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GGTF

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Noting that since the 13th it appears that an accept is numerically impossible, unless the "other" or a "decline" vote changes, can this be closed? Dedicated Wikipedians are welcome to visit the task force talk page and make postiivee non-confrontational contributions, which might help the underlying issues. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC).

I'm a bit concerned to see that this is being accepted. The issues seem to have calmed down, at least as far as that page is concerned, and we're getting on with things in a constructive way. Pinging Carcharoth, Newyorkbrad and GorillaWarfare (only because, I believe, you were the three accepts that changed the outcome). I know there are broader issues that could be examined (e.g. incivility, sexism), but the accept comments are quite a mixed bag, and it's not clear what direction is envisaged. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

As can be seen from Carcharoth's accept comment, it would be a mistake to assume that the behaviour complained about by the original arbitation request is the only issue. It may have "calmed down". The behaviour of the complainants will also be under scrutiny. DeCausa (talk) 21:37, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

DeCausa is correct. All those involved will be under scrutiny. My view is that things are not calming down. An example is this thread, where things appear (to some extent) to be escalating. SlimVirgin is right, though, to say that the accept comments are quite a mixed bag. Carcharoth (talk) 22:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Carcharoth, and the link. I hadn't seen that discussion, although it's not really related to the GGTF. I'm worried because the GGTF talk page is meant to be a relaxed place where people feel comfortable swapping ideas. At one point a small group tried to stir things up, but they've either departed or they're interacting constructively now, so all is currently well there.

Some of the Arb comments imply that people might be sanctioned for having reacted poorly to the earlier situation. That would be an unfortunate outcome. If the committee has a particular direction in mind, that's one thing, but if it's "let's open this and see where it goes," it risks creating weeks or months of people being furious with each other for no clear benefit. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:54, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I take your point that things are calming down at the GGTF talk page. My point in linking to that thread on a user talk page was that the dispute between some of those active in the previous dispute seems to have changed location (and people are continuing to react poorly and with a battleground attitude). I know that came off the back of an ANI thread where the message was 'people have leeway on their talk pages', but have things really got to the stage where it is acceptable to talk about another editor the way people are talking on that user talk page? If you have a problem with someone, you go and talk to them about it, or try and sort it out at some other stage of dispute resolution (the irony here is that the RfC/U option was mentioned in the previous section, but ignored). You don't engage in a 'what shall we do about this editor' discussion on someone else's user talk page, though I see the same sort of thing happening at Jimmy's user talk page. There's been too much of that sort of thing going on recently. Too much dispute escalation and too little dispute resolution. Carcharoth (talk) 00:32, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

[Later insert: Thanks for bringing up the trashing people on talk pages issue. At that diff one woman felt the issue wasn't dealt with correctly and three of us explained to her evident satisfaction why it was, assuming such flagrant behavior doesn't continue such that someone has to complain. There was a lot of that trashing of people going on on talk pages and I'll find those diffs for you. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with SlimVirgin here - this could get really ugly and we have to weigh up the benefits and risks - WRT role of conflict resolution vs governance FWIW. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:15, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I do not believe this case should be limited to the issues that have occurred or are occurring on the GGTF page. It should discuss the behavior of those involved regardless of the venue. Although things may have calmed down at the GGTF page, I agree with Carcharoth that these issues have been cropping up elsewhere. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with GorillaWarfare broadly as to my rationale for accepting. The issue is cropping up all over the place, and I think a review of all the conduct that's taken place is necessary here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Let me predict what will happen, whether those 6 parties are only ones or even if others are added). Three editors and hordes of their supporters will scream "It's all Carolmooredc's fault" and maybe a couple other gender gappers. Other more rational people will list those 3 parties faults and/or defend the attacked gender gappers. (Oh, yuk. I'm not even going to read evidence until right before the deadline.) Maybe a rational point or two will be raised, mostly about issues that are no longer relevant. Then a few arbitrators will slog through all the evidence and rhetoric, list some nice principles which admins largely will ignore and deal with a few people, leaving dozens of others out there unscathed to continue to fight the battles. IMHO, you should have taken the Civility Arbitration, cause this is just Civility Arbitration #2. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 03:38, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course, it would be great if this Arbitration could be used to set some boundaries on disruption of Wikiprojects, in case someone starts "CounteringSystemicBiaS/African-Americans Task force" or rejuventates Wikiprojects Latino and discusses things that attract vehement critics. Thus arbitrators should specify editors only present evidence on what happened on the GGTF page and previous outside discussions explicitly mentioning GGTF.

Otherwise expect long discussions of the uses of personal attacks like "stupid" and "idiot" and "f*ck you" in edit summaries elsewhere; or long discussions (as opposed to a few diffs) related to C*nt-gate or CMDC-Biography-gate or GunBarrel-gate or DogsPeeingAnalogyOnUserTalkPage-gate, or PornographyEditWarring or 4 year old Israel-Palestine ANIs, and this month's India Against Corruption ("IAC") ANI (bad rs or racist deletionism run riot?; socks or all those damned women recruited by the Indian Gender Gap project?; is Carolmooredc an IAC operative?) etc.

That's how absurd it is out there, so thus my heartily rejecting the idea of an Arbitration on this. Additionally annoying is that one individual (and his friends, no doubt) wants this Arbitration to focus on getting me site banned for being a rabble rousing female who's a "libertarian" just like that awful Jimmy Wales.(I have several such explicit diffs.)

Keep the arbitration tightly focused on facts of principles that should guide Wikiproject discussions (and critics of any project) and evidence on what happened on that Wikiproject task force. Then it won't be just Civility Arbitration #2 - or something far uglier. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Carcharoth, GorillaWarfare, Seraphimblade, thanks for the replies. Would you consider calling the case something other than gender gap task force? The issues at that page have stopped, and I'm concerned that having a case appear to focus on it will discourage people from getting involved. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:34, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree. "Disruption of Wikiprojects" better to deal with the issues of disruption of mere discussions of ideas or proposals. As several people have said, if anything ever gets to the stage it's going to have a wide community impact on En.Wikipedia, it will have to go to Village Pump or where ever. (Proposals that start on an En.Wikiproject but would be implemented by the Foundation are in the same category.) Keep it simple and general to Wikiproject decorum and it will be positive and useful. (Later note: Obviously specific examples from GGTF and GGTF related (hopefully now) historical discussions/incidents would be used, but the implications should be broader.]

Make it specific to GGTF and use it to try to site ban any individuals on the list and it could end up in the New York Times and other RS. And then there's the government funded study on sexism on Wikipedia that's monitoring Wikipedia right now. I strongly urge you to see the 50 odd RS articles and various outside research studies on Wikipedia/gender gap/sexism since this is a high profile topic. Draft GGTF Resources page. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that, in my opinion, "Disruption of Wikiprojects" would not be a neutral case name, in that it would assume that the behaviour of certain editors has been disruptive even before evidence is presented – by the way, proposing to use that name also betrays a somewhat agonistical approach to the issue, which, again in my opinion, is part of the problem. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 18:59, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

More neutral would be "Criticism at Wikiprojects" or "Discussion at Wikiprojects". I'm sure arbitrators could come up with something more general, unless of course they want to focus on this actual project and its alleged nefarious agenda. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

How about "battleground mentality 1" or "civility 3" or......"2014" plus a number as the nth case of this year? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:24, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that other Wikiprojects with gender gap groups include India, Editor Retention and Gender studies. (GGTF hasn't even discussed if it wants to propose something about that.) ) Also, if it's OK for Wikiproject critics to unrelentingly and often mockingly demand answers to questions about individual comments or barely noticed or discussed individual proposals, I think most Wikiprojects would like to know. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:33, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

However, I see now on Request page that Salvio believes the false assertion that GGTF supports "the proposal to make edits made by women harder to revert." This was something a MAN put up on the main page and no one noticed or discussed because there was so much else going on; I noticed and then removed it after a couple weeks. There have been at least two other dubious proposals like that by men. I hope Arbitrators will look at the evidence showing the falsity of such accusations. False accusations repeated over and over are certainly disruptive and battleground behavior. The diffs are legion. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 20:48, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I can provide Salvio with diffs of entry and removal of MrPrincipe's proposal and two much later discussions where several us denied supporting this project. Perhaps he should then amend his statement as to not unwittingly mislead other arbitrators. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you saying that it was a trolling proposal? See details in sub-section below. It was put in in early July and taken out by you at the end of July. It was discussed on the talk page 26-29 July. See this arcived version of the page, thread entitled "43. Affirmative action program...". The main objection to the proposal appears to be that it would compromise editors by having to disclose their gender to avail themselves of it. There was one post objecting to it because it would give women's edits an "unfair advantage over those of men". I don't get any sense from that thread that it wasn't treated as a serious proposal. DeCausa (talk) 23:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

It was never proposed, DeCausa, but was something added to the main GGTF page by an editor who (as I recall) was only briefly active on the talk page. It stayed on the page only because we didn't notice it had been added. It was added on 5 July, someone wondered about it on the talk page on 26 July, and when Carol saw it she removed it, on 29 July. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, those are diffs I've already linked to on this page. Of course it was a proposal: someone put it on the project page, it stayed there a few weeks and then the proposal was rejected. Any addition aded to a WP page is a proposal until accepted by consensus. I don't see anything strange or unusual about that. Equally, in the talk page thread, the proposal was discussed and no one supported it, and it was clear that consensus was against the proposal. I don't see anything strange about that (or inconsistent with what any of the arbs said either). But, what is strange is the over reaction to arbs mentioning it. It's not as though anyone in that talk page thread said: "I've just noticed a ridiculous idea someone's posted on the project page. Obviously, let's delete it now because no one could support that". No, it was discussed over several days. It wasn't treated as trolling/vandalism/an idea to be instantly dismissed. It was given thoughtful consideration, and rejected by all the posters (although it's opaque as to whether the OP of that thread actually rejected it), and almost all of them did so on practical grounds; how would women maintain anonymity if they disclosed their gender? etc. Only one post rejected it on the ground of unfairness. That being the context, I see nothing wrong with how the arbs have referred to it. DeCausa (talk) 05:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I've just seen the ambiguity how we are using the word "proposal". I think you're taking it as a formal proposal from the GGTK, whereas I'm meaning it as a proposal to the GGTK to consider adopting it. It's clear to me that it's also in the latter context that the arbs are referring to it. DeCausa (talk) 07:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggest case title: "Battleground behaviour that started at the Gender Gap Task Force then spread all around the 'pedia through forum shopping, canvassing and not spending enough time editing articles to the general annoyance and boredom of everyone else." DeCausa (talk) 21:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

[Later insert: DeCausa, who I don't remember seeing posting on GGTF page, discusses a thread on the "two reverts" again; it should be noted I clarified that "Affirmative action" in our case meant more getting more women editing (or being admins) and supporting them continuing to edit when they face problems. These (as we call them now) "blue sky" ideas were just passing fancies, yet DeCausa et al want to continue focusing on them as if they were a major crime. While I know I'm posting this after the issues seems resolived, if behavior is the real issue, please try to make that clear to participants so we don't have to waste time explaining off the wall mere ideas that others broached (unless they seem purposively disruptive). Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:00, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

But I don't think there should be any focus on them. My comments have been directed at the overreaction and misrepresentation of what the arbs said about the blue sky discussion and also how that discussion was subsequently describribed. Something that is not unrelated to the WP:BATTLEGROUND attitudes which will apparently be looked at in this arbitration. DeCausa (talk) 17:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully Arbitrators can see the difference between a defensive reaction to constant badgering and harassment on a non-issue (including recently here), as opposed to initiating actual battleground behavior. (GGTF defensive reactions do not rise anywhere the level of, say threatening other editors with violence, of course.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully they can; I don't think it will be too difficult for them to do that. DeCausa (talk) 18:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Really if any specific Arbitrator wants to hang Eric and/or Carol out to dry, then they should resign their Arb bit, and bring a case. Hijacking this case to further their own agenda (however noble) would be ethically bankrupt. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC).

This is a catch-22. The committee refuses to take the case because it has only been at one ANI, then when subsequent attempts are made to solve the problems piecemeal at various appropriate forums, the claim is made that "the problem is spreading beyond the project". In fact, some would say the problem is spreading into the project from outside the Wikipedia —Neotarf (talk) 06:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

OK...but doesn't everything start outside the Wikipedia? I mean...nothing is truly "inside" until it is typed out.--Mark Miller (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

And is Wikimedia.org Gender gap project and it's gender gap email list considered inside or outside Wikipedia? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:06, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

That would be off Wikipedia as it is at Meta, but they discuss Wikipedia concerns a great deal there as well as Commons and other Wikimedia related issues.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is there is some overlap between "Men's Rights" Reddit, some WP pornography group, and the disturbances at Gender Gap. —Neotarf (talk) 05:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Allegations made by arbitrators

• At the request main page, Salvio giuliano wrote "the Task Force are considering changes aimed at increasing the number of women editing Wikipedia and, assuming they are successful in proposing feasible innovations, these will have an impact over Wikipedia in its entirety. Case in point, the proposal to make edits made by women harder to revert." And Worm That Turned wrote "I've seen some "blue-sky thinking" on that task force, with "un-wiki" ideas such as requiring consensus of 2 editors to revert a female editor." No diffs were provided for this allegation, and I would request that such diffs are provided, so that we can see whether this was a serious proposal by sincere and core members of the task force, or if this might have been some male trolling as Carol's comment suggests. Since this includes arbitrators, we need to sort out this particular point before the case starts. Carolmooredc, I also request that you provide the diffs regarding the "2 editors to revert a woman" claim.
• (In my own statement, I presented diff for a different incident that I consider male trolling to bring the Gender Gap project in discredit; and as I said there, male ridiculing of women's issue is a very old and persistent phenomena. I will come back to that case in the evidence/workshop section.)
• Iselilja (talk) 22:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The two editors to revert idea was on the project page under the heading "Possible affirmative action program". See this version of the page. DeCausa (talk) 22:39, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

This edit seems to have introduced it and this edit seems to have taken it out. It was in situ most of July it looks like. DeCausa (talk) 23:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, DeCause. The statement "there could be an affirmative strengthening of registered women editors by requiring that two editors be required to form consensus before being allowed to revert edits placed by women editors" was inserted by LawrencePrincipe in the beginning of July and taken out by Carol at the end of the month. Principe seems to be a fine and serious editor, so I don't suspect trolling anymore. Iselilja (talk) 23:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem here is that something that just sat on the main page without anyone really noticing it or discussing it until it was removed has been used as a primary excuse for Arbitrators to accept Arbitration.

• July 4 LawrencePrincipe entry of two revert proposal on main page, buried in a mass of text.
• July 29th removal by me after I never saw it proposed or discussed on the talk page. I figured if he was serious he could bring it up there (and it would get shot down). He didn't.
• I'm sure there were some questions about it and discussion on GGTF talk page or somewhere else and a general dismissal of the idea. Maybe someone else can find them.
• Sept 16 Grognard Chess queried about the proposal and four editors expressed impatience with his bringing up something that was not a real proposal of the project and [bring it up] just looked like trouble making.
  

