior on the other WMF projects. In my opinion the mere passage of time is not enough to justify his return to enwiki. See an unblock discussion from May, 2012 on Commons. Ottava was unblocked subject to conditions but he has not been very active on Commons since that moment, so it doesn't give us much to go on. We can't tell whether his behavior on article talk pages has improved. Ottava has not done much substantive editing on English Wikiversity since mid-2012. This talk thread on Meta from November, 2012 doesn't reflect well on him in my opinion. I don't see his behavior on other WMF projects as showing a positive change. If he is really the same Ottava that was originally banned here then his return is not a net benefit. EdJohnston (talk) 18:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
First let me preface this with fact that I don't have any delusional expectations that anything I'm about to type will matter in the least. Some of the arbs and perhaps a few others will also know that I've been a proponent of returning OR's editing abilities in the past. Now it seems that most people here are willing to concede that 1) OR can write some very high quality material for the project. and 2) There have been times that interactions with other editors have been problematical. I think I can safely say that Ottava is a unique individual (just like all the rest of us - sorry; but I love irony) Now it seems that the big question here is "What can we do to make Ottava conform to the acceptable mold"? OK, bear with me here for a few moments while I engage in a thought exercise ...
Taking that concept of "changing Ottava", flipping it on its side, stepping outside the box, looking at it from all 360 degrees, and playing devil's advocate; let me ask this. What can WE do as a collective group to improve the situation? I'm reluctant to mention other editors here because some people tend to infer that it's an equasion of some sort. But the question remains, why is it always the individual that must "change", rather than US. Sometimes - the individual actually does get it right, and the group with all its pitchforks, mob mentality, and collective group think is actually the party that's wrong. This leads a bit to the NE Ent and Bish posts above as far as mentoring. I think it's wonderful that some experienced users go to great efforts to take another editor under their wing and bring them into the fold. The forced "formal mentoring" however doesn't always work out quite so well. Short of having some IRL person with you to monitor your editing, the downfall often seems to be when a disagreement begins and some drama board takes off like a runaway freight train. People respond impulsively, emotionally, aggressively and it just snowballs into a huge ... "BAN HIM, BURN IT WITH FIRE" ... ummm .. consensus(?). At least one person has said that we do an absolutely horrible job of "educating" editors, I agree.
Wow this is getting rather long-winded, apologies for that. Anyway, I'm not sure I completely agree with Risker's assessment above. (Hey, it was bound to happen some day :)). What I mean by this is that over time I've become less convinced that individuals run people off the project. I suspect it is more the atmosphere of our project that does that than any one person. Yes, I know that there are a few folks that can be the personification of that so called "toxic" atmosphere, I'm just saying I'm not sure it's right to lay all the blame at any one person's feet. There are some fantastic, intelligent, top quality writers out there that simply don't find our environment enjoyable. There certainly is a scarlet letter quality about this place; whether the "wrong" is factual, or just perceived - it does exist. Quite frankly I'm not sure what keeps some of us coming back for more .. but I digress.
Now, IIRC - originally the entire "banning" situation started when an administrator unilaterally sanctioned OR, at which point OR took exception to it, brought it to RFAR, and questioned that a single admin. had that ability. As the case developed, it seemed to devolve into an "OR against the world" type of display. Ottava drew a line in the sand, and the committee basically said "No .. this is the line, and you need to choose which side of it you're going to be on." It's always been my perception that OR wears a badge branded with words like: honor, honesty, integrity, principle; and that he often sees things in black and white. Perhaps if he could learn to see some of the shades of grey it would be a different situation. I also very much understand that when you have 3, 5, 15 people pointing fingers at you, it's very easy to become defensive. And when heels start digging in, it often doesn't end well. I'd like to see Ottava understand that just because someone doesn't agree with him, it doesn't make them a bad person. One on one I've never had a problem talking to OR, but I have seen where his responses to others at times have been less than optimal. He can be quick to percieve something as a personal attack, and when he responds in what I think he considers a "factual" fashion - it often looks like a personal attack on its own. Often my own solution to something like that is to go talk to the person privately and try to understand what the differences are. If their talk page becomes too populated, then perhaps even email. I think if you treat OR with respect, then you will get that respect returned. OK, I saw this yesterday and had been thinking about it, so when asked - well I just do seem to be in love with the sound of my own voice - sorry about that.
Anyway, tl;dr: Yes, I'd like to see OR editing here. Let's face it; we certainly have enough testosterone filled young fellas about the project who absolutely get great joy in making use of that shinney little block button. OR, if you do make it back, and you feel something just isn't "right" about something - go have a chat with NYB, Worm, Iri, Drmies or a few dozen other folks I can think of that are really good at keeping things sane. I know not everyone always has the time to be on wiki, but keep a list of folks that are pretty rational, intelligent, and compassionate folks, and don't hesitate to tap those resources. As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ping me. — Ched : ? 19:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Ched. I dream of a Misplaced Pages anybody can edit. People banning people doesn't seem to go well with that idea, at all. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:46, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
A hopelessly naieve statement, if you dont mind me saying, even for you. Dangerous even, in fact. But what the hell! :)Ceoil (talk) 02:32, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Your larger point is well taken. But it is much harder to change a system than it is to kick out an individual. Still, for the record, the original case is worth reading before any of us rush into an up, out or something in the middle decision. --regentspark (comment) 20:20, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Blocking Ottava rarely sticks or has any affect one way or the other. He has just as many testosterone laced friends as enemies that have access to that block button, which also includes an unblock button. That is part of the reason why virtually all conflicts involving him ended up at RFC and/or Arbcom. This argument of "if he starts again we can just block him" is completely inconsistent with past experience. Past experience is that it takes 5 RFCs 2 Arbcom cases and testimony from 50 editors just to get any sanctions to stick. (exaggeration but the point is made) Dave (talk) 21:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Dave, ummmm, could you please link me to a couple of those RFC/U pages? I had a look at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Ottava Rima and wasn't able to find them. Also any of the Arb cases outside the one that Ottava opened himself.
Also, while it's quite true that on any given side there will be admins. with testosterone; in my experiences it seems that it's often the person who unblocks a user who faces more scrutiny than the one that blocks. Now I fully understand that with WP:WHEEL, that's going to be the general nature of things, but I just wanted to mention it. — Ched : ? 21:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps ANI would have been the better TLA to use in listing the venues. I'll grant you that RFC has not been used often with this editor, but ANI has been used frequently. However, many blocks against Ottava (or any experienced editor with civility problems for that matter) have been promptly reversed without any real discussion. Ottava's block log shows several such cases. That point in my argument is valid, the idea of "we can unblock and if there are any problems we can re-block" is laughable looking at Ottava's block log.Dave (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not saying you or any other user doesn't have valid concerns. But here's what often makes me do a double-take when it comes to precision in the English language. First you mention 5 RfCs and 2 Arbcom cases, and then say something like "RFC has not been used often with this editor". Now to me "seldom" =/= "never". And perhaps there's a deleted page somewhere that I can't see. My point here is that this is how urban legends and memes come into existence. As far as AN/I, I think I've seen a few of those. And IIRC some of them revolved around editing disputes in regards to content. I know that my memory isn't "all that and a bag of chips", but I do seem to recall that more often than not Ottava was actually correct in the content matters. Typically the problems seemed to be the way some of the discussion was couched. It's always more preferable to read "I think you are mistaken" than to see "You lie", even if the second is actually technically accurate. Now I have no idea how much OR even wants to come back to editing, but I do know that he does continually read, research, and write some very comprehensive things on encyclopedic matters. I can't imagine him ever compromising his principles, but perhaps he could be persuaded to use a less acidic tone in his discussions. Actually come to think of it, quite frankly, over the years of discussions ... yea, I'd say that he has mellowed to some extent. I have no idea if there is a way through all this, but I admit that I'd like to see everyone come out on the other side with a better understanding and appreciation of editors as people. Quite bluntly, when I do read through that RFAR, I somehow get the impression that there were a lot of things not said in public, so I'm not convinced I know the whole story. I understand and appreciate "privacy", so that's not a complaint, just an observation. — Ched : ? 22:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
@Dave: I call bullshit. This is Ottava's block log. Which unblock is by "a testosterone laced friend with access to the unblock button" or was "promptly reversed without any real discussion"? Looks from where I'm sat like Ched called you out on one baseless lie, and you promptly moved on to another. 188.29.98.106 (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
The most obvious is the unblock for the simple reason of "time served" with no explanation. Two mention "no consensus" which are also suspect, and I saw at least one saying something like, "user has promised to behave from this point forward so I'm unblocking". Also, the block log does mention harassment at RFC's so that venue has been used at least once. Dave (talk) 22:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
@Ched: So you read through the RFAR? All of the evidence page? The evidence is far more telling than the barebones arbcom findings, IMO. Did you also read through the other RFAR six weeks earlier, filed by Ottava Rima under the name "RS and Fringe Noticeboard" which was unaccountably (IMO; compare my comment here) not accepted by the same arbcom that accepted the second RFAR with something like alacrity? Just asking. I'd be interested to know your impression, and also what kinds of things you think weren't said in public. (I found your comment on those things mysterious rather than "blunt".) I do realize it may be a superhuman time investment to read all that evidence. A lite version might be reading this submission of mine in September 2009 and clicking on the diffs to the nine ANI threads from April 2008 to August 2009 that I list there. As for people changing, have you seen this from 31 December 2012 — two months ago?Bishonen | talk11:13, 2 March 2013 (UTC).
"Can Ottava come back?" Unlikely, per competence is required for one thing. Take this big bulging bag of baloney for starters . I mean, it's quite amusing to be lectured on your lack of Persian by someone who can't recognise the Persian word for Iran (hint: it transliterates as "Iran"), but it loses its charm after the first hundred posts or so. Misplaced Pages is not here to foster an editor's belief in his own infallibility.--Folantin (talk) 12:09, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
@ Bishonen: Apologies for my delayed reply, and I will offer an extended response the first chance I get. Please note however that while my initial answer when asked is going to be: "Yes, I'd like to see OR back editing"; I also have no desire to throw myself on any sword in order to achieve that end. — Ched : ? 16:48, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, with a few minutes here I'll try to answer a couple of those things. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I "read" some of the (Nov.) RFAR posts at the time they were written, and had skimmed much of the other posts. No, I had not read all of the evidence page, but had seen much of it at the time, and I did spot some things I had forgotten. WOW - the 318143894 version of the case page sure was a jolt though, and not of the enjoyable sort. (I was quite emotionally invested in several of the other issues posted there at that time), but No, I don't recall being aware of the Fringe issue. I still haven't read through that, but will gladly give you my impressions once I have - and I will read it. The "not public" comment of mine is a general overall feeling I get in reading through the flow of discussion. There was something that NYB had posted that caught my eye which left me with an impression of a discussion that I was not privy to. (not seeing the specific one at the moment, but will look further when I have a chance). Although this brief thread is also a hint to such a thing. More specifically, there was an "announcement" (late 2010 or early 2011?) from the Arbitration Committee that was along the lines of: (and I am paraphrasing from memory) "The committee has reviewed a request from OR and has declined it." I mentioned before that I realize that for many reasons there will be times where some items must be discussed in private; it was an observation, not a condemnation. Moving on: Yes, I had seen the recent request which was posted to WR. Obviously (to anyone who knows me), I didn't copy-edit or collaborate in the writing of that. I would have suggested being more concise, and I certainly would have removed any reference to any other editor's perceived shortcomings. Personally I viewed it as a very emotionally charged writing; but your point there is well taken.
In short (too late for that?); 3 years, 3 months, and x days is a long time to serve a 1 year ban. I do wish that OR did not hold such a cynical view, but there are times I understand it. I may be the polar opposite as he on the AGF scale, but I also no longer have the desire or energy to tilt at windmills. I'd imagine that if the Arbs were going to act on this, they would have done so by now. Even if this were to go to the "community", I'm not sure you'd see anything different than we're seeing here. Old grudges die hard around this place, and that's not something I find great joy in. On a personal note, Jehochman and I did not have the best of interaction at initial meetings, but we buried the hatchet long ago (hopefully), and I have no desire to pull it from the stump. So in the end: 3 years is a long time. re-Blocks are not hard to come by (especially when there's folks watching what you're doing), and I have no desire to butt heads with Arbcom or any other group. — Ched : ? 20:35, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
The community even gave me another chance, commuting an indef block to time served after nine months. This happened last week. It's time for Ottava to be allowed another chance. Chutznik (talk) 01:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
FWIW, I have proposed on Drmies' user talk page something which I think might be acceptable to the wikipedia community, if not, perhaps, necessarily to Ottava Rima himself. I don't know what if any response it will receive, but I hope that, if nothing else, we might be able to get some sort of feedback, one way or another, from OR himself about whether he would be willing to come back under such terms, at least initially, before the discussion here closes completely. John Carter (talk) 03:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
John, would you mind copying that proposal here, modified in any way you see fit? Ottava tells me, in a note left under a flower pot at the bakery, that he agrees with such a proposal. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 14:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Before we start examining proposals of any sort, I think we should hear from Ottava first. It would be instructive, particularly after seeing the WR post linked somewhere above, how he deals with all this. So, if there is a serious intent to see Ottava back here, I suggest immediately restoring his access to his own talk page. --regentspark (comment) 14:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree it probably makes sense to allow Ottava to respond directly, and support the restoration of his talk page access.
And, basically, for informational purposes, what I had proposed on Drmies' user talk page was, basically, what seems to me to be almost a form of "work release" program, which would allow OR to be unblocked on the provision that he edit only in a specific designated group of pages for an indefinite but theoretically limited period of time, and that any edits deemed unacceptable in the eyes of independent administrators, including problematic edits in that area and any editing outside of that area, would be grounds for the indef block to be restored. Upon satisfactory completion of the edits in that range, or, presumably, at the request of some other editor like Drmies, the range of pages he would be allowed to edit could be expanded to include other designated areas, with the potential at some point in the future of having unrestricted access to wikipedia restored. John Carter (talk) 16:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you John. Yes, I support such a conditional return. Though I realize that for many this is already too much, I think it is a way in which Ottava's considerable contributions to the project can continue. I also agree with restoring talk page access, at least for the duration of this discussion. Drmies (talk) 17:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, I've gone ahead and restored talk page access for Ottava. I checked the arbcom ruling and don't think there was a specific mandate against doing that but, if I am wrong, feel free (anyone) to remove that access. I just think we should see which Ottava wants to come back before we go down this road. --regentspark (comment) 17:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
"(del/undel) 17:16, 22 July 2010 SirFozzie (talk | contribs | block) changed block settings for Ottava Rima (talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation blocked, e-mail disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Misclicked box, user is not allowed to edit talk page) (unblock | change block)" and there's no mandate? --Rschen775418:07, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Wasn't specifically mentioned in the ruling. And, frankly, it is not clear to me what part of a ruling for a one year ban actually applies three and a half years later. But, if Risker says there is a mandate then that's fine with me. (Nothing attempted, nothing done!) --regentspark (comment) 21:03, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Talk page block restored. RegentsPark, please do not alter Arbcom-imposed blocks without Arbcom's permission. I will note for the record that the Arbitration Committee has not received a request from Ottava Rima to have his talk page access restored; if we did, we would without doubt consider it, particularly given several respected members of the community expressing an interest in the issue. Risker (talk) 19:00, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Rschen, I understand this is a hot-button issue involving hot heads and so does Regentspark (but slow down next time!). Let's all try to be cool cucumbers. I suppose restored talk page access, if it happens, is subject to the usual restrictions: if Ottava is deemed to abuse it, it will no doubt be revoked stante pede. I hope that, if talk page access is granted, Ottava will use the privilege wisely, and by the same token I hope that others will refrain from making it a forum for grievances, regardless of where their sympathies lie. Or, no baiting please. Drmies (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Question for Risker: First, I want to say that I have no real reservations about such matters as admins' acting on their own to circumvent ArbCom rulings being considered unacceptable. Having said that, would it specifically require a request from OR himself for access to be restored, or might a request from some other party, perhaps at requests for amendment, be considered sufficient? John Carter (talk) 20:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
As it turns out, Ottava has now emailed the Arbitration Committee requesting that his talk page access be restored, so it is not necessary for a third party to be involved. I have encouraged my colleagues to respond in a timely way, but will note that there is a lot on the Committee's plate right at the moment (three open cases — one in workshop, one in voting, and another in evidence, with a fourth about to open — several motions being voted on, addressing the IPBE issues, and several other time-sensitive matters) so it may not be the first email anyone addresses. I'll try to keep it near the top of the heap. Risker (talk) 21:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
I've seen the workload ArbCom has, and the amount of reading that is required for anyone involved, and there is no way in hell that I am ever going to criticize anyone on it for not acting instantly on requests, believe me. And, in all honesty, I doubt a few more hours, or days if it comes to that, are likely to be critical in this instance. Thank you for your quick response to my comment above, and for being willing to subject yourself to all the requirements of being on ArbCom in the first place. John Carter (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Following up on Ottava's request for talk page access: While not all arbitrators expressed an opinion, there was only one support (mine) to permit Ottava Rima access to his talk page with conditions. Thus, I think this is pretty much the end of the line for this unblock request. I will be inactive for an undetermined period so will not be responding to any further questions on this matter; other members of the committee may pick up on any additional points. Risker (talk) 05:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I was leaning toward giving Ottava another chance, as the discussion above was convincing, but then I read the Unblock Request on WR, as linked above. OH HELL NO. --SarekOfVulcan (talk)13:34, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Ottava's not on Wikipediocracy. In fact he may be officially banned from there. He's on Misplaced Pages Review... I think. Keep up.Volunteer Marek21:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is a fairly late reply, but as consensus has not yet been reached I'd say he should be unbanned. Of course, I harbor no delusions that he will be a model Wikipedian, so to avoid a huge mess at ANI whenever he says something insensitive, I would suggest that all disciplinary action be taken through WP:AE. The environment there should be more efficient without the huge dramafest. The Wordsmith05:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Question for Risker
Hi Risker, I'd like to ask you please what exactly could happen, if OR's talk page access is restored? Will the world end, or will Misplaced Pages collapse? You said members of the committee are busy then why not to let others to help the committee with such unbelievably important task as unblocking OR's talk? Do you know what Misplaced Pages co-founder Larry Sanger said about you and many others like you? He said: "I mean, they're so ridiculously self-important, when they aren't acting like trolls, and show no sense of grace, humanity, or even style. Admins and even rank-and-file contributors go around making high-sounding declarations and announcements, as if they were government officials dispensing court orders." 76.126.174.119 (talk) 16:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
It never ceases to amaze me how people start an appeal to a judge by calling that judge corrupt/incompetent/arrogant/etc. Most people learned that's a bad idea at the age of 4 or so from their parents. There is a time and place to insult authority, but it's not when you are asking for an appeal, either for yourself or on behalf of another.Dave (talk) 17:53, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I am not asking for an appeal on behalf of OR. I believe he deserves to be blocked, if for nothing else then simply because for so many years he cannot make himself to forget Misplaced Pages. My post was made to ridicule the behavior of the members of the arbitration committee , and some other Wikipedians who act from the position of self-importance no matter how meaningless and absurd their actions are. They are laughable.76.126.174.119 (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Please feel free to point out where exactly this unblock was contrary to any policy. It wasn't an ArbCom block. There is nothing in policy to say that an OS block may not be undone, especially when it is obvious what was suppressed and the editor has given an understaking not to persist. The current conversation at WT:BLOCK makes it clear that no such wording exists (which is why there is a suggestion to add it). In other words, the committee just made this "infraction" up on the spot, which is extremely concerning. I see NYB voted against. First rule of ArbCom, when something passes with NYB against, it's pretty much always a stupid idea, or something dubious is going on. One or both may apply here. Still, for the rest of us admins, could you give us a list of other things we might be desysopped for that don't exist in any policy? I'm sure it'd be helpful when we're deciding whether to block, unblock, revdel material, etc. Black Kite (talk) 06:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure.
"An exception is made for administrators holding Checkuser or Oversight privileges; such administrators may block users based on non-public information revealed through the checkuser tool, or edits of the blocked user deleted via oversight. As such, an administrative action is generally viewed to be made in the user's capacity as an oversight or checkuser, although the action itself is an administrative one. All such blocks are subject to direct review by the Arbitration Committee." = WP:BLOCK#Confidential evidence
"Administrators reviewing a block should consider that some historical context may not be immediately obvious. Cases involving sockpuppets, harassment, or privacy concerns are particularly difficult to judge. At times such issues have led to contentious unblocks. Where an uninformed unblock may be problematic, the blocking administrator may also wish to note as part of the block notice that there are specific circumstances, and that a reviewing administrator should not unblock without discussing the case with the blocking admin (or possibly ArbCom) to fully understand the matter." - WP:BLOCK#Block reviews
Also, while WP:CUBL obviously doesn't apply directly, the same logic explains why this block was clearly marked with "contact an oversighter".
That aside, this action demonstrated clearly poor judgment, "inconsistent with the level of trust required for its associated advanced permissions", as required for Level II desysoppings. Hersfold06:37, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Shall I presume that my emailed explanation was so woefully inadequate as to not warrant a response? Kevin (talk) 06:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The unblock isn't so problematic that it could not have been dealt with by reversing it and warning Kevin not to repeat the issue. You know as well as I do that Level 2 removal is designed to stop immediate and pressing problems involving damage to Misplaced Pages (i.e. compromised admin accounts, mass wheel wars etc.)Doh. See below. This unblock had stood for a number of hours with no issues arising. It is fairly clear that whatever is going on in the background here goes further than that, though. Black Kite (talk) 06:49, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Uh, if it's immediate, it's probably Level 1 (and not Level 2). Level 1 requires 3+ Arbs and no dissension, whereas Level 2 requires discussion and majority of Active Arbitrators. There is discussion; Kevin emailed ArbCom; there's a significant difference. Also, the number of hours is just shy of 9 hours (compare unblock timestamp and Hersfold posting on Kevin's talk page), which is rather short considering part of those hours were late night in the western hemisphere. - Penwhale | 07:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say that that this is a Level I. I am saying that Black Kite's description of what a level II is for is actually the description of what a level I is for :P Snowolf07:21, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I got it back to front as well. I still don't see what's so desperate about this case that it requires immediate desysopping. If Cla68's block was restored, what did the ArbCom expect Kevin to do? Undo it? Then you would have had a case for desysop, which currently is very shaky. Black Kite (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The block log has a note by the two Oversight members: "malicious WP:OUTING, please do not unblock without consulting the oversight team." Ignoring that request shows extremely poor judgement. Non-wikipedians are encouraged to contact oversighters to remove information that potentially exposes WP to liability. Admins that unilaterally override that judgement by unblocking the offender they deemed it necessary to block should expect a very quick and intolerant response. --DHeyward (talk) 06:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to thank ArbCom for jumping in front of the bullet for me and taking one for the team. I'll tell your wife and family that you died honorably. It's a bold decision, I'll certainly give it that, but it's about to get very loud in here so I believe I'll just leave it up to you all to take it from here. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
This feels a lot like policy wank for little gain. The oversighter caveat does not give carte blanche to stop the community of admins from overturning decisions if the problem is addressed. The evidence that was only accessible to OS was discussed in detail and the blocked user undertook not to post it again, this is a perfectly legitimate use of the process and not something arbcom should be involved in. This is a matter for the community. But as usual we have nods and winks suggesting "sekret" evidence (oh how many times have we heard that...); but in reality it's just a power trip. --Errant08:53, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
It has occurred to me that Timotheus Canens, on behalf of Arbcom, has violated the brightline of WP:WHEEL. This is probably the most serious issue at hand (aside from the initial incident) and I am unsure how to address it? The normal route would be for an arbcom case, but in this case most of the committee is involved in the wheel warring. Off hand maybe temporary suspension of the committee pending an investigation by a group of admins/editors/WMF reps seems the logical step forward. --Errant09:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
ErrantX surely understands that Timotheus Canens reinstated the block on behalf of arbcom, following their joint decision made off-wiki. Presumably he also meant to write "wonkery". Even before his unblock, Cla68 was actively questioning Beeblebrox's original block. Cla68's postings, copied from wikipediocracy by me at his request just before the unblock, did not suggest that Cla68 had fully understood how he had violated WP:OUTING. When unblocked he demanded to know who had originally contacted Beeblebrox, later revealing his hunch that it was the object of the (initially join-the-dots) WP:OUTING.Mathsci (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Go ahead and overturn it if you feel that strongly about it. You obviously have all the evidence you need to make that call. You might want to block Timotheus Canens while you're at it to make a point. Or just block all the Arbcom members (except NYB, of course). Your vision obviously exceeds all of theirs just like this incident highlighted the vision of a single admin in lieu of two oversight member and the oversight and arbcom mailing lists. Put your tools to good use for the community and the result of that action will undoubtedly benefit us all. --DHeyward (talk) 09:33, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh my word. Could I get some answers to two very simple questions? 1) "Do we believe Kevin unblocked in bad faith?" 2) "Do we believe Kevin will continue to unblock this user or to reverse other arbcom blocks persistently?" Ritchie33310:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Difficult to know what their beliefs are, however I did email an explanation that seemed reasonable (to me), and I haven't been asked what I might do in the future. Kevin (talk) 11:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, this. It looks like he believed he was reversing a bad block after community discussion. Considering the number of blocks that have been reversed with no discussion, or against the current discussion consensus, with no action taken against the reversing admins, this action really appears problematic to me.--SarekOfVulcan (talk)13:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the desysop. It needs to happen more frequently, especially for those that only use the tools to increase drama, like in this case. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 11:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
That's a silly comment. Having the admin toolset isn't about being important. It is not necessary to be an admin to constructively contribute to the project. I did not say he should be banned. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 11:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I'll make a more serious comment. By "banhammer" I mean any process where a user's privileges are revoked for reasons not apparently connected with preventing the encyclopedia from damage and disruption. Since you advocate more desyssoppings, that implies that you are concerned that a substantial proportion of admins are damaging Misplaced Pages by their actions and urgent sanctions need to be taken towards them to prevent this. Is that really what you're supporting? Ritchie33311:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I am for less stringent requirements for desysops. It does not logically follow that I am "concerned that a substantial proportion of admins are damaging Misplaced Pages by their actions." -Nathan Johnson (talk) 11:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(e/c) Hmm? The user's privileges were revoked because of concern with damage and disruption. We have an elected committee to do that sort of thing. So, yes there is the potential that an individual admin is damaging things, especially when they are acting alone, with only their own claim that 'they know what's best'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:49, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
One more Instant Justice "solution" in search of a problem - I am bemused by the finding that one admin "unilaterally" reversed a block - as any action by one admin is always "unilateral." The issue should be whether that admin presented reasoning behind the unblock, not whether he did it by himself, folks. Kevin is entitled to far better treatment than presented here, and this precedent is quite ill-suited to Misplaced Pages's long-term interests. Heck, desysops generally are given a fairly long period of discussion, which seems to be quite missing here - even where the acts are far more egregious. Restore Kevin's mop. Discuss this in an orderly fashion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
If his only use of the mop for the last 3 years was this ill-considered unblock, why does he need to keep while arbcom discusses it further? His answer to the question was obviously unsatisfactory to ArbCom yet we haven't seen it so how can you makes the judgement that he deserves better treatment? Or that this precedent is "ill-suited to Misplaced Pages's long-term interests." The de-sysop is not permanent unless the future decision is to make it permanent. This is the beginning of the process, not the end. --DHeyward (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
My take on this situation is that many people behaved badly. The members of our oversight team are an exception.
