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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.
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This case is contentious and has the ability to devolve very quickly. So, this is a heads-up on the procedures that have been adopted. First off, the clerks have been instructed to be very proactive in removing any inappropriate comments. These include:
Furthermore, the case will use a "single warning" system: clerks are authorised to issue an only warning to any editor who posts inappropriate comments; if the warning is not heeded, the editor may either be restricted from participating in this case or be blocked at the clerk's discretion. This applies to everyone, which includes the parties, involved onlookers, semi-involved onlookers, and people who wander in randomly (whether truly random or not). Finally, to prevent "drive-by" attacks and attempts to devolve this case, the case pages will be semi-protected and additional scrutiny will be paid to accounts that haven't participated in this dispute beforehand. If a new editor or an IP editor genuinely has something that needs to be said, they may ask a clerk to post it on their behalf. For the Committee, Salvio 23:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC) |
 | Sectioned discussion will be strictly enforced on all talk pages in this arbitration case. With the exception of clerks and arbitrators, all commenters must create a section for their statement in the form "'s section" and edit only within their own section. Threaded discussion may be refactored or removed by any clerk or arbitrator. Thanks, L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 02:03, 29 October 2015 (UTC) |
NE Ent's section
I understand the committee's desire to focus the scope of this case to a minimalist set of editors, however such tunnel vision will not meet the goal stated on top of the evidence talk page: "Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision."
Meaning depends on context; this whole civility enforcement / gender gap / arb enforcement debacle has descended into Pythonesque farce. Part of the fundamental problem is there is entirely too much focus by many editors on trying to make EC some sort of misogynistic villain. Although Misplaced Pages:: is WP:NOJUSTICE Wikipedians have an inherent sense of, and desire for, justice, resulting in an acrimonious "not a villian" backlash, putting denizens of The Ninth Circle of Hell the arbitration committee in the middle. Volunteering for the committee has got to be the equivalent of the Monty Python "abuse" room.
In issuing the current "remove and escalating block" sanctions, the committee made a good faith attempt to "split the baby". That, in hindsight, we can see this hasn't worked doesn't imply fault on the committee, it implies it's time to do something else. Therefore, rather than "going moderate," I suggest the committee currently go big and go small.
Big: Per Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration_enforcement_2/Evidence#The_word, EC should be significantly sanctioned, not for unproven personal attacks against anyone, but simply for WP:DISRUPT (drama mongering). I suggest something on the order of one to three month site ban. (The anticipated protests of "he'll leave forever!!!" should be met with "Not our problem.").
Small: Per Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration_enforcement_2/Evidence#Admins_not_using_discretion, the ggtf sanction should be changed to "An uninvolved admin may remove any comments that breach this remedy; any editor reverting such a removal, except following a consensus of admins at WP:AE, may be blocked for up to 72 hours." NE Ent 15:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
gaijin42's section
Salvio giuliano For the "arbcom takes over" remedies, what would the proposed process be? ARCA? email? ping to committee at AE? Do individual committee members have the authority to act unilaterally (as previously individual admins did?) or does action require a passing motion?
Where those remedies overlap with DS (GGTF in general) is DS enforcement for the relevant individuals also reserved to the committee? If not it seems like another likely source of drama/lawyering.
If the answer above is "motion", the extra layers of BURO may cut down of frivolous sanctions, but I also fear that they will discourage legitimate action, especially as the committee can be somewhat slow to move. It seems like this will put a floor on sanctions (eg, its not worth dealing with something that will result in a 24/week block, if it took 2 weeks to get there). Perhaps that is the intent (to stop the snipers?), but I fear that will result in de-facto permission for low level drama. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
- It's under "proposed enforcement", but, yes, it would be a motion at ARCA. I thought of alternatives (an individual arb, or even three), but that seemed to be the simplest solution. My idea, when drafting this decision, was to propose three alternatives (from least to most onerous, enforcement only through AE, only by us or full site ban), to allow my colleagues to decide what they think best tackles this problem. Salvio 19:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Knowledgekid87's section
Is there a way to avoid a repeat at what happened at Jimbo's talk-page? In my opinion as soon as Eric Corbett was mentioned along with something to do with the GGTF it should have been hatted, and CLOSED. Assuming good faith even if a newspaper or something of the like is brought to Jimbo's attention or anyone else's about Eric Corbett, and the GGTFsomething should be done about it as it is essentially going behind an editors back, and talking about them when they cant defend themselves. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Everyking's section
Some of these proposed findings and remedies are just laughable. "Having reviewed Kirill Lokshin's explanation for his block of Eric Corbett, the Arbitration Committee concludes that it was a reasonable exercise of discretion." Seriously? The only valid purpose of this case would be to desysop Kirill for abusing admin tools. Instead, the ArbCom excuses his outrageous misconduct and moves on to punish people who haven't done a thing wrong? Any of you voting in favor of this nonsense either haven't looked into the case before voting or lack the rational capacity to sit in judgment over others, and in either case you should resign. Everyking (talk) 19:48, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Awilley's section
@Salvio giuliano: Without a workshop phase in this case it was difficult to get specific drafts and proposals on the table. Some people proposed stuff on the talk pages, and I tried proposing a solution in a subsection of my evidence but in both cases it was hard to discuss these proposals because of the talk page restriction that nobody can edit outside their own section. The specific remedy I proposed would probably look something like this:
GGTF Remedy 3.3 is amended in that block lengths for civility violations shall not exceed 72 hours.