If admins were misinformed about these proposals and took the Arbitration on that basis, it certainly taints the decision. I haven't even read all the Arbitrators comments yet but will soon.
[Strike misunderstanding of comment as explained below: Also questionable is Salvio writing: The Task Force are considering changes aimed at increasing the number of women editing Wikipedia - Yes, that's the goal of the foundation and many women and men editors. I hope you don't have a problem with that. He then writes and, assuming they are successful in proposing feasible innovations, these will have an impact over Wikipedia in its entirety. So? Women don't have a right to a say in an organization they are a part of? Please explain. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 00:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm a bit confused by this. If you're suggesting changes which will hopefully increase the proportion of female editors - a clearly laudable aim - why would you complain when someone points out that this might have an impact on Wikipedia - which it will? For example, your suggestion that only admins that have undergone diversity training should be allowed to close certain debates. Please feel free to explain this if I have missed something obvious. Black Kite (talk) 00:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, I talked with a friend who said I misunderstood and I took a second look. The accusation that "two reverts/blue sky" is something central to GGTF has been made and debunked a number of times, in general and with specific diffs, so it was upsetting to see it show up yet again here as a central part of the rationale of two Arbitrators to vote for Arbitration. And it felt like a plant from opponents of the project, a trumped up accusations to get rid of the project and/or one or more of its members.

In that context, put at the end of the sentence The Task Force are considering changes aimed at increasing the number of women editing Wikipedia and, assuming they are successful in proposing feasible innovations, these will have an impact over Wikipedia in its entirety. it sounded like Salvio was saying: "Oh No! They want a lot of crazy women in here to do crazy shit like this." My apologies to User:Salvio giuliano for misunderstanding.

That User:Worm_That_Turned also seems to be under the impression this was some major interest of ours when it was a Straw Man set up by people who just don't like the project compounds the problem. It would be nice if both Arbitrators re-thought their reasons for wanting arbitration in light of the fact that what they heard or were told or mistakenly understood was not necessarily relevant. That editors' sound proposals were attacked in the past is certainly a good reason, of course. Though I keep hoping from evidence of last couple days things really are better now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie)

The group has no control whatsoever over membership, cannot even archive disruptive posts without getting reverted and edit warred, and then is forced to answer to the arbcom for whatever someone has posted on a wiki that anyone can edit? —Neotarf (talk) 06:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Allegations made by arbitrators (break)

The committee now has two chances to kill what little is left of this WikiProject. They can treat all comers to the project equally, whether they oppose women's participation in Wikipedia or not. If the arbitration committee forces the group to spend all its energy arguing about whether women's participation is a real issue, the group will soon be left with only those who wish to distract the group from the goal of furthering women's participation. The other opportunity to kill the project is to impose discretionary sanctions, as would be implied by naming the case after the project, and thus legitimizing the opponents of women's participation and legitimizing hostile modes of interaction towards the group. As research has shown that women prefer non-confrontational forums, defining the group as a battleground area and subjecting it to soul-sucking Arbitration Enforcement would quickly get rid of any women participants who did not wish to become battle-scarred. —Neotarf (talk) 06:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• I wrote a piece about how blue-sky thinking should work as part of a process and mentioned in passing the only example that came to mind. I am not part of the Gender Gap Task Force, so I haven't gone through and looked at every proposal, but I did see a number of ones which I would consider "blue-sky" - for example, amending the Sexology or Bradley Manning arbitration cases to cover GGTF in discretionary sanctions[1]. I never said that the example was a "major interest" or even endorsed by the GGTF as a whole, I was explaining that when unusual ideas came up, criticism should be expected. I stand by that. Worm^TT(talk) 08:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, context coming clear now. At least no one anywhere on Wikipedia took seriously and complained about TwoKindsofPork's proposal that WMF hire a bunch of Filipino high school girls to edit to boost up the numbers of women on Wikipedia!! Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand the meaning of "blue sky" in this context. I took it for something having to do with citations, along the lines of the WP:BLUE essay. But if Carol is advocating for discretionary sanctions on women's topics, I can only say, be careful what you wish for, and if you need to reach for the "retired" template as a result, there's one on my talk page. —Neotarf (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a management speak term. The concept is that you come up with open minded ideas for improving a situation, not grounded in the restrictions of the present. See Wikt:Blue-sky thinking. Worm^TT(talk) 13:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

My proposal about paying Filipinas (either directly or indirectly) was a real one. It sure wouldn't cost too much. I still think it would be a good idea, as there is a Filipino gap on Wikipedia as well. English is a major language in their culture, yet as we all know that here mostly UK and American topics dominate.

Despite the claims that we are toasting smores and singing kumbaya into the wee hours of the morning, problems are still occurring, mostly from Carol and Neotarf. The "two voter override proporosal" (2VOP), was not problem in of itself. It was the reaction of the criticism to the proposal that was the problem. In fact the appearance of any criticism, real or imagined caused a select few (mostly Carol and Neotarf) to circle the wagons which led to a flood of (poorly) drummed up ANI threads and user talk page discussions. Those editors in particular left a pall of "What are you doing here? This is for women only" over the place. The attitudes that are fostering such behavior are still on displayTwo kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 14:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Two kinds of pork: There is no truth in that. —Neotarf (talk) 21:29, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Neotarf: I'm arguing for No Arbitration. Period. Though I will sugguest topic bans on some editors if it comes to pass. And that I be allowed to see if Sitush's threat of gun violence which earned him whopping 24 hour block was directed at me as well as other editors, considering his overt hostility, crappy biography of me, the resultant ANI brought by an Admin, not me. He rev'd up the heat to force this ANI so everything he said needs to be scrutinized and not redacted. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:34, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

TwoKindsofPork: The GGTF discussions allowed lots of editors finally to see SPECIFICO's constant, and Sitush's intermittent but nasty, year plus long harassment of me. That's one of the things that originally led to this request. Other people brought the ANIs that led to the interaction ban against SPECIFOC, Sitush's resultant acting out with the biography, and the Sitush interaction ban still at ANI. You want me punished for that, and the whole GGTF for not sitting quietly and taking several editors abuse. Just that simple. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone in this case wants to see any action taken against the GGTF. Black Kite (talk) 19:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Neither do I believe that anyone wants to see action taken against the GGTF; it's well meaning enough even if at times a little misguided, or perhaps over enthusiastic. I'm not permitted to post on Carol's talk page, so I'll take the liberty of replying directly to her here. Once the ArbCom steamroller starts to roll the inevitable outcome is that everyone will be found to be at varying degrees of fault, with varying degrees of admonishments or sanctions. It's not right, it's designed just for a quiet life, but that's the way it is. Eric Corbett 21:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

You know what I want? I doubt that you do. But since you are asking, no I don't want you punished. I would like you to stop with the misrepresentations. Correlation does not imply causation comes to mind. I would like for you to AGF a heck of a lot more. As I recently said on your talk page, saying that people that agree with you are rational, is a cheeky way of saying everyone else is irrational. Yeah, you've been through the wringer lately. Sorry you had to go through that, but your interactions with others are partly to blame. I'm not saying you deserved the article Sitush created (if you recall, I voted to delete). If you take stock of the situation, you often seemed to be mired in conflict. For some reason you get under people's skin. You've got to work on that. Stop filing ANIs perhaps? Sure, you didn't file all of them, but those that you didn't were surrogates.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 21:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Black Kite: Then who do you think they're going after? I would remind you that even though I have never edited in this topic area and have never been a member of this group, my name was added as a party to the case on the secret instructions of an arbitrator. No reasons, no diffs. Who knows if someone behind the scenes is trying to keep me from participating in the case, but Chilling Effect, that's for sure. —Neotarf (talk) 21:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Neotarf: Obviously someone went through your contribution history and saw a problem. If you look on the request page, you will see that I provided a few diffs related to you.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 21:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Neotarf, what's with all the cloak and dagger consiracy theory? The arb in question told you. Seems clear enough. DeCausa (talk) 22:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

So what were the diffs again? And the rationale? Do refresh my memory. And if TKOP is going to make accusations here, the diffs should be here as well. And someone is stalking my edits? No! I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked. —Neotarf (talk) 22:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

What ever happened to RFC/User? Isn't that what Arbitration prefers? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Eric: Some individuals initiate and foment chaos to piss editors off whose views (or assumed views) they dislike. (Which reminds me, is Sitush going to be added here? He can return any time he wants and I'm sure he will return - at the latest - the day the Arbitration is over.)
Such instigators hope their antics eventually will lead to sanctions against those they detest. (If 1/3 the articles a person works on are reverts or criticisms of one editor, some might think that was their purpose.)
We can provide a dozen examples of individual editors at GGTF being pissed off by behavior that seems meant only to harass or mock. (If Sitush got 24 hours block for being baited into his "outburst", how long a block should the dozen of us get? 24 hours for each proven and equally severe outburst? Three hours for each temper tantrum? One hour for each request that people stop disrupting the project?) Probably another dozen diffs can be provided of others who kept their tempers and calmly protested behavior they disapproved of. In fact the issue is pretty much resolved - and Arbitration unnecessary now - because so many uninvolved editors agreed at 3 ANIs that disruption was happening. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 22:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hard to tell, as it's out of our hands now. We'll just have to wait and see. One thing I can promise you is that nothing that you, me, or anyone else says at the evidence or workshop pages will make the slightest difference to the outcome. Just look at the history of previous ArbCom cases. Eric Corbett 22:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

That is not true. I've taken evidence and workshop proposals into account in drafting and voting on cases dozens of times. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

We'll see. Eric Corbett 23:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

What exactly is it that "we'll see"? I really wish you would try to assume good faith. You actually have an opinion that should be respected...but it is also clouded by your own negative opinion of too many things. That is fine but, if you cannot assume good faith....are you doing anything more than the same undermining you do at other projects? How about this...try not to taint this with what you feel is "absolute". I have come to understand you in only very certain terms about content and collaboration that I find positive , but...not by your actions that I see, but from the words of others. Here I see actions that make me think you are just more worried of the outcome that would apply to you. But don't worry too much about it or make too many negative comments. It also makes it look like you are trying to "poison the well". I hate to say this (and I do mean that...as I have come to trust what others say about you far more than I actually trust you, yourself) but this pattern of yours...just gives further evidence against you. Have you thought about that?--Mark Miller (talk) 08:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@Neotarf: on the request page I provided a few diffs of problematic behavior. The arbitrator who added you to the case might have something else in mind. Why don't you just ask him? unsigned comment added by User:Two kinds of pork) 05:54, 27 September 2014 —Neotarf (talk) 04:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC) (...and BTW,"{{yo|Neotarf}}" does not produce a ping.)

@Two kinds of pork: If you find an interesting geology link, do you take it to the MilHist WikiProject? No, you take it to the Geology project, where it has a chance of some geologist seeing it and being able to evaluate its usefulness. So why on earth would you take a gender link to the RS noticeboard. If the arbitrators are wondering why more people don't respond to these blue sky ideas, maybe this is why, they'll have someone try to read something into it that isn't there, and end up wasting their life getting dragged off to ArbCom. And Miss(?) Pork, (or is it Ms. Pork?), why don't you sign your posts? —Neotarf (talk) 06:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be an analogy to the diff I think you're refering to in TKoP's request statement. I think a better analogy of the illogicality of what you said is someone taking a milhist link to the MilHistProject, someone else suggesting taking it to RSN and getting the response "Why don't you present it to them yourself if you think they may be interested. I posted it here as an FYI for serving military personnel in the context of their project". The background WP:BATTLEGROUND position being that only serving military personnel should opine on military history. DeCausa (talk) 06:39, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't get this. Who do you consider to be a military personnel? —Neotarf (talk) 05:56, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You specifically asked Does this raise some questions about the use of video as a RS?, did you not? It was a reasonable question IMO, and I gave you what I thought was a reasonable response; Namely when queations arise over a potential source, ask the people who work in these issues all the time for their opinion. You were apparently offended by this suggestion. I've no idea why.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 08:39, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

So, Two-kinds-of-pork, let me get this straight. You don't agree that Wikipedia should have a Gender Gap project, so you hang out at their talk page acting as a sort of gatekeeper. When I dropped a link on the talk page about Anita Sarkeesian being driven out of her house over her "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" video series, you made the determination that the link belonged at WP:RS instead. Do you really think there is any wikiproject that does not know about RS? And you have continuously played with the archiving of the GG talk pages so that disruptive edits do not stay archived. In fact, after you were blocked for disruptive archiving, the first thing out of your block, you went over and messed with the archiving again. And now today you continue with the archiving disruptions. [2][3][4][5][6] (with an edit summary "quit stirring things up"). And as far as the comments you and Chess have been making on the project talk page today, not to mention past faux pas, you ought to check out WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE. —Neotarf (talk) 05:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Where have I ever said or even implied that the GG project shouldn't exist? This is one of those "diffs or strike" moments. And you continue with the ad hominem arguments? As for the archiving "disruption", that's just plain nonsense. I'd encourage anyone to visit the GGTF page in question and examine the section in question. It has nothing to do with the GG, and is tantamount to passing a bowl of popcorn while the fires burn. Discussions like those belong elsewhere. Is there a rule that only SlimVirgin is allowed to archive sections at GGTF? I'm not the first person to say you have a battleground attitude. The constant muckraking and sophistry on display sure supports that claim. I don't know what you aim to achieve by all of this. Your arguments at ANI and elsewhere have rung hollow. And that's not me saying this, but univolved editors. You really should strive harder to AGF and spend more time on substantive matters vs. trying to play the gotcha game. And I no idea what the hell you are talking about with this dating service business and Chess.mmi hope this sort of behavior will not be tolerated when this ARB request goes live. Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 07:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

So what happened when you asked the RS group to evaluate the Anita Sarkeesian video tropes series in the context of the Gender Gap? Or did you ask them. And why hasn't 123Chess456/Chess/Grognard answered Carol's question about interest in the Men's Right Movement? Also I find your recent comments on that talk page about thighs and double entendre and douchebags to have a huge creep factor, especially when taken in juxtaposition with various doxxing attempts to determine my gender on various talk pages [7][8], not to mention some personalized and sexualized invitations to me involving various parts of your anatomy. [9] (edit summary)[10] And now I see you have never written any articles. What's that about? Neotarf (talk) 03:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC) Oh, and remind me again about your user name, what does it mean again, the two kinds of pork? And the rest of the sig...what is "makin' bacon", and why is it in your sig? —Neotarf (talk) 03:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@Neotarf: The only person that seems to have a problem with my username is you. Since you are so fond of urban dictionary, why don't you spend your time there instead of making ad hominem attacks here? Shit, try wiktionary at least. Your crocodile outrage is not fooling anyone. If you don't like my name, then you know where to take it. Otherwise I suggest you shut up on the matter. You often seem to be challenging people to a battle of the wits, but you get no takers. Perhaps it's because you always show up unarmed?Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 04:51, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is a google image search for "makin' bacon" (NSFW) Is this the image you're trying to give the Gender Gap Task Force? —Neotarf (talk) 05:33, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

• Ok...this is what I think. The arbitrator that made the statement needs to retract or strike them as this may well effect the arb com discussion and outcome. From everything I see from very well respected editors....this was never a true proposal from the Gender Gap Task force but just someone adding something for reasons...that seem less that reasonable and were removed when they were discovered. We can tell outside editors or those not members of the project that they cannot edit pages of the project...there is some precedence for that however, in practice and in discussion there is a rough consensus of the general community that even editors not signed unto the project, can edit the main pages of said project even though there is also some guidelines that state the priority of the main project page should be controlled by its members. I don't care what was meant by the "blue sky" comment. I took that to mean "dreaming" and therefore not reasonable in and of itself...but frankly that is just the opinion of that person and they can say the sky is purple and it wouldn't matter to me. I think the comment was "Brown feces" myself...but again...just my opinion and not likely to pursued the editor to think highly of my comment or opinion anymore than I think of theirs. But I am a little concerned that the accuracy of the stated facts be corrected.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, WTT struck the comment. Needlessly, IMO, since it was pretty obvious what was meant and pretty uncontroversial as well. But there seems to be boundless scope for people on WP to misconstrue the obvious and the uncontroversial. DeCausa (talk) 09:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The saga of arbitration enforcement