The first and worst instance of bad behavior was by the Wikipediocracy contributors who chose to create and post an obnoxious and entirely unnecessary article that included identifying information and some poorly sourced gossip against a Wikimedia contributor. This article was not a form of useful Misplaced Pages criticism. Several regular contributors to Wikipediocracy opined on that site that this piece should not have been published. Those contributors were correct.
The second instance of bad behavior was Cla68's linking to and publicizing the article. This was not necessary for Cla68 to illustrate any point that he was making. Even assuming that Cla68 believed the link did not violate the "outing" policy, once it was suppressed the firsttime, there was no reason to post the same editor's name on-wiki again. And once he was blocked for that and this edit was also suppressed, he certainly should have known better than to post it a third time. Cla68, a longstanding Wikipedian and Misplaced Pages critic (the two are not exclusive), has been cautioned more than once before about either violating or skirting the edges of our policy against posting editors' identifying information. He needs to heed the caution.
Cla68's defense based on the fact that identifying information is relevant in addressing conflict-of-interest allegations points to a tension in our policies and practices that does exist, as this Committee has long acknowledged. But this is irrelevant here, as the editing in question was not (and could not have been) the subject of an ongoing COI discussion. Cla68's contention that the editor has posted his own identifying information elsewhere is also unconvincing. Our policy against identifying editors by real name applies unless the editor has either deliberately posted his or her name on-wiki, or perhaps where the identification is such a matter of common knowledge that it would be frivolous to pretend we don't know who someone is. Neither exception applied in this case. Cla68's hectoring of the oversighters while he was unblocked, demanding that they cite the pages of the policy manual that they applied, suggests that he still does not understand the valid reasons for their actions.
Regarding Kevin's unblock, while up to a point I can sympathize with Kevin's desire to resolve the situation, I cannot agree with his action. Because the edits were suppressed, an non-oversighter administrator could not fully evaluate them (although there was some description of them on-wiki). Kevin knew that the block was tagged as one that should not be reversed without consulting with the oversight team, which also implies that it should not be overturned unilaterally, and should have respected that request. Kevin also was not privy to the correspondence taking place between Cla68 and the arbitrators.
Despite these concerns, I did not support the motion to desyop Kevin under "Level II" and to reblock Cla68. The tone of Cla68's posts while he was unblocked was strident and unhelpful, and he has declined to make an unambiguous commitment that would have put the remaining concerns to bed, but I still do not expect that he would violate the "outing" policy again. As for Kevin, I generally do not support desysopping an administrator for a single episode.
I have supported the pending motion to formalize that "oversighter blocks" are on the same level as "checkuser blocks," i.e. that blocks designated as such by an oversighter should only be reviewed by other oversighters or by the arbitrators. This is not because administrators who hold the oversight right "outrank" those who do not, but because only those who do can fully assess the circumstances of the block. (These may include the contents of the oversighted edits, the contents of any previous oversighted edits, and any relevant discussion on the oversighters' or functionaries' mailing lists.) As with checkuser blocks, it is important to realize that this policy does not apply to every block made by an administrator who happens to also be an oversighter, but only to blocks based on private information and expressly flagged as "oversighter blocks." It will be comparatively rare that such a notation will be made, but when it is, it should be respected.
I urge everyone to respect the good faith and legitimate concerns of the arbitrators who supported this motion, even though I opposed it, and to join me in again thanking our oversighters for their contributions. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, good faith or not, this is an instance of arbs merely increasing drama rather than decreasing it. What exactly was at stake here? And, since we're delving into chaos anyway, I'm still wondering why the initial block of Cla68 was made with an explicit please do not unblock without consulting the oversight team? Hopefully, since we're now in a "no actions left unexplored" world, we'll get some clarity on when oversight needs to be mandatorily consulted and when it doesn't. --regentspark (comment) 13:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'll suggest what's at stake—when a highly controversial situation exists, and there is evidence that it is being reviewed actively by arbcom, and functionaries, one doesn't barge in and make an unblock without understanding what is going on. That was the drama increase. Ignoring it would send a message that admins are perfectly free to take actions with incomplete information and actively decline to talk to those who know what is going on. That is not what we want admins to do.--SPhilbrick(Talk)15:33, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Hmm. Why exactly do we need functionaries discussing things in private when there was no private information being discussed any longer? Kevin unblocked someone, cla68 wasn't outing any more, what's all this behind the scenes "functionaries" (makes it sound like something out of a bad soviet novel) activity for anyway? Sounds to me like a lot of people being authoritative because they can. (I still want to know why Beeblebrox felt it necessary to state that oversight approval was required for unblocking in the first place.) --regentspark (comment) 18:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The community should (temporarly) suspend ArbCom. What we see here is yet another example of how problems are "solved" by granting ArbCom more powers. The fundamental issue is that Misplaced Pages is subject to social pressures and that it hasn't insulated itself from that in an effective way. Off-site campaigns can then affect Misplaced Pages and you then need to take emergency actions (banning editors, but then because that's done for non-standard reasons, that may lead to conflicts at the Admin level etc.). If we look back at the cases against Cirt and Fae, then its clear that we have moved away from Misplaced Pages only being about editing this online encyclpedia, that arguments can be brought in against an editor that have nothing to do with editing here. By simply not allowing any such arguments to be considered relevant, we can deal with off-site harrassment in a much more effective way. If digging up dirt against an editor isn't going to be effective, people with stop doing that. And if not, an editor here would be allowed to deny anything, even if that would constitute not telling the truth. Count Iblis (talk) 13:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Brad has once again demonstrated why he is the model Arb. The Arb's voting to desysop Kevin should take note. And yes, I am particularly speaking to those Arbs I have come to have great respect for.--v/r - TP13:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(1) Is it necessary for Cla68 to be blocked right now? I don't think he is actively engaged in outing. (2) Kevin did engage in discussions with the blocking admins at User talk:Cla68. While he did not receive consensus to unblock, it was clear that the situation had de-escalated to the point that a block probably wasn't needed. If the process is wrong, but the result is correct, just leave things be. The re-block and de-sysop are just adding needless drama. What we need now is (3) a clear, unequivocal statement from Cla68 that he understands the WP:DOX policy, and a statement from User:Kevin that he will never reverse and Oversight or Checkuser block again. Failing receipt of either of those assurances, further non-emergency steps may be needed. Jehochman14:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Note that the arbcomm had previously warned Cla about the issue and instructed to avoid "any form of harassing or threatening comments". Guettarda (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether this would have made a difference, but perhaps in the future a representative of Arbcom might weigh in with a "just so you know, we're actively discussing this" when a big messy discussion is going on on a user talk page about a block. I got the impression that at least some of the people commenting on cla's page (including cla) weren't sure if it was just being ignored. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 14:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Agree 100% 94.8% with Newyorkbrad above. Some of you guys really like your drama way too much. This escalation was completely and utterly pointless. Actually, worse than pointless, since pointlessness implies a sort of "doesn't matter" neutrality. This is just going to poison the atmosphere further and waste a whole lot of time and energy. If this isn't simply dropped, I can see not just one person leaving the project, but quite a few, shaking their heads and muttering under their breath about how childish and dysfunctional this place is.Volunteer Marek14:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
For the record, a discussion regarding the unblock's appropriateness was held on the Functionaries email list, which includes many more folks than just ArbCom, and I did not see a single email from a person who believed that the unblock was appropriate. So, while it may be all the vogue to hate on ArbCom, they did not take this action in a vacuum, nor without input from the other advanced permission holders vetted by the community. Jclemens (talk) 15:22, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Your argument supports an Arbcom opinion that the unblock was unjustified. That none of those on the list approved of an unblock does not justify the desysop, though. 100 people polled in Texas believe that the state has a legal right to secede, does that mean that California should develop it's own space station? Your logic and the conclusion are mismatched.--v/r - TP15:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The level of inappropriateness of the unblock (bad, admonishably bad, desysopably bad...) and the feedback of the functionaries to the committee on the topic are quite a bit more connected to their handling of the situation than the items in your example. I may have been unclear--are you aware that the entire arbitration committee is subscribed to the functionaries list by default? Jclemens (talk) 07:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Well-said Brad. As someone who does makes mistakes, I am sympathetic to the notion that we do not desysop for a single mistake, but this was extremely poor judgement. I am trying to comprehend how one could read that one ought to contact the oversighter and decide, unilaterally, that this wasn't needed.--SPhilbrick(Talk)15:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Since in my fantasyland Misplaced Pages blocks are preventative, not punitive, can anyone provide a diff of a contribution Cla68 made after Kevin unblocked them that violated the doxing policy? NE Ent15:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Ummm....what makes you think that Cla68 wasn't going to do this again? If not with this editor, with another? We don't give second chances to editors who don't understand what they did wrong. Nor do we give second chances to editors who fail to indicate that they won't do it again. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Not exactly. Sometimes we do when we think someone's pride is getting in the way. If we think they get the point, we do unblock sometimes. But only for folks who show obvious clue like Cla68. I'm not judging on the merits of the original or reblock here, only pointing out that your comment isn't 100% accurate.--v/r - TP15:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not allowed to think about Cla68 -- I don't have access to the all important oversighted information, right? In any event, I don't particularly care about Cla68 (in either a positive or negative), I just don't like to see the all too common blood in the Wiki-water, to wit: How does desysoping Kevin make improving Misplaced Pages?? All the committee had to do part of what they did -- reblock with the explicitly clear {{ArbComBlock}} template. If an admin unblocked after that then they're clearly an idiot deserving of desyopping. NE Ent16:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
And why does an admin deliberately ignoring the request to consult with oversight get a pass? What message does that send? (and I'll argue this is all about sending messages - what message should be sent to an editor who has been warned and continued to do something, and what message ought to be sent to an admin who jumped into a complicated situation and made it worse?) --SPhilbrick(Talk)16:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
It was already a fracas, based on the Cla68 talk page churn; there was long conversation on the page, including the input of a couple oversighters, it's not as if the block was overturned hours after being placed or anything. The discussion had gotten down to the point of haggling over whether Cla68's promise was good enough or not, or too lawyering, or whatever. Wiki drama is like a fire triangle, no one editor can cause it by itself. Revert block, ArbComBlock stamp, done. Drama over. NE Ent16:51, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
"All the committee had to do part of what they did -- reblock with the explicitly clear {{ArbComBlock}} template." No, that wouldn't have made a difference. People would now be saying the same things with only minor variations. Tom Harrison16:29, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Clearly it was appropriate to block Cla68 in the first instance. I don't think anybody seriously disputes that. The problem arose when the block message was drafted in such a way as to prohibit unlocking by anybody other than oversighters (if I were wearing my cynical hat, I might say mere mortals, but I seem to be wearing my pragmatic hat). That doesn't have a basis in policy, despite Hersfold's cherry-picked quotes above which misrepresents policy in an attempt to justify this unjust and grossly disproportionate sanction (that policy subsection covers the circumstances in which it is appropriate for an admin to make a block based on evidence other admins can't see; it does not say that blocks by oversighters cannot be reversed by non-oversighters). That's not to say that actions following it were not problematic, but that's what started this absurd chain reaction. Of course Kevin exercised poor judgement in unblocking; he should have known that doing so would, at the very least, likely cause a lot of drama and that no harm would have been done by waiting a few more hours for more opinions. He deserves a bollocking for that, but I think most admins would consider having one of their action reversed by ArbCom to be a strong rebuke; the desysop was completely out of proportion. It was a hasty, ill-considered, knee-jerk reaction and it has served only to create more drama and draw more attention to the suppressed edits (which sort of defeats the point of all this, but that's far too subtle-a-point for a committee of hardliners and hotheads to grasp).
The right thing to do now would be to hold your hands up and admit you over-reacted, but just giving Kevin his tools back and moving on would allow everyone to save face. The worst thing you could possibly do if you want to de-escalate the situation is to attempt to shoehorn through a new policy in the guise of a motion (which is ultra viresaccording to your own policy), and I would urge you to re-think what you are trying to achieve here and how best to achieve it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the general tenor of this with three notable exceptions:
Most of the blog post consisted of indisputably legitimate Misplaced Pages criticism with only the first sections being of debatable legitimacy.
Beeblebrox was wrong to characterize and treat the initial comment by Cla68 as "deliberate and malicious" outing because it clearly was not either.
Kevin, and basically anyone who has looked at WO, knows exactly what this block concerned and Cla68's statements about it were posted publicly there so the main reason for demanding an "oversighter-approved" unblock is not present as the alleged offense was plainly known.
Beyond that I do agree that the seven Arbs concerned have only inflamed the situation, injecting nitro into the Streisand Effect as now we have an Arb making no real secret about where the blog post was at in a discussion that is being read even more widely than the previous discussion. By the time this is done the number of people who know this editor's identity will have grown exponentially. Something that probably wouldn't have happened if Beebs had just oversighted the edit and gave Cla68 a clear, reasonable advisement about posting such information rather than stirring up a hornet's nest by assuming bad faith to justify an indefinite block of an extremely productive content creator who far outclasses him.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.17:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Concur completely: it is OUTRAGEOUS that a user can be blocked for posting links to one of those beyond-evil "badsite", then castigated further on his own talk page for "doing it again" in his own defense ... and now no less than an arbitrator repeats the essentially the same information. If the oversight team is as good and professional as NYB claims, they should be going to work on NYB's comments right here, followed up with a indefinite block. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.195.229 (talk) 18:51, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I have to say I've been pretty disgusted by the melodramatic farce that the Arbs have set in motion today, and with a small number of honourable exceptions, my respect for you has been significantly diminished. You lot couldn't have caused a bigger explosion of drama and brought the "secret" to more people's attention if you'd put full-page ads in the fucking newspapers. I applaud Newyorkbrad for being, once again, the voice of sanity, and I concur with HJ Mitchell's assessment - just reverse your appalling de-sysop of Kevin and try to rescue what little respect you can for yourselves. (And seeing the way honourable, if misguided, admins are treated here makes me less and less likely to request the return of my own mop). -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not on the committee, but if I heard something along the line of "I now realize I should have gotten better informed before taking an action, and in view of the fact that the situation had many eyes on it, there was no need for my precipitous action, and I'll never make that mistake again..." I've be inclined to resysop.--SPhilbrick(Talk)16:29, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
AQFK - You do not speak for the community. So "Kevin can begin to restore the community's trust by..." is outside of your authority. Kevin never lost the trust of the community.--v/r - TP17:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You're speaking for yourself there, bub, so it's a bit rich to proclaim that AQFK is not doing so himself. Kevin has has certainly lost my trust.--Calton | Talk21:21, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
If Kevin wishes to contest the desysopping, he may request a full case to examine the matter. If not, then the desysopping effectively becomes permanent pending another RfA. Hersfoldnon-admin16:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
It would appear so. He now has to request a case, presumably with arbcom as party, to explain why he unblocked - despite the fact that he already claims to have explained that to the committee via e-mail, said explanation having been ignored or disregarded as insufficient. It would have been more honest of the committee to say that "Kevin is permanently desysopped, pending appeal of this decision or a new RFA". UltraExactZZ ~ Did16:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's a matter of honesty, it's a matter of clarity or haste in formulating the sanction. NE Ent16:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You see the problem, then. I wonder, idly, if the members who voted for this sort-of-temporary-but-really-permanent desysopping would have done so if it actually said "permanently desysopped pending a new RFA" or some such. Arbcom's remit was specifically to avoid hasty decisions, was it not? I seem to remember reading that somewhere, back in the day. UltraExactZZ ~ Did16:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
An admin acted in good faith in a contentious situation, and yes, several questioned the action on Cla68. If the admin, Kevin, made a mistake talk to him about it. He doesn't have a history of this kind of action. Otherwise what we have is an action based on a punitive construct instead of a teaching learning construct which is how we keep and extend the abilities of our editors. Human beings in Western society are so infused with the punitive way of "teaching" we don't even know we're doing it. What a waste of human resources and time to have a case built around an editor who made a mistake as Kevin might have, is happy to fix the mistake, and with a few words could learn and move on.(olive (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC))
Thing is, he didn't do anything worthy of an unblock. The block he overturned wasn't an arb block, it was Beeb's original unblock, which was done in his capcity as a sysop (he's not an Arb, therefore, he can't issue an Arb block). Self Trout applied liberally Removing his bit over this is hasty...there's no proof it was done in bad faith. Looks like he used IAR here. Give it back, his actions didn't merit this. KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ... 17:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Requiring him to open a case is bureaucracy run amok. The committee made a decision, not in the context of a full case, but as a stand-alone decision. The committee should be willing to read a statement form Kevin, decide privately if it is sufficient in itself to persuade the committee to re sysop, and if not, inform him that a full case is needed. It is possible that exactly that has happened, but if the committee refuses to review a request from Kevin on the basis that they can only review in the context of a case, that would be wrong.--SPhilbrick(Talk)17:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(ec) I think the paragraph "Return of permissions" in the relevant section of AC Procedure page sums up the probable reason: Removal is protective, intended to prevent harm to the encyclopedia while investigations take place, and the advanced permissions will normally be reinstated once a satisfactory explanation is provided or the issues are satisfactorily resolved. If the editor in question requests it, or if the Committee determines that a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate, normal arbitration proceedings shall be opened to examine the removal of permissions and any surrounding circumstances. - My reading is that AC doesn't feel a routine reinstatement is appropriate?