The last time I proposed this it was not clear to what extent it was considered by the committee, so if it's the same to you, I would appreciate if this proposal could receive formal consideration this time. If it is to be rejected, that's fine, but I'd like to know it was at least considered by committee members. You are welcome to modify it however you like, but please consider adding something like this to the proposed remedies. ~Awilley (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
- This block was not due to a civility violation, but rather to a topic ban violation, and the length was freely chosen by the blocking admin, applying the standard rules concerning recidivism. But, aside from that, I'd be against capping the block length in any case: after all, it's standard procedure that, if you repeatedly violate a rule, the blocks keep getting longer. Salvio 21:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Ddstretch's section
I strongly support Knowledgekid87's comment, above, about the need to hat and close particular kinds of discussions on Wales' Talk page. Furthermore, I would like to see some possibility of a sanction applied to people who reverse the hatting and closing or attempt to open another section dealing with substantially the same material. Otherwise, one has a situation where gross violations of WP:BLP and WP:NPA take place under the excuse of tittle-tattle that has a disruptive tendency on wikipedia. I make no comment about any other proposed decisions in this case. I would also have liked to see some comment on the advisability of making statement's about particular named editors other than oneself to the media. DDStretch (talk) 20:26, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Gamaliel's section
I'm in agreement with NE Ent on a lot of points. This case myopically looks at the actions of a very small set of individuals and does nothing at all to address the root of the problems. Not even a finding or a principle which merely states "Editors and administrators should be able to open and enforce sanctions requests without harassment"? No topic bans or DS for raging against EC's sanctions, even for repeat harassers? What in these proposed remedies would prevent this matter from happening again exactly the same way with a different cast of characters?
That said, you're already getting a lot of heat for this, which was inevitable. I don't envy you folks your jobs right now. Gamaliel (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
- That's because, originally, I had put in two alternatives: ARCA or a ban and, in either case, it would be superfluous. If Eric has been banned, there are not going to be any more enforcement requests; if we take over the enforcement of the restrictions, we could sanction those who disrupt the threads without the need for a specific remedy. However, the DS authorised for all gender-related edits could be used to sanction disruption related to the enforcement of Eric's restrictions. Salvio 21:37, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for clarifying that, that makes a big difference. Maybe clarify this in the decision as well? Gamaliel (talk) 22:29, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Tryptofish's section
In thinking about what Gamaliel just said directly above, it occurs to me that if ArbCom takes over the role of enforcing the sanctions, you could add to that remedy a statement about enforcing strict rules of conduct for editors who comment in those enforcements. I think that would be more manageable at this time than to try to topic ban some large but undefined population of editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Wehwalt's section
I think proposed principle #8 answers my concern about the admin ready to throw himself under the bus. People are a lot less likely to do it for no purpose. You might want to clarify that "sanctions" includes a resignation of the bits.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
What problem were you trying to solve in this case?
It's completely unclear from the proposed decision. You've weakened your own prior decisions, so it can't be intended to support administrators who do the AE dirty work. You've kicked out at one admin who's been "casting aspersions" while refusing to permit evidence against the multitude of administrators who've been aggressively supportive of Eric. You've modified your standing sanction against Eric so extensively that it has the effect of kicking one of the few admins willing to apply the sanctions (essentially saying "we guess this was within the rules, so we're going to change the rules so nobody else can ever actually apply sanctions against Eric again") - and your own decision pretty much falls in line with Giano's (far less diplomatic) position that admins are not doing it right. There are at least half a dozen other editors who were at least as offensive in voicing their opposition to Eric's block (the degree of misogyny and sexism in some of the statements and comments was truly mind-boggling, but this is not the first time Arbcom has been unable to recognize these problems) - so obviously offensiveness in respect of "gender gap" issues is not a factor in this decision. What, then, was arbcom's objective here? Because the posted PD comes across as "geez, maybe we shouldn't be so hard on Eric, but we're gonna whack anyone who says mean things about us". I can't see any problem having been solved here at all. Risker (talk) 22:10, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
MarkBernstein’s Section
If I'm reading this proposal correctly -- and I see above that I'm hardly alone in my mystification -- it contains a bill of attainder: one or two Wikipedians are to be subject to different laws than everyone else, and those rules are to be enforced through a separate (?but equal?) procedure.
Another interpretation of this proposal -- again, I may be misunderstanding its intended effect -- is that it creates an Order of Nobility, a class of Valuable Editors who are not subject to the whims of administrators and the caprice of the Community as other editors are, but who can only be sanctioned by bringing a complaint before The House Of Lords ArbCom.
This would, I admit, have the beneficial effect of regularizing the current situation, in which certain popular and influential editors are free to threaten, to be uncivil, or to take a stroll down mammary lane. Will other Unblockables eventually receive the same privilege of Direct Appeal To Caesar? How are they to apply for nobility?
One hazard -- doubtless overlooked -- is that editors having routine dealings with the Order Of Very Special Wikipedians ought to be reminded of their unique status, lest they (for example) inadvertently forget themselves in the heat of the moment and complain in the common courts of AN/I or AE. Perhaps ArbCom should also require persons subject to these Very Special provisions to indicate this in their signature -- “Baron Eric Corbett,” perhaps? Alternatively, the Unicode symbol ♔ might come in useful and save space. MarkBernstein (talk) 00:18, 13 November 2015 (UTC)