Located at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee#The saga of arbitration enforcement Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Duplications

Top of this page seems to be duplicated. Was gonna do some deletions, but thought it best to let an administrator or arbitrator do it. GoodDay (talk) 15:59, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Streamlined Requests for Discretionary Sanctions

There is an open Request for Arbitration in which an editor has requested that discretionary sanctions be applied to an article, and there is discussion of whether the ArbCom should take that action by motion, without the need to open a full evidentiary case. My question is whether this is a reasonable way to deal with contentious topics in which there is a history of conduct issues (personal attacks, battleground editing, trolling) complicating resolving content issues. My thinking is that it is a useful idea if it isn't overused. Discretionary sanctions are an effective way of dealing with future conduct issues, less time-consuming than full evidentiary arbitration, and avoid the time-suck on the arbitrators. However, it hasn't been done in the past. In the recent American politics case, the ArbCom found it necessary to provide the remedy of discretionary sanctions by motion in the area of American politics. When do the arbitrators think that DS by motion is appropriate? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:24, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin

Granted I do not understand how this disciplinary process works. Several of User:Arthur Rubin's removal of content were reverted by an IP User:99.112.212.243 on the basis of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive142#Arthur Rubin. But with this, this, this, this and even this he seems to be back primarily removing content and even more helpful wikilinks on a heavily POV laden basis. There are accusations of sock puppetry and block evasions and other details I do not understand. On an observational basis, the body of work is as if he doesn't want to make this information easy to find on wikipedia. He has been making these kind of edits for years. If he has been sanctioned for this, how is he allowed to continue doing this? Trackinfo (talk) 17:23, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I believe most of the "information" added by the IPs to be inappropriate, but there is no doubt that he (clearly one person) was blocked for 3 months in 2012 and has not stopped editing since then. Almost all of the "helpful" wikilinks were wrong (due to the Wikipedia articles not being about the actual content as used in the article), WP:OVERLINK as being a commonly used term, or just outright Easter eggs. Furthermore, except for very few of the edits claimed to be in violation of ArbCom restrictions, they wouldn't be in violation even if there had not been a ruling that reverting blocked (from Wikipedia, as a whole) editors was exempt from topic bans. The block he points to was for making substantive edits in violation of my Tea Party movement topic ban, none of which relate to my reverts of his edits. I still don't see how edits in regard climate change could be in violation of a topic ban on the Tea Party movement. Some of the content he has added may be constructive, but WP:Banned means banned. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:40, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

The first diff mentioned above was one that I originally made, as opposed to reverting the banned editor. It could conceivably be considered as being in violation of TPm sanctions, but there is no evidence connecting the facts related to wealth inequality to the organization We are the 99% or to the Tea Party movement. All the others were reverts of the banned editor. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Gamaliel

At what I understood to be the instruction of an admin, I have opened a discussion[11] on what I believe to be an Administrator's improper use of his tools, to get a reversion of some of his actions, and to examine whether he should lose his bit. As far as I can tell this is appropriate "dispute resolution" as called for before arb, but I have been told repeatedly that it is the wrong place. Can I get some clarification of this? Andyvphil (talk) 09:15, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• I've gone ahead and closed that discussion as the results seemed fairly obvious (after an awful lot of reading). There does not appear to be anything for the committee to do here at this time. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:17, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

  Well of course you are now WP:INVOLVED, and presumably have not bothered to look at other issues around Gamaliel, who has been brought up at AN/I more than once recently.

  So not only have you made yourself incompetent to be involved as an arbitrator in any request of case by Andyvphil, but, in a by no means unusual move, potentially poisoned the well. Really we do need some professional training for arbitrators, and some appreciation of separation of power.

  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
  

Andyvphil - this is the correct forum if the community cannot resolve the dispute. It is slightly more nuanced proposition than you were advised on AN/I.

The community can certainly reverse his actions, by a number of means, depending on whether they were admin actions or not.

As to removing his admin bit the full details are at WP:Admin#Review and removal of adminship.

Note that since an acting arbitrator has just closed the AN/I section very much not in your favour, your chances of success might be considered by some as "slim-to-none". Others will say that they will purely depend on the merits of the case. My observation, historically, is that the quality of results here are very mixed.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC).

I did not express my own opinion anywhere here, I merely acted as any admin could to close a discussion whose result was clear. I don't believe that would be cause for me to recuse myself from some future case involving Gamliel. Even if it did, I would ask that you choose your words a bit more carefully. Becoming involved and thus subject to recusal is not the same thing as incompetence, and I find your phrasing to be extremely rude and needlessly inflammatory. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I would submit, then, that you have neither the temperament nor the understanding required of your role. I cannot help you with the former but to improve your understanding, albeit slightly, I will tell you that competence in law is the legal authority to deal with a matter. If you had read the contributions of your fellow arbitrator Salvio in the Media Viewer RFC case you would know this.

By the way you replied to the wrong thread.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:08, 23 October 2014 (UTC).

Apparently I have been left out of the loop, I was not informed that this was a court of law and the arbcom was now deciding legal matters. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:15, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration is a quasi-judicial process. It requires a cool head, and rational thought. You also need to understand as, for example, a trustee of a charity, a director of a company or the governor of a school does (and I have been all these things), the scope of your responsibilities and powers. Importantly in this case, the powers granted to you by the community, and the WMF, the legal basis for those powers, the limitations imposed on them by the legal system, and the significance of natural justice.

Moreover while there is no "bar council" as such, it is noteworthy, and should concentrate the mind, that a significant number of past Arbitrators have, one way or another, been "terminated with cause". These were not idiots, or bad people - by and large they simply got carried away, and did something unethical, without fully considering the consequences.

I don't suggest for a moment that your actions here were unethical. I suggest that they were ill-advised, and here is the reason:

• The AN/I thread was unclosed, that meant the community had been unable to decide (at that point), no admin had been willing to close the discussion.
• Had the matter remained undecidable by the community it would have been a candidate for Arbitration.
• You closed the case (as an admin), in response to a procedural query, that you saw as a "person following Arbitration pages" and responded the the query as "a person with expertise in Arbitration matters" with the comment "There does not appear to be anything for the committee to do here at this time." which is a standard response given by Arbitrators at requests for arbitration. It is not unreasonable to interpret these actions as those of an Arbitrator.
• Effectively in closing the AN/I thread you have interpreted the community discussion, which no one else was prepared to close, in a specific way. This, presumably, is the same way you would have interpreted the same arguments had the matter been brought before the committee. You have, therefore, pre-judged these issues, acted as a one-man arbcom and at the same time declared there is no case.

It should be clear that there are significant issues here. Quite apart from the question of responding to a procedural query with a ban.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC).

Hey Rich, kicking arbs at every opportunity will not help you feel better. The arbs did what the community wanted. Johnuniq (talk) 03:39, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not kicking arbs at every opportunity. I believe that Arbs need to maintain a high standard of behaviour. I find it worrying that I come across serious errors by arbitrators so often. It is noticeable that, for example, NewYorkBrad, WTT and Jon Vandenberg did not make these errors. I have even had an Arb edit war with me.

If you believe that I hold Arbitrators to account, as far as I can (which, after all, is not far) because of the Arb Case against me, then I can assure you that you are certainly right, that I do not "feel better" on that score, going by evidence a significant number of Arbitrators will hold a grudge when they are called on bad behaviour and be less likely to look for a positive resolution to the substantive matters that need resolving there. I cannot in good conscience allow that to sway my thinking in regard to other matters. That would be corrupt.

Moreover of the three arbitrators I have commented on in the last 24 hours, none (or possibly one, I am not certain) were involved in my arb case - and I would not even be seeing these things if I were not involved in the GGTF - a case which no-one wanted - which I am fearful that the Committee will seriously damage, if not destroy, should they give reign to their punitive side.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC).

• User:Rich Farmbrough, I doubt you make a good ombudsperson for this page, and I would submit that everyone, including Andyvphil, would benefit from you scaling back your involvement here. Drmies (talk) 22:56, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

• Andyvphil is topic banned. There is little I can do to make that worse for him. While it is doubtless cool to glory in boomerangs, they are not automatically a good thing. And my response here was primarily to answer Andy's question, it just happened to edit-conflict with Beeblbrox's banhammer. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:25, 23 October 2014 (UTC).
  

Threaded replies

In the GamerGate arbitration request, I see threaded replies in my section and in another editor's section. What is the proper response? Can these out-of-place comments be moved? Should the posters be reminded of the rule and/or cautioned? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

• There should be no threaded replies, they should be moved into the editor/s who made them sections with an @(whomever) before the reply. On another note, why don't admins or ArbCom just put all gamergate(broadly construed) articles and their Talk pages under pending changes protection? Then remove reviewer rights from editors who disrupt the pages. For at least 30 days. That would allow the pages to be worked on still by most editors, and stop the SPA problem. I doubt this will be still going on in 30 days, it's obviously being used by a certain faction of trolls to disrupt the project. Dave Dial (talk) 23:15, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Honestly, the SPA issue is not happening since the sanctions were put in place; it is much more an ideological issue now on that primarily involves establiashed editors, NPOV/systematic bias, and where SPAs that are looking to try to get the article turned one way or another are participating via the talk page but not editing. --MASEM (t) 14:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
    • That's coming from you, but from what I've seen you have been acting more as a concern troll for the SPAs than anything else, most especially on the Talk page. Which is inundated by SPA activity. You Force regular editors to jump through hoops(giving impossible standards that are not within Wiki policies) and responding in a negative manner to them, while allowing the SPAs, sent from reddit and 8chan, to disrupt one thread after the other. That's my view from observing the Talk page and viewing the edit history of the article. Dave Dial (talk) 15:51, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
• I'll ask a clerk to take a look and move these threaded replies. Thanks. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:01, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

On the Gamergate controversy close...

With the understanding that the denial of the Gamergate controversy case was due to seeing if the sanctions worked or not, I would like to know what ArbCom feels is "enough time" to let them work - eg when would be a proper time to reopen the case? Going the way it is, it's going to be a matter of when, not if, ArbCom will be seeing something from that case again, and getting some resolution on the table will be "the sooner, the better", but only after what ArbCom thinks is proper time for the sanctions to run their course. --MASEM (t) 06:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

• Masem Talking about it like it's a foregone conclusion makes it a set up premise. If there is continuing disruption, why aren't admins acting on warnings and striking the commentary that gets editors warned? Based on the feeling I got from the admins I think ~3 weeks from the closure will have been sufficent time to see if the sanctions work, but based on what I see I think the occasional derail is reasonable. Hasteur (talk) 11:33, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) As an experienced arbcom follower, I'd say that unless something dramatic happens, 1-2 months would likely be the minimum timeframe. They will want to see evidence that the sanctions have been tried, evidence that they have failed and evidence that other solutions have been investigated and, if appropriate, tried and not been successful. If you just give it up as a lost cause and just wait to try again in January then I think it likely that any case will be declined. Hopefully it wont even need a second request, but I've not been following the topic at all. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks to both respondents. I don't like the idea of setting a specific time - if problems carry on, the community sanctions are given a fair try and don't work, then take it back to the committee. Worm^TT(talk) 12:56, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I still don't entirely understand what the editors who requested that the ArbCom take the case think that the ArbCom can do that cannot be done with community sanctions. The community sanctions are written to be almost identical to ArbCom discretionary sanctions. If the community sanctions don't "work", how will ArbCom discretionary sanctions "work"? Do the editors requesting arbitration want the ArbCom to act as an editorial board and specify content, or to act as a policy board and change the policy on reliable sources? I understand that editors who support the Gamergate position are frustrated at what they perceive as bias in the mainstream media and that they think that coverage of the controversy focuses too much on misogyny and harassment and not enough on journalistic ethics, but Wikipedia has reliable sourcing guidelines. If the editors who want ArbCom to take up the Gamergate controversy case have stated what ArbCom can do that community sanctions can't do, they haven't explained that in a way that I understood. Are they saying that ArbCom sanctions "work better" than community sanctions, or are they seeking to have ArbCom ban or topic-ban certain combative editors? If the former, then can the community sanctions be improved? If the latter, then maybe they should state that that is their objective. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:46, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The different format of ArbCom cases is suited to areas where there's a lot to untangle. The evidence gets collected in one place, and there's a much longer term for review than at a noticeboard discussion. That also tends to be better suited to editors who have a long-term pattern of mild misconduct but no "smoking gun" egregious instance of it. ArbCom sanctions also are enforced at a specific noticeboard just for that purpose, which is watched by several admins who have a great deal of experience at enforcing such restrictions, rather than being brought up at a more general-purpose area like AN. So there are real ways in which those processes would differ from community-imposed restrictions. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Could a similar noticeboard be set up for the enforcement of community sanctions? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:47, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Seraphimblade Can you show how AN or ANI is not suited to deal with requesting enforcement of the GS? WP:GS/GG lists all the users who were warned, and just like WP:AE There's a very easy "The user was warned at this point, they committed this fault after the warning, therefore I request that the GS be enforced" format that could be used that allows for debate if it's a contentious violation. What benefit do we gain by having yet another board admins have to monitor as part of their mop-closet duties? Hasteur (talk) 19:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Since I didn't ever say it's not suited to it, then no, I can't say why it's not. Sanctions are enforced there frequently. There's just a difference from a general-purpose board that includes that function, rather than a board set up for that purpose alone. Which one is better suited for purpose is, I suppose, a matter of one's own thoughts on the matter. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:40, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

To explain why I ask is better described in my response to the case, but the very short reason is that there are issues of content and behavior from a group of entrenched editors with apparent ownership of the article that have refused to participate in mediation, placing any problems on editing the article on the SPAs. Sanctions will not deal with that type of situation, even though they are helping with SPA problems. MASEM (t) --16:20, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipediocracy doxxing thing

If any of the admins need a link to it or content related to it, feel free to ask me and I'll send it privately; I didn't include a link to the actual doxx (personal documents) for obvious reasons. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:23, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Notification that relates to arbitration

There is a proposal to abolish Request for Comments User Conduct. See discussion here: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Do Away with RFC/U. Thank you, Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2014

Regarding the arbitration request for Gamergate, I would like to make a statement as an IP user previously involved in the talk page discussion who has also been following other arbitration requests. I began editing Wikipedia with the Gamergate article talk page as a test case; I had intended to register an account if things went at all smoothly. The chaos and blatant hypocrisy I have witnessed over the last several weeks have served to ensure that I will never again entertain this notion, at least not unless certain users are permanently banned and never heard from again. My statement is as follows.