@KoshVorlon: I think you're confusing something in your opinion: Beeb's original block was done under capacity as OverSighter - this is what is leading to the motion being considered right now (to treat OS blocks like CU blocks and not to be reversed w/o discussion w/ blocking admin) - Penwhale | 17:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The desysop's temporary in the sense that it's temporary pending the receipt of a satisfactory response. The ball is in Kevin's court: he can send in a response that convinces a majority of arbitrators, in which case he'll be resysopped; he can request that a case be opened, in which case we'll open one and proceed from there, and he will be resysopped at the end of the case unless we pass a desysopping remedy; he can skip us entirely and go directly to RFA, in which case he'll be resysopped if he passes, and remain desysopped if he fails (although he can theoretically come back to us if his RFA is unsuccessful, the committee would be highly unlikely to resysop him in that situation); if he does none of these three, then the desysop is effectively permanent. T. Canens (talk) 17:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
With that logic, all desysops are temporary. The definition of temporary, "Lasting for only a limited period of time", would seem to suggest that once a time period has elapsed then the situation automatically reverts back to the status quo. That's not the case here. In this case, there is no time period. It is permenant. The status quo has changed until action is taken. It's not an automatic process and so it is not temporary.--v/r - TP18:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
No, your wikilawyering notwithstanding, a "temporary desysop" means "provisional", before a full consideration/judgment has been made. --Calton | Talk21:21, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Honestly, had I found myself in the position Kevin was in, I would have assumed that an unblock would have carried a non-trivial of being de-adminned. To begin with, when you encounter a block that say "don't undo without discussing with X", you take that as a big red flag. But more importantly, you don't make your first edit in a month (and sixth for the year) a controversial unblock. There's precedent for de-adminning for that. Combine the two, and all I can say is that either Kevin should have expected this outcome, or he's more than 5 years out of date with how to use the tools. Guettarda (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I take the opposite position, I was close to doing the same thing myself. I'm not at all surprised to find out someone else got there first. Tons of respect for Beebs, but we don't do ex post facto law here and there is no reason not to unblock a user after they commit to not doing something again. Similarly, there is no reason to desysop Kevin after Arbcom warns him not to do it again. You're basically punishing Kevin for offending the almighty here.--v/r - TP17:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Just to make things clear: the procedure here is that the block is temporary until some final disposition of the matter removes it for good or restores it. By default, if Kevin does not appeal the removal or request a case, the bit will stay removed until he passes a RfA since we don't have a 'timeout' for the time during which he can appeal (although I think that there have been some cases where the committee made such a removal permanent by motion after some months with no appeal forthcoming, but this is neither systematic nor required). — Coren17:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You should automatically restore it once Kevin commits to not unblocking Cla68 again. Demanding that he bow at your feet and swear fealty is pathetic. That is the equivalent of what Arbcom is saying. "Kevin must appeal to us" is another way of saying he must submit to your authority. Arbcom should have a bit more decency. When you start rewriting the rules to justify punishments you've already issued, you lose faith of those you govern. This doesn't sit well with me. This is ex post facto changes to policy to justify a desysop. What's next?--v/r - TP17:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
This is exactly right. Normally in a situation like this Kevin would bring a case against party X to ArbCom. Here "party X" is ArbCom. How exactly is this appeal or case going to be decided? All the arbs who made the decision recuse themselves and the inactive arbs inactively decide the case? We have a public coin flip or something? Coren (and Hersfold), you're making ridiculous proposals.Volunteer Marek18:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, arbcom case is clearly a way forward. Maybe there is still someone on wikipedia who hasn't heard of this outing case, even though it has been mentioned in numerous highly watched talk pages (including Jimbo's). Gotta fix that and make sure that everyone knows, right? Or do people really think that anyone who is interested can't do 2+2 with information freely posted on various talk pages and figure out where outing took place? Whole focus seems to be on finding sufficiently harsh punishments and rewriting rules, then in practice focus should have been solving situation as discreetly as possible to avoid drawing further attention to off-wiki outing, even if that meant someone receiving mere warning instead of "proper" punishment.--Staberinde (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Here's an idea (only half tongue in cheek) of how to move forward: do what happens in the real world, at least in parliamentary systems. Usually in a situation like this the government resigns and we have early elections.Volunteer Marek18:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
In other words, effectively ArbCom have extended their middle finger to the community, said "we know best, and we're quite happy to ignore reasonable objections without explaining why", and at the same time multiplied the amount of drama exponentially. I can't say I didn't expect ir given some of the makeup of the committee, though I must admit to being disappointed by a couple of people. So, well done people, way to demonstrate the encyclopedia is in good hands. Black Kite (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Respectfully. We have to get past the mentality which blames. I see this page as a discussion with thoughts, ideas and ways to deal with the situation. We don't have to attack the arbs or anyone else. We are looking for solutions as a community. Must we side track that into once again hounding the arbs or any specific arbs? Can we make this simple and dignified.(olive (talk) 18:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC))
It's not an attack to be greatly disappointed and feel like your being given the middle finger. I'd like to see the Arbs acknowledge the community's feelings and consider they may have erred. I hold respect for almost all of them, a few I dont know well, but I can still be disappointed and confused by their decision.--v/r - TP18:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it can be a very unpleasant feeling to think that someone is discounting your opinion or knowledge. Consider, for instance, the person who was outed in the original drama. They were probably very upset that Kevin and Cla68 "gave the middle finger" to their privacy by behaving as they did. Consider, for instance, the oversighter who made the original block based on a consensus of people who were able to see the suppressed evidence. He is, we know, displeased that Kevin "gave the middle finger" to the fact that Kevin was not equipped to review the block in any way due to the fact that he couldn't see the evidence, and that Kevin nevertheless proceeded to unblock someone who had not committed to stopping the harassment of another editor. Consider as well Arbcom, who were presented with a situation where only they had the capacity to fix either the erroneous unblock or the admin who didn't understand unblock policy. They are probably somewhat unhappy to see some people giving privacy protection (and enforcement thereof) "the middle finger" in this discussion. At every step along this path, the "middle finger giving" that you perceive as happening against Cla68, Kevin, and the people arguing for them could have been immediately blocked by Cla68 or Kevin saying "You know, you're right. I made a poor choice, even if I thought - and still think - it was the right one, and I won't be doing that again." They have apparently chosen not to do that, preferring instead to force Arbcom to prevent them from doing the "that"s again; in my mind this is a problem of Kevin and Cla68 failing to acknowledge error, not one of Arbcom being somehow abusive by taking steps to prevent further error. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Wrong in so many ways. False association, false dichotomies, black and white thinking. Saying Kevin shouldn't have been desysoped ≠ support unblock ≠ support Cla68's action ≠ don't care about privacy. Since (hopefully) you don't know the contents of the discussion between email and ArbCom you have no idea what Kevin has or has not said to them. NE Ent19:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't recall making any of those equivalencies, NE Ent. I was pointing out to Tparis that while he perceives the discounting of feelings as going from Arbcom to Kevin/community, many others involved could equally perceive it as going from Cla68 or Kevin to the outed user, or from Kevin to the people charged with protecting that user's privacy, or from Kevin/Cla68 to Arbcom, or from critics to Arbcom. That is to say, there seems to have been a whole lot of discounting of other knowledge all around here, and from the perspective of an oversighter, I see it as having started with Cla68's choice, not with Arbcom's cleaning up the resulting mess. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Your right that it was Cla68's choice and you are right to describe it as giving the middle finger to the 'anonymous user' outed. But I wouldn't call Arbcom's actions as cleaning up the resulting mess. I've remained quiet until the desysop of Kevin. There has been a whole lot of discounting and Arbcom should not have continued the trend. Previous failures on the part of others doesn't excuse Arbcom's. And nothing excuses ex post facto rule changes.--v/r - TP19:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Last I knew, I was charged with protecting user's privacy -- at least, that's what I thought I was doing every time I filled out that oversight form. Not agreeing with someone doesn't necessarily mean "discounting" their knowledge. Should the community simply abandon all discussion on checkuser and privacy issues and the like? I don't see starting point analysis as the most useful way to resolve disputes. NE Ent19:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree that disappointment has a place and no one says any of the actions all the way along were in the best interests of anyone, but I'm not judging anyone, either. We've had a couple of arbs recently who were lynched, basically. Its such a waste of time and so "wrong". These talk pages can deteriorate into an attack mentality quickly. I'd hate to see that happen.(olive (talk) 18:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC))
(ec) Undo the re-block, undo the de-sysop, then we can have a respectful conversation. Otherwise it's like being pushed and kicked on the ground then being told by a bystander "you should have a respectful conversation". Why should the messed up situation we're currently in, because of the ArbCom, define the "tyranny of the status quo"? Volunteer Marek18:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Marek, I disagree. WO discredited themselves by posting the article they did, and Cla68 deliberately and repeatedly discredited himself by repeating this information, three times. The block is, was, and will be valid until Cla agrees A) what he did was beyond the pale, and B)that he will not do it again. I said this back when I was an arb. There's a right way and a wrong way to criticize. This was the wrong way. And then Kevin went in and knew that this was an oversight block, and that unilaterally undoing the block would be a bad idea, but did it anyway. I have no problem with the action taken. (Fair disclosure: I was a member of WR and am currently a member of WO.) SirFozzie (talk) 19:48, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Can you just explain how an "oversight block" any different than an "admin block" when a user promises not to do it again?--v/r - TP19:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Because it was made on the basis of oversighted evidence that admins can't see? Plus there is the whole BASC / oversight list thing. There's more going on behind the scenes with oversighting than there is with regular admin matters. Prioryman (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Except that in this case it was pretty obvious to anyone who knew the situation what the oversighted material was. For those who weren't, it's certainly been made completely obvious now... Black Kite (talk) 20:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
@Prioryman: The evidence justifies the block and blocks an unblock on the basis of "no visible evidence." I'll grant that fact all day long. However, it does not prevent an unblock on the basis of "user reformed" or "user committed to not doing it again." Please explain what evidence there is that once a user commits not to out anymore that Oversight could still posses. What ace do they still have up their sleeve? They arn't CU, the block doesn't have to stand because of some connection that we can't speak of. We know what action led to the block, they posted public information. Once they commit to not doing so again, there is no longer "evidence" that needs to be reviewed. The evidence is moot and that puts oversighters on the same footing as any regular admin. So again, what is the difference?--v/r - TP20:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
To some: Please don't say you speak for the community. On the other hand, a volunteer committee was elected by the community. If you disagree with something that committee did fine, but don't pretend to such moral high-ground. The high-dudgeon (talk of "chaos" and "blood" and whatnot) is especially unconvincing coming in comments that plead "no-drama." It seems some would benefit by really re-reading all of New York Brad's comment -- including his conclusion. It just appears that some of you cannot accept that the Committee's judgement is different from your own -- but that should not be a real surprise (sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Brad gave the other Arb's an out because Brad's just that upstanding of a guy. Don't read anymore into that one-liner than there is. Brad was mostly critical of the desysop which most folks here are. Most folks are not arguing about the reblock or the original block. Nor does arguing about the desysop equate to arguing about the reblock.--v/r - TP19:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Hmm? Have you not noted that the dissatisfied always talk the most about their dissatisfaction? And Brad was not at all disingenuous, imo, he meant every word. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
This discussion is a perfect example of the impossible position ArbCom is in. All day, every day, there is somebody bitching somewhere about an admin running off the rails and doing something stupid and there are no consequences. I've slept on this and I can say without ego that I agree with the desyopping. Not because he overturned me, but because Kevin himself was in a conflicted situation due to his own participation as a moderator at the very website making these cowardly outing postings, and also because he had not performed any blocking or unblocking actions since April of 2010. I don't recall any significant previous interactions with Kevin and bear him no ill will, but this is the sort of adminning the community has been saying they don't want, an admin who is largely inactive, who hasn't used the block tool in years and from what I can see never used it in complicated situations like this, just blocking vandals and so forth, comes in to a situation and just says "bang-unblocked, because I am personally satisfied" even though he knows full well that at the very least BASC and the suppression team are involved in the situation. No. Not ok. Not what we expect from admins, and admins who don't use a tool for years should ease back into using it, not go straight into the most volatile situation they can find and start getting all cowboy about it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Re "Kevin himself was in a conflicted situation due to his own participation as a moderator at the very website making these cowardly outing postings". Beeb, either you don't know what you're talking about (in which case it's usually a good idea to keep quiet), someone's been feeding you nonsense (ditto) or you're purposefully misrepresenting the situation. I'll AGF and assume it's one of the first two. Specifically Kevin is most certainly NOT a moderator on Wikipediocracy. He's a "Commentator" and a very infrequent at that. Actually in that he's no different than, say, Newyorkbrad, or Sir Fozzie, or a number of admins and arbs (past and present) who've are also "Commentators" on Wikipediocracy. Please correct your comment.Volunteer Marek20:07, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I think Beeblebrox is confusing Kevin's status with that of Cla68, who is a moderator. However, Kevin and Cla68 are both participants in the thread in which Cla68's block is being discussed. Prioryman (talk) 20:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Somebody else said that yesterday, and Kevin did not challenge it. I don't have the energy to wade through all the diffs, but fine he's not a moderator there. Thanks for your lovely comments about me over there as well Marek. The rest of what I said still stands and I have nothing to add. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
(ec) If you don't "have the energy" to do some basic fact checking then don't make claims which you don't know are true but which have a pretty significant importance.Volunteer Marek20:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Erm, no, don't be silly. Kevin hasn't made any secret that he is a contributor over there. That's not remotely doxing. Prioryman (talk) 20:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Policy is policy, so: where are the Misplaced Pages diffs re: Kevin "making no secret" re: his status at The Website That Can Not Be Named? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.195.229 (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Any admins suggesting that Kevin was in the right to undo the block without the consultation requested in the block notice should remind themselves of WP:TOOLMISUSE, "Reversing the actions of other administrators – Only in a manner that respects the admin whose action is involved, and (usually) after consultation", and WP:RAAA – "Administrators may disagree, but except for clear and obvious mistakes, administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought and (if likely to be objected) usually some kind of courtesy discussion." Even if there had not been the block notice "malicious WP:OUTING, please do not unblock without consulting the oversight team" Kevin should have first consulted with the blocking admin. In the context of that note, Kevin's action is clearly tool misuse. It should be remembered that in 2007 Cla68 was made well aware that outing on third party sites is unacceptable, and in 2008 Cla68 was admonished and instructed by Arbcom to follow principles including Harassment and threats: "It is completely unacceptable for any editor to harass another. See Misplaced Pages:Harassment", which specifically includes WP:OUTING. . . dave souza, talk20:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Later addition: WP:BLOCK#Block reviews is more specific that "Except in cases of unambiguous error, administrators should avoid unblocking users without first attempting to contact the blocking administrator to discuss the matter. If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard is recommended." . . dave souza, talk10:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
There were days of discussion on the blocked users' talk page, in which the blocking admin participated. NE Ent21:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Days in which it was made clear that unblocking would be, to say the least, controversial. Kevin joined in after a fortnight not editing with a comment at 01:19 on 1 March, said he had a mind to unblock at 05:36 on 4 March, unblocked at 07:40 that day and at 07:47 announced he had unblocked – with no intervening reply by the blocking admin, let alone any consultation with the oversight team. At 07:51 he thought to tell Beeblebrox. Very poor judgment. . . dave souza, talk21:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Also - Kevin did not 'reverse' another admins block. He lifted an 'Indef Block' on the basis of Cla committing to not reposting the info that caused him to be blocked. Which is within the remit and authority of any administrator answering an unblock request. Its one of the duties required of an admin. And at the time Kevin lifted the block, he was not 'required' to seek permission from the oversight team. Arbcom are now passing motions to make changes to wikipedia policy to cover this gap. But you dont punish people for actions in the past that were acceptable under policy at that time. The request to speak to the oversight team was no more binding on Kevin than any other request from a blocking administrator to speak to them before lifting a block they have placed. That situation has been at ANI/AN in enough situations and the admin corps (let alone mere editors) have generally fallen in line with 'Its a courtesy, but its not required'.
Given that Arbcom have now confirmed it is in fact a perm de-sysop and not a temporary as the 'Level II procedures' require, could Arbcom please explain a)what part of Kevin's explanation was 'unsatisfactory', b)given that Kevin is unlikely to go on an oversight-block-lifting spree, what part of the situation is unresolved regarding his advanced permission, and finally c)given that they have already decided its not being returned, when you will be opening an arbitration case on the issue? I look forward to seeing who is left after all the recusals... Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
On the first part, "except for clear and obvious mistakes, administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought and (if likely to be objected) usually some kind of courtesy discussion." The notice was a clear red flag that care was needed in unblocking. As for Arbcom's decision on this, they'll have to answer that. . . dave souza, talk22:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You seem to have missed my point, he was not reversing a block. He was declaring it no longer needed and lifting it. As indef blocks are generally placed to prevent immediate disruption to the project. Its one thing to say 'I dont agree with why this block was placed, I am lifting it' (which is covered by wheel war), its completely another to say 'the danger has passed, the block no longer serves its purpose and the editor has said they wont do it again'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
In response to T. Canens and Hersfold above, saying the ball is now in my court, and that I have a choice to open a case or send in a satisfactory explanation. I sent an explanation in response to AGK's email, CCd to arbcom-l 24 hours ago. AGK's email was a single question, no mention of 'get this right or your desysopped permanently'. Since then I've heard nothing. No discussion, nada, except for Hersfold asking if I'd noticed being desysopped. So to my thinking the ball is firmly in your court. It would be courteous to respond to my explanation, indicating the committee's position on it. I already know it really, as the desysop came later, however it would still be polite. Kevin (talk) 21:28, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh and one other thing, if Arbcom or Oversight are actively discussing a block then tell somebody. It takes a minute to drop a note onto a talk page saying "we are dealing with this". Kevin (talk) 21:34, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
One tends to get crickets from ArbCom for a while concerning e-mails. At least, that has usually been my experience. Certain Arbs are very good at responding promptly. I would personally think something of this nature would get a little bit more consideration with regards to keeping someone posted, but I guess not. Surely someone will say something about "thankless positions" or whatever, but it goes just as much for the other side.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.21:41, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Beyond pathetic. How can it be possible to become an arbitrator without realizing that not responding to emails about live situations will only make things worse? ArbCom's performance during all this has been utter crap. — Hex(❝?!❞)21:49, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Kevin, is "if Arbcom or Oversight are actively discussing a block then tell somebody" meant seriously? You mean you didn't even read the talkpage of the editor you unblocked where active ongoing discussion with at least one arbitrator was ongoing? — Coren22:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Of course I read it. There are a couple of comments from Arbs about how a promise not to repeat the edits might be worded. Do you not understand that posting something more definitive is actually helpful, and may even have helped in this case? Kevin (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
So had you noticed the wording "I'll draw this colloquy to the Arbitration Committee's attention"? Perhaps you thought that meant you were free to decide for Arbcom? . . dave souza, talk22:45, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
What I thought was that several days had gone by, that the immediate need for the block was gone, and that Arbcom would decide what to do with Cla68 for the longer term. The first lines of the blocking policy read "blocks are preventative". Once the risk that the disruptive behaviour or whatever is removed, then the block becomes punitive. I made an assessment that Cla68 was unlikely to violate the outing policy again, and I think NYB agrees with that assessment, and then followed policy in removing a block that was no longer preventative. People keep harping on about it, but it is not necessary to know the content of those edits to know that they are not likely to be repeated. Kevin (talk) 22:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Not even counting the discussion already in progress between the functionaries (which you couldn't have known about and part of the reason the block was not open to unilateral reversal), did you also take into account that this is not the first time that Cla68 has used off-wiki information in such a manner, or that he had been warned previously when making that assessment? — Coren23:47, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't know how many ways I can write the same thing. He promised to stop. In deciding whether or not to believe him I used the information on his talk page, and on what I had seen of him here over the years. On that basis I determined that he was not likely to repeat the edits. At least one arbitrator agrees with that determination, if not my actions overall. That at least puts my decision into the realms of being reasonable. I always understood that Arbcom may wish to take further action regarding Cla68, noting I did prejudices that. Kevin (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that a subset of ArbCom have backed themselves into a corner by their hasty and unjustified action, which means that the only way that your bit is going to be returned (or for that matter, Cla68 unblocked again) is by them effectively saying "we fucked up". Even if those things do happen through further assurances by both parties, we're still at the point we were before ArbCom stuck its oar in (which again, is effectively "we fucked up"). I wouldn't hold my breath. Black Kite (talk) 00:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I have to say, I'm completely shocked by this. Beeblebrox (an oversighter) said on Cla68's talk page, "Cla needs to tel BASC they will abide by WP:OUTING. We don't need a drama fest to accomplish that, Cla just needs to send an email. They don't need to apologize or even say they agree with the policy, just that they will respect it in the future." Cla68 didn't use those particular words, but he promised in the emails posted on his talk page not to link to the real name of the user in question nor to link to the offending blog post. Whether unblocking him was a good idea or a bad idea, this message would seem to be a reasonable basis for Kevin's actions. The idea of arbcom using an emergency process in a non-emergency seems rather absurd - you've just prevented yourselves from being neutral arbiters in any case that arises from this matter. An emergency process makes sense if someone is flagrantly disregarding the rules or if they refuse to stop with the disputed behavior long enough for a case to be heard. It doesn't make sense in response to what almost certainly is a one-time event. There would have been no harm done by Arbcom deferring its judgment until after a case is heard - there's an inordinate harm (in terms of lack of confidence in the process) that comes from carrying out the sentence before the case. --B (talk) 22:58, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
Not that my opinion will make a huge difference, but here goes: The administrator who has now been desysopped reverted an action made by an OS/admin in their role not as an administrator but as an oversighter. If a steward who is also a local admin and 'crat here desysops someone, nobody would revert it if they said "this is as a steward, contact stewards first". The blocking message clearly stated "do not unblock without contacting OS first" (or something along those lines). This administrator specifically went against the functionary who made the block in their role as a functionary. All this talk of "oh it was just an administrator action" is bollocks to borrow a word. Functionaries make some blocks as functionaries, with their access to non-public data in mind. Those actions are not to be reversed by non-functionaries under any circumstances without prior contact with the functionary in question, and the likely contact with the list as well. That didn't happen here. The desysopped user should've known that going against a functionary action like this would result in a desysopping, and that's what happened. If the user thought otherwise, I question whether they should've had the bit in the first place. Just my two cents, if anyone want's further clarification just ping me here, my talk, or on IRC or something. gwickwireediting23:06, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
There are a couple of problems with this. Sure, if someone unilaterally overturns an ArbCom block , then they know exactly what the result is likely to be. However, there's nothing in policy about an "oversight block" (despite the very quick scramble to change the wording now going on at WT:BLOCK.) "Those actions are not to be reversed by non-functionaries under any circumstances without prior contact with the functionary in question" does not exist. In this case, the material that was suppressed was fairly obvious, and indeed if Cla68 had been unblocked on a promise not to repeat the "outing" (there's still a dispute about whether it was actually one) and had done so, then the drama is averted. Frankly (and I said so at the time on Cla68's talkpage) I would have also unblocked given a valid unblock appeal. What we now have, thanks to ArbCom and persons unknown, is an almighty clusterfuck where Cla68 is still blocked despite having given that assurance, an admin is desysopped despite having given that assurance to ArbCom, and everyone who can work Google now knows exactly was the oversighted material was. The one thing you're right about is that it was a complete load of bollocks, although I suspect I am not using that analogy in the way you are. Black Kite (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
You saying that because no exact words say that an OS block is equivalent to a CU block or ArbCom block is a load of hooey. Sure there's no exact words, but any block made by a functionary based on nonpublic information is automatically a block that cannot be overturned by an administrator, as a normal administrator does not have access to the information that led to the block, or the mailing list discussion that inevitably took place before the block. I don't care how much promises there were, the OS team felt the need to indef block with a provision to contact prior to unblocking. This user failed to do that. They were desysopped. That's not our problem, ArbCom did the right thing. If you would've unblocked when specifically instructed by functionaries with access to non-public data not to before contacting, I question whether you should be an administrator or not. Knowing that there is non-public information involved, this is immediately an issue that is only able to be dealt with by functionaries and ArbCom. This user (Kevin) stepping in when he is not a functionary is unacceptable, and grounds for desysopping. Regardless that there's no policy, the spirit of current policies, as well as the functionaries instructions in blocking to not unblock, make it clear that this was unacceptable. gwickwireediting00:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
"any block made by a functionary based on nonpublic information is automatically a block that cannot be overturned by an administrator" Black Kite (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
What you're saying that an administrator can overturn a block made based on non-public information that the administrator does not have access to without contacting those who do? That is absurd. gwickwireediting00:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Except that in this case it was utterly obvious to anyone who knew the relevant issues what the suppressed material was. There are clearly situations where that is not the case, but this was not one. Indeed, a number of editors who agreed with the block managed to mention the relevant website on-wiki even before the unblock. Since the desysop/re-block drama, pretty much anyone who can work a search engine can now view that suppressed material off-wiki. Is that a good result? Black Kite (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
There are 2 scenarios that could play out for an outing type block involving oversight. One, the editor could say "I never outed such and such", in which case the random admin couldn't know enough to unblock. The other is where the editor says "OK, I won't do that again", in which case the random admin does have enough to know that it won't happen again. This of course supposes that the block was for the one incident, not for a course of action. Kevin (talk) 00:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
No, your interpretation of the second one isn't right. Just because I say I won't out again doesn't mean that the functionaries have given permission for you to unblock me. Nor does it mean that BASC has recieved an e-mail and evidence that the block should be lifted. The issue here is that you unilaterally undid a functionary block based on private data after being told to contact functionaries FIRST, and BASC will unblock after recieving an email. Neither of those things occurred. I sure hope you don't hope to get your bit back anytime soon, as you clearly don't even understand what you did wrong. gwickwireediting00:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
No matter how utterly obvious, the functionaries may have had extra information in email that was never ever onwiki or internet to begin with. That's why they said contact them first. It should be assumed that there was something extra that precluded a regular admin from making a decision, otherwise there wouldn't have been a "functionary block, do not revert" message. gwickwireediting00:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
A functionary said this: "Cla needs to tel BASC they will abide by WP:OUTING. We don't need a drama fest to accomplish that, Cla just needs to send an email. They don't need to apologize or even say they agree with the policy, just that they will respect it in the future." If Kevin believed that those conditions had been met, then he may have interpreted this as permission to unblock. --B (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but afaik Kevin is not a member of BASC, nor would he have access to the list the e-mail would've been sent to. He should've known that that meant that BASC could unblock after they see the e-mail, not after he sees a "promise" onwiki to do so. gwickwireediting00:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree that Non-functionary administrators are not privy to the same information as oversighters, and so I can not understand why any non-func would unilaterally undo the block in any circumstance. With lesson hopefully learned, he could just reapply at RfA after the incident, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I hope this and every other user understands that supporting someone who is openly willing to flaunt instructions from functionaries and/or ArbCom should not be an administrator. That's part of why his bit was removed most likely. gwickwireediting00:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
While that's a very good argument that could be used in an request for arbitration (referring to "He should've known that that meant that BASC could unblock after they see the e-mail, not after he sees a "promise" onwiki to do so"), it doesn't justify an emergency removal of permissions. Arbcom cannot be a neutral arbiter if they have already judged him to be guilty. Sometimes, an emergency action is necessary - if an account intends to continue causing disruption and cannot be trusted not to repeat the offending behavior pending an arbitration, but that's obviously not the case here. --B (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
This user has expressed a willingness to blatantly go against ArbCom/OS/BASC, and a refusal to realize and admit he was wrong. Therefore, it cannot be expected for him to not repeat it, as he doesn't realize it was wrong. Therefore, a desysopping is in order until such time as he can assure the community and ArbCom that he understands what is wrong and that he will not do it again. gwickwireediting01:32, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Er, no that's not true. I haven't expressed that at all, that's your interpretation of my action. There's a difference. And I'm quite happy not to unblock anyone related to Oversight while they sort out clearer rules. If Arbcom have a question about what I might do in the future, they need only ask. Kevin (talk) 01:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
You expressed that willingness when you actioned against ArbComer..the OS team and the BASC message. If you weren't willing to action, you wouldn't have done it. Also, until you admit that what you did was wrong, I wouldn't support a resysopping in any way, ArbCom, case, or RfA. gwickwireediting01:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
That's absurd. Do you seriously believe that Kevin is on the verge of going on an unblock spree? By your logic, anyone who makes any mistake should be summarily and permanently desysopped and that's not what the actual rule says. The policy says, "Removal is protective, intended to prevent harm to the encyclopedia while investigations take place." There is no actual evidence of danger of continued harm, just your assumption of bad faith. --B (talk) 03:14, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
((edit conflict) obviously) Several observations (all IMO)
The entire conversation on Cla68's talk page should have been held elsewhere - WP:AN perhaps. A person's talk page will draw their "friends" and "enemies", where more "neutral" eyes are often better.
I very much appreciate NYB stepping in and noting there that he would bring it to the committee's attention.
Beeblebox did an exceptional job at communicating throughout the entire situation, and he should be commended for that part of it. No view on things I can't see. Although I don't think that feuds on commons are relevant here, and items off wiki (WO) have even less relevance.
Cla68 should have a voice in his own editing future; he's been a valued member of this community for over 7 years with over 24 thousand edits to articles. Perhaps that requires a "full case" (and yes I can hear the groans from here), and it's understood that there will be material that we of the plebeian masses wouldn't be privy to certain information. Still, 1 or 2 OS admins. silencing an editor of such tenure deserves some review to allow collaboration and consideration. Perhaps the wheels of justice move slowly, but it doesn't hurt to grease those wheels once in a while.
I most certainly empathize with Kevin here and feel the desysop (especially if it is not "temporary" as originally stated) is OTT. Although going beyond granting "talk page access only" may have been a bit bold, I can understand the desire to get things back to normal (so to speak). The way these things snowball at times causes collateral damage that can have lasting ramifications, and I suspect that Kevin's attitude will be changed for quite some time. Hopefully some time, communication, and "a word to the wise" will result in things being returned to the status-quo in the very near future.
Being defrocked of "da bits" can be an emotional turmoil, and Kevin has remained calm throughout the past hours. He is not however blocked from editing, and his communication deserves consideration and reply. Personally I think he also deserves to be commended for his demeanor during difficult times, and I would fully support him as an administrator in the future.
Misplaced Pages often goes to extremes. With copy-vio, I think that's usually a good thing. With outing (or doxing if you prefer), it can go a bit far. If editor A states by his own choice (in a blog) on the internet that he is this and that; to expect it to somehow remain private is absolutely absurd. This site has no problem posting that some barely notable athlete, politician, entertainer or whatever had a DUI 20 years ago so long as we can put some footnote to it referencing some small town newspaper. And that is in article space where the bulk of our readership is.
That's not to say there aren't some "WP:BATTLEGROUND" issues that need to be resolved, indeed they do in this case.
I also fully endorse our efforts to protect young editors and the disclosure of private information. (which is not the case here, but I'm sure someone would have mentioned it.)
(Again, IMO), The first Arb to notice the situation should have instituted an "Arb block" with the appropriate template and severity, and then with the {{YGM}} template informed Kevin as to whatever needed to be said. In fairness, I do know that they (the arbs) have a HUGE amount on their plates to chew through at the moment though .. and that's just what I can see on their related pages - I am SOOOOOO glad I don't have to deal with their email at the moment.
As is our wont, there will be dickering over particular wording in motions, policy, and whatnot - but at some point "common-sense" really should play a factor; and I hope this is found soon. There's discussions to be had with Kevin. There's discussions to be had with Cla68. And there's all that other "stuff" you Arbs do, so I shall leave you to that, and wish you the best. We'll all go try to tweak the wording on policies, guidelines, and I'm sure multiple essay entries. Perhaps shortly, even some article work. — Ched : ? 01:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Well said, in general. On the specific idea of tagging it as an "Arb block", the uncommon circumstances were already flagged up, and even the standard procedure in WP:BLOCK#Block reviews would have meant taking it to AN before unblocking. . . . . . dave souza, talk11:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Insightful post. The problem however that what we have here is stupidity upon stupidity upon stupidity upon stupidity. Misplaced Pages usually does ok at unwinding one level of stupidity, and most of the time it fails if it's two levels. Here there is so much iterations that I'm not sure one can hope for "common sense" being found anytime soon.Volunteer Marek02:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Cla acted like a idiot and probably shouldn't have been unblocked in that manner, but the kneejerk desysop was way too severe. It reiterates the point that ArbCom is too quick to remove the bit when an admin makes a mistake. Arbcom needs to cut back with the one-issue desysops and needs to stop interfering in situations to get their point across. This was an issue that needed to be hashed out by the community, somewhere like ANI. This was not an issue for the ArbCom to come down with the mallet and shoo the bystanders away. Their scope of power grows every year.... ThemFromSpace02:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Much as I sympathise with an admin making a mistake, and losing the bit is clearly a dreadful shock, temporary removal of the tools for an obvious misjudgment needs a measured response making it clear that lessons have been learnt. . dave souza, talk11:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Voting procedure
I am curious, the Level II procedure says any motion needs to be passed by a "majority of active Arbitrators", period. Nowhere does it exclude recusals from this count. Does that mean it would have to be a majority of all Arbitrators, even those who are recused? Should that be the case then the majority wasn't met because a majority of fourteen would require eight votes and there are only seven.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.00:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Arbitrators are presumed active unless they are on a wikibreak, have not participated in arbitration within the past week, or have informed the Committee of their absence. An inactive arbitrator may become active by voting on any aspect of a proceeding. An active arbitrator may become inactive by so stating, in which case their votes will be struck through and discounted.