Extended content

Statement by previously involved IP user During the time before I was temporarily blocked as WP:NOTHERE (an absurd notion in my opinion, since what could possibly contribute more to Wikipedia than calling out the malicious behaviour of clearly biased editors?), I was informed that "WP:BLP applies everywhere on Wikipedia" - that is, on Talk pages, and I presume in arbitration requests and other such procedures as well. I have also been informed that, while "supporters of Gamergate" don't qualify for BLP protection, members of the GameJournoPros list do, even though they aren't listed in the article (or anywhere on Wikipedia as far as I can tell). Therefore, it is clear to me that Eron Gjoni (Zoe Quinn's ex) qualifies for the same protections. In light of this, I find it amazing that, throughout the various edits to the GG Talk page and in arbitration requests (just one example), we see users like Ryulong, NorthBySouthBaranof, Tarc and RedPenOfDoom repeatedly describing Gjoni's post as "ranting", insisting that his allegations be explicitly marked as "false", and generally doing everything possible to discredit him. This plays directly into a narrative I have been seeing across the internet that attempts to dismiss Gjoni's "ramblings of a jilted ex" (note that the claim that Gjoni is "jilted" is factually incorrect, per Gjoni's account, as he was the one to end the relationship). This all appears to be backed up by referring to the reliable sources as having "proven all the allegations false". However, there are several problems with this reasoning. 1. The reliable sources being cited refer to exactly one "allegation", namely, the allegation that Grayson traded a positive review of Quinn's game for sex. 2. The allegation in question is not present in Gjoni's blog post. 3. None of the reliable sources claim that the allegation is present in Gjoni's blog post. 4. As far as I can tell, none of the reliable sources actually address the substance of anything Gjoni said at all; they merely dismiss him as a ranting ex in the same way that the Wikipedia editors in question are doing now. 5. None of the allegations made by Gjoni relate to journalistic ethics. Every claim about journalistic ethics breaches being discussed in Gamergate (which relate to a wide variety of individuals, not all tied to either Grayson or Quinn in any obvious way) was raised by someone else. Gjoni simply named Grayson, a figure that many people knew of; others did the (at times faulty) research. Further to all of this - as far as I can tell, at no point has anything Gjoni had to say, even about his own experiences and not relating to Quinn, been allowed to appear on the Gamergate page, although Quinn was afforded this privilege via her article for Cracked. (Incidentally, that article also lies indirectly about Gjoni, as it references "a jilted ex's revenge porn" - Gjoni never produced nor released pornography of any kind of Quinn, and again was not "jilted"). I am forced to conclude that the sources are being deliberately misrepresented in order to push a narrative which is blatantly in violation of WP:BLP against Eron Gjoni. This behaviour is indefensible and just one of many reasons why something has to be done here. I would also like to quickly echo the sentiment that User:Ryulong getting away scot-free with 15RR is another clear reason.

74.12.93.242 (talk) 02:35, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 November 2014

"Previously involved IP user" here again. I was told that my statement on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#GamerGate was too long, and others complained about the details of an allegation I was making. Since that allegation is by no means the most important thing I have to say, I have completely rewritten my statement. (Per my word processor, the new version weighs in at 499 words, including the title and all links.)

Please remove the existing "Statement by previously involved IP user" and replace with my new statement as follows:

Statement by previously involved IP user

I am making a new statement as my first was rejected as too long.

Let me preface this by noting that I find the prejudice against so-called "SPA"s here mind-boggling. Every account is, by definition, an SPA the moment the first edit is made. It's unreasonable to expect new users to begin work on multiple articles simultaneously, and not devote special attention to any of them - especially if that user then gets dragged into WP:BRD.

But what really irritates me about the current situation is all the double standards.

Claims about "obvious SPAs and POV pushers who have been filling the talk page with rambling, evidence-free arguments... [and] unsupported claims of "bias!!!!" are made here unironically, without citing the evidence of POV-pushing, and in spite of other statements that exhaustively cite the claims of bias on the part of User:TaraInDC and others. Meanwhile, when a small team of like-minded editors are responsible for a huge percentage of the edits to both the page itself and the talk page, they seem somehow immune to accusations of WP:OWN and WP:TAGTEAM. The same editors claim a "consensus" against the WP:NPOV tag on the article, and then say "consensus is not a vote" when basically everyone else objects.

Accusing admins etc. of being SPAs and pushing for them to be banned somehow doesn't WP:BOOMERANG on some, while relatively minor issues do on others. Some accounts get sanctioned for 3RR, while others get away with 15RR. I get chastised for WP:BLP when I try to explain what Gjoni actually said on the talk page, while other editors apparently get to misrepresent the sources and make false allegations against Gjoni in the actual article content (1, 2).

I see complaints about WP:GAMING by people who are trying to figure out how to make a case that will actually stick, after all the flagrant violations that have been ignored due to what looks like blatant WP:GAMING to those individuals. They're condemned for "organizing offsite" to figure this out - even though editors are supposedly allowed to do/say what they want off of Wikipedia in general, and complain loudly when those actions are cited as evidence of bias.

(Most of the above is a synthesis of other users' statements and my observation thereof. Please let me know if you feel any additional citations are necessary.)

Per comments User:Ryulong made in previous ANI action, it seems he considers himself qualified to judge his own lack of bias. He also promised there: "I will keep away more than the 48 hours it took for me to get bored sitting in Hong Kong airport with nothing to do for 5 hours." That was on October 23, and as far as I can tell from the revision history, this did not happen. I point this out for the benefit of those who have been counselling Ryulong to calm down and step away for a bit (Robert McClenon; Jimbo Wales).

74.12.93.242 (talk) 13:01, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

•  Done Jehochman ^Talk 13:06, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Perfect; thank you for your unexpectedly prompt assistance. 74.12.93.242 (talk) 13:10, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Unofficial clerking

Mr. Random has taken it upon himself to update the accept/decline/recuse/comment counts despite being an invested party.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Are the numbers incorrect? NE Ent 13:17, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't sweat the small stuff. Jehochman ^Talk 20:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Nice that someone volunteers for a boring job :-) jni ^(delete)_{...just not interested} 23:13, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

A recently conducted (albeit in my head) survey reflects that in a listing of the top 10 problems confronting the Arbitration Committee, the wrong person updating the vote tallies did not make the list. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:17, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare forgot to update the tally when casting her vote on the DP case. I was going to update it, but I guess I'm not allowed... --Biblioworm 00:51, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Msnicki has done it. Based on NYB's comments, I'd say that anyone updating it is fine provided that the change is unambiguously correct. If there is any ambiguity about an arb's intention I'd say it's far better to leave a note on their talk page than to try and guess. Thryduulf (talk) 01:30, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

We're all out of practice at updating tallies since they recoded RfA to update them automatically. Since the election is in progress, perhaps we should add a question on counting skills to the candidate questionnaire. (Or not.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The objection is all the more entertaining with this bit of ad hoc clerking. Maybe we should have two tallies; one that counts support/oppose votes and another that counts support/oppose words. Kudo's to Nyb for being able to count to 10 for the top 10 list - his questionnaire is now complete :). --DHeyward (talk) 04:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that, counting is hard :) GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:34, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we need WP:UPDATETALLY to describe a policy or at least a guideline for counting the tallies? :-) jni ^(delete)_{...just not interested} 19:08, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

RFC/U going away

It looks like RFC/U may be retired as a community process. How does ArbCom feel about this? If there's a case request that you think would benefit from an RFC, would you consider ordering one on a subpage of Arbitration space, supervised by an arbitration clerk? Jehochman ^Talk 20:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Speaking solely as an individual, absolutely not. The committee does not make policy. While I may not personally agree with the ending of RFC/U, if the community at large wishes to deprecate it the committee must respect that and not simply ignore consensus for their own procedural purposes. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:09, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Once an arbitration case is opened, there is an evidence page opened, which serves all of the original purposes as an RFC/U did, but is under the supervision of the arbitrators and clerks. Did the original question have to do with cases that have been opened, or cases that are being requested, where the filing party is expected to provide diffs?Robert McClenon (talk) 21:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the question is in the context of evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute when requesting a case. Historically either an RFC/U or detail of why one would not be possible/successful has been almost mandatory for a case to be accepted. Thryduulf (talk) 23:08, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that RFC/U is not really "dispute resolution" and does not resolve disputes, nor is AN/I. If ArbCom wants to see an attempt at dispute resolution before arbitration is sought, then User A who has a dispute with User B can go to B's talk page, and say, Hey, you did X. Here's why you shouldn't have done X. Please undo X. Or here's a compromise, maybe we can agree on Y. (Or whatever.) And then if B says, ok, I'll undo X. Or, instead of Y, how about we agree on Z. And then there's a dialogue and, hopefully, the dispute is resolved. Or if B's response is more along the lines of **** off, you ****ing ****, never post on my talk page again, then the doors of ArbCom are open. User A tried to resolve the dispute with User B and failed. Why do we need to make it more complicated than that, with special pages where people can pile on on both sides, often with the usual factions lining up, but there's no real resolution of anything? Neutron (talk) 23:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I want to draw attention to WP:Ombudsman in the hope people will revive it. V.Pump thread. It seems to be a possible fit for what the discontented are requesting. ~ R.T.G 23:40, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Very simply because ArbCOm is supposed to be the last resort for disputes the community cannot resolve. It is not for particularly egregious behaviour, by and large, as that is clear and can be dealt with by the community. Nor is it for content disputes. Were every behavioural dispute where one party refuses to negotiate brought to ArbCom, there would be a complete log-jam.

ArbCom is supposed to examine the evidence carefully, think constructively about ways to resolve the problem, and with the community's input, come up with a resolution, concomitant with the mores and policies of the community. Sometimes they manage to do this.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:19, 21 November 2014 (UTC).

Application of AE and general sanctions to areas tangential to the initial case

About a week ago, I blocked Wavyinfinity (talk · contribs) pursuant to this AE result in February. This is his second long-term block.

AE issued a topic ban prohibiting Wavyinfinity from "everything related to astrophysics or cosmology". I think there is no question that this user violated that topic ban on multiple occasions, despite warnings.

In retrospect however, I have been wondering about the AE result and the arbitration basis for this and similar bans. The core issue is that the arbitration case in question was RFAR Pseudoscience. He was brought to AE for contributing pseudoscience in the areas of cosmology / astrophysics. If AE had issued a topic ban preventing him from editing pseudoscience, that would have been obviously fine. However, the terms of the topic ban don't mention pseudoscience at all, instead banning him from astrophysics and cosmology. Since this sanction came out of the pseudoscience RFAR should there be some implicit (or explicit) limitation that sanctioned behavior must involve pseudoscience (as broadly understood)? Or is it okay to extend a sanction over a broad class of articles that don't intrinsically involve pseudoscience?

For the record, I am mostly interested in the general principle of how broadly topic bans should be drawn out of AE and other discretionary sanctions, and what happens when the ban starts to stretch beyond the topic for which arbitration occurred. In the current case, Wavyinfinity is obviously interested in pseudoscience, so even if his topic ban had been explicitly limited to say "pseudoscience related to astrophysics and cosmology", I don't think it would have made any practical difference. However, I am wondering whether a topical limitation like that is something that we should be explicitly considering in cases like this. Dragons flight (talk) 05:31, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

PS. I's not really sure what the right forum for this discussion is. The talk page for AE is redirected here, so it seemed like a reasonable place, but there may be a better location to have this discussion. In any regards, I would welcome feedback from arbitrators and others about how broadly these sanctions should be drawn. Dragons flight (talk) 05:31, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Sanctions should be drawn as narrowly as possible, while remaining effective. I doubt the validity of these sanctions, the matter should have been dealt with at AN/I (though probably with the same result,or even a siteban). And there is no real way to discuss matters with "ArbCom" it's just post and hope. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:24, 21 November 2014 (UTC).

The pseudoscience sanctions are indeed among the broader remedies in place out there. While I was not on the committee at that time, it seems to me that the reason is that it simply isn't feasible to specify every single topic area where a person might make edits concerning pseudoscientific theories or beliefs. What I am seeing in the initial AE finding is that several users expressed a concern about this user's edits which appeared to involve POV-pushing regarding fringe theories. Two administrators reviewed the situation and agreed that there was a problem and issued a sanction. That is pretty much how AE is supposed to work. If it were me I may have been more inclined to explicitly make it a tban from any edits involving fringe theories/pseudoscience, but I don't see anything inherently flawed or unfair in the decision reached there, indeed by keeping it narrow they were possibly being a bit too lenient in my opinion.

Despite being an arbitration-related process, AE is not really actively monitored by the committee, we depend on admins to manage it, so I may be wrong here, but I think if you wish to appeal an AE decision you simply file another AE request. It's also possible it would be heard at WP:ARCA but I'm not entirely sure. (By the way, have the two admins involved been advised of this discussion? Their input may be useful.) Beeblebrox (talk) 02:03, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration motion granting temporary local CheckUser permission to Arbitration Committee Election Scrutineers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

For the purpose of scrutineering the 2014 Arbitration Committee elections, stewards User:Matanya, User:Barras, and User:Trijnstel, appointed as scrutineers, are granted temporary local CheckUser permissions effective from the time of the passage of this motion until the certification of the election results.

Enacted - Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:33, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

For this motion there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	7
1–2	6
3–4	5

Support

1. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:24, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
2. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:25, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
3. LFaraone 04:30, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:57, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
5.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
6. T. Canens (talk) 09:25, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
7. Worm^TT(talk) 13:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
8. Carcharoth (talk) 23:49, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
9. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:24, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
10. AGK [•] 13:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

Recuse

1. Salvio giuliano (presumed)

Discussion by arbitrators

• This is a routine version of an annual motion. Arbitrators who are current candidates are presumed to be recused. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for amendment (November 2014)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Initiated by Fut.Perf. at 17:25, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. WP:AC/DS#Continuity

Statement by Fut.Perf.

Just noticed this trivial clerical oversight in the wording of the current DS rules. In the "WP:AC/DS#Continuity" section, there is the the rule that old warnings are grandfathered in until "twelve months from the date of the passing of the motion authorising this procedure" – but nowhere on the page does it say when that date actually was (3 May 2014, apparently), nor is there an actual link to the decision anywhere, and it took me ages just now to dig that bloody link out [12]. Just add a reference to that date there, and a link to decision in the refs section at the bottom, because it will remain important for admins in figuring out the "alert" status of editors for the next half year to come.

Of course, if Arbcom pages weren't such a ridiculous jungle of bureaucracy, I could just go ahead and make this simple, uncontroversial clerical correction myself (heck, per IAR, I guess I'll just do it anyway [13]), but since on prior attempts arbitrators have ever so gracefully insisted on the untouchableness of their little home-made bureaucratic fiefdom [14], you asked for ridiculous procedure for procedure's sake, you get ridiculous procedure for procedure's sake. Have fun voting on this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:25, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward

• Bravo. Brevity. Soul. Wit. --DHeyward (talk) 19:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Pine

Objection: Worm That Turned is violating the MoS with his support statement, and Seraphimblade's citation should be more precise. (In all seriousness, good catch.) --Pine^✉ 08:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Discretionary sanctions: Arbitrator views and discussion

• If this really were a ridiculous jungle of bureaucracy and an untouchable little home-made bureaucratic fiefdom, I would vote to deny this request on the ground that it has been improperly posted at the bottom rather than the top of the clarifications-and-amendments section. (Everyone knows that new requests go at the top rather than the bottom of the section, right?) But since the arbitration pages in reality are and always have been governed by the spirit of collaboration, good judgment, and above all common sense and proportionality in all things, I will instead say that I have no problem with this suggestion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:03, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
• Wot NYB sed. Worm^TT(talk) 08:02, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
• I move that we initiate proceedings under Rule 34.1, subpart J-5, in order to convene a subcommittee to schedule an impact analysis for the proposed modification. (In all seriousness, though, good catch and thanks for fixing it.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
• Per Seraphimblade. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:25, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
• Per Seraphimblade. AGK [•] 20:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
• Make it so. NativeForeigner ^Talk 05:03, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
• Good catch,  Roger Davies ^talk 16:58, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
• If any other similar clerical fixes are noticed by Future Perfect at Sunrise or anyone else, please make corrections and leave a note either with the clerks or at a suitable arbitration talk page. No need to raise to the level of a full clarification as done here (though I appreciate the not-so-subtle point you were making). Carcharoth (talk) 02:24, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for amendment regarding topics under discretionary sanctions (November 2014)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Initiated by User:Rich Farmbrough at 19:50, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Cases affected

• Ayn Rand arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Monty Hall problem arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Longevity arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Cold fusion 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Tree shaping arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
• Gibraltar arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Ayn Rand: Remedy 13
2. Monty Hall problem: Remedy 5
3. Longevity: Remedy 1
4. Cold fusion 2: (Remedy 10)
5. Tree shaping: Remedy 5
6. Gibraltar: Remedy 9

Amendment 1

• Ayn Rand: Discretionary sanctions
• Strike the remedy

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

This remedy is stale. The only actions in the 3 years are a warning for disruption in 2013 (which could have been made anyway), and, in January, a 1 month topic ban of a dynamic IP account.