It does not mention recusal among the things that would cause them to be seen as inactive. Everywhere else, including in the section DHeyward mentions below, they are specifically stated as "active, non-recused", suggesting "recused" and "inactive" are not the same. The Level II procedure only says "active" and nothing more. It suggests that recusals are counted when calculating a majority in such cases.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.04:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Arbitrator votes are calculated on the following basis:
Each active, non-recused arbitrator may cast one vote; and
Recused, abstaining, and inactive arbitrators are discounted.
The following expressions are used, with the following meanings:
"Four net votes": the number of votes to support or accept is at least four greater than the number of votes to oppose or decline.
"Absolute majority": the number of votes to support or accept is greater than 50% of the total number of arbitrators, not including any arbitrators who are recused, abstaining, or inactive.
I'm also curious about a point. Given that Hersfold has stated that the desysop is permanent, can I take it that the Arbitration Committee has determined that "a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate", and that the Committee will be opening a case to investigate the removal of permissions etc? Arbitrators above have said the next move is up to me, but your rules say otherwise. Kevin (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Here's what they've said Kevin (someone please correct me if this is inaccurate). They temporarily desysopped you under L2 rules. If you wish to get your bit back, you will open an arbitration case yourself about this whole blocking and unblocking incident. If that fails, or you fail to open it, it will be seen as a resignation of your bit under a cloud, at which time you will be required to re-pass an RfA before re-obtaining the bit. gwickwireediting01:17, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Did you read those L2 procedures? They are quite clear. Either they accept my explanation and restore sysop tools to me, or they don't, in which case arbitration proceedings will be opened. Kevin (talk) 01:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
You're missing the point. Proceedings will be opened by Arbcom, unless my reading skills have let me down, or the rules are changed. I don't have a choice whether a case is opened, I can only make it sooner. Kevin (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I guess something I'm not quite understanding is how this works if a case is started. Does that mean that Kevin has to present evidence and all the rest of it, with other editors joining in? Because if that's what's envisaged, it's pretty much certain to be a massive drama-fest. Would it not be more satisfactory for the ArbCom and Kevin to work out some kind of resolution, perhaps with Kevin providing assurances on future conduct, without putting the community through potentially weeks of aggravation? Prioryman (talk) 01:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict × with Prioryman) so this isn't chronologically following, but here: I'll quote it here for those that don't know it:
The initiating arbitrator will (a) leave a message on the account's talk page, asking the account to contact arbcom-l, and (b) send a similar message to the account by Misplaced Pages e-mail, if enabled. The initiating arbitrator will then send a message to arbcom-l (a) stating the name of the account, (b) briefly describing the issue, providing examples of inappropriate conduct, and (c) recommending removal of permissions. The Committee will then schedule deliberations on the matter. A request for removal of advanced permissions may be made once a motion to do so has been endorsed by a majority of active arbitrators. Once removal has been approved, an arbitrator will post a notice, including the text of the motion and the names of arbitrators endorsing it, to the Meta-Wiki permissions page, the Committee's noticeboard, the administrators' noticeboard, and the user's talk page.
"schedule deliberations" in this case refers to the inter-arbitrator discussion that comes before the removal. Note that the removal is the last step. Therefore, ArbCom has to do nothing more. The burden is on you to open a case and prove yourself innocent. gwickwireediting01:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
User:Kevin has also taken this to my talkpage to tell me I missed something: That the page also says "If the user in question requests it"... That means the user must initiate the case. gwickwireediting01:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
To Kevin. Procedures state that you can request a case to be opened. Then, the result of the case will be the final desicion, although you can still go through an RFA after the case closes if the desicion does not involve a restriction from running for adminship, which, in my opinion, is very unlikely. — ΛΧΣ02:06, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
So, clarification needed. If an ArbCom case is opened, since it involves a decision made by some of the Arbs, are the Arbs that voted on this decision going to recuse themselves? It's their actions which are under scrutiny as much as Kevin's.Volunteer Marek02:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Good question. I have not seen this type of procedures in action in the past. I think that the case would study the whole Cla68 thing, including the unblock, and then reach a conslusion whether to restore the bit, or to remove it as a remedy of the case; I don't think that the arbitrators need to recuse themselves, mostly because they are not active parties in the dispute; they just performed an action that falls within their boundaries while desysopping Kevin, but that does not make them involved. That's what I think. — ΛΧΣ03:06, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, no. Part of the question is whether their actions fall within their boundaries. Hence they are a party to the case. Which makes them involved. How do we decide that anyway? Volunteer Marek03:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee desysopping a user under Level II procedures is not an action that can automatically make the whole Committee involved. That would leave us in an empty space where nobody could then solve the issue. What the case would discuss would be if the desysopping really fell under such procedures, or whether the situation was dangerous enough to warrant such procedures to be followed. Then, a permanent removal (e.g. pending of a fresh RfA) or a restoration of the userrights will be the remedy of such case. (Disclosure: This is purely hypothetical. I have never seen this type of procedures in action in the past, and what I'm saying wouldn't be 100% accurate). — ΛΧΣ03:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say the "whole" committee. Just the folks who, perhaps inappropriately invoked "Level II procedures" and voted on the damn thing. There might be a few recused/inactive/didnt vote ArbComs left but even there it's sketchy. Also, quit it with the faux-lawyer talk. This ain't TV.Volunteer Marek03:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I am just trying to, as a clerk, explain what is my understanding of the matter, or what may be ArbCom's understanding of the matter. This does not mean that I agree (or not) with the desysopping or the block. I am sorry if the way I express myself comes to as faux-lawyer; that is the way I am used to speak everywhere. Regards. — ΛΧΣ03:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough and sorry for being irritable, there's just too much "I'm not a lawyer but I play one on Misplaced Pages" in all of this commentary overall. Your comment wasn't actually that bad and I think it just broke some annoyance threshold. Cheers.Volunteer Marek03:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Don't worry. I understand that this is an irritable situation that should not have happened, in my opinion. — ΛΧΣ03:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Given that not a bureaucracy is still a pillar (unless the committee's gonna clarify that by motion, too) I've filed the darn case, so we can stop haggling over whether it's Kevin's thing or arbcom's thing. NE Ent03:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Clarification questions
Hi. It's unclear to me what exactly is disallowed here. It seems like a link to wikipediocracy.com is currently allowed. And links to other non-Russavia-related posts are seemingly currently allowed. Is that correct? It seems wikipediocracy.com is linked a fair amount around here. But don't all of these links constitute outing currently (given the dynamic sidebar content)? Or does this only apply to new links? Clarification would be great. We don't want to leave tripwires laying around for editors, surely. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Link was surpressed, I was not thinking clearly, this is pretty common... *trout self* and don't continue this
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Possible continued outside harassment
I've been made aware of <removed> posting, and just wanted anyone else to know that there's possibly going to be some off-wiki coordination/canvassing/discussion/whatever about this case and the result. Just a notice to anyone involved, don't be surprised to be called a "dipshit" and be linked to for others to do the same. gwickwireediting01:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, who oversighted gwickwire's edits?
You've had the time to block MZMcbride, surely you've had time to consider this question?Volunteer Marek04:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Whoever oversighted the edits cannot be revealed unless they voluntarily give up that information. And considering the amount of offwiki harassment a lot of people here are being subjected to, I doubt they will. --Rschen775404:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
What happened to all the promises of "Transparency" that a lot of these candidates ran on? Considering the amount of overisighting of what may be relevant information (hard to tell with all the oversightin') that is going on it's certainly pertinent. And honestly, there's no "offwiki harassment a lot of people here are being subjected to". You. 're. Full. Of. Shit. All that's going on is that outside critics are discussing the situation without the ability of certain parties to silence them. Please keep the discussion honest at least.Volunteer Marek04:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Transparency can only happen if there is trust. When the threat of being doxed yourself hangs in the air, all trust dissolves. --Guerillero | My Talk04:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I think that you should keep your statements honest, and to show you that I'm definitely aware, I will say that I am quite proud of the topic area that I edit, and I will proudly display plenty of road-related items on my userpage for the rest of the time that I edit this site. --Rschen775404:43, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
I would personally recommend for your own sake that being over-proud of your work, alienating an entire community seemingly without any awareness of it whatsoever, has been your achilles heel, not to mention what on earth it has to do with the current situation (ie: nothing at all). Once again, everyone needs to calm down, take a deep breath, and go back to improving the encyclopedia. If it needs to go up to an ArbCom case or an RfA to make a definitive decision on whether or not Kevin keeps his tools, then so be it, but in the meantime, everything else is bunk. Ritchie33311:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Rschen7754, I have no idea of what you're talking about now. Guerillero, you're basically saying that we have no right to now who oversighted the edits because whoever did so is under some great threat? Are you freakin' serious? It's a simple question and AFAIK who oversighted some edit has never been "kept secret". Also, the depreciation of trust runs the other way here.Volunteer Marek04:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
You realize I can't be more specific at risk of getting oversighted myself, righ
Who does what OS actions is considered private data. There are times when an OSer who did that action gives up that information but it does not need to be released. If it were public information, anyone would be able to see the OS log. --Guerillero | My Talk05:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The suppression log is private. If you want to email the functionaries-en mailing list in case the oversighter in question is not watching this discussion, they might be willing to reveal themselves. NW(Talk)05:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
AFAICT it's not "private", just "not readily available". If the information is requested then shouldn't it be provided? If there is some relevant policy I don't know about somewhere, I'll happily drop this.Volunteer Marek05:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's necessary just as a practical matter that the log be hidden from public view for at least two reasons (1) an oversighter might say something that needs to be private in their deletion summary and (2) if someone's privacy is being violated, you don't want to violate it further by calling attention to it. But just because the log is hidden from public view doesn't mean that the fact of who performed the oversight is secret information that cannot be revealed if there is a reason to reveal it. (I don't know that such a reason exists in this case - the link in question obviously needed to be oversighted and whatever oversighter saw it first was going to remove it.) --B (talk) 06:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
This is one of the most blatant lies i've ever seen, Marek. You posted in the same Wikipediocracy thread after Rschen was doxed, so unless you don't read anyone else's posts, you know perfectly well what he's talking about. Thus far, there's been at least two people who have been involved in the discussion on this page that have been doxed by banned sockpuppeteer User:Vigilant in that Wikipediocracy thread. And now you're asking for more people to be named essentially so they can get doxed too? Silverseren04:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
No SS, you're wrong. Yes, I posted in the same thread. No, I usually don't read the whole thread. While there's a lot of substantial criticism on Wikipediocracy it's true there's also a lot of noise. Same thing is true of Misplaced Pages. What's your point? Now. What exactly is a "blatant lie"? I'm confused. All I see is people like you or Demiurge1000 going after, attacking, and blatantly lying about anyone who's ever posted on Wikipediocracy. Oh wait. Not everyone. Not the admins and arbitrators who post there, because you still have to: kiss. their. fucking. ass. to try and get what you want, which most of the time you don't get, because, best I can tell, they respect these evil Wikipediocracy folks (at least some of them) more than plain ol' wastes of time like you (and a few others). Dweeb.Volunteer Marek04:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
The lie is saying that you don't know what Rschen is talking about, when you know perfectly well that he was doxed. And the comment in which he was doxed also criticized the fact that he works on road articles.
How am I lying about what is said on Wikipediocracy? Demiurge's comment was also verified by the subject he was talking about. This is also discussed in the Wikipediocracy thread. The only person I respect on Wikipediocracy is Zoloft and that's because he isn't a jerk.
The real wastes of space are the people on Wikipediocracy who spend all of their time trawling through Misplaced Pages looking for stuff they can criticize. And they say Wikipedians don't have a life? Then what do you call the people who spend all their time reading the talk pages and noticeboards that Wikipedians post on? Silverseren04:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I still have no idea of what you're talking about. I don't know who Rschen is, aside from his posts in these relevant on Wiki discussions. Is s/he the minor? Then s/he probably shouldn't be editing Misplaced Pages anyway, but that's beside the point. I've never read any articles on roads ... probably. Maybe some road in Poland or... Gibraltar? Is this what you are talking about? I seem to recall some controversy about some non-notable road in Gibraltar being rammed through DYK and thinking "this is sort of dumb" at the time but I can't remember if I actually commented on it. You seem to have constructed some paranoid alter-reality and are blaming me for not actually conforming to that alter-reality. And you call that "lying". Sorry bud, that's your own wackiness, not mine. You act like a person in need of a few days in the equivalent of a Wiki detox tank.Volunteer Marek05:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Either you actually didn't read Vigilant's comments in the thread, which is highly unlikely considering your comments there and your comment right here or you're basically trolling and attempting to get me to be more specific so the comment will get oversighted. Nice try at bringing up the unrelated Gibraltar thing though. It's sad that you're actually supporting people like Vigilant and their actions. Silverseren05:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Let's try this one more time. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. I read some of Vigilant's comments. Maybe I missed some others. Which I guess are the one's you're obsessing about. Ok dude, it's pretty obvious that you follow Wikipediocracy a lot more obsessively than I do. I guess I'm surprised - though didn't you start some black list page on Wikipediocracy contributors or something? But don't project your own compulsive behavior onto others. There's a Commandment which says that, you know (the 11.5 one). Obey.Volunteer Marek05:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
So you know what other editors were commenting about Demiurge, but not about Rschen? Very selective reading you've got going on there. And, again, nice use of logical fallacies like poisoning the well in order to avoid the actual subject of discussion. Silverseren05:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Both of you should stop the nastiness. Silver seren, I am aware of demiurge's complaints because he has complained at ANI and made weird accusations against Marek. Demiurge has been criticized enough on wiki that nobody with a life needs to go elsewhere to complain about him. I assume that Marek has a similar history. He is aware that bizarre comments were made about demiurge at Wikipediocracy, which led to Demi making much less bizarre comments here, which were enough to get him blocked. Marek didn't have to read or remember any Wikipediocracy thread about demi. Kiefer.Wolfowitz00:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
There's no proving innocent to be done. It was an Oversighter block and was clearly labeled as such, saying not to unblock without consulting Arbcom. Unblocking is thus a violation of policy. No, what he needs to do is "open a case and explain why you are trusted enough to be given back the tools". Silverseren04:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
It appears that by some error of neglect you failed to post this motion lifting Russavia's block on this noticeboard. So, for your convenience, here is a copy.
The Arbitration Committee has approved the following motion, which decides Russavia's recent block appeal:
On 3 April 2012, Russavia was blocked for six months and topic-banned from all pages and discussions relating to Eastern Europe across all namespaces. On 13 May 2012, the six month block was extended to one year on the basis that this comment—made by Russavia on his talk page while he was blocked—violated his Eastern Europe topic ban. In January 2013, Russavia appealed his block and topic-ban to the Arbitration Committee. The Arbitration Committee accepts his appeal, vacates the six-month block and the one-year block that replaced it, but retains the Eastern Europe topic ban. We remind Russavia that, if he makes any further edits mentioning Polandball and similar cartoons (broadly construed), he will again be in violation of his topic ban and may be summarily re-blocked by any administrator in line with the usual methods of enforcing a discretionary sanction.
Supporting motion: Coren, NuclearWarfare, Hersfold, SilkTork, AGK (proposing), David Fuchs, Courcelles, and Worm That Turned.
Opposing: (none).
Not voting: Carcharoth, Newyorkbrad, Kirill Lokshin, and Roger Davies.
Inactive: Risker, Salvio guiliano.
Recused: Timotheus Canens.
For the Arbitration Committee, AGK 14:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Hex. I had looked yesterday, but thought I might be unaware of some technicality. — Ched : ? 12:04, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
In the recent case of Kevin, no such notification to Meta-Wiki was made. In light of that fact, I have the following questions for the Arbitration Committee.
How often has corner-cutting like this happened before?
Does this failure to comply with the full terms of your own procedures demonstrate that you have a cavalier attitude, and are only interested as a group in following the procedures as far as they suit your own convenience?
If not, why are you participating in serious actions (the removal of sysop permissions) without fully adhering to the rules that you yourselves, in the case of five current arbitrators, or those who sat in those chairs before you, set down for the way you must operate as a group?
You may consider this nit-picking. I think that it is a gross breach of trust for a group that was elected to perform Misplaced Pages's highest level of dispute resolution to act in a lazy, or worse careless, manner. — Hex(❝?!❞)15:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Just a note: These text was written before local bureucrats had the technical ability to remove the sysop bit. Now that our crats can perform a desysopping, there is no need to inform the stewards. I hope this clarifies a bit. — ΛΧΣ15:26, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
If the procedure is out of date, it should be rewritten. Until such time as that happens, the procedure should be followed to the letter. If the people that are supposed to be bound by a procedure can casually ignore part of it for some reason, then it's not a procedure at all. My original question about ArbCom's attitude to taking procedure seriously stands. — Hex(❝?!❞)16:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I have a hard time believing that you are not perfectly aware that desysops have not been made by stewards since our bureaucrats have been given the tool to do it locally a long time ago. I'm at a loss to explain your outrage that an obsolete step was not made in a process that no longer exists. — Coren16:39, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
(In fact, if my understanding of Steward policy is correct, they would have been forbidden to perform the desysop since we now have local users with that right). — Coren16:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
If your process no longer exists, why does your procedure still refer to it? Do you people actually give a damn about being accurate and correct at all, or is "close enough" the ArbCom way now? — Hex(❝?!❞)16:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Frankly, no one on the Committee, and most of the Community, cares whether the desysopping was carried out through a formal request on Meta-Wiki or an IRC ping alerting a bureaucrat or steward to the Arbitration decision. NW(Talk)17:04, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
It is painfully obvious that you people do not care.The more I examine what you do, the clearer it is that care is not an operating principle of your group. Whether it's communicating in a proper and timely fashion with the people whose status on this project you're deliberating; notifying the project of your decisions (see section above); adhering to the letter of your own procedures; or even keeping those procedures in the most basic condition of being up to date, your group is completely incompetent. While you make big business of paying lip service to your own hallowed rules, with the faintest amount of scrutiny it becomes obvious that your actions are pure slapdash.Your evident disdain in your reply to me makes it abundantly clear that you do not truly have the interests of this community at heart. If you did, you would be taking pains to make sure that ArbCom's work for the English Misplaced Pages is performed in a comprehensive and accurate fashion. Yet here you are, actually stating publicly that you don't have even the basic level of respect for us to put your own house in order. You are a bad joke at the expense of good faith. — Hex(❝?!❞)17:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Hex, you're falling for the trap described in the corollary here; just because you dislike ArbCom, you're assuming that everything they do is wrong. It's making you look foolish. This is basically the same thing as expressing outrage because they misspelled a word in an official notice. Part of the reason this whole thing is a complete mess is because people are yelling and screaming about fifteen different things all at the same time, many of them very unimportant in the grand scheme of things, impeding discussion of the things that are important. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Let me tell you a little story, Floquenbeam, without dropping to the level of calling you names. Back in the dim and distant days of January 2009, I was a party in something called WP:ARBDATE - the date delinking arbitration. I'm guessing you didn't know about it, as you'd only just arrived here. It ground on for five long and exhausting months. It was so rancorous, petty and annoying that by comparison the recent "Star Trek(:)? nto Darkness" squabble looks like a polite discussion over afternoon tea. It was massively exacerbated by achingly long periods in which the ArbCom of the time did nothing at all for weeks, leaving the inmates of the arbitration - for at times, that's what it felt like - to argue and argue, with tempers fraying and tops blowing everywhere you looked. In terms of reducing conflict - of arbitration - it was a dismal failure. The experience was so draining that I avoided going anywhere near any area involving the administration of this project for a very, very long time afterwards. Especially if it involved some kind of dispute.Now this month I've had cause to encounter the ArbCom and its actions in some detail once again. Of the members of the ArbCom that dealt with ARBDATE, four are still serving today. It is blindingly obvious from the cack-handed way that the Cla68/Kevin case has been handled - and particularly from the painfully poor communication - that no institutional lessons have been learned since then. If anything, it's actually gotten worse; I don't recall it modifying policy by fiat in those days. — Hex(❝?!❞)20:29, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Let me explain. Until bureaucrats had the technical ability to desysop, requests for desysopping had to go to Steward requests/Permissions because, for all practical purposes, they were the only people who could do it. After the change to the bureaucrats' tool kit a year or so back, it became unnecessary to ask the stewards because bureaucrats could flip the bit and requests could therefore be made directly to them. However, bureaucrats can't remove the bureaucrat bit, or checkuser or oversight - all these still need to be pulled by a steward - so ArbCom requests for those would continue to go to Steward requests/Permissions. The current procedure is slightly out of sync with the slightly more convoluted actual practice and it will be updated in due course. Thank you for drawing this to our attention. Roger Davies17:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
If you genuinely believe that, I take my hat off to you; you have a mastery of doublethink that I can only dream of attaining. — Hex(❝?!❞)20:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Just to note, desysops may be done locally, but removal of oversight or checkuser permissions still needs to go to stewards at Meta. We will update it when we are doing other reviews. Risker (talk) 17:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
As critical as I have been over arbcom's actions here, there's a difference between steps that relate to due process or community notification vs steps that are simply a matter of technical necessity. Notifying the meta wiki board doesn't help with either due process nor with notifying the Misplaced Pages community and therefore it is not necessary. The better criticism of this desysop is that it violates this rule - "Removal is protective, intended to prevent harm to the encyclopedia while investigations take place". Level II removal is analogous to denying bail while the trial is underway - but denying bail is not a complete replacement of the trial. --B (talk) 17:42, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Just a comment. Enwiki administrators' rights can be removed either by local 'crats or stewards (this is different from other wikis where 'crats can remove admins, such as meta and frwiki) because the local policy specifically allows Steward to continue to perform such actions, and it actually gives a bit more leeway to Stewards than 'crats. However, with the steward hat I can say that we'd probably rather not do so unless it's actually needed. The provision pointing to meta's permission page dates back from before local 'crats processed such requests. I don't particularly agree that a mandated requirement to post to m:SRP is the same as pinging a 'crat on IRC, but I would agree that it is the same as a post on WP:BN. Again, I don't think Stewards would necessarily object to have to process such request if the community feels that is needed, but it don't think that's add something to the process. Snowolf17:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Reply to several above: If you think that this section is about stewards or the technical ins and outs of desysopping, you have missed the point extremely badly. — Hex(❝?!❞)20:33, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
There was no reason in this instance for Meta-Wiki to need to be notified. The fact that the User:Hex wishes to care more about the letter of the policy than the spirit is no matter of mine, but we do not have to listen and keep replying to his grasping at straws to get his buddy resysopped. gwickwireediting21:29, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
FYI, champ, I'd never heard of Kevin until a few days ago. As you, Beeblebrox and Prioryman evidently need to have things s-p-e-l-l-e-d o-u-t c-l-e-a-r-l-y, this is not about him getting the bit back. Kevin's fate is merely the latest symptom of incompetent community management. The specific details of the things I pointed out are not the problem. The problem is what all those things are signs of: that ArbCom doesn't have a goddamn clue about how rational, functional and logical organizations are organized and behave. — Hex(❝?!❞)22:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Please tell me something, Hex. You say that ArbCom fell from grace in your eyes during a 2009 case. Did nothing change during your own recent case, which as far as I can tell was handled expeditiously and humanely. Or is your dissatisfaction now compounded by that?
On your other point. You seem to be saying that you want GovCom, not ArbCom. All the indictions are that this is not what the community wants. ArbCom is elected from the community, by the community, and with the widely differing opinions of its members is probably the community in microcosm. If we had budgets for salaries, training, for a secretariat, and for management sofware, we'd probably handle things very differently. Roger Davies07:44, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I didn't have that event in mind at all this week. But since you ask, despite the outcome being a reasonable one - I did have a major issue with the way it was handled. Who holds a trial of someone accused of causing harm without the victim being involved? It was absurdly unfair. When it became obvious what the result was going to be, I decided to let that slide in the interests of having it be over sooner. — Hex(❝?!❞)18:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
If one side is going to quote "letter of policy", indeed to the point of passing a motion to enact one - then I think the other side has every right to demand equal "letter of policy". I agree that less haste would have been better, but when you make claims on one side .. anything else for the other side is sheer hypocrisy. — Ched : ? 21:39, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I interact with non-enwiki stewards on a regular basis (with my Wikidata admin / English Wikivoyage admin / m:SWMT hats on), and they tell me that they are very reluctant to do anything on enwiki or dewiki because it's very easy for them to anger the local community if they screw up. --Rschen775421:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I have no interest in trolling ArbCom, but I have a few purely procedural questions here. I think X! is a great guy and was well within his rights to carry out the technical desysop of Kevin (ArbCom said "he is desysopped", X! is able to desysop, end of story), but, out of curiosity:
Who decides who presses the button? There was no post to BN or m:SN. Was this handled over IRC, then? Or is the idea that whoever sees the announcement first gets to do it?