Statement by TParis (Ayn Rand)

There was a severe edit war on Ayn Rand in October 2013. That's recent enough that I think this restriction is still needed as a reminder and as an enforcement tool for sysops in the area.--v/r - TP 22:56, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

An IP was subject of an AE block in January, 2014 per the outcome of this WP:AN3 case. The IP is block evasion by Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pc1985/Archive. Ayn Rand continues to be controversial so I recommend keeping the discretionary sanctions. Until April 2014 there was still a 1RR/week restriction in effect per the DS, but it was lifted. At present there should not be any continuing need for a 1RR. EdJohnston (talk) 05:35, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Amendment 2

• Monty Hall problem: Discretionary sanctions
• Strike the remedy

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

These stale discretionary sanctions have never been used, indeed all the time based sanctions are long expired.

Statement by Ningauble

Although this remedy has not been "used" in the limited sense that no editors have been sanctioned under its provisions (as far as I know), the log of notifications shows an instance this year where, in my opinion, the fact of the article being under this sort of probationary status has been used to good effect.

That said, apart from heading off conduct so egregious that it might be sanctionable sooner or later even without provision for special discretion, I am not sure this remedy, or anything else within the committee's remit as generally understood, can do much to improve a situation that continues to see episodes of unproductive discussion. Standards of conduct and decorum are well and good, but do not prevent dancing round and round in circles without improving this formerly featured article. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:42, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Amendment 3

• Longevity: Discretionary sanctions
• Strike the remedy

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

These stale discretionary sanctions have never been used.

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Not evident why discretionary sanctions were threatened years ago. Please strike.--Wuerzele (talk) 07:32, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Amendment 4

• Cold fusion 2: Discretionary sanctions
• Remedy already superseded: however we should update table on {{Ds/topics}}

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

Note that this remedy was never invoked.

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

There has been continued disruptive editing, but I agree with User:Gaijin42 that this can rolled up under pseudoscience, as long as it is clear that the intent is only to roll it up, not to strike the remedy. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Gaijin42

This seems like it would be covered by the pseudoscience case. So sure, nuke this one to clean up some record keeping, but it doesn't really change the editing environment for the article/topic. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:37, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Noren

This topic area was subject to enough disruption to require a full case resulting in its own specific sanctions years after the pseudoscience ruling had been put into effect. This was partly because a number of editors were of the opinion that cold fusion does not fall within the scope of pseudoscience (and the argument on that meta-topic was interminable.) If the current, specific ruling that Cold Fusion is subject to discretionary sanctions goes away, I think that a very clear, citeable statement by Arbcom that this topic is subject to sanctions under the pseudoscience umbrella would be necessary to avoid a repeat of this history. --Noren (talk) 02:23, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough is mistaken that this remedy was never invoked, see for example [15] and [16]. It was made more difficult to find these invocations because the name of the case has been retroactively changed and the logging of enforcement has been moved to merge with the older pseudoscience case.--Noren (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

Per a 15 Nov 2012 Arbcom motion, enforcement of Cold Fusion remedies is consolidated with Pseudoscience. This tells admins that problematic editing of Cold Fusion can be processed as though it were an WP:ARBPS violation. It's fine that enforcement was redirected to another case, but if Cold Fusion is dropped then we will be back to square one whenever CF problems occur. So I agree with Noren's advice about this and would oppose removing the Cold Fusion remedy. To understand what the 2012 motion was trying to do you should read the comments by User:T. Canens at the bottom of the discussion section, below the votes. It seems that cold fusion and homeopathy were both rolled into pseudoscience. EdJohnston (talk) 05:02, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Amendment 5

• Tree shaping: Discretionary sanctions
• Strike remedy.

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

Note that this remedy was never invoked apart form two warnings in 2011.

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Amendment 6

• Gibraltar: Discretionary sanctions
• Strike the remedy

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

This remedy is stale, no action has been taken since 2011.

Statement by Thryduulf

I issued a 0RR restriction on Operation Flavius for an editor in February this year. I did this under the WP:TROUBLES case, but I could equally have used the DS authorised for the Gibraltar topic area instead (the article is about a military action against IRA members on Gibraltar). Obviously if DS had been repealed for Gibraltar then I could still have issued this sanction under The Troubles. I don't remember at this distance whether the focus of this editor was Gibraltar or The Troubles though. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Further discussion

The proliferation of areas under discretionary sanctions (in addition to other forms of sanction) makes editing Wikipedia both more complex and trouble prone for all editors, but especially new editors. It makes sense to remove obsolete sanctions, and obsolete notices (indeed I removed obsolete notices from 56 of the 136 articles listed under "Community probation" only the other day).

None of these areas seem to have been significantly troubled since the case, and certainly not in a way where DS would be required to resolve them.

I would hope that none of these requested amendments would be controversial, but if one or more are I would welcome as an alternative, suspension of those sanctions for a year, with a view to striking them.

@Timotheus Canens: I certainly never implied that Pseudo-science sanction should have an exemption for cold fusion. I would be interested to know where you got such an idea. In this case we simply do not need any special note about it, its standing is simply as part of pseudo-science.

Comments by Thryduulf

I have left a message on the main article talk pages for these topic areas (Talk:Ayn Rand, Talk:Monty Hall problem, Talk:Longevity, Talk:Tree shaping and Talk:Gibraltar) advising editors there of this amendment request and asking for any comments about the proposal to be left here. I haven't left messages on any deeper pages (e.g. Talk:History of Gibraltar) as I don't know how to define the set of which pages have the DS template on that are relevant to these cases, and I'd be here all day if I tried to do that manually. Anyone else is of course free to do so.

I suggest waiting a few days to allow for any such comments before actioning (or not) these amendments. Thryduulf (talk) 12:11, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

If the cold fusion topic area is removed from the scope of the pseudoscience DS authorisation, then this should be explicitly noted at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary_sanctions as well as on the Cold Fusion 2 case page. I also note that the pseudoscience DS are authorised for "articles" rather than "pages", arbitrators may wish to consider amending that similarly to the motion last month.

And, off topic for this request but while I'm here, I asked for clarification of a BASC decision the other day at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Cookiecutteramaru's topic ban (where the BASC decision page told me to ask), but this appears to have slipped under the radar. Thryduulf (talk)

Statement by Carrite

This request is such a mess that I don't even know where to put my comment... This entire request should be thrown out as out of process. This combines a huge variety of unrelated cases, effectively massing a herd of buffalo, making examination of each individual specimen impractical. For example, I don't think the Gibraltar remedies should be altered or softened at all. What does that have to do with the Monty Hall case? Just toss this entire request and let the proposer start over, one at a time, if there is an actual need for such alterations (which I doubt). Carrite (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Francis Schonken: premise fundamentally flawed

I think the premise of this amendment request is fundamentally flawed. Remedies don't necessarily lose value because they're not actively invoked. That's all that has been researched below by Beeblebrox, whether they were actively invoked. I'm not too familiar with any of the ArbCom cases touched by this list of amendment proposals. I'm more familiar with e.g. the two Prem Rawat Arbcom cases: my experience there is that one doesn't have to invoke a remedy explicitly to demonstrate its value. Example, undoing this edit part of my edit summary read "...read templates on top of the talk page too, please", referring to the sensitivity of the topic in general, without naming any ArbCom case or remedy in particular.

I'm convinced that toning down the remedies has no advantage: when editors behave reasonably with the best interest of the encyclopedia in mind such remedies are not bothering anyone either.

At least a possibility to re-instate remedies easily if this proves necessesary needs to be built in in the amendment proposal.

Further I want to remark to ArbCom members you'd be sanctioning one of Rich Farmbrough's "mass" operations here, specifically what should still be a red flag, see #Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:21, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary.

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Ayn Rand, Monty Hall problem, Longevity, Cold fusion 2, Tree shaping, Gibraltar: Arbitrator views and discussion

• I remember (some in more detail than others) the arbitration cases that led to discretionary sanctions being authorized in these areas. Basically, we authorize DS in a topic-area where there has been disruptive editing by several (not just one or two) editors in a topic-area, and there is a likelihood of continued disruptive editing in the future. I accept, without having checked, Rich's statement that these topic-areas have not been edited disruptively for some time. The question then is, is that likely to continue if we lift the DS. In some areas it probably is, if the specific editors who were editing problematically have moved on (and no one has replaced them in that regard), or if the real-world cause of editing disputes on an article has disappeared (although I don't think that would apply here). I would certainly be open to lifting DS on a topic-area if the active editors in the topic-area told us that they thought DS was no longer necessary and was dampening the editing environment. I'm not as sure whether we want to adopt a presumption of "if DS were authorized awhile ago and the topic is calm now, we will lift the DS based on the passage of time as a housekeeping matter." I ask my colleagues who were active in the DS review a couple of months ago if this issue was discussed then and in any event what their thoughts are. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:18, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
• The relevant principle was briefly discussed here and then added to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Authorisation, which now reads [w]hen it becomes apparent that discretionary sanctions are no longer necessary for a particular area of conflict, only the committee may rescind the authorisation of them, either at the request of any editor at ARCA or of its own initiative. I'd say this is the case here and would support a motion. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:59, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
• Generally speaking, if disruptive behavior has settled down in an area and is not likely to resume, I'm in favor of removing discretionary sanctions from them. There are some areas that will probably always remain "hot" and there's little likelihood of that happening, but in these, it looks like things have cooled off quite a lot. We could always leave open the possibility of restoring sanctions by motion if significant disruption resumes. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:45, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
• I also agree that it is not desirable to have sanctions in place when there have been no recent problems and would likely support motions to remove them from these areas once we have confirmed Rich's findings. (Not saying I don't believe him, it's just best practice to double-check such things). Beeblebrox (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
• Based on Beeblebrox's #Analysis, I would support a motion to de-authorise discretionary sanctions for these topic areas. AGK [•] 20:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
• I would also support such a motion. Thank you Beeblebrox for that analysis. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
• "Pseudoscience and fringe science except cold fusion" as a discretionary sanctions area makes little sense, so I'm opposed to carving out a special exemption for CF. I'm open to a motion lifting the remainder per Beeblebrox's analysis. T. Canens (talk) 03:19, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
• I concur with my colleagues. Unless someone else beats to me, I'll draft a motion wrapping up he various loose ends on this tomorrow. Thanks to Rich Farmbrough for bringing this to us. And it's good to see the obsolescence provision in the new DS procedure been used properly.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
  • As per above, Thryduulf has posted about this request on the talkpages of the lead articles in the various topic-areas, to give the editors and admins active in the topics notice that this is being considered. (I thank him for doing so.) We might just want to wait a few more days before voting on a motion to see if we get any further input. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:49, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

---

Analysis

I am adding this section for point-by-point analysis of each request, this should help inform how we proceed. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

• Ayn Rand

Arb enforcement actions

3 users blocked in 2009, 1 in 2013, 1 January of this year

Article placed under 1RR from October 2013 to April this year

Recent article history

On the main article on Rand herself: minor editorial conflicts continue, nothing recent beyond what one would expect in an article on such a polarizing figure, nothing particularly nasty on talk page, seems fairly civil

The articles on objectivism and her novels seem fairly quiet

• Monty Hall Problem

Arb enforcement actions

1 user blocked in 2011, 1IP used by that same user blocked in 2012

Recent article history

minor editorial disputes continue, there was a recent discussion the talk page last month that turned more personal than it should have, but the article itself is not experiencing serious disruption.

• Longevity

Arb enforcement actions

Numerous warnings handed out right after the case closed n 2011, one user blocked for violating their topic ban, DS appears to have never been invoked

Recent article history

Main article appears free of conflict. No substantive discussion on talk page between announcement of DS in 2011 and a note directing users to this request a few days ago

Checked several related articles, some subject to simple vandalism, no serious editorial disputes

• Cold fusion 2

Arb enforcement actions

Numerous blocks in 2011, all of the same user who was subsequently community banned that same year

Please note this sanction was already Superseded by motion, 22:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC). See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions. So the discussion is not whether we should vacate the original sanction but rather whether it should be removed from the umbrella of the pseudoscience DS.

However, there do not appear to be any notes in the enforcement logs that directly relate to cold fusion.

Recent article history

Talk page is quite active (47 archives!) but discussion is mostly civil and the article itself is fairly stable and free of major editorial disputes

• Tree shaping

Arb enforcement actions

Three warnings in 2011, no blocks or bans

Recent article history

Pleasantly surprised to see that several users subject to now-expired individual sanctions in the original case having civil, collaborative discussions on talk page, no serious disruption of article content for some time.

• Gibraltar

Arb enforcement actions

Several warnings and individual sanctions applied in 2010-2011, all long since expired

no logged blocks or bans

Note that this is one of the decisions whose wording was modified by the committee last month, though that should not have any impact on the matter in front of us today

Recent article history

Main article and talk page appear free of prolonged, tendentious disputes, nothing beyond what one would expect for any article on a country

The entire history of an oft-disputed territory, broadly construed is an awful lot of material. Checked a sample of related pages and found no significant disruption of content.

Beeblebrox (talk) 20:43, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Motion: discretionary sanctions housekeeping

Following a request to amend several prior decisions to terminate discretionary sanctions provisions that may no longer be necessary,

1. Remedy 14 of the Ayn Rand case is rescinded;
2. Remedy 5 of the Monty Hall problem case is rescinded;
3. Remedy 1 of the Longevity case is rescinded;
4. The discretionary sanctions authorised explicitly for the Cold fusion 2 and the Homeopathy cases are rescinded. The discretionary sanctions authorised for the Pseudoscience and "Fringe science" cases continue to apply. Additionally, Remedy 14 of the Pseudoscience case is amended by replacing the word "articles" with the word "pages" for consistency;
5. Remedy 5 of the Tree shaping case is rescinded;
6. Remedy 10 of the Gibraltar case is rescinded;
7. Nothing in this motion provides grounds for appeal of remedies or restrictions imposed while discretionary sanctions for the foregoing cases were in force. Such appeals or requests to lift or modify such sanctions may be made under the same terms as any other appeal;
8. In the event that disruptive editing resumes in any of these topic-areas, a request to consider reinstating discretionary sanctions in that topic-area may be made on the clarifications and amendments page.
9. A record of topics for which discretionary sanctions have been authorised and subsequently terminated is to be established and maintained on the discretionary sanctions main page.