X! is an ArbCom clerk. Is it a coincidence that he was the one who did it, or was he specifically requested to? Was he acting in his capacity as an uninvolved bureaucrat, a clerk carrying out an order, or both? Also, X! was only re-cratted a few weeks ago; before that, there were no 'crat clerks. I take it, then, that at least in the past desysops have been carried out by 'crats who aren't ArbCom clerks. Does ArbCom see this as a positive or a negative? (It's the only case I can really think of where a direct ArbCom order wouldn't be carried out by a clerk or Arb.)
Anyways, IMHO once the dust settles on this Kevin thing, ArbCom should just pass a quick motion changing various references to stewards to either bureaucrats or to both. I noticed this contradiction a bit before Hex did and didn't think it could be that much of a cause for concern, but since it seems clear there are people on this project who have nothing better to do with their time than complain about technicalities, it's probably better to clear up those technicalities now than to create future needless drama and confusion. — PinkAmpers&05:33, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I asked the nearest 'crat I can find on IRC while I was preparing the announcement for posting. That X! happened to also be a clerk was a coincidence. T. Canens (talk) 05:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Clerks do carry out admin actions such as ArbCom bans when closing cases, if they happen to be admins. --Rschen775405:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Precisely. Tim asked if there was a crat around, and I was. It's a strange situation, because the last time that there was a crat clerk, crats could not desysop admins. That said, this whole issue of "stewards only" reeks of wikilawyering, and I'm not sure why we're still discussing it. It's from a time when crats couldn't desysop, and no one got around to updating it because there's other things for ArbCom to worry about than little things like that. It'll get changed, sure, but would posting to the stewards noticeboard, etc. really be a better solution than just asking a bureaucrat? Sometimes, ignoring the letter is better than following the letter. (I will also note that cases such as this was one of the primary arguments given for the ability to desysop) (X! · talk) · @345 · 07:16, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Ahh. Thanks for answering my questions guys. And yes, I agree with you, X!. As I said, they asked for a desysop, you're able to desysop... 'nuff said. This is a clear case where policy simply hasn't been updated to reflect consensus, which probably has something to do with the fact that the Arbitration policy can only be ammended by motion; if it were any other policy, I'm sure that someone would have made the correction years ago. Anyways, I thought it was worth pointing out that, all wikipolitics aside, this probably should be addressed eventually, if only to avoid providing any more fuel for the fire the next time this has to happen. — PinkAmpers&09:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
This was addressed in the long discussion during adoption of the decision see eg. , including power to issue binding decisions that interpret policy and create procedure re privacy related issues and User conduct. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Please provide link to policy which supports "create procedure re privacy related issues." The arbcom scope explicitly states "resolve," but resolve ≠ create. NE Ent15:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
As was already quoted in the prior discussion, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy#Policy and precedent: "The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced." That's how issues regarding privacy and user conduct are resolved. The plain language of the decision interprets, recognises and calls attention to standards, and involves procedure for enforcement in those areas. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:30, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
So what I understand ASW is saying is Privacy is an existing community approved (or WMF required) policy -- and arbcom prohibiting non-oversight admins from unblocking is not writing new policy but providing a clearer procedure for enforcement thereof? That's the best justification I've read yet (I don't recall seeing it in the prior discussion; either I just missed or it wasn't worded quite so crisply.) NE Ent19:01, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
That's the best justification I've read yet - it's really not, he just used a bunch of fancy talk to make it sound important. It is what you originally said it was - a power grab outside the Committee's scope.Volunteer Marek03:38, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't always, but on this occasion I agree with Marek. ArbCom has clearly acted ultra vires and invented a new policy. If ArbCom can pass a motion that effectively creates new policy despite the objections of several respected members of the community (including some who are not normally known for cynicism of ArbCom), then it seems its powers are whatever it says they are. After all, if it doesn't have a particular power, it can just pass a motion granting itself the power, and the community is powerless to do anything (because the committee obviously knows best, and will just over-rule the plebs). So we now have a fully fledged GovCom and we can abandon the pretence of being a self-governing community. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Am I missing something or does that link to the motion go to nothing about oversight blocks? I get something about Armenia-Azerbaijan and a ctrl+F doesn't find anything about oversight. Aside from that, does the wording of this motion irritate anyone else? A "reminder" for something that we actually haven't been told in the past. Jenks24 (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
WIthout entering into debate about the rights and wrongs of all this, I presume (but would appreciate confirmation) that blocks by checkuser/oversighters should be treated in the same way as blocks by any other administrator unless expressly stated to be checkuser/oversight based blocks? WJBscribe(talk)23:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, of course. Unless you have reason to presume that non-public information was involved in making the block, you can reasonably assume that a block by an oversighter was done in their capacity as an administrator. NW(Talk)23:55, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the general principle, but why is it only "community" appointees who are discouraged from routine or regular use of either tool? Especially considering a lot of these appointees already hold OS/CU, then why are they different from the arbs? If it's just the lack of manpower for these tools, it would make sense (to me at least) to appoint more CU/OSers so that those on the subcommittee only need to audit for the time they're on there. Jenks24 (talk) 08:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
I suppose the difference is that arbitrators need to use their tools to review ordinary (ie non-AUSC) arbitration matters. This doesn't apply to cmmunity members. But the principle you propose holds; it would be great to have more CU/OS and we have an appointment round starting in the next week or so to address this. Roger Davies08:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Regarding point #2 — does this basically mean anyone other than Sarek? Specifically, let's say that I notice something he's written in userspace, AFCspace, etc.; am I allowed to move it to mainspace as if it had been created by someone who'd never interacted with him before? Nyttend (talk) 06:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Is this not a question of "wait and see"? The process of review was not described, but couldn't that happen on a dedicated subpage of WP:NRHP? (If there were problems with new articles or redirects changed to stubs in article space, they would presumably be reported at WP:AE.) Mathsci (talk) 06:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
No clue regarding your question, but I like the idea of a dedicated subpage — as long as we don't attempt to restrict it to there. Surely any uninvolved editor should be able to move pages, even without having heard of WP:NRHP. Nyttend (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand your meaning — I meant that we mustn't restrict the group of potential page-movers to people who are going to know about WP:NRHP. We have to give others the opportunity to review his creations by listing them elsewhere, too. Nyttend (talk) 12:40, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree. But other topics, like the ones I mentioned, beyond NRHP have arisen. Perhaps a page in Doncram's user space? Or Doncram himself could post links to the proposed new articles on relevant project pages. Mathsci (talk) 14:57, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Interesting question about who can move Doncram's pages to article space. At first glance, one would think that it would be helpful for other parties to this case to move his content out of article space. However, I can see one problem that could result if I reviewed his stuff and decided it was OK. That is, if someone else then proposed to delete the page, he could complain that I deliberately set him up for the AFD by moving the page before it was ready. (Similar accusations arose in the past.) Accordingly, I think it's best if I refrain from that activity, even if I think he's doing wonderful work. --Orlady (talk) 13:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The intent of the remedy, at least as I voted on it, was that some third party would communicate with Doncram and ask whether he thinks a draft is ready to be moved, or vice versa. NW(Talk)13:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
What if we suggest to Doncram that a page be created in his userspace at which he would add links to pages that were ready to go? Anyone could review a page that was linked there and move it, since his action of adding a link would mean that he believed that the linked page was ready. Nyttend (talk) 02:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Fæ is hereby limited to one account, and expressly denied the option of a fresh WP:CLEANSTART. Should Fæ wish to change the name of the one account he is allowed to use, he must receive prior permission from the Arbitration Committee before editing under any other username. Fæ must provide a list of all accounts they have controlled to the Committee, with any objections to making the accounts publicly listed. The Committee will then advise Fæ of whether they will need to list the objected to account(s) publicly.
The wording suggests that it was ArbCom's intention to list the accounts used unless Fæ could supply reasonable objections to listing certain accounts. Will ArbCom be publishing the list of accounts? If ArbCom has agreed with Fæ that certain accounts will not be publicly listed, can the other alternate accounts be listed, along with a statement from either Fæ or ArbCom identifying the number of accounts that Fæ has supplied to ArbCom that will not be listed? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Delicious carbuncle. I can confirm that the committee received Fæ's declarations of alternate accounts and comments regarding their publishing. These factors were taken into account when the unblock was agreed, and I don't see any further comment from Arbcom as a whole necessary. Worm(talk) 09:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Well yes, but the problem was the community felt the situation with the accounts was widespread and there was a lot more below the surface. Hence arbcoms wording that DC has quoted. Given that, does this mean Fae objected to ALL of his alt-accounts being listed in public? Or only a couple and that arbcom have not felt the need to release the ones that he didnt object to? Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:27, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Buncha putzes. Thanks for finally undoing your stupid and short-sighted mistake. Perhaps the next motion can be dissolving this mess of a committee. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Without commenting on MZ's suicide-by-admin to make a point, that's a rose-tinted view, Fozzie. This was a chain of fuck ups, and there can be no reasonable doubt that Beeblebrox should have used a clearer log summary or referred the matter to ArbCom (but he was unwise or overly hasty and acting in good faith, a lot like Kevin, but Kevin was the last one standing in this game of musical chairs). Nor can there be any doubt that ArbCom's actions entirely unnecessarily escalated the situation, and created so much drama that Beeb's oversighting and block were rendered moot. If you can't see the inherent contradiction in escalating a situation while trying to remove what started it from public view, you should resign. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
First off, please keep current, I haven't been an arb for about 10 weeks now :). Could the message have been a little clearer? Sure. But the block of Cla (and later removal of talk page access) was extremely well-founded in policy. Kevin's action was in no shape or form well-founded. As I stated in my statement during the just removed case, it was a binary set, either he realized what he did was wrong and pledged not to do it again, and get the tools back with an admonishment, or if he decided to stand by his action, make the removal permanent. Thankfully, he took the former action, and it was all resolved, until this new "suicide by admin" action by MzMcBride (who has a history of such forcing actions). So I'd say that the escalations rely far heavily on the other side of the issue, then with ArbCom. SirFozzie (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
My apologies; I guess I thought you were part of the furniture! I'm sure MZ's suicide by admin will be resolved when this all blows over. You seem to have missed my point above—I don't think Kevin's action was a good idea (I don't think it was malicious or intended to make a point about "oversighter blocks", but it was pretty stupid), but it was more-or-less resolved at that point, until ArbCom seems to have decided that putting Kevin in the stocks was more important than drawing attention away from what was suppressed. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh snap. — Hex(❝?!❞)18:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC) P.S. I'm considering the best way to bring this ArbCom up for full community review. If anyone else is interested in working on that, please drop me a line.
While I've been on the side of defusing drama, I must admit that MZM's link points to a page that names (no idea if the names are correct or not) two editors. Definitely not up there on the list of good moves (I mean that MZM's post was not wise and AGK seems to have had no choice). --regentspark (comment) 18:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's possible to convey how petty and picayune this entire dispute appears to anyone outside the immediately relevant wikipolitical bubble, so I'm not going to try. You know, as we speak there are active efforts on Misplaced Pages to remove relevant safety information about dangerous dietary supplements, and to promote false and defamatory accusations that a U.S. Senator consorted with underage Dominican prostitutes, among other things (remember when people cared about BLP?) Seriously - you people line up to edit-war over a link to wikipediocracy.com, but I can't buy a clueful or experienced outside opinion for serious medical misinformation or BLP issues. But please, go back to fighting the good fight over that wikipediocracy link. MastCell18:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that the link publicises the identities of our contributors (or at least it does at the time of my writing this). MZ probably knew that. Previously, people have allowed there to be a good ol' fight about links to that site, but I wasn't really minded to engage in a protracted wiki-drama. I asked MZ, quite plainly, to not re-post the link. When he did, I blocked him. Minimal drama, and minimal time wasted. AGK19:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
So, AGK, given that you haven't molested modified MastCell's comment, it's okay to say "wikipediocracy.com". Just not to type "http://" before that. What does that even mean? — Hex(❝?!❞)19:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, editing other people's comments to enforce an arbitrary rule that you've made up is certainly disruptive. Thanks for pointing that out. — Hex(❝?!❞)19:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
If you think that MzMcBride's actions are anything but a blatant POINT violation, then you've lost the forest for the tress. SirFozzie (talk) 19:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The irony of your describing his actions as disruptive while being part of a former-member-of-turned-apologist-for a group that's unilaterally assigned policy-writing powers to itself in violation of its own constitution is pretty good. — Hex(❝?!❞)19:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It's amazing how many people think I'm still an arbitrator. I'm not. So your Irony Meter needs a good hard whack. And I think your opinion, while shared by some, is still far in the minority here. SirFozzie (talk) 19:54, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I think the recent incidents are a good reason for editors to suggest approaches to clarifying the outing policy. Perhaps there exists a consensus that linking to editor's real-life identities when well established everywhere save Misplaced Pages is not, in fact, harassment. There's also the practical matter of what is the exact point where links or references to outing material become impermissible. That, however, is a discussion that doesn't take place here, and is not instigated by repeatedly and deliberately posting links for the sole purpose to produce drama. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs20:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Given MZM was able to post links of a similar nature on his talk page with you and another Arb not raising the same objections despite commenting in the same section, it certainly makes it seem like he had every reason to believe it would be acceptable here.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.20:08, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It's this totally inconsistent, cavalier attitude that's one of the major problems with the current ArbCom. Arbitrary enforcement is no kind of enforcement at all. — Hex(❝?!❞)20:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I just don't get that argument. What's "inconsistent"? We don't link to outing or harassment of editors because it hurts the project (I still miss Katefan0). What's "inconsistent" and "cavalier" about that? Guettarda (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm hard pressed to form an opinion on which of MZM or AGK is being more ridiculous. While MZM's edit warring is obviously pointy, this noticeboard has only 650 watchers. The committee of which AGK is a member has contributed to this fiasco being covered on Signpost, with at least 980 bot subscribers, 1676 template subscribers, plus I don't know how many to count RSS and direct page watchers. The concept that, in 2013, adding .com to the end of the name of a website somehow makes it more visible than the plain website name is absurd. I had foolishly hoped with the motion passing there'd be a drama wind down ... feeling much more like a Fool of Took than an Ent today. Is their a prohibition on starting a pool on how many more days of free publicity for "evil website" this nonsense will generate? NE Ent20:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Honestly, I was hoping for the same thing (for things to die down). With Kevin's tools restored, it should have been a chance for all sides to take a step back and review things. Instead, MzMcBride decided to throw gasoline on the dying embers of the drama-fire. SirFozzie (talk) 20:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
So we shouldn't restrict posts that have a direct link to OUTING information because it's going to spark drama? I'm sorry, it's a no win situation for folks. Someone above said that MzMcBride's actions were "Suicide by Admin".. he was TRYING to get blocked. SirFozzie (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The whole point of this sorry exercise was to protect the identity of an editor who arguably hasn't done a right lot to protect his identity. Thanks in no small part to the actions of Arbcom in going for the (almost) full drama option, even the little girl in Africa now knows who Russavia is. And 2 good editors are blocked indefinitely. It feels like you lost sight of what the actual goal was. Kevin (talk) 21:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
(deindent)
Honestly, most of this effort should be aimed at amending the policy rather then this drama. The rules as they are make things clear. If you don't like it, let's form a RfC or even an informal discussion about changing the policy. But violating a rule just because you don't like it is not a good idea. The Committee is getting heat above for "making policy" with regards to your action. Wouldn't they be "making policy" if they decided to ignore the policy as it stands (a de facto if not quite de jure change to the policy). So, if the policy needs fixing, then work to get it fixed. It'd be a hell of a lot more productive then killing millions of helpless electrons to record our scribbles here ;) SirFozzie (talk) 21:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Of course, you and AGK seem to think it is ok to completely circumvent any sort of community process to black list the site to retroactively back up your recent actions and threats.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.21:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
That's ridiculous, TDA: the reason I placed a request to blacklist the site is two fold, One, people are using it a way to violate the OUTING policy as it stands, rather than work to change the policy as they should. And the Second reason is, people were saying "Well, if we shouldn't be linking to the Outing, why isn't it on the blacklist"? So, I heeded their wish. Can't have it both ways. `SirFozzie (talk) 21:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
This one is for all the Arbs, admins, and editors, who have insured with their officious nonsense on multiple drama-boards that everyone and their mother now knows Russavia's real name:
Smash!
You've been squished by a whale!
Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something really silly.
Obviously, all due trouting should go to Cla, who laid on this disruptive pantomime with a very pointy performance. . . dave souza, talk22:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I certainly hope that this Amazing Perpetual Drama Engine you folks have invented will be patented under a free license so that whoever invents the drama-to-electricity converter will be able to provide cheap energy to power That Girl in Africa's $100 Laptop. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 22:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It is actually surprisingly difficult for a committee of 15, not all of whom are around all the time, to move expeditiously enough to contain drama once it gets going (drama is its own perpetual motion machine). It is far easier for individuals and admins to avoid actions that start or stoke or restart the drama (and I include the recent block of MZMcBride in that). And before anyone jumps up and down in faux or actual rage at the actions of the committee that magnified the drama, yes, our actions did magnify and publicise the drama, and yes, a fair number of us (me included) now regret that. I apologise for my part in that, but the only way to calm things down is if everyone takes a deep breath and takes a step back and looks at what they are really trying to achieve here. It is patently obvious that multiple people are piggy-backing on this with their own agendas. At this point, all we can really do is just try and stay reasonable and keep trying to calm things down. The core business of the committee is dealing with cases, and we have a few of those to deal with right now (two have been or are about to be closed). Plus some appeals which are slowly working their way through as we wait for enough arbitrators to be available to vote (actually, I see some have been published now). What we have learnt (I hope) is that where something involves private and personally identifying information, a less public course of action is better. But simply because an action may provoke drama is not a reason to avoid it. ArbCom is here to take the tough and difficult decisions that no-one else is prepared to handle. Carcharoth (talk) 22:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
There were very easy ways to avoid drama on this matter. First, Beeblebrox could have oversighted the edits and simply advised Cla68 not to post those links again. Instead he blocked Cla68 indefinitely for "deliberate, malicious" outing. When Kevin unblocked Cla68, the Arbs could have admonished Kevin, made their motion on oversight blocks, and avoid further drama. Instead, the choice was made to take the most ham-fisted and disruptive course, defeating the whole purpose of all these actions by effectively disseminating the original editor's identity throughout the project. It does not elude me that those responsible for these actions tend to be the admins who identify themselves proudly as hardliners who show little mercy to violators, but they are giving authority priority over fairness. As one good man said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."-The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.23:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree with what you are saying here. Hopefully lessons have been learned on all sides on how best to handle matters like this. It won't help if the next time a blog post like the one that started this is linked to in the same way as it was here. Just as there are ways for oversighters and ArbCom to do things without drawing excessive attention to something, so there must be ways for critics to raise their concerns (I say this as someone who does read various off-wiki criticism sites, and am broadly sympathetic to some of the concerns raised, if not the manner in which they are raised). What I've suggested in the past is if people have concerns based on something that they don't think they should link to (if they think it goes too far, for example), they should summarise their concerns in their own words. It is harder to do that, but probably more effective in the long run. Carcharoth (talk) 00:34, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is suggesting arbcom avoid action. I simply encourage the committee to be more prudent going forward. Specifically:
Observe the principal of minimal action; consider the least that can be done to resolve a situation (e.g. in this case the desysop was counterproductive)
Don't be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: if you're addressing something that has partial onwiki exposure, have a friendly neighborhood clerk or arb drop a note in the applicable location.
No more fiats, if a policy is unclear, just edit it; if it gets reverted, we can talk (it's a wiki, ya know?)
Be "lazy" -- don't be too eager to accept cases (e.g. tea party); uninvolved editors are not going to spend time on resolving issues if it appears the committee is about to preempt them. NE Ent02:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
The above is one of the wisest posts yet in this entire event. I sincerely hope that ArbCom takes the advice to heart. — Hex(❝?!❞)10:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Excellent news! While at times known to act unilaterally, Kevin is one of our very best — a man of principle and integrity, who has long stood in the way of cumbersome bureaucracy to do what's right. Kurtis04:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh, please, that's utter propagandistic bullshit. He's barely been an admin for the past couple of years, and then he steps in and fucks up royally. Try the Big Lie somewhere else, please, it doesn't work here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:23, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Indeed: Kevin's public logs are very sparse. There's nothing at all wrong with this as there's no requirement for admins to ever use the tools, but it clearly doesn't support claims that Kevin has been doing anything in particular in his admin role. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
That's the wrong question. The right question is: should we do everything we can to protect the privacy of our editors? Yes. Absolutely. I'm sorry a fellow editor got totally outed. If there was a way I could undo that, I would. I can't, nor can anyone else now. We can't control the context of the entire internet. We don't, and are highly unlikely to get anytime soon, a consensus that mere participation on any external website is banned. Unfortunately, due to the aggregate actions of the community -- many well intended, others not-so-much, we've arrived at the place where the only place not mentioning the W-word is Did you know on the main page. Wiktionary tells us a link is "A connection between places, persons, events, or things." Whether or not that connection consists a noun description of a website, or that website prefixed with an internet protocol and suffixed with top-level domain isn't particularly relevant. The best response to the obviously provocative url insertion would have been to ignore it. Virtually every editor halfway aware of the Misplaced Pages dispute resolution forums has already decided to go look or not by now, and robots.txt excludes it, so a school-marm revert with the edit summary No and indef threats acted much more like a neon sign Look here! Look here! More drama!! than a de-escalatory tactic -- resulting in yet another thread on ANI, yet another battlefield for the pro and anti forces to do battle.
In general, direct links to doxing info should be oversighted; if the editor persists in reposting they should be oversighted again and, pending community taking control of policy back from the committee, the {{OversightBlock}} template applied. But here, yesterday -- wrong answer: a screaming match at the stable door long after the horse had bolted into the field only attracted more onlookers. NE Ent15:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me that, given that there was significant disagreement among the community over whether Kevin's actions were appropriate or not, making him go through RFA again might have been the better solution here. But I can't blame ArbCom for wanting to draw a line under this dispute and choosing the lower-drama option of resysopping him. IMO, though, this is the sort of case that suggests desysoppings ought to be handled by the community rather than ArbCom. Given that Kevin wasn't posing any urgent threat that demanded an immediate desysop, it would have been better to have a WP:Requests for de-adminship discussion of him, so that the outcome would have been approved by community consensus, rather than ArbCom taking its own action in his case which proved extremely controversial. Robofish (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be sorry to see you go. Thanks for your service, and best of luck in your future endeavors. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your service on the arbcomm, and as an arbcomm clerk before that (especially during the climate change case). Guettarda (talk) 01:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Sad to see you go. Having just completed my first experience with an arbcom case, I am particularly appreciative of your work here -- and fear that I may have somehow contributed to your disillusionment. Here's hoping that we will meet again -- don't know where, don't know when. --Orlady (talk) 02:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Don't worry, Orlady. Both of the recently closed cases actually went very well for arbitration - the Richard Arthur Norton case exceptionally so - and neither had anything to do with this decision. Hersfold02:22, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Many thanks for all the work you and all the other arbs have been doing to improve the editing environment at Misplaced Pages in the most stressful areas. I realise it's a struggle against dramaz exploiting poorly informed opinion, and have said little to avoid inflaming the drama unnecessarily, but you should be assured that your work is very much appreciated by less vocal editors. All the best for the future, and hopefully your continuing contributions to the project will be more peaceful and rewarding. Regards from a Wikisloth; dave souza, talk05:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Your resignation is very regrettable, as I have always appreciated your work here, and I thank you for it. It is very unfortunate that we do not have better mechanisms to protect dispute resolution volunteers who make unpopular decisions (as they must sooner or later) from the resulting shitstorm (pardon my French). Sandstein 06:07, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I realize that it will have no effect whatsoever on your resignation, but I do have to say that I'm very, very sorry to see you go. Maybe there are personal reasons why you must leave, but if not, it seems to me to be yet another another case of a good person being ground down by the drama-mongering which is endemic in the administrative levels of Misplaced Pages. I wish I could come up with a way to reduce it that would be accepted by the community, but I'm afraid that this may be impossible. Many thanks to you for your service. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks also from me for your service to the community, and I concur with your reasoning; I considered standing for ArbCom in the most recent election (though I doubt I would have been elected), and concerns over being 'outed' by some malicious idiot were one of the reasons I decided against doing so. Nick-D (talk) 10:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
@everybody, there are a lot of decisions by ArbCom I disagree with. There are also decisions by individual Arbitrators I disagree with. When there's a decision I feel is damaging the community I will say something and hope the Arbitrators will listen and adjust the decisions accordingly. The same is true for the community at large, so I hope everybody will listen. Misplaced Pages is eating its own. This latest kerfuffle has really shown why Misplaced Pages is losing editors. The Arbitrators go through a grueling election process in order to volunteer to help fix Misplaced Pages's biggest problems with the most upset people. And what do they get in return? They are treated worse than the people who vandalize the project. Yes, there are times when we need to say something is wrong and try to fix it, but we don't need to be aggressively hostile to do so. OK? @Hersfold, sorry your time on the committee was so distressing. Please accept my humble apologies for any stress I have caused you. Although I may not always agree with your positions, I still have a huge amount of respect for you for taking on the responsibilities of an Arbitrator. I hope your time off will allay your concerns and I hope to see you back contributing the project you've supported for so many years. Thanks for volunteering at Misplaced Pages. @Arbitrators, being an Arbitrator is the most difficult position a person can volunteer for on Misplaced Pages. It takes a person of great restraint and wisdom, which all of you have shown by being elected to your positions. And when everything works properly, Misplaced Pages runs a little more smoothly because of your efforts. Sometimes things don't go as planned, but I am certain that all of you have the best intentions of the project at heart and I am very thankful that all of you have taken on this most difficult task. I would never attempt it, so thanks very much for taking on this responsibility. All the best. 64.40.54.205 (talk) 13:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)my contribs for those with WP:ABF in their hearts.
Thank you. In the old days they gave a gold watch for time served (or was that a suit and bus fair). At any rate, here's yours Good luck and best wishes -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Hersfold, I disagreed with you as an arb, but I am genuinely sorry to hear that you no longer find your time on Misplaced Pages enjoyable. From what I've seen and heard, you were an excellent functionary and administrator and you have technical skills that are in short supply. I only hope that taking a break, especially from the more acrimonious parts of the project, will help you rediscover the things that made you enthusiatic about Misplaced Pages in the first place. And I apologise for any part I may have played in making your experience unpleasant—much as I might disagree with you or the committee, I would never wish anybody to take personal offence from my comments. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:46, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I am grateful to you for taking time out of your life to work for the Misplaced Pages community. Thank you.(olive (talk) 16:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC))
Was good as a clerk, as an arbitrator in both stints and has left as a legacy his clerk bot, which is very, very polite. Mathsci (talk) 16:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Although I disagreed with Hersfold more often than not while he was an arbitrator (in fact, I'd developed the impression that he had fallen out of touch with the community), I am still sorry to see him go. He has always been an excellent administrator (among all the other positions he's held), one of the nicest people around, and a dedicated volunteer. I wish him luck in any of his future endeavours. Kurtis02:00, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
How we treat out arbitrators
For heaven's sake, this community has to stop attacking arbs because we don't like decisions they make. We have a group of arbs, many people with many backgrounds and points of view who sit as arbs together, collaborative, and relying on consensus rather than unilateral actions to make decisions. This helps to creates balance. We have no right to wear them out with personal attacks, with attempts at every turn in the road to drag them from their positions. As a community we have to be able to agree or disagree with the arbs and their positions, but our civility policy applys to them too. True incivility is disregarding other human beings and thinking that because we disagree we have the right to demand resignations, to treat other people with disrespect and disdain. We are Misplaced Pages, and we are responsible for its easy function, or lack there of, for its success or downfall. Misplaced Pages will not rise or fall based on any single arb's position, but It will rise or fall if its community behaves like a mob with a mob mentality. We will chase away, not only arbs, but anyone in a right mind. Who could possibly want to work, or could work productively in such an environment? I hope also that in the background the arbs are treating each other with respect. I assume they are. We have as a community become permissive in our poor treatment of our own people, allowing the online environment to be a place where we can treat others as we might never in real life. This won't change by punishing people. I can only see change by assuming dignity within ourselves and extending that to the others we meet in this or any environment. There is no dignity in how we are treating arbs and often each other. This isn't the beginning of a discussion, but must be the end of tolerating some non productive behaviours. End of rant.(olive (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC))
I agree. I think that it's important that people remember that this is only a website, and not to get so worked up over what are always minor issues in the scheme of things. Nick-D (talk) 22:19, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
AGK's edit filter
Sorry if this has been raised elsewhere, but I would like to get some clarity on a couple of AGK's recent actions in the Wikipediocracy debacle. AGK added "wikipediaforum.com" and "wikipediocracy.com" to the spam blacklist with an edit summary of "added wikipediaforum". This may have been in response to a request filed by Sir Fozzie, but it is unlikely since there had been no discussion at that point and the domain wikipediaforum.com is not mentioned. When I pointed out that there had been a very recent proposal to blacklist wikipediocracy.com which had not been supported, AGK removed the links and stated that he was unaware of the earlier discussion. In a related ANI discussion, AGK said: "...nobody had my attention to the VP discussion. When I was made aware of it a few moments ago, I removed WO from the Spam Blacklist (pending a decision on the blacklist talk page)". AGK did remove the domains from the spam blacklist, but despite being aware of the community's wishes, he subsequently createdfailed to delete an edit filter which (apparently) disallowed any mention of the word "wikipediocracy". That filter has been deleted with the comment "use the spam blacklist if necessary".
No. This needs to be discussed here, not at an invisible subpage of ANI, because this is tool abuse by an Arb. (1) He created a filter to do a job equivalent to something that had been decided by community discussion was not to be done. (2) He created an edit filter despite clearly not having the ability to write one. (3) Which was quite lucky, because if written properly that edit filter would have disallowed any editor from making any edit to a page where the word "wikipediocracy" already existed close to that edit ... which recently, is a hell of a lot of pages. "Added_Lines" does not equal "stuff you've just added", it is anything that would appear in such a diff - i.e. anyone trying to make any edit to a page close to where the word "wikipediocracy" currently exists would be rejected. This is disruption, pure and simple. Black Kite (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
As I understand it the listing was undone upon discussion, so it's difficult to see this as "pure and simple" disruption. More like a minor mistake undone. With respect to the undone listing: no articles harmed; no users harmed; no living people harmed, nor individuals attempted to be disparaged. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Please read the above comments. We're not talking about the spam blacklisting here, but the edit filter, which AGK created to replicate the functionality of the blacklist after he had undone that because the community consensus was against it, and which was deleted by another edit filter manager because it didn't work. In other words (a) AGK edits blacklist (b) AGK is told that previous community discussion is against including that website on blacklist (c) AGK undoes blacklist edit (d) AGK creates edit filter which would have the same effect. Black Kite (talk) 19:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
So, it was deleted because it didn't work sounds like a mistake rectified. Also, was it not created to prevent linking per the outing or doxing policy? User's try different approaches to serving policy and sometimes they don't work. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:01, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
You're not understanding. AGK was told that he could not add wikipediocracy.com to the blacklist because there had previously been a community discussion that it should not be added. He then (correctly) undid that edit. But then he used his edit filter manager tools to create an edit filter to do exactly the same thing against community consensus - in other words, circumventing community consensus via tool use. The fact it was badly written and did not work is irrelevant. Also, the filter would not only have prevented linking, but would have prevented anyone from even mentioning the word "wikipediocracy", even in plain text, anywhere on Misplaced Pages. That's not preventing doxing, that's simply censorship. (Also, had it actually worked, it would have disrupted any page where the word already existed). Black Kite (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
So, and without commenting on the above, what measures do we put in place to prevent doxing? Or - despite the harassment and BLP policies, despite the WMF Terms of Use, despite legal restrictions in various jurisdictions, despite the opportunities it provides for malicious payback and score-settling, despite the possibilities for real life harm, despite the inability of the doxee to respond - should we just accept it as a fact of life? Roger Davies20:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
That's begging the question, Roger. What we don't do is use our toolset to say to the community "OK, you've had that discussion, there's a consensus, but I'm an Arbitrator and I'm going to use my tools to ignore it". If a "normal" admin did that they'd lose their bit in a second (as we've found out recently). As an actual answer to your question, though - we block people. Ask MZMcBride. Black Kite (talk) 20:21, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
In fairness, AGK didn't actually say that and, from the timetable below, that may not have been his intention. But to get to the substantive point, we are skirting the substantive issue and until that one is resolved, this series of dramas will just continue to run. Roger Davies20:33, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
It has not been pointed out, because to begin with it appears the allged timeline is patently incorrect, as shown below. Moreover, trying a little code-work to deal with conflicting policy concerns is not at all the crime your charges claim. Granted, not removing an unworking edit filter is poor mopping, but that deserves, at most, a doc in pay, nothing more, and certainly not a cause celebre, of high crimes and misdemeanors. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:06, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
You're right, "trying a little code-work to deal with conflicting policy concerns" isn't a crime. It's bungling of the first water. — Hex(❝?!❞)21:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Surely the edit filter was created 12 minutes before the the links were added to the spam blacklist. -- zzuuzz20:22, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
You're right. But in that case, AGK should have deleted the edit filter when he reverted the spam blacklist entry, since they were designed to do the same thing. It would probably have been noticed earlier if it had actually worked. Black Kite (talk) 20:24, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
That's for articles. We're talking plain text, anywhere on Misplaced Pages here. Look at how many times that website was mentioned - not linked, just mentioned - (even by Arbs) during the recent Kevin Case at ArbCom. If AGK's edit-filter had been in place and working, no-one could have even mentioned the name of the site. Their edits would have been disallowed, How ridiculous would that have been? What if the website had been something more mainstream than the one it was? Black Kite (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Though BLP of course applies anywhere on Misplaced Pages. I really don't understand how people can support a strong BLP policy on Misplaced Pages and simultaneously condone doxing, Roger Davies20:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
OK, I get where this is going, because people are conveniently ignoring the main point to make their own points about other things. No-one is condoning doxing. No-one disgrees with the BLP policy. But there had already been a community discussion on this point, which was ignored, and tools were used to circumvent it. You can not then use your tools to override that decision, it doesn't matter what it is. That's tool misuse. If tools misuse is allowed now, so be it. But don't expect it not to be brought up the next time we have an admin desysop or similar Arbitration case. And as another point, please, Arbs, do not start fucking about with such a powerful tool as the edit-filter when clearly not understanding how it works. We've already had one episode of someone doing that and ending up disallowing every edit to Misplaced Pages. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
That's for articles... - the rest of Misplaced Pages only exists to support article writing. If it doesn't support article writing (or categorisation, or indexing, or...), we don't need it. Guettarda (talk) 20:42, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Quite right. But no, I mean the spam blacklist is only for clickable links (usually, those that get added to articles). The edit-filter is a completely different beast... not designed for this. Black Kite (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
I've corrected my original statement to reflect the comments made here that the edit filter was actually created before the domains were added to the spam blacklist. It does not change anything, since once AGK was aware that the community did not support blacklisting the site, he chose not to remove or disable the filter. My question remains unanswered - ArbCom, did AGK add those domains to the blacklist or create that edit filter on behalf of ArbCom?Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:54, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Am I the only one to notice that the filter has never been enabled? This is what an enabled filter's history looks like. Note the "Enabled" flag? Now compare the history of the filter at issue. T. Canens (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages Review or Wikipediocracy had the link needed to a report on ArbCom: "Unlike the Supreme Court, their robes are their bathrobes. Their appointments are lifetime, in that they last until they get a life." Kiefer.Wolfowitz00:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
What exactly is the "actual issue" you want to talk about? You started from the premise that AGK created the filter after he reverted the edit to the blacklist, supposedly to circumvent the discussion; as it turns out, he created it before the addition of the links to the black list, which he reverted when he heard about the discussion. Then the claim is that he didn't delete it when he reverted his addition, except that deleting or not deleting a disabled filter makes zero difference. Then the argument seems to be "arbs should not be messing with filters that they don't know about", which actually has some force, except that the filter here was never enabled and could not have done any damage. So, what exactly are you complaining about with respect to the filter? T. Canens (talk) 01:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I hope AGK will, at some point soon, let us know his intentions when he created the filter and if the filter was not activated due to a mistake on his part or if it was deliberate. In either case, he apparently created a filter to prevent anyone from writing "wikipediocracy". Whether or not it was enabled, are you not curious as to why he would do this? And why he would not delete such a filter when he learned that the community did not support adding that site to the spam blacklist? Given AGK's other actions in relation to this debacle, I would think that ArbCom would be more interested in an episode that seems to have damaged their reputation within the community. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Arbcom's rather astonishing reaction to Wikipediocracy's blog post almost justifies the post. I strongly suggest that those of you who have spent enormous amounts of hours and effort trying to figure out how to hermetically circle your wagons over the past 2 weeks take a breather from it all, because you seem to have hermetically sealed out the fresh air. You've somehow managed to recast a tempest in a teapot as the sequel to the Cuban missile crisis, which I suppose speaks well about the power of crowdsourcing, but doesn't seem healthy otherwise. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 00:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Indeed; when you decide to construct a massive steel hammer to smash a small glass jar, and are then surprised when a genie escapes from it, you shouldn't be surprised that trying to glue the pieces back together is a difficult job. The best thing to do is say "OK, we can't put that jar back tgoether, but how can we learn for the next glass jar we encounter"? Black Kite (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree. I kind of said that in one of the sections above (in the bit where I said critics need to examine their approach as well, and everyone needs to learn something from this), but sensible comments get missed in all this. It is much easier for people to argue over the more strident comments. I'm hoping people calm down eventually, but getting from here to there is not easy. Carcharoth (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The question wasn't a yes/no question, it was an either/or question. I wouldn't have done or endorsed the actions taken here, though some arbitrators might. Certainly the actions were not a formal action on behalf of the committee as a whole. Most actions by individual arbitrators rarely are, so you have to ask them in what capacity they were acting. Those actions that are "for the committee" tend to get formally voted on and signed off on. Carcharoth (talk) 00:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC) Oh, silly me, I was reading Delicious carbuncle's original question in his first post, when I see you were almost certainly answering his bolded question in his later post.
Note: it's generally considered courteous to raise an issue with the editor at question before bringing it to a noticeboard. Given no edits were harmed, it's unclear why this couldn't have been raised on AGK's talk page. NE Ent01:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
To be frank, when dealing with ArbCom I have much more faith in the answers I get in public than on individual talk pages. You may note how difficult it was to get an answer to my question despite the participation of multiple Arbs here. And note also that I have not suggested that AGK needs to step down as an Arb, resign his tools, or anything of the sort. I'm just trying to ascertain what happened and who made it happen. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
On this whole point, I don't consider the VPP discussion to be indicative of a consensus against the spam listing as most of the opposition came from people such as myself who happen to post there. That said, no consensus was clear among non-WO participants and that an editor thought there needed to be a discussion on a major noticeboard before any action takes place speaks volumes in itself. Did AGK really think this was an uncontroversial action? Seems unlikely to me that any admin with a smidgen of understanding of the situation could have had such an impression and certainly not an arbitrator. Regardless of whether there was an ongoing discussion or not, such an action seems to be something that demands an attempt to garner consensus.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.03:40, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
DC drew my attention to this thread, and I offered the following response. I don't think I have anything to add to it at this point in time:
Hi there. I see quite a lot of misunderstanding about the AbuseFilter situation. The filter was never enabled; I created it to see what edits it would have blocked had it been active. I would not have enabled such a far-reaching filter without community permission (because, unlike with the Spam Blacklist, administrators aren't allowed to unilaterally build hyperlinks into an AbuseFilter).
BlackKite seems to be under the impression that I was shopping around for ways to block WO after I removed it from the Blacklist; this is both incorrect on the face of it, and also derives from the mistaken belief that I created the Filter after I edited the Blacklist. The other conclusions he comes to are also incorrect. Also, the Filter was never active, and it has since been deleted by another administrator. I think your accusations have been adequately rebutted by other members of the community, so I will not engage in protracted discussion on this issue unless there is some undiscussed point that you need me to clarify. I also do not wish to edit the noticeboard talk page thread at this point, because this issue has nothing to do with my work as an arbitrator. Thank you for having the courtesy to draw my attention to the thread; I appreciate that.
PROTIP: Getting community permission before starting work on "far-reaching" tools means nobody will have reason to question your actions and you won't have wasted your time. — Hex(❝?!❞)10:06, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
If you are talking about the edit filter, then I wonder if you are deliberately misunderstanding my actions, because it seems like you are. I did not enable the filter. I simply wanted to see if it was feasible, given that several administrators had suggested a filter could supersede a block in the case of MZ. AGK14:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I know you didn't enable it. What I'm trying to get you to understand here is that preemptively programming unapproved site-wide tools (especially ones as little-understood as edit filters), just to see what they would do, during a highly contentious debate, as a serving arbitrator (and thus inevitably having your actions subject to intense scrutiny), was a very naïve thing of you to do. Not least because you didn't make it crystal clear exactly what you were doing and why - the result being the kind of reaction you've received here, above. I hope you will be much more careful in future. — Hex(❝?!❞)14:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Statement regarding Malleus Fatuorum and George Ponderevo
Following up here with some additional notes: notifications of the motion have been placed on the user talk pages of the users concerned, and courtesy notifications were sent by e-mail earlier today (around 00:20 UTC) prior to the motion being published. The template intended to be used is {{User shared IP address}}. Carcharoth (talk) 23:54, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ched. The word 'courtesy' is being used in a formal sense here. As in a head's-up notification that goes out just before something happens, so it doesn't come completely out of the blue. It would have been rude to post the statement without notifying Malleus first, hence the use of the term 'courtesy'. For what it is worth, these notifications were sent through the Misplaced Pages e-mailer system, and I got a reply to the e-mail sent to the Malleus Fatuorum account (a brief note thanking me for the notification among other things), but no reply to the one sent to the George Ponderevo account. It is the fact that I got a reply from the note sent to the Malleus Fatuorum account that makes me think that Malleus still technically has access to that account (I mention this in my other comment below). Even if the password has been scrambled, a password reset via e-mail is probably still possible. Anyway, I've proposed some steps below to tie up some loose ends. Hopefully that will help. Carcharoth (talk) 10:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
For the benefit of admins, does the editing restriction which has been imposed on Malleus also apply to the George Ponderevo account, and should these accounts be assumed to share the same overall editing history if any issues arise? (though I note that George has responded to this by saying that he will cease editing). I appreciate that the Committee probably needs to word things very carefully here and the situation may not be entirely clear. Nick-D (talk) 00:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Wait, what? If George is indeed a sockpuppet of Malleus, then the same restrictions should most certainly apply. Sanctions apply to people, not just individual accounts. That said, I am in favour of editors making a clean start regardless of their editing history, even if they do have active sanctions against them, so long as they do not return to their previous disruptive editing patterns. If that's what was intended here, then I couldn't care less. What's the issue? Why does this warrant an ArbCom statement? Kurtis02:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
And if George Ponderevo is not a a sock, this motion publicly connected a relatively low profile editor to a controversial one, leading to the prior's retirement, all without apparent good reason. Monty84502:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Suffice to say, ArbCom is reminding everyone why they don't get a lot of respect. It apparently took them a month and a half to do what any other process would have resolved much more quickly and probably more appropriately, yet they still managed to achieve the least desirable result at the end of the process.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.03:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I assume by the answer of "No" by Risker, that the editing restriction placed on Malleus does not apply to George. If that is the case, I'm lost as to why it was necessary to make this public.--MONGO04:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm assuming it's to make other CU's life easier? Public declaration that accounts have shared IP but are different people would help in certain situations. - Penwhale | 04:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Per WP::SHARE, the restrictions would apply if they have editing overlap, but not general restrictions. It appears they have the same IP but it wasn't proved they were the same person. They can be treated as one if WP::SHARE is violated. I am awaiting the tag that links them. --DHeyward (talk) 07:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
*Sigh* This does tend to reinforce what's been said about process for process' sake. If George were not Malleus, then ArbCom have made him an innocent target of all the stalkers who hounded Malleus. If George were Malleus, then everyone can see that the editor was able to avoid controversy - proving Malleus' oft-repeated complaint that he was incivil only to those who were incivil to him. Either way, you can't blame George for retiring. Who actually benefited from this statement? Certainly not the encyclopedia. --RexxS (talk) 04:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
First, it certainly does appear that George is Malleus, considering the topics of the articles edited, being mostly a copyeditor and associating himself loosely with the same editors (whether or not they knew, of course). If the ArbCom statement is correct and they are sharing an IP, it would certainly make it harder to believe they are two separate people who didn't know of each other. On the off-chance these two are different accounts from two different people, then I don't know if the ArbCom statement was really necessary unless there was some kind of misconduct. Secondly, if George is Malleus, then I think Malleus actually made himself look worse, not better. Malleus and George make the same kind of good contributions to Misplaced Pages. George remained relatively low profile, made his contributions and avoided any major drama (with a clean block log). Malleus did the same thing, but reacted with incivility and repeatedly got himself involved in incident after incident, and chose not to modify his behavior after threads, topic bans, ArbCom cases, blocks, and a ton of drama. Were some of the people opposing Malleus uncivil? Yes, but if Malleus can contain himself for nearly two years editing as George, then why were we wasting time trying to get him to modify his behavior when it was fully within his ability to not be uncivil, and he continued to be? It'd be nice to know straight from Malleus/George, but since George has apparently retired, we may not here from him directly on it. Regards, — MoeEpsilon05:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
This statement was written and passed as is after several previous motions failed to gain agreement among a voting majority of the Arbitration Committee. It does not say that the users are definitively different people; it only says that a majority of the Committee has concluded that a) there is at minimum a close association between the two accounts and b)at minimum, at a particular point in time, the user who uses the MF account used GP's account. It is not the motion I would have preferred (the one I proposed had the line "The Committee has analyzed the evidence as well as statements from Malleus and George and has concluded that is accurate.") but it was the only one that a majority of the Committee would agree to after it was decided that referring the matter to WP:SPI would be counterproductive. NW(Talk)05:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
As I recall, this is within the normal shared IP policy and even if they are not definitively "sockpuppets" they can be treated as a single account per WP::SHARE which seems to be the finding here. I have not seen the {{User shared IP address}} tag added to either account, though as stated in the notice. --DHeyward (talk) 06:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
You folks are WAY out of line with this. Overreach much? WTH? You bitch about editors and the WP:OUTING policy, and you pull this kind of crap? You folks simply have no ethics at all do ya? How about you disclose your OWN undisclosed ALT. accounts huh? I'd do it for you, but I'm sure it would be the next "Shhhh .. OS" drama. You have not a second thought about walking all over the policies at all do ya? Sign me out as "User:thoroughly disgusted" — Ched : ? 05:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Are you talking about ArbCom, Ched, or about the rest of us? I would like to know why ArbCom didn't leave this matter alone, since what was happening before they interfered was entirely positive and and productive. Did they act this way just because they could? What constructive outcome does ArbCom imagine is going to result from their interference? --Epipelagic (talk) 08:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Epipelagic, No - my apologies if anything I've said was inferred to be an individual personal judgement. My post was merely to note what I perceive to be a severe lacking of common sense, common decency, and an outright violation of of rules in regards to wp:outing that they (the management) have recently dictated. — Ched : ? 08:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Indeed it is Volunteer Marek - how apt. Sometimes, when one finds a hornets' nest it is best not to stick one's finger into it. It seems to me that Malleus and George (both productive content account) are not high enough up the Misplaced Pages tree to enjoy the "special protection" that so many senior Wikipedians quietly enjoy. Giano 08:12, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I thought I might make some sort of statement here to explain my personal point of view and to help people understand what's going on. The statement on the main page is quite simply the only option that we could get any agreement on, and I do support it. The evidence was contradictory enough in places that the the committee was divided as to what link existed between the two accounts. To give you an idea of the scale, since the allegations were made, the committee has sent about 1000 emails discussing the matter. The issue was as divisive within the committee as any other issue regarding Malleus Fatuorum would have been outside of the committee.
There are those of you who will be asking, why on earth say anything at all? There was a do nothing suggestion, I believe I was the only one who actually voted for that, but it was soundly rejected. I can understand the reasons too, there really appears to be crossover on the editing. If we assume that it's one person, they've broken most of the rules of WP:SOCK. Indeed, there's a strong argument that even assuming it's two people, they had violated our policy on sharing an IP address - they have supported each other on a dispute. Doing nothing was simply not a valid outcome.
Malleus' hard retirement wasn't sufficient to stop this, though I think it was a factor in the lack of sanctions here. George isn't a cleanstart account as they were both editing at the same time for over a year and there is persuasive evidence that there are multiple people involved here. The explanations given by George and Malleus did not help and I can't blame them particularly, given how Malleus has been treated in the past.
I do want to make it absolutely clear here, Malleus has been treated differently than an other editor in the same situation would have been. There is no way that another editor would have had so much evidence put together and scrutinised, no way that so much more work would have been put in after the basic evidence had been checked. Indeed, Malleus (and therefore George) have been given the benefit of the doubt and I do not believe any other editor would have got the same. That alone is infuriating for those who believe that all editors should be equal. I'm not going to say the committee worked well together here, some actions taken by certain committee members I find to be unacceptable. Actions were taken in a reactionary way and I do think it's a learning point which has to be taken away, as the same reactionary attitude has exacerbated the DOXing issues above. I'm sure other committee members will have found my attitude to be more than unhelpful in this too.