Enacted - Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Support:

1.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:36, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

   I've copyedited the motion to bring in the Homeopathy case, which is in the same position as Cold Fusion 2 and aded a change in wording for the Pseudoscience remedy ("articles" to "pages") for consistency with everything else. I also made a small change to the preamble. Thanks to Tim for pointing these out. Please revert if you disagree.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

2. And thanks for adding point #8, i think that's a fine idea. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

   Thanks. It's #9 now, with Brad's changes.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

3. Let's get rid of this cruft, it's no longer necessary to prevent disruption. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:36, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Carcharoth (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
5. I have taken the liberty of adding the second sentence of #7, and a new #8 (old #8 becomes #9). Any arbitrator can revert if these changes aren't desired, but if there is consensus for them, I think this is easier than adding another motion. I also made a minor copyedit to #4, and copyedited the introductory clause so it will be independently comprehensible when the motion is posted to the noticeboards. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
6. AGK [•] 06:19, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
7. Worm^TT(talk) 08:21, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
8. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 09:30, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
9. T. Canens (talk) 01:14, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
10. LFaraone 23:40, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
11. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:47, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

Comments:

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for clarification (December 2014)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} at 01:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Example arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Link to relevant decision

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Baseball Bugs (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• The Rambling Man (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notified by Thryduulf here

Statement by Baseball Bugs

I don't know how to structure this thing, so I'll just lay out a summary here: It has now been close to a year since an interaction ban was imposed between me and The Rambling Man. Likewise between Medeis and The Rambling Man. There have been several breaches of the IBAN as it's defined, but there has been no will to enforce it. So I would like to ask for either an immediate vacate of the IBAN, or at least a finite end to it, for example maybe on the anniversary of when it was imposed. My path almost never crosses TRM's, and when he takes verbal shots at us on the reference desk (which is where all this started in the first place), my usual approach is to ignore it. Medeis and TRM's situation is much touchier, as they both work at the "In The News" page, and several complaints have been lodged about that (with no action taken). So I can't give you any good advice on how to handle that case, that's up to you all. I would just like my own IBAN rescinded (both directions, of course) so that I don't feel like I have a sword hanging over my head. Thank you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

OR, at least amended so that I can report facts without fear of reprisal. That might be the better option, as I really have ZERO interest in directly interacting with that user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: The core problem is that the IBAN says not to refer to the other user either directly or indirectly. Are you arguing that the "indirectly" part no longer applies? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:50, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: If you look at his comments at the ref desk talk page ever since the IBAN took effect, you will see that he is repeating the same gripe he had about us prior to the ban, except just not naming names. So my question for you is, do I have to follow the "spirit" of the ban completely while he only has to follow it "to the letter"? Or do the same rules apply to all of us? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:44, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: Oh, and you may also observe that an IP-hopper has frequently tried to "help", such as the one that "informed" TRM that I was allegedly talking about him at ANI - after which TRM again repeated the same stuff he's been saying about us all year (and which is now out of date and unfair, but that's another story.)[17] It's not about "disliking" TRM. It's about wanting nothing to do with him, but he keeps insinuating himself into it anyway. So is that going to stop? Or is my only recourse to just ignore his violations? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: His response to your notification is a false claim that we're "trying to get him blocked."[18] I don't want him blocked. I just want him to stop talking about us - to stop violating the IBAN. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:51, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: "What is he supposed to do?" That's called the "look what you made me do" game. No one is forcing TRM to attack anyone at the ref desks, he's choosing to do so. Medeis and TRM obviously have issues at the ITN page. That's their problem. I don't work on that feature, and I don't interact with TRM, and I don't want to. But he continually refers to "us", his same old mantra from before the IBAN was imposed, that Medeis and I are a "team", which we ain't. So I want to know from you, if the actual wording of the IBAN is going to be enforced or not. So far, you're saying NOT. You're saying "What is he supposed to do but respond", while you're telling me what I'm "supposed to do" is not respond. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: And what I'm saying is that the IBAN prohibits him from talking about me, yet he has continued to do so all year. So, what is it going to take, to get him to stop talking about me? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:45, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Collect/Lukeno94: And he's been talking about both Medeis and me all this past year. I'd like to see an example of what you think an actual violation would look like. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Seraphimblade: I've put in a divider of sorts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by The Rambling Man

Statement by Lukeno94

• Comment - Considering that, 99% of the time the alleged "violations" have not been violations, I think this request should be declined as frivolous and WP:POINTy. ANI shut down the last three threads due to a lack of any actual violation, and the two users (BB and Medeis) constantly trying to push a case over the same tired old story. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 13:08, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• Diffs for the closed threads: [19] (most recent one, filed by Bugs), [20] (filed by Medeis after their earlier request was archived without being closed) and [21] (which I believe is the last post from that earlier ANI request from Medeis). This forum shopping is becoming disruptive. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Baseball Bugs: Given that half the time at least, TRM isn't referring to either of you at all, let alone indirectly, I am arguing that the two of you dislike TRM so much that you have become totally blinkered. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 17:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Baseball Bugs: What is TRM supposed to do, when Medeis constantly creates obviously bogus ANI threads, based around evidence that is long-since stale, and is often misrepresented or plain made up? Consensus is frequently at ANI that not only is TRM usually innocent of the charges, but that you two are also a negative influence on that area. If you are really that bothered by TRM, so much so that all you can see are monsters in the closet waiting to get you, go and work elsewhere on the project. There's plenty of other, far more important things, that you could do here. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Baseball Bugs: No, what I'm saying is that all 3 of you should find different areas of the encyclopedia to edit, where there is no way that you can interact apart from on the odd occasion. ITN and the reference desks are a very minor part of the encyclopedia; there are far bigger and more vital areas that need input. And that also means that you can't misinterpret things as referring to you or Medeis when they aren't. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:45, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Collect: It's a figure of speech. Almost every single example presented at ANI has frequently been dismissed as not being a violation, and some of the evidence in the recent case has been stale for a year; which is also prior to the IBAN if I remember correctly. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Collect

I am bemused by the apparent claim that only "half the time" TRM was violating a clear and mutual IBan. Collect (talk) 23:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Note: half the time appears to have been altered without making that change clear. (added for the record) Collect (talk) 11:56, 2 December 2014 (UTC)!

Statement by NE Ent

Not arbcom: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive825#Community_sanctions:_The_Rambling_Man.2C_Baseball_Bugs.2C_and_Medeis NE Ent 01:35, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

Interaction ban: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Recuse. Newyorkbrad (talk) 11:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
• The clarifications and amendments area is not for a threaded argument. Please move any comments you wish to a section of your own per the standard formatting. I'll give a brief period to do that, following which threaded discussions will be removed. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
• This request is particularly chaotic, but, unless I'm mistaken, the iban was imposed by the community and not by ArbCom; if that's so, you should file a case rather than an admendment request. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 00:29, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
• While I dislike playing the savage bureaucrat, I will not read unformatted requests. Like it or not, arbitration is one of very few areas on the project where WP:NOTBURO carries little weight. The format is prescribed because it makes it easy for us to understand your argument, so please use it. Procedural decline. AGK [•] 00:38, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for clarification (November 2014) Discretionary sanctions alerts

Original Request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Initiated by  Sandstein  at 16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

WP:AC/DS

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• John Vandenberg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (notification)
• 41.223.50.67 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (notification)

Statement by Sandstein

Today, John Vandenberg, an administrator, alerted me about the discretionary sanctions applying to the Eastern Europe topic area, and logged this as a "notification" on the case page, which he later changed to a "warning". Judging by an earlier comment, he did so to register his disapproval of my speedy deletion of an article created by a sock of a banned user. After I removed the alert after having read it, it was immediately reinstated by an anonymous user, 41.223.50.67.

Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts the purpose of such alerts is to advise an editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for an area of conflict. I am and have been active as an administrator by issuing discretionary sanctions in this topic area, and am therefore perfectly aware of the existence of these sanctions, as John Vandenberg confirmed he knew. The alert therefore served no procedure-based purpose. This also applies to the unneeded logging on the case page: Unlike earlier notifications, alerts are not logged on a case page because they can be searched for with an edit filter. John Vandenberg knew this because he used the correct alert template as provided for in WP:AC/DS.

It therefore appears that John Vandenberg used the alert procedure and the log entry not to actually inform me about discretionary sanctions, but that he misused the alerts procedure to mark his disapproval of a deletion I made and to deter me from making further admin actions in this area with which he disagrees. That is disruptive because this is not the purpose of alerts, and it is not how admins are expected to communicate with each other about disagreements concerning each other's actions. It is also disruptive because it has had the effect, whether intended or not, to create the incorrect impression in another administrator that I am disqualified from acting as an admin in this topic area because I received this alert.

To the extent the now-"warning" is meant as a sanction in and of itself, it is meritless and disruptive: The speedy deletion I made was compliant with WP:CSD#G5, and does not conflict with the prior AfD because the ban evasion issue was not considered there. Any concerns about this deletion should have been discussed at deletion review.

Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts, "any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned". Nobody other than the Arbitration Committee is authorized to issue such sanctions. I therefore ask the Committee to clarify that alerts should not be used for any other than their intended purpose, and to take such actions (e.g., issuing a warning) as it deems appropriate to ensure that John Vandenberg will not continue to issue alerts disruptively. By way of appeal of discretionary sanctions, I also ask the Committee to remove the "warning" from the log as being without merit.

Prior to making this request, I discussed the issue with John Vandenberg, but we failed to reach an understanding, and he invited me to submit this matter to this forum for review.  Sandstein  16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I cannot understand John Vandenberg's contention that I used admin tools while involved. I have never interacted with "Polandball" or related pages or users editorially, but only in an administrative capacity. Per WP:INVOLVED, such continued administrative activity does not speak to bias (even if others may not agree with the admin actions), but is instead merely part of an admin's job. John Vandenberg's casting of unfounded aspersions of misusing admin tools and of "battleground mentality" is also disruptive. As I said elsewhere, I did fail to take into consideration that my alerting the user who filed a DRV request concerning an AfD I closed might be perceived as an improperly adversarial action, even though an alert is not supposed to be one and I didn't oppose the restoration of the article proposed at DRV. I'll keep this in mind in a similar future situation. Nonetheless, because alerts may be issued by anyone, including involved users, the alert raises no question of involvement.

As concerns the "warning", either it is meant as a discretionary sanction for misconduct (as the warning by me he cites was) and in this case is appealed here as meritless and disruptive, or it is not and has therefore no place in a log under the new procedures.  Sandstein  18:30, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

John Vandenberg: Alerts are not admin actions because they neither require advanced permissions nor are they restricted to administrators. But neither are they editorial actions that speak to bias and would disqualify an admin that issues them, because they are intended to be neutral and informative in nature. Are you seriously contending that merely issuing an alert makes me involved and unable to act as an administrator, and on that basis you alerted and warned me? It should be obvious that this can't be the case, if only because by that logic your own warning would be inadmissible because it was preceded by your alert which would have disqualified you from acting further.

This episode indicates, to me, that this whole alerts system is unworkably cludgy and may need to be scrapped if even former arbitrators can't understand it, and that perhaps general clarification is needed that discretionary sanctions and alerts are, shall we we say, not the ideal way to respond to concerns about admin actions - such concerns are normally a matter for the Committee alone.  Sandstein  21:51, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by John Vandenberg

To my mind, Sandstein is obviously 'WP:INVOLVED' in the current DRV about Polandball, however not surprisingly he claims to be uninvolved. To quickly recap, he is the admin who deleted the article at DRV; when notified of the DRV, he decided to issue a DS alert to the person who initiated the DRV, and speedy delete another related article which had survived an AFD and was mentioned on the current DRV. When User:Nick undid the speedy deletion, Sandstein also demanded that Nick redelete it. IMO, this is fairly clear battleground mentality, only including the use of admin buttons for good measure. All quite unnecessary, as a sizable chunk of the community would participate in the DRV, so his voice there would be heard. It is very strange logic that Sandstein felt he had to alert user:Josve05a about discretionary sanctions, but objects to me feeling the same way about his own editing/admining in this topical area. He claims his alert to user:Josve05a was not an admin action (otherwise he would surely run afoul of 'WP:INVOLVED'), but then cant see he is participating as a normal contributor. Maybe he considers a DS alert to be a friendly chat, when he gives one to someone else ...

Anyway, the nature of this clarification is the use of alerts and the logging of them on case pages. Obviously some serious saber rattling would have quickly occurred had I sanctioned Sandstein, so I went with an alert only with a stern message with the hope he could see how others were viewing it. He didnt; he continued to post aggressively. When I found the right DS alert template and posted it, the edit filter notice reminded me to check if he had been notified any time in the last 12 months, and press Save again if I was sure it had not occurred. As I didnt find any prior notices (in edit filter log or on talk page archives), I proceeded to save the alert. I then went to the relevant arbcase to log it as is the usual procedure. I knew DS had been standardised earlier this year, and was pleasantly surprised by the edit filter logging, but it didnt occur to me that alerts would not be logged. The arbcase log for the EE case had all the signs of logging being part of the standard procedure.

Since Sandstein objected to the logging, I went and had a look at other cases and found quite a few examples of the log including notifications and warnings; I did offer to give Sandstein examples of such notices and warnings, but we are here now. Here are the ones that I've quickly found in arbcom case logs since April 2014.

• notice by user:JHunterJ - April
• warning by user:Callanecc - May 2014
• warning & alert - user:Tom Reedy - June 2014
• warning by .. Sandstein .. - July 2014
• alert by user:Drmies - August 2014
• caution by user:HJ Mitchell - September 2014
• warning by user:EdJohnston - September 2014

If it is no longer appropriate to log alerts/notices/warnings on the arbcom case, an edit filter should be added to ensure admins are aware of this change. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 17:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@Sandstein, when you put a notice on user talk:Josve05a, were you doing that as an admin or as a normal user? If it was the "editor Sandstein" who popped that friendly note on user talk:Josve05a, and not the "admin Sandstein", can't you see that you've become INVOLVED? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 18:41, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@Sandstein, so you issued a DS alert to user talk:Josve05a with your "editor Sandstein" hat on, and you want admins to be exempt from discretionary sanctions? Thanks. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Nick

I've nothing to add to the clarification and amendment section, but I will state, as I have repeatedly said, I'm really getting fed up watching good content be deleted and destroyed as a result of battleground mentality. It genuinely makes me sad watching material that people have put their heart and soul into, being deleted because it was written by this week's bogeyman. Nick (talk) 17:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise. The CSD-G5 criteria cannot be used on any page that has survived a deletion discussion (AfD). The CSD-G5 deletion by Sandstein was out of process. Please refer to Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Pages_that_have_survived_deletion_discussions for further information. Regards, Nick (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Statement by Olive

If the DS alert is going to be used without a sting it has to be used for everyone all the time. Its common for editors to know an article is under DS, but this isn't something one can assume. Of course, the use of the alert can been abused and can be seen as threatening. Use that is universal will over time render the warning as commonplace and standard, will de sting. Whether it was used in this instance as an implied threat, I don't know or care. Behind many of the actions I've seen against editors over the years are threats, some so complex as to be almost invisible. I know how that feels, so am not condoning anything that threatens but unless we deal with the surface level of an action and ignore assumption we will never get to supportive editing situations.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:04, 1 November 2014 (UTC))

• DS alerts may be placed by any editor.(Littleolive oil (talk) 04:31, 2 November 2014 (UTC))

Comment by A Quest for Knowledge

One of the goals of the recent reforms which turned "warnings" to "alerts" was to remove the stigma of the warning/alert. Apparently, that stigma is alive and well. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Alanscottwalker

Giving a "warning" is an administrative function. Its only purpose is administration of the website. No, a User does not have to have privileges to do much of administration on Wikipedia. The idea is anathema to the community, which expects good users to administer, even to requiring such at RfAdmin, moreover, the website would not function, if users did not step up. So no, giving a warning does not mean one is INVOLVED. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Fut.Perf.