Finally, I would like to re-iterate statements I've made over the past days, I'm open to discussing anything that happens on the committee and giving my personal views. If anyone has suggestions for improvement that I could help implement, please bring them to me and we can chat about them. Worm(talk) 11:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
So...will any concrete steps be taken (in a transparent way) so that the community can be SURE that "lessons are learned" from this recent series of events, or are we simply to take it on faith? I keep seeing talk about "learning points" and "lessons learned", but frankly I see nothing that leads me to believe that these lessons will actually be learned or that behavior will really change. It's all well and good to say these things, but results are what matter here. And WE (the community) need to SEE those results, not simply be assured that "oh, they happened. Trust us." Sorry, but that doesn't work. Intothatdarkness13:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's good to see a "do nothing" suggestion was at least floated. IMO, if you couldn't get enough people on the committee to agree that Malleus and George were operated by the same person, then you shouldn't have made any motions or whatever public – this only fuels more (loath as I am to use the word) 'drama' and provides no clear outcome or resolution. Also FWIW, I don't think I'm the only one who at least suspected Malleus was George but didn't feel the need to bring it up because the George account was doing a lot of great work and not causing any problems – to whoever did all the digging and so on to notify the AC, you should really consider whether your efforts have improved the encyclopedia in any way. Jenks24 (talk) 11:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
It's extremely disappointing and hard to assume good faith that after the User:Geogre fiasco, the Arbcom refuses to learn from its mistakes. Geogre and Malleus shared certain similarities - both were great content editors (amongst the finest Misplaced Pages had), both were in the habit of pointing out the Arbcom's errors, and both ultimately have been needlessly driven off by the Arbcom. I think that's a pity and to be regretted. A wise man does not need to see and hear everything. We now know there has been a case against Malleus - now we have a right to know who brought it, before further damage is done by wild speculation - who emailed the Arbcom about it. Be very sure: I shall find out - better from the Arbcom than me. Giano 11:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I think ArbCom lost sight, with this announcement of the fact that we are first of all here to build an encyclopedia. Continuing to do nothing would have been the best course of action. Those who voted "yea" on this motion should expect difficult questions should they seek community approval for another term.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
In short - there are indeed two separate people involved - else the committee should have simply shouted "Sock!" MF has edited over 10,000 pages. GP has edited over 6,000 pages. Their overlap is on under 300 pages - or a fairly small percentage as Misplaced Pages goes. MF has a substantially higher overlap with Wehwalt, whom I doubt is MF <g>. The urgency to make a public pronouncement and shaming is odd -- usually such stuff is given to those who need to know through the channels set up for that purpose and not simply placed in public. OROH, maybe this is simply a new way of OUTING or DOXING done by ArbCom as a committee? <g> Collect (talk) 12:10, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The question which I am going to have answered is, if the accounts are so similar, why did the Arbcom not wait for a conventional checkuser request. Malleus had enough enemies - if crimes were being committed, it wouldn't have taken long. Why act on a secretive email. It's widely known that Malleus irritated the Arbcom. The only possible conclusion is that this secretive email cam from within the Arbcom itself or was set-up by an Arb. If it was not from one of them, they would never have been so stupid as to act on it. Giano 12:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
To put that speculation to rest, the request came from outside the committee and I have no reason to believe it was set up by an arb. The initial reaction including use of the checkuser tool was faster than I would have liked. This is at least part of the "reactionary attitude" that I was referring to, as I believe looking the other way would have been better. Worm(talk) 12:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Well you had better tell us who it was then; otherwise, it's a case of "You would say that woudn't you." How could you all have been so stupid as to not see these questions being asked and answers demanded? Giano 12:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
You know full well I can't tell you that. I absolutely saw these questions being asked and am doing my best to answer them. Worm(talk) 12:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Buy your not answering, for reasons best known to yourself, you are standing up like a coconut on a shy - while your colleagues are no doubt thanking God for a Heaven sent opportunity. They've made a big mistake - we shall soon see how big that mistake is. Giano 12:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Wow, so he violated policy? Well, Z frigging OMG, how horrible. Now, let's look at that for a moment. What's the policy in place for? To build Munchkin Land, where we all sing happily together with anxious glances at the castle? No, it's to get the best content to reader. I will say, now that Cas is off, that all of you combined can't replace Malleus in that role. So, you've stripped us of one of our top content contributors, who the community shouted very loudly at you late last year, "Leave him the hell alone". And what is the upside of having done it? Well, I don't see one, perhaps the committee can supply it. Was the exceptional treatment of Malleus discouraging other content contributors? Not obviously. Was George making a jerk of himself? Not clearly. Was George contributing content at a high level? Yes. Is he doing it anymore? No. Was it foreseeable that Malleus/George would leave once he was outed by the committee? Yes, very much so. Has the committee done a good day's work? Well, except for adding a bunch of oppose votes next time out for people I was appalled got elected in the first place, thus improving the committee over the long term, I can't say it has. However, the committee does little or nothing to improve content, and in this case is actively striking at content contributors, so I think the long term gain is greatly outweighed by the short term detriment.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Yup. Lot's of Arbcom blunders recently, but this was one of the worst.
The big picture: WP:IAR/WP:COMMONSENSE and the principle embodied in the first sentence of WP:NOT ("Misplaced Pages is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community of individuals interested in building and using a high-quality encyclopedia in a spirit of mutual respect.") have been under attack from successive Arbcoms for a few years now. Hans Adler13:05, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
If you are going to strip away the privacy of these two editors, who might be family, lovers, roommates, neighbors on a shared router, or whatever by announcing the "close relationship" in public, you ought to release the name of the editor who made the accusation so we can see if somebody is grinding an axe, if your actions are corrupt, or if there was a bona fide reason for your investigation. Why is the name of the accuser being kept secret? Why wasn't this filed as a public sock puppetry case, open for all to see? Jehochman12:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Why didn't you politely ask the accuser to file a sock puppetry report and let normal processing go forth. I'm not aware of any member on the Committee having particularly advanced computer skills, except Coren. Why not just let this matter be processed normally? Why turn it into a political matter and deny those involved the possibility of an independent, neutral review by ArbCom? No matter what happens next, you are all involved in the conflict, and unable to act as reviewers. Jehochman13:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Is the Arbcom now spying on all of us - are our homes, jobs and private lives safe from their illicit snooping? Giano 13:12, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure how much help it will be for more Committee members to give an account of what happened, but I will give my summary. The Committee were contacted with concerns that MF was editing from the GP account, and that he had violated the terms of the socking policy by posting from both accounts on a project page in support of each other. The matter was looked into by several CheckUsers, and the technical and behavioural evidence confirmed that the accounts were run by the same person. We also found some minor tag team edit warring, and a bit of block evasion. We discussed this at great length among ourselves. The view among the Committee was that MF was a special case, and so the whole Committee needed to be involved in decision making. Opinions varied as to what to do - not just among the Committee as a body, but also among individual members, who would change their opinion as the matter unfolded and various arguments were put forward. On the table for discussion was that MF was using the GP account to make a Clean Start, but that he had somewhat messed it up by a) violating policy and b) being spotted. A considerable part of the Committee was supportive of MF's apparent attempt at a Clean Start, and were wondering how best to help him achieve this, and yet stay within policy, and also stay within the Committee's responsibility to the community not to keep secrets, nor to turn a blind eye to policy violations when they are pointed out. MF was contacted. His response was to deny that the GP account was his, and gave an explanation that the GP account was run by someone else. He also wrote to us in the guise of the other person. While the majority of the Committee did not accept this explanation, a few felt it was worth considering. After discussing the matter further, and putting forward several suggestions how to proceed, including simply ignoring the matter, the statement that has been posted was the one that was felt to be the least harmful to Malleus, met the Committee's responsibility not to conceal policy infractions, even for special cases, and covered the possibility that the GP account may have been operated at some time by someone other than MF, but known to him. If anyone wishes to ask me any questions on this matter, please contact me on my talkpage, and I'll see what I can do. SilkTork13:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
So it seems that ArbCom received a sockpuppet complaint privately. Overwhelming evidence including same IP, same articles, same POV, and mutual support in discussions. This would have been a banning of both accounts for anyone else but in deference to the accounts contributions (Malleus' block log notwithstanding), they are able to continue with the understanding that this is a WP:SHARED account despite the polict violations. That seems like a rather toned down but reasonable response to a productive editor. A response that would not be afforded to many people. "Both" Malleus and George can contribute but their relationship as being shared IP has to be disclosed. That's policy. Nothing personal about those users has been disclosed. Please will someone who is complaining about this action explain why this very soft but necessary response is being met so antagonistically? --DHeyward (talk) 13:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I assume that question was rhetorical, given many of the antagonizers are the type that will never give arbcom the benefit of the doubt, even if they issued a motion that the sun rises in the east, with a strong overlap of "MF should be able to do whatever the hell he wants" sentiment. But you are correct. It does seem that MF was treated far more leniently than anyone else would have been. Resolute13:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Because Misplaced Pages should not be a Gestapo type state. It should not operate on the word of secret informers and in-camera trials. Now who was the informer and lets have some diffs for the serious crimes. Then we will be told how each Arb voted - or are the Arbs ashamed of their actions? Giano 13:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes. I don't think the community would want it any other way. That assumes that there was proper evidence to justify a check in the first place, which has not been established yet. Jehochman13:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh yes they would. There are plenty of MF supporters out there who would (and did) stand behind him no matter what. Of course, they are half as nice to ArbCom. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 21:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
SilkTork, thank you for the informative comment about what happened. That's a good start, but we'll need to know more. (1) Why was the complainant unwilling to make their accusation and post their evidence in public? (2) Is there any reason a Checkuser could not have received the evidence and posted it themselves to a public page for discussion? I am sure the accuser is watching these discussions closely. Please do come forth, accuser. If you have acted correctly, you have nothing to fear. Jehochman13:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm surprised more people aren't wondering why we didn't defer this matter to SPI. We discussed that option at length, and came to the following consensus. 1) At the time the allegation was made, GP was voting in RFAs. As we all know, SPI does not allow people to submit allegations about accounts that are voting in open RFAs; such allegations need to be submitted in private. 2) If the allegation was made in public, SPI would not have touched it. The venue does not lend itself to protracted discussion, which a Malleus SPI would undoubtedly have attracted. 3) We needed to establish that there was no compelling reason to keep the connection between the accounts off the public record. To do so, we needed to ask Malleus some personal questions, which the community could not do. When private or sensitive evidence is involved in a situation, that situation—by long-standing arrangement and convention, at least on this project—becomes the responsibility of ArbCom. We exist to handle this sort of thing.
I suppose the petitioner did not make his identity known because whoever dropped this bomb on Malleus (I don't think the GP=MF connection was widely known until now) would undoubtedly have attracted a lot of ire. We arbitrators sign up to make difficult decisions, including in sensitive cases like this. The petitioner did not. AGK14:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Rubbish! Which Arb concocted the story of an email informant! Which one? and where are the diffs for the supposed crime. Giano 14:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
AGK, your explanation sounds complex. I'm not familiar with the rule that open RFAs negate the ability to file a sock puppetry report. Can you link to that rule and explain where it came from? Are you suggesting that the accuser didn't want to reveal their identity because they were standing at RFA and knew this accusation would sink them? I'd really like to see the evidence to understand whether this was a bona fide complaint or a bogus one. I do not understand why the evidence of sock puppetry isn't revealed. If a checkuser had to ask Malleus some personal questions, they could have done so. I'm not aware of the need for ArbCom to be involved in this matter. If it were an administrator being accused and a desysop potentially necessary, then yes, ArbCom might be justified. In this case, I'm not seeing it. Please do share the info. Jehochman14:33, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Giano, you're getting in the way of an actual conversation. Please don't be rude.
Jehochman, that an RFA was open was one minor reason why the allegation could not have been made in public. I gave three broad arguments. As for where that rule is set down, I can't link to it very easily, but it's at WP:SPI, underneath "Whether or not to request CheckUser in a case?", in the "In these cases, do not request CheckUser" collapse box, beside "Vote fraud in ongoing vote". There is also the overriding rule at SPI, contained within the yellow box at the top of WP:SPI, which requires cases that rely on evidence that is "sensitive" or includes "emails or any other information not on Misplaced Pages's public pages" be referred to the CheckUser team by off-site methods or to the Arbitration Committee. AGK14:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
That's what I thought. So nothing really has changed these last six years since I started looking at those reports. On the English Misplaced Pages, the Checkuser privacy-violating-tool is not employed unless there is substantial evidence of sock puppetry. This evidence should be posted in public. AGK, could you please post the non-confidental evidence of sock puppetry, or are you asserting that 100% of the evidence is confidential, which would be very odd indeed. Jehochman15:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
So the options are either it was an actual sockpuppet or it was someone else (likely someone related?) who was still acting as a meatpuppet, since the account backed up Malleus in discussions and in other places. Either way, it seems like a pretty clear violation, though I can understand why Arbcom would choose a more toned down response. Silverseren14:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Malleus self ID of the User:William Leadford account indicates he is a sockmaster. So the only question is if Malleus misused sock accounts in some manner...otherwise, I can't see why else to make this public.--MONGO15:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
It's not the best response we could have wished for. George was editing constructively and politely enough. If it was Malleus, then the status quo before this announcement was exactly what I and most others have been hoping for for years: Malleus's talent without the dramas. Perhaps you had no choice, though. Perhaps the person who alerted you to the situation was going to create a ruckus (or one of you would have) if the committee hadn't acted. Perhaps the association was so obvious that more such reports were inevitable. Anyway. I hope George sees this for the unimportant blip that it is, and gets back to work soon. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
From User:Worm That Turned above: 'There was a do nothing suggestion, I believe I was the only one who actually voted for that, but it was soundly rejected... Doing nothing was simply not a valid outcome.' And yet, it seems nothing is exactly what ArbCom has done here. Apparently, you had reasonably convincing evidence that Malleus was operating multiple accounts in a manner prohibited by policy. But all you decide to do about it is post a notice about it, when standard policy in such a circumstance is to block the socks. Why has User:George Ponderevo not been indefinitely blocked? If this was any other user, it would have been. Once again, it's one rule for Malleus and one rule for everybody else. I for one am glad he finally quit of his own accord, because it had long since become obvious that no amount of misconduct would ever have been enough for ArbCom to do the right thing and ban him. Robofish (talk) 15:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
"If this was any other user" - no you are mistaken. Plenty of our high editors have operated or do operate sockpuppets with impunity. Us lesser editors simply aren't allowed that privilege.--The Devil's Advocatetlk.cntrb.16:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Not interested in the past, but if there are such editors who presently operate such sockpupppets, please tell the community. Socking attacks the governance basis for the project. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
So I'm seeing criticism of Arbcom for (a) receiving a private allegation of sock-like connections between accounts (secret informer!); (b) conducting a discreet, off-wiki investigation of the allegations (star chamber!); (c) publishing the conclusion that the accounts are linked (persecution! invasion of privacy! driving off good content editor!); but (d) declining to indef block the accounts (favoritism!). Looks to me like Arbcom has endeavored to strike a balance between transparency, protection of privacy, respect for productive content contributions, and accountability to the community for violations of user account policy. Reasonable disagreement is fine, but can we please get out of the state of perpetual outrage here? Or at least, will someone please create an {{OUTRAGE}} template that can just be automatically added to every Arbcom announcement, to save time and electrons? alanyst17:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Why do we care about sockpuppetry, anyway? The policy says "Using a single account maintains editing continuity, improves accountability, and increases community trust, which helps to build long-term stability for the encyclopedia." (emphasis mine). By supporting anonymous ratting out of other editors, the committee's action here works against the very goals the policy is trying to promote. I understand the trying to simultaneously protect editor privacy and provide governance transparency puts wikipedia between between Scylla and Charybdis; we already have a pretty good mechanism for that in sockpuppet investigations. The explanations provided thus far for not utilizing SPI -- one of which appears to be based on a misread of the policy -- aren't terribly satisfying.
Given that there was no ongoing sockpuppetry -- MF having retired -- I don't see how this motion improves the encylcopedia. WTT mentions share but that advises, but doesn't require, posting the notices.
On a secondary note, arbcom policy states "the Committee will make public detailed rationales for decisions related to cases, unless the matter is unsuitable for public discussion for privacy, legal or similar reasons." (emphasis mine). Given the edit histories of both accounts are public viewing I can't think of what reasons could exist for not providing a more detailed statement in the initial announcement. Given the historic interest the community has shown in dispute resolutions issues connected to MF, the committee should have anticipated there'd be many questions and addressed as many as possible with the initial statement. NE Ent17:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
When was it given that no ongoing sockpuppetry was occuring? In fact, it appears there was a lot of sockpuppetry occuring and ArbCom decided for the benefit of the project to use a lower form of identification (i.e. WP::Share) instead of comming down with the ban hammer. This allows Malleus and "George" to continue editing. It also allows Malleus to contribute with a clean start. That is an incredibly gracious move considering the facts ArbCom has established about the two accounts (i.e. it's not credible that they are different people). If MF wants to contribute with a clean start, he is not banned and could do so. Why not do that instead of all this drama? --DHeyward (talk) 20:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I reviewed at least half of the pages featuring Malleus and George's names, and I don't see anything problematic.
There was a case where one reported fixing a problem on a GA/FA review, a day after the other edited the same page. One's signature appears below the others, with a day different.
There was a case when another impulsive editor mentioned Malleus, in a discussion involving George, and Malleus showed up to reply; again, not a problem.
Jack/B Rabbit made some suggestion about George and Malleus, and then outed one of his own socks. One or both replied on Jack/B Rabbit's page and then on G or M's page, again causing no problems.
Someone else did and found a problem and guess what? They were right!! At a minimum it was a ] and the minimum was the only punishment (i.e. "Hey, put an IP share tag on your user page so people know you both edit from the same IP."). No blocks, no bans, no great drama except faux-outrage that a sock puppet of people's favorite editor was discovered. There isn't even a punishment to complain about yet here they are. --DHeyward (talk) 20:32, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Also, personally identifiable information that can be used as evidence may have already been oversighted to protect MF and George so unless ArbCom provides it, your search is a fruitless waste of time. The rabble rousers demanding the evidence would be the first to complain if oversighted material was made public and the first to complain that it isn't. --DHeyward (talk) 20:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Please stop your personal attacks, WMFite and administrator. There is enough hypocritical personal attacks on this page already. Kiefer.Wolfowitz20:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes. DHeyward, I don't know who you are or what you're going on about. I doubt there's a conspiracy of oversighters looking to protect MF--and we still do not know if the two accounts were used in some egregious way, like tag-team editing to avoid an edit-warring charge or something like that. Can you put your finger on a violation? Drmies (talk) 02:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Question to Silk Tork from way above. You said "His response was to deny that the GP account was his, and gave an explanation that the GP account was run by someone else. He also wrote to us in the guise of the other person." How exactly do you know that the user wrote to you in the guise of another person? Do you have technical evidence that it was, in fact, Malleus that was writing to you? How would you know who wrote the email? Tex (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Necessity?
This is really a rather silly tempest in a teapot. I am quite frustrated that this dispute is taking up any bandwidth at all, let alone this much. Seriously, someone might have two accounts? If there IS a connection between the accounts, well, I guess I'm "shocked, shocked". I suspect that I may be one of the only longtime editors on WP that DOESN'T have an alternative account; kudos to the person above who suggested that anyone who wants to throw stones here should first identify all of their OWN alt accounts, previously disclosed or otherwise. Then, get a grip. WP:SOCK isn't an "off with their heads" axe, it's got a lot of wiggle room to consider the totality of the circumstances, and (if I may mix metaphors here) has in a lot of cases been applied as a sword, not a shield. George has been a very helpful editor and I have found him quite pleasant to work with. Malleus had baggage and was often too mean and snarky for his own good, but he was a very good content editor as well. If this is not the same person, then we are all wasting our time and need to just close this discussion and go elsewhere. If it is, there are multiple ways to keep a damn good editor AND handle a situation where there are two accounts that appear to be a "good cop/bad cop" team, the fastest is to keep the good cop and toss the bad cop, as was done here. Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Mizmontana/Archive One that would be slightly less likely to provoke dramahz in this particular situation is to ask these account holders to close one or both accounts if it IS the same person, and if it is not, then to promise not to simultaneously edit from the same IP unless they disclose identities privately to those who need to know, and in either case, then proceed to do their thing without prior baggage. Let these people edit. Let go of grudges. Montanabw18:38, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
WP:SOCK has long since ceased to be anything BUT an "off with their heads" weapon. Your comments are sensible; trouble is, most of those in charge here are loons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.76.177 (talk) 19:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Except here where there was no real punishment after the sockpuppet was discovered. Pretty balanced and reasoned decision by arbcom considering all they have said. --DHeyward (talk) 20:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The real problem
The real problem here is secretly checkusering on the flimsiest of evidence. The Arbcom (it claims) received an email making allegations; presumably it did not allege sexual malpractice, intimidation, outing or any RL crime. Yet it decided to secretly checkuser and hold a case in-camera. If the crimes of Malleus and George were so obvious a conventional checkuser request would have happened soon enough and all of this would have been avoided. The Arbcom has overstepped its remit and behaved alike a Fascist junta. We should be told who supported this course of action; they should then resign to restore confidence. That way a further witch hunt can will be avoided. Giano 19:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I think the most entertaining part of this has been your descent into hyperbole. The casting of aspersions was a nice touch. Resolute19:38, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Goodness Me! You and Coren are editing from the same country - I must drop the Arbcom an anonymous email; that's ground for a secret checkuser on you now - you must be a sock Giano 20:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
All of this has to be put in the context of AGK possibly choking on his cup of tea at lunchtime in Scotland after being questioned by Giano. That is far more worrying than any possible misdeeds of Malleus and/or George committed in some unspecified part of the West Midlands. Please let's keep things in proportion. What kind of tea was it? Lapsang Souchong? Gunpowder Green? Two sugars or one? Milk in first or milk in last? These details are important and we have a right to know. Mathsci (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
While I certainly don't agree witht he approach of those who are basically screaming at you guys and making baseless accusations, I am left wondering what the community is expected to do with this information, if anything. Correct me if I've got this wrong but it seems you are saying that you all agree that at some point the two accounts were the same person but they may or may not be two people now, you can't decide which, and you aren't going to do anything real about it other than say so, and part of the reason for that is that Malleus is involved. Now, I get that Malleus is in fact a special case. The community has made it clear that it cannot come to a consensus when it comes to Malleus. Is that not what we have you guys for? Its clear there was significant internal dissent within the committee on this one, which is not surprising, but that the only thing you could agree on was requiring a talk page notice and issuing a wishy-washy statement about it is not a good sign. Again, this is what we have you guys for: to take the difficult problems the community can't handle and "break their back." This appears to have done the exact opposite, I can't imagine how anything but further problems can be expected to come of this frankly bizarre announcement. You guys have cleared a lot of difficult stuff from your plate in the last few weeks (who would have thought Fae being unblocked wouldn't be the big story of the week?) and I for one appreciate how hard you must have been working on all that, but maybe you should have held off on this one until you had something substantive to say as it seems clear that this is just another going to result in a lot of bad noise and essentially nothing else, except that we are apparently losing George, whoever he was/is. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I think one of the major problems (That caused this statement to be issued) is the two accounts have been used in ways which contravene policy. According to the statements arbs have made above, the two accounts have editwarred together and supported each other in discussions. I think that if those violations are published, then the community would be a bit more understanding of this issue. But if true (and I have no reason to doubt my former colleagues), at least something had to be said, even if it's just a "Hey, there's reason to believe these two accounts may not be as independent as it may appear." SirFozzie (talk) 23:22, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I for one don't. Somebody please post a few diff showing actionable sock puppetry by Malleus. This shouldn't be hard. There should be disruptive edits, and they should be reasonably fresh. The goal is to correct bad behavior, not beat people up. Can somebody explain why a quiet email to Malleus to the effect of "We're onto you, now cut the crap" wouldn't have served well enough? Jehochman21:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Setting aside your statement that you don't trust us, thank you for asking us questions in such a constructive and level-headed way. My colleagues and I signed up to be held accountable in our decisions to the community (and to explain them when asked to do so). We did not sign up to be hounded and abused, but recently others seem to be doing awfully much of that. Relevant, reasoned, and polite questions, such as the ones you have been asking, need—I think—to be recognised. It makes contributing here (yes, even as an arbitrator) a job that's actually bearable. As for the two points you raise:
If people would like to see the behavioural evidence we collated, I think that can be arranged. However, some of the following links may be useful if you wish to do your own research: , . These edits in particular (by MF, GP, and MF respectively) were what pushed this from "account sharing and/or the use by a long-term contributor of an account 'on the side'" to "subverting consensus or outright lying to the community": – – .
One of the first things we did was e-mail both accounts. Malleus (and George, if you accept the notion that he is a separate person—I myself am of two minds) denied that there was anything illicit going on. We weren't left with much option other than to make the WP:SOCK breach known. Hope this helps to clarify things. AGK23:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
AGK, try to imagine that there exist two editors who have family or friends. Maybe one of your Arbcomers does also? Such friends or family may well share an IP (or even a computer).
I would like to be able to wish that this was the end of your "net negative" campaign against Malleus, and attempts to bend Arbcom and WP policies to drive away better editors.Kiefer.Wolfowitz23:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
That first so called incriminating diff is from 2010, when George's account was registered in 2011. What exactly are you trying to weave here? The other two you cited? That's worth WP:OUTING a retired user? The other possible overlap is on a FAC and doesn't involve voting. Where's the beef? Where's the blatant violation of policy? And why, since ArbCom has sat on this for two months (the only RfA George participated in was Lord Roem 2, voted on 24 January), was this non-statement something you felt was needed now? What was the majority trying to achieve? Demonstrate that in one of the most drama-laden times you could still find ways to add to it? Seriously, where's that sound judgement you all claimed to have when you ran for the job? MLauba23:56, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Heh, and here I thought Malleus was going to scramble his password, leave the project, and never be heard from again... silly me. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
In the only announcement I read of his intention to leave, he referred to "Malleus" going - in the third person. I took that as meaning he'd still be editing but the Malleus account, and possibly it's associated signal behaviours, were going, and saw it as a new leaf situation, which he may have settled into. Now that the committee has linked George with Malleus, we have Malleus back. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Probably bitten a bit by Poe's law (the "heh" and the emoticon were an attempt to indicate sarcasm). Of course Malleus was never going to actually leave. Same as Giano (who we can see is quite active on this very talk page, having stomped off from the project about a dozen times so far). I have deep respect for the work of both, but I really do wish they'd be a little less diva-y at times. In fairness, I imagine they'd say the exact same thing of me, though likely for slightly different reasons. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Trust is curently impossible: I cannot believe that so many Arbs would have been so gullible, totally naive and acted like sheep going over a precipice. If the anonymous email made no allegations of RL illegal/intimidating activity, then performance a secret checkuser was a grave misuse of trust by the whole Arbcom. The sender should have been advised to request an onsite checkuser - that is the correct procedure. As it wae, it's claimed that as a group, the Arbcom performed a secret checkuser, then executed a secret kangaroo court and then agreed unanimity to protect themselves. I am concerned about this unanimity and don't want to believe it. That none of them foresaw the resultant furore shows a basic lack of understanding of what is expected from arbitrators. Giano 08:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
The goings on here have gotten awful enough without people shutting down discussions and taking other ill-considered actions that will only make things worse. Please, let's all just remain calm, maybe take a day (or a month) off from arb-related drama and hope they get their house in order. This does seem like a Bad Time ™ but cowboy actions from any quarter are not the way out. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Some thoughts
It's difficult to know where to start. It's been just over 25 hours since I was last in a position to comment on-wiki on any of the matters being discussed here, and since then a large amount has been said and done. I have views on what happened here, and what has been said since, but responding to even a small portion of what has been said here (and on some user talk pages) would take more time than I have available right now. And things may not be much better in another 20 hours or so. That's part of the problem. Things move so quickly that it is difficult, impossible sometimes, to communicate effectively (with hindsight, with the committee being so divided on the issue, we should have either done nothing, or had individual statements to issue with the statement we were able to agree on). For now, I agree in large part with Worm That Turned's comments at 11:13, 14 March 2013, but there is more that hasn't been said yet. I'll note that Malleus now claims to be controlling the George Ponderevo account, so make of that what you will. I need to think about this a bit more, as there are aspects of this that haven't been mentioned yet and still don't quite add up, based both on what occurred when I e-mailed both accounts with the courtesy notifications around 2 days ago, and the initial e-mail correspondence with George (or whoever was controlling the account at that time). The simplest explanation seems to be that one person was controlling the accounts and has been (and still is) playing games with us. If anyone has questions for me specifically, please feel free to ask, but do allow at least a full working day for me to answer during the week. Carcharoth (talk) 02:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Its old news that Malleus was using the William Leadford account...I suppose when arbcom sent their emails to the Malleus and George, only then did Malleus tag the Leadford account as an alternate account of his. The only thing that matters is whether the Malleus and George accounts had influence on some outcome by working in tandem...such as a FAC promoted to FA...or the election or nonelection of someone, or to win a content dispute. I'd have to concur with Carcharoth that "one person is controlling the accounts", but this isn't a problem unless there is clear evidence that Malleus was using George as a meatpuppet.--MONGO03:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
In addition to the William Leadford account (which as you say is old news) there was also the Nunez99 account (see this edit). As for the George Ponderevo account, it would be possible to lay out a fair amount of evidence, including some inappropriate overlaps if they are the same person. But I'm reluctant to do that until it is clear that there is any desire for that to be done, and until it is clear which account Malleus is editing from and which accounts he has access to (I think he still technically has access to both accounts, even if he doesn't actually realise it himself), and whether the claim that someone else was controlling the George Ponderevo account should be taken at face value or ignored. It also wouldn't be right to do that while there is this amount of heated argument going on. This matter was discussed at length by ArbCom and we didn't get very far, though we did manage to carry on with other matters (two cases were dealt with and closed and several appeals heard). What I would propose if there was a remote chance that anyone would actually listen to and agree to it is the following (the WP:SHARE bit seems redundant now):
(i) ArbCom step away from this and carry on with dealing with the open cases it has on its docket (as that is its core business);
(ii) Previously uninvolved editors, including those that Malleus will listen to, approach him and get him to decide which account he will use and whether the contributions licensing issues are surmountable if the account was previously controlled by someone else (technically, there is also a need to prove that the person controlling the George Ponderevo account is indeed Malleus);
(iii) The other account be blocked indefinitely and redirected to the existing one, OR it is marked as an alternate account (the same way the William Leadford one was by Malleus);
(iv) Everyone goes back to doing productive things instead of arguing.
There are some extremely perceptive comments made above (I won't say what I think of the other ones). If I think it will help, I may link to some diffs later to highlight the comments that accord with my own views and that I think really get at what has been going on here. For now, read the last few sentences of Moe Epsilon's 05:53, 14 March 2013 comment. Also the 13:39, 14 March 2013 and 20:45, 14 March 2013 comments by DHeyward. It was entirely possible, given the feeling from some parts of the committee, that Malleus would have had the book thrown at him over this. Yes, it could have been handled better, but the end result is relatively lenient. If anyone would like to take the initiative and follow the steps suggested above, please feel free to do so. I'm open to further questions on this, but at some point we need to get to stage (iv) above. Carcharoth (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Carcharoth, I have asked several times for the evidence of disruption that justified use of the checkuser tool. Could you put an end to the stonewalling? Please post the diffs or generally summarize the reason for using Checkuser. We have a policy on this wiki against fishing expeditions,CheckUser is not for fishing and if that policy has been broken, a bunch of people need to admit error. Misleading Misplaced Pages editors, even the Arbitration Committee, to protect one's own privacy, is neither sin nor crime. Malleus fibbing isn't grounds to checkuser him or to publicize his info as J delanoy has done. Would it be correct to say that Malleus wanted a clean start, to get away from his past conflicts, and he messed up? Error or incompetence should be dealt with differently than malice. You guys outing Malleus doesn't look ethical, given the explanations thus far. Jehochman11:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
As I said above, there has been so much comment on this, it is easy to miss things. Thank you for the note on my talk page (though please note that I will not be around after the next few edits, I generally only get 2-3 hours in every 24-hour period to respond, and if that doesn't align with when others are available, conversations can drag out somewhat over several days). This was mishandled, as I said above. Are you going to get all 13 arbitrators to troop out and sign up to that and go into detail as to what happened. Probably not, though there is a partial timeline of the handling of this that I did when I realised that it was all getting very messy. To try and answer your question, I mentioned to Giano on my talk page that there were periods when one of the accounts was blocked and the other one was editing. There were also overlaps and behavioural signs. But as I said, I don't want to rake over the coals of this (i.e. reignite the embers) until it is clear precisely where Malleus goes from here and which accounts he has access to - at the moment, this is as clear as mud. And linking two accounts is not outing, both are pseudonymous accounts (if you object to what J delanoy published, take it up with him first and then come back to me if you still have concerns). Oh, one more thing "Would it be correct to say that Malleus wanted a clean start, to get away from his past conflicts, and he messed up?" Probably. But why would he then use his clean start account while the other account was blocked? I am now going to respond to a comment made by MLauba, and then that will be all I have time for today. I would also appreciate it if you could try and respond to what I actually said (the four steps I suggested) instead of just hijacking this subthread to ask your questions. Carcharoth (talk) 11:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Without commenting on the use of CU in this particular instance, you are reading the policy too narrowly if you think CU may only be performed because of disruption. Investigating sock puppetry is a legitimate use of the tool and the bar for action is probably set somewhere between prima facie evidence and probable cause. For what it's worth, I agree with you that the right to individual privacy pretty much trumps everything else, though it is blatantly obvious - just from looking at some of the other discussions on this page - that this not a universally held view. Roger Davies12:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Thank you for a straight answer. How long ago did the block evasion occur? During the block evasion was Malleus peacefully editing articles, or was he performing vandalism or carrying on harassment of other users? Judging by what's been left unsaid, it sounds like he neither damaged articles nor editors. Given what I have been told after asking five times, there was a pretense for accessing Checkuser, but apparently no real justification.
Malleus tried to get a clean start, messed up a bit, and the Committee outed his new account, preventing him from getting beyond his past conflicts, preventing him from making useful contributions. This was a stupid act of following the rules for rules' sake.
I like your four thoughts. Add (v) Malleus may start a new account (and permanently abandon old accounts) to get away from his past conflicts. (vi) Committee vows to never again be party to fishing expeditions, in general. Jehochman12:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I accept (and always have accepted) the clean start hypothesis. I also accept that some people find a clean break with their past accounts more difficult than others. But you have to draw the line somewhere and while we could turn a blind eye to an overlap period of say a week or so, perhaps even a month or so, I doubt that the community would regard transitioning over nearly two years as acceptable. If the community really does think this is acceptable, then both the WP:SOCK policy and the WP:Cleanstart guideline need completely re-writing. Roger Davies12:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree that misuse of clean start is a problem, because that degenerates into good hand, bad hand. In this situation if a single, clever administrator or Checkuser had been involved, they probably would have emailed Malleus and said "Somebody suspects you are using two accounts improperly. You need to stop doing this henceforth, or else a sock puppetry case may be opened and you may be sanctioned." Maybe this already happened. If so, why did the Committee get involved instead of pointing the reporting party to WP:SPI? How can you guys review a matter (your job) after you involve yourselves in it? That's just not smart. Haven't you seen enough cases already where ArbCom action in the first instance created a huge mess? The public presentation of evidence, workshop discussion, and voting is what gives your actions legitimacy. The public posting of evidence substantiating a sock puppetry accusation is what gives Checkuser actions legitimacy. Jehochman12:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
A (sort of) outside technical view
Not sure if making a new section is the best way to present this, but hopefully it will make this post make more sense, since it will be a bit long.
A few weeks ago, an arbitrator (who is also a CheckUser) asked me, as I am a CheckUser who is not (and has not been) a member of the Arbitration Committee, to provide an outside, independent technical assessment of the possibility of a connection between the accounts User:George Ponderevo and User:Malleus Fatuorum. For what it is worth, prior to this communication, I had not investigated the case at all, and indeed was not aware that there even was any investigation surrounding either of those accounts. I understood and interpreted my involvement as simply a measure to guard against groupthink in the Committee (insert random jab here: Groupthink? In my ArbCom?! Who would ever make such an accusation??)
Here is a somewhat modified version of my findings (some details are not included for obvious reasons, and some phrasing is changed to make it more readable):
Preliminaries:
, User:George Ponderevo and User:Malleus Fatuorum both accessed Misplaced Pages exclusively through IP addresses registered to .
Compared to all internet providers I have seen during my three years of experience using the CheckUser tool, allows its residential subscribers access to relatively large and diverse blocks of IP addresses. In addition, a given subscriber’s IP address will change very frequently, typically on the order of every few days. Consequently, a user consistently editing Misplaced Pages over even a relatively short period of time will use a number of different IP addresses. Because of the frequent IP address changes associated with accounts editing from , it is extremely unlikely that two accounts contributing to Misplaced Pages from devices located in different physical locations will access Misplaced Pages from the same IP during the same period of time.
Evidence:
In every case where both accounts accessed Misplaced Pages using the same IP address, they did so within the same time frames. In every case when one account changed its IP address to another that was used by both accounts, the other account changed during the same time period. In other words, there were no occasions where one account switched an IP, and after that account switched, the other account made an edit using the previous IP. In addition, in each case where edits were made with an IP by only one of these accounts, there are no edits made at all by the other account during the time period where that IP is in use.
Conclusions:
During my period of service as a CheckUser, I have run queries on many IP addresses and accounts using IP addresses registered to . As I stated before, this service provider provides extremely dynamic IP allocation schemes.
the volatile IP allocation scheme utilized by , for two accounts controlled by physically separate users () to exhibit such perfect correlation between editing times and IP addresses used is extremely improbable. In my opinion, it would be practically impossible for such a correlation to arise by random chance over such a long period.
Based on the I received via my CheckUser queries, I cannot make any conclusion except that the accounts User:George Ponderevo and User:Malleus Fatuorum are being controlled by the same person.
At this point, I sent my findings to the Arbitration Committee. One of the arbitrators replied and told me that Malleus Fatuorum's "defense" (for lack of a more suitable term) to (what I assume was) their questions, was that he and George Ponderevo are co-workers, and therefore naturally share the same IP from time to time. The arbitrator also noted that it was worth mentioning that businesses do sometimes use residential accounts, so "residential" doesn't always actually mean it's a residence, and asked me to look at the CheckUser evidence once more with these notes in mind, and comment again on the issue. I did so, and here are the second-look findings which I sent to the Arbitration Committee
The fact that the IP addresses are listed as being residential is irrelevant for my results. Malleus' claim that he and his coworker would "naturally share the same IP from time to time" is misleading. This is not a case of only a few coincidental IP matches; this is nearly a perfect one-to-one correspondence for every single IP address used by both accounts during the entire time in which I can view the relevant server logs. This is despite the fact that as I stated before, utilizes an extremely dynamic IP allocation scheme. The odds of such a nearly perfect lineup of IP addresses arising by random chance on that ISP is almost unimaginable.
In order for Malleus' claim to be true, both he and his coworker would have to only edit from work, and from no where else, since , with only a few exceptions, every single IP address that either account used was used by both accounts.
However, both accounts have, , made edits at all hours of the day, and on Christmas Day, and from the same IP address on Christmas Day:
Based on this, I think it is obvious that these accounts are not editing solely from work. This is especially true when one notes that both accounts edit frequently on every day of the week:
In my opinion, the only possible way that George Ponderevo could not be an alternate account of Malleus Fatuorum would be are rooming together. If this were the case, it would seem to me that Malleus would have mentioned it when you first contacted him about this issue. Assuming that Malleus Fatuorum did not claim that George Ponderevo is his room mate, in the absence of for the fact that he and his coworker are apparently at work all day, every day, even Christmas, the only possible conclusion I can make is that Malleus is not telling the truth, and that both accounts are being controlled by the same person, i.e. Malleus.
These letters represent both the start and end of my involvement in this matter. I am posting this in the hope that it will set right the (mostly) understandable but inaccurate accusations that the Arbitration Committee is (in essence) maliciously attacking Malleus Fatuorum and/or George Ponderevo. Far from this, there is extremely compelling evidence to suggest that the two accounts are being controlled by the same person. Of course, my post here will only work if people think that I am not part of The Cabal™. I clearly cannot say how others feel about my involvement with the Misplaced Pages Powers That Be. Regardless, I will state with absolute conviction that I undertook the investigation, assessed the evidence, and drew my conclusions from what I sincerely believe is a disinterested and impartial point of view.
I would also like to say (and this is purely my unqualified personal opinion), that were this any other user, both accounts would have been labeled socks almost instantly and likely both blocked. I say this without giving any opinion on the suitability of such an action, or even if such an action would be remotely necessary given the circumstances. In any case, far from maliciously attacking Malleus, or similar nonsense about Malleus "not being high enough up the Misplaced Pages tree to enjoy 'special protection'", I believe that the Arbitration Committee has done much less in this case than would have been done if this were any other user. I must admit that I was extremely surprised (when I saw it on my watchlist) that their announcement was not more pointed. As I stated, once the technical evidence is reviewed, I believe that it is almost impossible to imagine any realistic way that the accounts are not being controlled by the same person.
Sorry for the length of this post. Given that this was far from an ordinary case, I felt it would be extremely improper to give anything short of the most thorough and detailed results. If there is anything unclear in what I wrote, I will do my best to clarify any questions people may have, although it is quite late now where I live, so please do not interpret silence as me refusing to answer questions. J.delanoyadds04:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi J.delanoy. I'm just going to post here that during other aspects of the investigation, some information came out about a major ISP that had the potential to completely skew the results. I'm encouraging my peers who gathered that information to let you and the rest of the checkuser team know about it, because it could have longterm impacts on CU activities; I hope it will be out to you within the week. Risker (talk) 04:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, maybe. Some of us bought it; some of us didn't. But you are right that this is something best discussed in private. NW(Talk)04:50, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Completely overwhelmed by the correlation. The correlation beyond any reasonable persons doubt is by far the most important point. The "no planes theory" has more plausibility than independent editors. --DHeyward (talk) 05:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
(e.c.) Thanks for the detail, but there are a couple of things I find unclear:
Were you given any evidence to justify running a checkuser, or did you accept the Arb's word that use of CU was justified?
What sort of evidence would be required typically to justify running a check? Have you seen evidence (in this thread or elsewhere) that would justify a check being run without a request from an Arb?
Does the CU evidence rule out MF running a small business at home with GP working there as a colleague, consistent with a description of "co-workers"?
That is ridiculous...a conspiracy theory no less. Is part of this collegues job description to go and edit pages Malleus just did, or to comment at them...preposterous. I think sometimes editors think that only the checkusers can tell if they have the same editor...rest assured it isn't.--MONGO04:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, let's see: by your implication, somebody made some completely random fishing request and hit the jackpot! They should play the lottery. But no, ythereality is that someone made an observation and said Check A against B and it was spot on. As the CU above said, it's tevchnically not feasible to randomly check for socks with such a dynamic IP provider. The non-correlating data would swamp out anything except a very specific request. They pulled the signal out of the noise because the request already identified the signal. Most likely from previous revelations is that the correlation was made offsite screwup and matched to a Misplaced Pages effort. --DHeyward (talk) 05:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
@Arbs & CU: There's several very simple explanations. Two computers set up by the same person sitting on the same router in the same household. Or one single computer used by two people in the same house. Claims "co-worker" because the nature of the relationship between both is none of your goddamn business. Could be father / son, spouse, landlord and tenant, two retirees in the same retirement home.
What is missing is any diffs of misbehaviour that justify this fishing expedition in the first place. Those posted by AGK above are simply laughably absurd and would only be evidence of nefarious activity to a paranoid body intent on seizing any pretext at all to get back at a controversial contributor.
Further, anyone reading George's interaction on talk:MOS/Infoboxes that thinks this was Malleus needs to get a grip. There's no way he would have held that discussion for so long without dropping a couple of choice epithets for which he is famous. MLauba11:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
That may be the case. But there are other discussions as well. Would you say the same about the one that was hatted here at WT:GAN? There are also a couple of edits around that period where George Ponderevo took over and signed for edits made by Malleus Fatuorum, saying that the latter had not logged out (I don't have diffs handy, but they should not be hard to find). That alone usually justifies a need to use WP:SHARE tags, and the thing that I find most strange about all this is that during the correspondence with George Ponderevo, I got the impression that he was OK with using such tags to indicate that the accounts edited from the same IP address. If that person is still around, maybe he will give permission to quote what he said? At times it looks crystal-clear, then things get murky again, which is why I think account sharing (two or more people editing from the same account) has occurred (whether intentional or not) and made it very hard to untangle Malleus's contributions as George Ponderevo from those of another person. This is in large part why we were unable to agree on what was going on, hence the anodyne end result that was published. Carcharoth (talk) 12:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Ahhh.. I see. So, let me get this straight. This giant revelation of personal information that was not revealed is ok, but the repetition of information that has been made public countless times is not. Just want to make sure here, because I wouldn't want it said that you were a gigantic bunch of hypocrites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.118.38.222 (talk) 12:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
That Committee members are tired of being treated like something you curse when you step in it? (Coren's resignation seems internal, but I don't blame the Arbs from being frustrated from the crap they've taken from some folks here) SirFozzie (talk) 23:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
It says that in addition to (a large portion of) the community lacking faith in the Arbitration Committee, its own members now lack faith in it.
I think it's time to start a discussion, perhaps an RFC, about the future of the Arbitration Committee. Not some broad and open-ended discussion, though. Much more focused on this particular question: can the work that the Arbitration Committee currently does be handled by OTRS volunteers, oversighters, checkusers, stewards, and other trusted users? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
That's because most wikis are tiny compared to the English Misplaced Pages. We need a place to go to that makes the hard decisions. --Conti|✉23:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
The Italian wiki seems to be the largest without an Arbcom, and its size doesn't even come close to enWiki. Anyhow, what would be the alternative to an arbcom? Where should, say, the whole Scientology dispute be dealt with instead? --Conti|✉00:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Actually it's a small, vocal, trollish minority that can find no middle ground or compromise. If ArbCom reveals too much it's "outing" and if not enough, it's a "star chamber". The reality is that it's neither and that those that spend all their time criticizing ArbCom, should hang it up for a while and let things take their course. Arguing that idenfying is a sockpuppet is "outing" while arguing that identifying the real life identity of a user is not, is disingenuous and counterproductive. Only the echo chamber wants to hear it so go take it to the echo chamber sites. --DHeyward (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I usually keep quiet, while watching these pages, because the discussions here cause a lot of drama and I find it pointless to comment on those discussion as it ultimately causes more drama. I find it disgustful what this community has become. We wonder why Misplaced Pages has been dying, why the OMG unmentionable site has written bad things about this site. This is why. ArbCom is something that requires a focused mind. If you lose focus, or have a weak mind, you get absorbed and taken over and start to focus on what's easiest, and not what's right. Coren outlines it exactly how it is. While we have good members on the committee, some just work to get re-eletcted, the corrupt so to speak. That's their fault. Our fault is that we have essentially a community that supposedly picks the trusted members of the community to become ArbCom. Instead we turned into a community that pick them as our scapegoats, and I find it absolutely repulsive. If I had decent change of being elected, and I most likely don't, I would probably run myself, if only to try and stop the ongoing quibbling between ArbCom and community. But alas, that probably won't happen and we won't realize our mistakes until Jimbo himself gives up on the project.—cyberpowerOnline23:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I find the statement from Coren to be rather unfair, but as they are departing words I cannot blame him for expressing his opinion. I mention above that some members of the committee would have been unhappy with my attitude being unhelpful. Well, Coren's description does match my attitude, I do give a damn what the community thinks. I consider the repercussions carefully and try to minimise the controversy surrounding events. I also care about the image that the committee portrays, as without the community's respect, the committee is nothing. Clearly, given what's happened so far this month, I've not done a great job.
I'm sure it's not only me that Coren's statement is reflecting, if it was I would be roundly ignored, but I believe I'm the most vocal about it. The leap that I cannot accept is that I'm doing this to be re-elected. I have no interest in being re-elected at the end of my term and thats after completing just 10%. So, instead, I'll leave it for the community to decide. I've updated my recall criteria slightly and now willingly apply it to my role as an arbitrator. I see no reason why we cannot do the right thing AND keep the community on side. If that's playing politics, then so be it. Something needs to change round here and accountability is a good way to start. Worm(talk) 23:59, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
I personally don't believe that Coren's statement applied to you in particular. I genuinely believe you serve for ArbCom to do the right thing, and not play to just have the title of ArbCom on you. Your words are well said, though.—cyberpowerOnline00:11, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
If Coren equates worrying about the image of the committee and the amount of drama caused with pushing for re-election, I'm pretty certain he means me (maybe others too, but certainly me). I don't equate the two. Worm(talk) 00:17, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
But you're not pushing for re-election. You're trying to do what's best for the community. Or are you pushing for re-election.—cyberpowerOnline00:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think I have much to add, might be worth re-reading what I've written and what Coren actually said. I don't think any arbs are pushing for re-election, I believe we are all trying to do what's best for the community. If you're still confused, you know where my talk page is. Worm(talk) 00:25, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I believe there is a chasm growing between Arbcom and the community and I'd like to see it closed. Pretty much everything else comes down to that. Worm(talk) 00:40, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Part of the problem, I think, is that ArbCom is intervening in things of its own motion, and I'm not sure the community's perfectly on board with that.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
If there is a chasm, what is its cause? Does the community (whatever that is) not understand what the committee is supposed to do? Does the committee not understand what it is supposed to do? Does the committee not understand policy? Has the community not articulated policy? Is what the committee decides only "right," if it is popular with whomever shows up to protest? Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, to answer those questions I would need to start really pushing into my own personal opinions and it is really tangential to the subject of this thread. If you would like to discuss my thoughts further, then please do wander over to my talk page or drop me an email. I'll hopefully reply in the morning :) Worm(talk) 01:14, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
A lot of editors who would be fantastic Arbs don't run for reasons mostly related to the fact they don't have the time to do the "job" or really can't be bothered with the hassle. Or, they seriously don't want to identify themselves to the WMF because they are unconvinced about the security of such. So what we end up with, every year, is an ArbCom comprised of such excellent editors mixed with a collection of hat-collectors who don't really contribute much to Misplaced Pages who've been elected because there was nothing better (I'll just, yet again, link this) and proceed to show their utter cluelessness. I do feel sorry for the competent Arbs who must get utterly frustrated with the incompetence of their fellows. Perhaps we should have restrictions on Arbs (a certain number of articlespace edits, FAs, GAs, whatever) as we do on those voting for them? Black Kite (talk) 00:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
And I'll add that, given the snark in that announcement, that I'm pretty sure if the community was given the choice of WormTT or Coren on ArbCom, that would be a pretty one-sided result. Black Kite (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
First, you suggest the pool is too small and then you suggest a more restrictive pool. And none of those restrictions you propose address why you say the pool is too small. Regardless of the value of those restrictions, the community would be the one to adopt such metrics but they have not -- so that would be a community problem -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
You're missing my point, I think. ArbCom should be a collection of people who are simply interested in making the encyclopedia the best it can be. At the moment, we never elect anyone that's not an admin (despite the fact that most of our best article writers are not admins, and don't wish to be) and we do elect people who have done little/nothing except politicise for the last year (see the link above, again). Surely we should be reversing that trend? That would make the pool of potential Arbs bigger, not smaller. Black Kite (talk) 01:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Oh. I don't see that suggestion above but would editors have more time than admins to do the job, be more interested in the hassle, or trust the WMF more? Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:30, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm sure many wouldn't. But we don't need a lot. A collection of article writers together with the competent-type Arbs that I mentioned above would see the ArbCom in safe handds, I think. Black Kite (talk) 01:36, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
An informative statement by Coren. Thank you for your candor. The Committee needs to focus on doing what it is good at: hearing cases about intractable disputes where the community asks for its help. The Committee should refuse to handle matters where it can't help so well: dealing with things that ought to be dealt with by paid WMF staff, such as stalking, Oversight, severe harassment and private or confidential matters. These are issues for a legal team, not a bunch of volunteers. Frequently when the Committee does some spontaneous thing via it's mailing list, it ends up in hot water. It should just stop making that mistake. Jehochman01:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Today's actions are hardly indicative of a smoothly functioning committee. Which is odd because; controversial though some recent actions may have been, it does seem like they managed to make quite a few tough decisions in the past week or so, and to find compromise on the issue with Kevin. Then this weirdness with Mal/George pops up and a different picture emerges. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well you would have saved yourselves an awful lot of trouble if you had referred the reporter to the on-site checkuser request page. You have no one to blame but yourselves for this mess. Giano 09:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Btw, as a complete aside, one thing annoying about the Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee page is that if you click on an old version of it, like say this one, from June 2011, it lists some members of the committee and tells you "The following list is accurate as of 06 June 2011:" - but it lists the current members of the committee, not the members of the committee as of June 2011. This is annoying if one wants to quickly look up who the members of the committee where in June 2011, or December 2012.Volunteer Marek05:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, then the history is inaccurate. Anyway, is there a quick way to click and find out who the members of the committee were at time "t"? Volunteer Marek05:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Doing... Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Done Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
CheckUser is not for fishing and if that policy has been broken, a bunch of people need to admit error. Misleading Misplaced Pages editors, even the Arbitration Committee, to protect one's own privacy, is neither sin nor crime. Malleus fibbing isn't grounds to checkuser him or to publicize his info as J delanoy has done. Would it be correct to say that Malleus wanted a clean start, to get away from his past conflicts, and he messed up? Error or incompetence should be dealt with differently than malice. You guys outing Malleus doesn't look ethical, given the explanations thus far. Jehochman 11:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