John Vandenberg's actions in this case are wrong on so many levels at once it's hard to know where to start. About his technical misunderstanding of the nature of alerts and the non-logging of "warnings", I think all has been said. More importantly, his warning was wrong on its merits. As for the speedying of Why didn't you invest in Eastern Poland? (the only issue he actually mentioned in the warning), Sandstein was processing a valid G5 speedy; the fact that there had been an earlier "keep" AfD is obviously irrelevant as long as the facts justifying the speedy weren't known and discussed during the AfD. As for Sandstein's actions in the Polandball issue, which seems to be what John Vandenberg is really more concerned about, the claim that he was showing an inadmissable battleground attitude is utter nonsense when you look at his actual, very measured and balanced, comments in that DRV. Finally, the "warning", whether logged or not, was also out of process. A "warning" under DS means that I, an administrator, will hand out a block or topic ban to you, the person I am warning, if you repeat the behaviour I am warning you over. Does John Vandenberg seriously believe he would be entitled to block Sandstein if he did a G5 speedy like this again in the future? That beggars belief. Even if John Vandenberg had legitimate reasons to be concerned over Sandstein's actions, then his recourse would be not to impose "sanctions" on him, but to ask Arbcom to review Sandstein's actions; that, however, is not in any way inside the scope of what the DS are about, and therefore also doesn't belong in the DS logs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Neotarf

This request is eerily similar to this one made some time ago, where four editors were given "civility warnings" by Sandstein, apparently at random. The result of the clarification request was a delinking of the four names in the ARBATC case page. If any action other than delinking is recommended for the current situation, it would only be reasonable to revisit the other situation as well. —Neotarf (talk) 02:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment by Ncmvocalist

Perhaps AGK needs to take a step back and reconsider what it is that is being said rather than apparently typing rash replies. I am sure it would not be difficult to demonstrate how involved they have been in this "DS" rewrite project (on or off wiki), and maybe that is why he is naturally inclined to be defensive of it (even bordering what people term as ownership mentality - eg "I have spent hours editing this....").

I recall he previously said in relation to this topic (but on a separate matter) 'I will not have it said that any issue relating to DS has been rashly dismissed, particularly after an exhausting, year-long consultation. I'm sorry to have to point out that you are not coming in at the eleventh hour, but a year and a half late.' But the simple fact is, there is genuine concern or criticism regarding how convoluted and time-consuming the DS system is to the vast majority of users, and even if it is now two years later, I am sorry to say his replies below do seem to me to rashly dismiss those concerns ([22][23]) and are not consistent with what is expected here.

It is so patently obvious that a number of editors, administrators, and for that matter, former arbitrators and current arbitrators have in fact needed to take quite a bit of time to go through this 'system', and that it is by no means 'simple', 'easy to use', or 'working' by extension. Now that this reality is finally noted, I would suggest at least the rest of Committee rectifies the issue. It would be good if that happened. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I too would repeat this comment by A Quest For Knowledge. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Discretionary sanctions alerts: Arbitrator views and discussion

• When I get back from a trip on Monday, I will wade into the technicalities here. For now, I will simply note that Russavia is surely laughing his ass off at the drama he is causing here without even trying. Let's all try not to give him more reason to do so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I spent the past half hour or so reading over the back-story to this request, and perhaps I am in the advanced stages of serving out my last term as an arbitrator, but I really wish I hadn't. Let's back up a step. "The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality encyclopedia, in an environment of collaboration and community among the contributors." The entire administrative apparatus, including "discretionary sanctions" and the arbitration process and the other WP: pages where some of us spend too much of our wikitime, is ancillary to the objectives of Wikipedia that brought us all here. Debating the rules of these administrative processes should not become, in intent or in effect, an end in itself. Put differently, if the bickering about the rule-sets governing administrative processes on Wikipedia has become more complicated than some of the real-world rule-sets that I interpret every day as a litigation attorney, something is wrong. The dispute, or set of disputes, crystalized in this request is so many levels removed from the purpose and objectives of Wikipedia that it is sad. Beyond that, I will leave sorting out the fine points here to my colleagues who were more active in the DS recodification project. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
    • What? I do not think it fair to say that anyone in this request is requesting clarification with non-constructive motives. These editors have a legitimate need of a ruling here, and you cannot legitimately refuse to be understanding of that and still expect the project's administrators to do their job. AGK [•] 23:15, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
• There is an alarming failure here to grasp the distinction between the two relevant procedural entities. Cautions or warnings are sanctions and need logged; alerts (previously known as notices) are not sanctions and carry no implicit accusation of guilt. These two used to be more or less the same thing. In the recent update of procedures, they were split off and it is wrong to interchange them. John Vandenberg needs to decide whether he wanted to caution and sanction Sandstein (it appears he did) or alert him. If it is the former, he should issue Sandstein with a hand-written caution (and delete the alert template, which he may not use for that purpose). If it is the latter, Sandstein is already aware per point II of the relevant procedure and he must not attempt to 're-alert' him. I accept JV's claim that he was not aware of the changes in procedure, but I would remind him and all administrators generally that, before engaging in this process, you must take five minutes to update yourself on these changes. If you do not, you can be sanctioned by the committee, and given that this process is hardly in its infancy you are likely to find the committee exercises this right.

  On the complaint of JV about Sandstein, my position is that it cannot be heard in this venue. With the procedural confusion clarified (not that there should have been any in the first place), I suggest JV take this complaint up, perhaps with a handful of other administrators, directly with Sandstein. Neither party appears to have made an adequate effort to resolve this together, despite, as administrators, being obliged to do so. Should those attempts prove futile, a proper case request should then be filed. AGK [•] 12:31, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

• I essentially agree with AGK. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:26, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
• I also agree with AGK. T. Canens (talk) 20:00, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
• As do I. Worm^TT(talk) 08:33, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
• And I. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:32, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
• I do as well but it's frustrating the amount of time I had to spend, back several months ago, to get a solid grasp of how this system works. Brad makes a point: the system is quite complicated, and has become a bit of a self-contained beast. While I was able to pick it up, I'm afraid it would simply be incredibly daunting for any new user to navigate. NativeForeigner ^Talk 05:04, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
• AGK summarises things well but makes one key mis-step. He asks that: "I would remind him and all administrators generally that, before engaging in this process, you must take five minutes to update yourself on these changes." The response by NativeForeigner and NYB show that the estimate of 'five minutes' to update oneself on these changes is a woeful underestimate. What is needed here is some feedback from newer admins on how easy it is to understand the system as it currently stands. It is also incredibly important that ordinary editors, especially those potentially facing sanctions, find the system easy to use. If the system fails that test, then it will be unfit for purpose. Carcharoth (talk) 02:08, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Carcharoth: DS is easy to understand, because we put months of effort into writing polished, clear documentation for it. NYB and NF are not good test cases: while voting earlier this year, they had to get to grips with both the new system and the changes made from the old system. Current administrators merely need to read and follow WP:AC/DS.

  More to the point, the new system is working. Let us leave it at that. AGK [•] 06:14, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not sure there's much useful left to add at this point. I'll ask the clerks to archive it,  Roger Davies ^talk 11:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Motion related to permissions (November 2014)

Original Request

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Motion for a standing procedure on arbitrator requests for self-assignment of CheckUser or Oversight permissions

Any current member in good standing of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee may at any time receive access to the CheckUser and Oversight tools after making a request on the appropriate page, even if the member had not held one or both permissions previously. Such a request is to be considered authorised by the Arbitration Committee, within the scope of AP §1.1(5).

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	7
2–3	6
4–5	5

Support

1. As proposer. LFaraone 11:17, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Motion withdrawn. There are other adequate solutions to the specific problem that motivated this motion. LFaraone 21:16, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

1. Personally, I'd add, just to be on the safe side, "after making a request on the appropriate page" and without the need for any further formalities, but yes, this is a sound idea. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:20, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

   I assume the Stewards would interpret "[…]request is […] authorized by the Arbitration Committee[…]" as "no additional questions or formalities are required. But if there's a way to refactor this to make it more clear, I'm all ears. LFaraone 14:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

2. Yes, fine. (With a minor tweak from "policy" to "procedure" in the title),  Roger Davies ^talk 11:45, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

   Well, technically we can modify our "internal rules and procedures" (elsewhere called "processes") by motion, but casting this as "policy" speaks to me as something that would require modification to the Arbitration Policy, which is a very different process. LFaraone 14:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

3. This has the potential to blow up in spectacular fashion in ways we have not tried to foresee, but I still cannot bring myself to vote against something that will dispense with more of the higher permissions bureaucracy that has creeped in during recent years. AGK [•] 13:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

# Beeblebrox (talk) 04:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC) switching to oppose, see below

Oppose

1. Not sure about this. There are technical reasons why non-administrators cannot access the oversight tool, and I'm similarly not sure about non-administrators on the checkuser tool. That said, if a non-administrator has passed community muster to be elected to arbcom, they should be allowed the administrator flag for the duration of the time on the committee. As such, I cannot support as written - I would support the same with administrator flag (though I don't know how the community would feel about that), but otherwise it's not too onerous to work on a case by case basis. Worm^TT(talk) 14:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

   If there are technical restrictions to the utility of these tools to non-administrator arbitrators, I believe they can be worked around through requesting changes to the rights given by a group to include the minimum rights needed to use the tool. Specifically:

   • Oversight: Grant the delete, deletedhistory, deletedtext, deletelogentryt, undelete, suppressrevision, and viewsuppressed permissions to the Oversight group or create a new group for it.
   • Checkuser: Apart from not being able to block, I'm not convinced a change here would win anything.

   That said, there is a real justification for considering adminship proper for the duration of a non-Administrator, perhaps with AUSC-esque limits that they are discouraged from taking actions unrelated to functionary or committee work. LFaraone 14:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

   Definitely not keen on changing Oversight just for this hypothetical (for the time being) usercase. But thanks for the reply, I'll think on the matter. Worm^TT(talk) 15:04, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

2. I understand why this is proposed and will not be upset if it passes. Routine motions and "paperwork" to approve routine things are annoying, as we were reminded this week. Moreover, if at any time the Arbitration Committee had reservations about one of its members' having the checkuser and/or oversight rights, that would be a bad situation because it would imply reservations about that member's having access to all the other non-public information that the arbitrators are privy to as well. Thus, in voting on candidates, the community should operate on the assumption that the elected arbitrators will receive these permissions on request, and that most of the arbitrators will request them. Nonetheless, although it's a close call, I'm opposing this blanket grant for three reasons. First, it is at least theoretically possible that a future Committee might not want to confer the permissions on each and every arbitrator. Second, we have the uncertainty about whether non-administrator arbitrators could be granted oversight as a technical matter without also being granted adminship (which they should be, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion). And third, it's not 100% clear to me that the stewards would click the button in (say) 2015 to grant CU and OS to a group of newly elected arbitrators whose identity was not yet known to the Committee that passed this motion in 2014. If they require additional confirmations at that time, the result would be greater bureaucracy rather than less. Thus, while I'm open to persuasion, my instinct is to leave things the way they are now. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Am opposing this as unnecessary, and also per the concerns raised by Risker, NYB, and others. For both my terms on the Arbitration Committee I took up the CU and OS tools at the start of my terms and handed (will hand) them back at the end of the terms. I didn't use them to take logged actions, but they were there to be used if needed (for checking evidence submissions and to verify logs mainly, but potentially to help with emergency uses and backlogs). Handling things this way is better than the less efficient and more time-wasting method of handing them out to some arbs and not others and then having multiple motions over the following year to approve the grants of the tools to those that didn't take them up at the time. Carcharoth (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
4. I support the spirit of this motion, which was simply intended to eliminate needless process. However, this is a situation that is probably going to be pretty rare (although an arb who is currently in the middle of being suspended suddenly asking for these tools seems like a way, way more rare scenario) and the benefit frankly is not worth the hassle. Thanks for trying, Lafarone. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:50, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
5. Although I think this does make some sense, I also recognize the concerns mentioned below. This is such a rare occurrence, and since people have expressed concern about potential edge cases, I'd rather just have the Committee pass a motion on a case-by-case basis if needed. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
6. Per GW, NYB. NativeForeigner ^Talk 00:59, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Abstain

Recuse

Discussion by arbitrators

Community comments

• A few thoughts: I'm not sure that a steward who is unfamilar with enwiki politics wants to figure out whether an ArbCom member is in "good standing" or not. It's probably best to just explicitly say "X is granted CU/OS" each year like has been done in the past. Also, this would mean that CU/OS could not be handed out until January 1, which would be a problem if you were planning on handing it out soon after the elections like last year. (Yes, I know I'm being annoying, but stewards have to be careful on enwiki, or they risk being yelled at for their mistake by Wikimedia's largest wiki). --Rschen7754 03:17, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
  • (For clarity, I don't act on enwiki rights requests, as enwiki is a home wiki per the m:Stewards policy). --Rschen7754 06:20, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
    • I think the definition in point (a) is unambiguous and easy enough to determine that this won't be a big problem. I am sure that any arb who gets themselves into enough trouble to no longer be "in good standing" will be being watched, closely, by a crowd of people, who will be only too happy to explain the situation to any steward. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:30, 20 November 2014 (UTC).
      • I was under the impression that all Arbcom members, both current and former, had both permissions automatically? And I don't mean "unquestioningly granted upon request"; I thought that both permissions were given to you as soon as you joined the committee. Nyttend (talk) 12:09, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
        • No, the permissions are granted upon request. Although most arbitrators do choose to ask for the tools and it is routine for ArbCom to make a cumulative request to the stewards at the beginning of each term, some other arbs, for whatever reason, choose not to ask. After all, they are not strictly necessary, especially when an editor does not have any previous experience with it. Take CU, for instance, an arbitrator who has never used the tool may rely on his more experienced colleagues (which is something we generally do anyway; we don't run 15 independent checks, when someone appeals) and, so, consider access to the tool superfluous. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:35, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
          • Thanks for the clarification. I, for one, wouldn't mind if we had some way of granting "the administrator flag for the duration of the time on the committee"; being elected to Arbcom is vastly more of a responsibility than ordinary adminship, so in my mind, it would be thoroughly unhelpful if we required a non-admin arbitrator to stay that way, or if we required an arbitrator to go through RFA just so that said arbitrator could function normally. Since former arbitrators get to keep their CU/O rights, I wouldn't mind if the admin flag were retained after said arbitrator left the committee. Nyttend (talk) 12:53, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
            • I entirely agree. The scrutiny an arbcom candidate is subjected to far exceed that of an admin candidate, in my opinion. But I don't think ArbCom can do that because it would require a policy change, which is outside our province... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 13:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
              • Some wikis do this, so it is possible, though it would probably require a policy change. --Rschen7754 14:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
                • Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Non-administrator_arbitrators would be a good place to continue this part of the discussion. Nyttend (talk) 18:06, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

There are a number of issues here:

1. Is this a policy change? The Committee is charged with the responsibility to approve and remove access to (i) CheckUser and Oversight tools, a blanket approval does not, in my view, fit with this.
2. Consider, for example, we currently have a Wikipediocracy member standing. Even if he gets in there may be considerable concerns with him having CheckUser and/or Oversight. Remember the poll is predicated on existing policy.
3. There is value in having to say to the committee "I want these bits". Arbitrators may in general prefer not to have them, but if it is automatically granted on request to 'Crats, tend to get them enabled for a particular problem, and keep them through inertia.
4. Note also that if there is a committee process there is scope for community objection.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:54, 21 November 2014 (UTC).

There's no policy against a Wikipedia member using any other web forum, including Wikipediocracy. Lacking specific evidence of off-wiki conduct by an specific individual, such guilt-by-innuendo statements are not appropriate here. NE Ent 01:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Support per nom. NE Ent 01:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Aggre with that, and I would add that there is already community scrutiny and input in the form of the arbcom elections. The community has therefore already said that any sitting arb is entitled to these tools. The committee should not even be considering overiding the election results, so even though we are technically the gatekeepers of CU/OS any arb asking for it has to be granted itm making the whole motion we just did a pointless rubber stamp. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

The community has said no such thing, the way forward here is to change the policy after the current election. Not to mess with Arbcom procedure to pervert the policy. The power would not be vested in the committee if it was intended to be a rubber stamp. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:25, 23 November 2014 (UTC).

• Question: Are the CU/OS rights granted under this motion permanent, for a fixed duration, or valid only while the person serves on the ArbCom? Abecedare (talk) 05:12, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Under the present system, the CU/OS rights are granted permanently (subject to any activity rules, misconduct, etc). Thryduulf (talk) 09:00, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
• Concern: Needs a mandatory waiting period before approval, to avoid you guys on your secret mailing list having a discussion about booting one of your members for, say, leaking the mailing list, and then them going and requesting CU to release CU information on people they don't like. Hipocrite (talk) 14:10, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
• How would a steward verify whether a vote for suspension is currently taking place or whether the member is already suspended? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:13, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

If the arb was already suspended there would certainly be an announcement on the noticeboard, and they would be removed from the list of committee members on the main arbcom page. Otherwise I should think a simple ping to our mailing list pointiong out the request would be more than enough. Frankly an arb being suspended is a vanishingly rare event and probably not worth much worry. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:05, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

If stewards are supposed to privately contact the Arbitration Committee to verify that a member is not undergoing suspension proceedings, then we should stick to the current system where the Arbitration Committee sorts these things about before the stewards being poked. Otherwise, you should make a public announcement somewhere when proceeding starts. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 01:18, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: In response to your third concern, I think the only way to know would be asking at m:SN, for the opinion of some non-enwiki stewards. I certainly have an opinion on the matter, but then I am also certainly not neutral in the matter. --Rschen7754 02:20, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

• Given that there have been votes to suspend Arbcom members, but not all of them have been public, how would stewards know that there was not a private suspension vote occurring? From my experience of stewards, I think they will be expecting confirmation from Arbcom that the user meets the requirements to be of good standing. Also, as NYB points out, a future Arbitration Committee (or even the community, as is contemplated by the Checkuser and Oversight global policies) may decide to move to a different method of determining who should have access to these tools. Arbcom might also want to consider, historically, the problems associated with people coming and going with advanced permissions, and even more seriously might want to consider how many cases they have worked on in the past year that genuinely required the use of checkuser or oversight tools. Risker (talk) 01:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
  • If the problem is that you want to prevent an arb whose suspension is being discussed from getting access to the tools, then the quickest solution would be for a steward to just send an e-mail to the list prior to actioning the request. Right now, a motion is required, which, in turn, requires a majority of non-recused arbs to support it and, quite frankly, is a waste of time. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 11:24, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
    • Making someone else confirm the intentions of the Arbitration Committee is absurd and inconsiderate of the value of the time of other volunteers in the movement. Stewards have better and more useful things to do than email Arbcom; if Arbcom can't get its act together sufficiently to manage advanced permissions for its members in a quick and efficient way, that's Arbcom's problem, not the problem of the stewards. It's not about a quick solution, it's about not dumping your responsibilities on someone else. Risker (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
      • What if the reply from Arbcom comes from the user that requested his permission? What if, as it happens, the Arbitration Committee takes a long time to reply, or even forgets to reply to such an email? In essence, the arbitration committee members who are voting in favour of this motion are requiring that somebody other than the requesting user validate the request. Why can't it be the case that an arbitrator different from the requesting one has to file the request on Meta or, as it is now, that an arbitrator speaking on behalf of the committee files the request? This motion's only effect would be a slight time-saving for the Arbitrators at the expense of unclarity and extra work on Meta... Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:03, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
        • Yes, this basically dumps extra work from the arbitrators to the stewards, at the expense of transparency. This is a bad idea. --Rschen7754 17:42, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
          • In addition to this, in the future it's probably best to encourage all arbitrators to accept CU/OS in the beginning, as it's when they accept it later when the extra work occurs (for both arbs and stewards). When we grant CU, we have to get their email address (and verify it), and add them to checkuser-l and the CU wiki and IRC channel, and when we grant OS, we have to make sure they are added to the OTRS queue (which arbitrators have frequently forgotten to request). It's easier to do it all at once, especially now that Risker (who serves as a CUwiki crat/mailing list admin) is no longer on the committee. (Removing permissions isn't as bad, they just get blocked on the CUwiki and dropped from the list). --Rschen7754 20:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• I think this is getting blown all out of proportion. This was simply intended to eliminate a seemingly needless layer of process, whereby someone who was already entitled to CU/OS by dint of having been elected by the community still had to be subject to a confirmation vote before the stewards would flip the switch. All this worry about suspension proceedings is much ado about nothing in my opinion. There is no provision here requiring the stewards to double check because it doesn't seem necessary. Someone asked how they would know, so I gave an answer, but the motion as worded does not require it at all. Stewards can just go ahead and do it, secure in the knowledge that it is arbcom's responsibility to inform them if they should not. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:26, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Nothing requires the stewards to double-check anything that they do. It's only that they are the ones on the hook if it turns out that they screwed up, and they could be voted out in the next elections. --Rschen7754 19:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
  • The crux here is the words seemingly needless. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC).
    
• Actually, on reviewing the global checkuser policy and global oversight policy, it appears that Arbcom does not have the authority to grant unrestricted access to CU/OS to any group of editors (including members of its own committee) in a prospective way. Both policies state, with identical wording: "On wikis with an arbitration committee elected with 25–30 editors' approval, users may also be appointed by the arbitration committee (unless the local community prefers independent elections). After agreement, a member of the arbitration committee should place a request on Steward requests/Permissions." There is no provision for access other than by direct Arbcom appointment. I suggest the motion be withdrawn. Risker (talk) 21:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
• The global policy linked by Risker appears pretty clear; I don't understand why more care was not taken to ensure this was authorised in the first place, but moving forward, withdrawing the motion seems very sensible. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• @Risker: That isn't quite right. Appointments that would be made once this motion in effect would not violate the clause you cite in any way I can see. It may help if you do a word-by-word analysis of the Meta sentence, as I don't see the clash. AGK [•] 06:25, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• The way I read it, the appointment must be authorized by the *currently sitting* arbitration committee. Arbcom, as it currently exists, has just over five weeks left in its term. After that point, this current Arbcom no longer has authorization to appoint anyone to anything, but this motion is essentially appointing all future arbitrators. Come January 1 of each year, there will be a new Arbcom, and only that Arbcom can make appointments, and only for the duration of its term in office. Both must follow the required global policy; local policy cannot override global policy, so the appointment must be made by the currently sitting Arbcom, and the minimal procedure must be followed, with evidence that the appointment *has* indeed been made (thus the current standard of a link to an announcement on WP:ACN). You may not be aware that historically there were a few problems with individual arbitrators (and in at least two cases, former arbitrators) posting "appointments" that were not, in fact, approved by the committee as a whole or were otherwise deficient, which created additional workload for stewards; thus, they quite reasonably insisted that Arbcom follow the global policy to the letter. There is never an "emergency" that requires immediate access to the tools for an individual arbitrator who otherwise doesn't already hold them; it should be no problem to obtain the requisite 50% +1 support from colleagues in, say, 48-72 hours via the mailing list. Alternately, if there is a need for immediate access to certain information, all arbitrators are authorized to receive case-specific non-public information (including, for example, oversighted edits or checkuser results), and that information can be shared by another arbitrator or suitably qualified functionary. Risker (talk) 15:03, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Need Acronym for GGTF Case

Can a clerk please add an acronym short-cut to the GGTF case? There may be a few other recent cases that do not have acronyms. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:44, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Why would we want a shortcut?? NE Ent 18:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The reason for shortcuts, such as ARBAB for abortion, is so that an editor can provide a shorter link to the case. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

We can't use WP:GGTF as a shortcut because that is used for the Gender gap task force itself. An editor has recently created WP:ARBGGTF and that seems reasonable. All that remains to do (if people agree that this is a good choice for the shortcut) is for a clerk to create a shortcut box for ARBGGTF on the case page. EdJohnston (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. That sounds good. All arbitration case shortcuts do begin with ARB, and we should keep that rule. Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The short-cut box is created automatically, once the short-cut is registered against the case name. Here the case was renamed without updating the register. That has now been fixed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:25, 14 December 2014 (UTC).

What's wrong with WP:IAGGTF? NE Ent 19:23, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Shortcuts for arbitration cases have always begun with ARB to indicate that they are arbitration cases. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Blocking policy

Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Blocking_Policy_Purpose_and_Goals_-_3RR_and_1RR_blocks. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:00, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Decision Dates

There are three open cases having Proposed Decision dates that are in the past. Would it be possible to assign them revised dates based on the best current information? Also, the date for GamerGate, while in the future, does not appear to be feasible, at least if the older cases will be decided before GamerGate. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:27, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Simpler process for submitting a request for arbitration

Submitting a request for arbitration is now easier; simply click a link in the page header and complete the form that appears. The case request will be added at the bottom of the page. The process for clarification and amendment requests is currently unchanged. For the arbitration clerks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Discuss this

Commons fair use upload bot and future bot projects

At the beginning of December I wrote to arbcom-l about a potential amendment to the one-account restriction placed in 2012, in order that I could get the cross-project Fair use bot account running again. Due to unfortunate real life stuff and some recent technical difficulties, I had less time in December to start looking at the migration (moving to WMFlabs needs some re-writing, perhaps a change of 'platform' too) and though I got a reply on the 13th suggesting a public request rather than private emails, I have yet to start looking at detail so I'm unsure how much of my volunteer time this will take up yet.

I believe the process is to raise an amendment request for an Arbcom vote. To future-proof this, and avoid pointless extra votes, I'm thinking along the lines of having the one account restriction amended to allow bot accounts (i.e. accounts with Bot Approval Group reviews on en.wp as well as possibly being approved on other projects using local procedures) which have limited scope and where these are declared and linked on my main user account pages to show that I am an operator/maintainer. As my various bot projects have been focused on images for the last two years, I cannot imagine a situation where anyone would confuse bot accounts with editors, or me editing using my principal account, which would remain the single one used for making edits to articles, or any other type of non-automated edit. If someone has a better way of approaching this, or expressing it, I'd welcome the feedback.

My main concern is timing. Christmas holidays are a good time for me to plan projects, however the first time I tried an amendment request at this time of year, there was a presumption that I was attempting to manipulate Arbcom, as this also happens to be when new committee members come in. If necessary I can prepare the request and then park it (and this bot project) until a date when the committee feel established. I would appreciate some advice on whether this is needed and what date would be suitable to file an amendment request.

P.S. I was cautious about informing Arbcom when I usurped the account on Commons, as the previous operator had their accounts blocked by office action. --Fæ (talk) 11:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

For reference the restriction referred to is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ#Fæ limited to one account. The way that remedy is worded makes it clear to me (as an incoming arbitrator) that an amendment would be required to allow you to operate a bot account on en.wp. Due to our both being involved with Wikimedia UK, I will recuse from any such request you make during my term unless you explicitly ask me not to. As such I offer no opinion on the best timing or on the likelihood of success. Thryduulf (talk) 12:31, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Sanctions query

Retreat of glaciers since 1850 is a featured article in need of a Featured article review. There is a notice on its talk page of arb sanctions in place, but when I click on that notice, I find a lot of struck text.[24] I have pinged Mongo to ask if he can update the article to bring it back to FA status and avoid a FAR, but what else needs to be understood about whatever sanctions are in place? When an article goes to FAR, a lot of improvements can happen very fast; what do uninvolved editors at FAR need to know? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

It's the standard discretionary sanctions, authorized at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change#Standard discretionary sanctions. There's a cross-reference at the end of the "lot of struck text" ("Superseded by an alternate sanction passed 14 to 0, 14:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)"), but I'll check with the clerks to see if we can get the crossref to a more conspicuous location. T. Canens (talk) 02:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Timotheus Canens; the talk page template has been fixed by Callanecc, so that now it's more understandable. It sounds like, basically, if the article comes to FAR, as long as editors behave, it would be a standard review? Would there be any need to notify the arbs or clerks if the article comes to FAR, knowing that if someone decides to help restore the article to featured status, editing could move along at a fast pace?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

At present it seems unlikely that anyone who wants to edit Retreat of glaciers since 1850 will be under an ARBCC restriction, except for one person who is limited from BLPs. (This is not a BLP article). There is an intermittent IP sock who troubles the article and if he comes back, semiprotection could be considered. If a climate change dispute does break out most likely there will be admins standing by. EdJohnston (talk) 06:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

And if a dispute does break out you can report problematic editors to WP:AE. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Recommended Reading

For big picture data on what's been going on in the edit intensive arena read: [25]. It will take time to wade really through it but should be useful for all the arbs perspectives. Good luck to the new committee. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Recusals

This choice to recuse when its appropriateness was highlighted during discussion was encouraging. I vaguely recall a debate a few years ago where a pattern of recusing by Arbcom members from tricky cases became a bad thing, perhaps this made people a little shy of doing so. Anyway, kudos to David, which from me as someone who has a quite different worldview in many areas, I hope means something. --Fæ (talk) 20:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Page names

Many cases (some, if not all, are rather older) have names of the format Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PAGENAME, e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RPJ. See Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration for a list, although there are lots; tell it to exclude redirects, and there will still be five pages of links. Could these be moved to the current format, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/PAGENAME, e.g. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion? This appears to be basically the same situation as all the VFD pages; when VFD was renamed AFD, virtually all the subpages for individual discussions got moved to the new titles, as you can see with the history of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ricky Royce. It wouldn't be that hard to use a bot to move them all, and we'd avoid the confusion that results from having two different naming conventions for individual cases. Nyttend (talk) 23:56, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The naming convention was changed in May-July 2009, so all the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/PAGENAME format cases date from before then. Relevant old posts about this seem to be Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 2#Relocation of arbitration pages (announcement) / Wikipedia talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 2#Relocation of arbitration pages (discussion). While hunting for those I found some brief old discussion about moving old pages at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 6#Old page names still intact on old cases.

Without offering an opinion on the merits of such a move, if it is done it is important to make sure all the redirects are retained and point to the correct place. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes

Please see Template_talk:Geobox#Boroughs where Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) has recently proposed removing the {{Geobox}} template (an infobox in all but name) from 159 articles and replacing it with {{Infobox settlement}}, see diff. According to the active topic bans page ""Pigsonthewing is indefinitely banned from adding, or discussing the addition or removal of, infoboxes.", so this seems to be a violation of his ban to me. I will ping his talk page next, but leave the discussion of this to others. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Where was that quote (topic ban) defined? Please keep me informed, after this. -DePiep (talk) 22:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

(watching, edit conflict) It has been repeated by the arbitrators that the restriction means infoboxes in individual articles, such as Rigoletto, while replacing on type (!) by another is not an addition nor a removal. How many clarification attempts did you miss? One is ongoing, the others archived. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

edit conflict

Coding is incomplete on Geobox, an info box-like structure but technically not an infobox. Andy is suggesting a remedy for that. Further, as far I know he is not discussing the removal of a specific article info box which is what his sanction seems to have been specifying, but is suggesting a technical fix for a problem. At any rate the issue of how far his sanction extends is presently at arbitration. (Littleolive oil (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC))

The context for the ban was a dispute over whether or not to include infoboxes in various articles, and this sanction has always been interpreted as meaning that he may not be involved in processes to change articles from 0 infoboxes to 1 infobox, or vice versa. Since {{geobox}} is functionally an infobox, it clearly falls under this situation, meaning that an attempt to replace it with {{infobox settlement}} isn't a violation. Nyttend (talk) 03:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

So fast (from 11:36 to 22:28, 27 January 2015) decision?

Ill advised attempt to spread conflict to additional venues. Jehochman Talk 16:04, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Is it always happened? :) Attn:  Sandstein , Cailil I'd ask to reopen the following Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Nishidani Case to let me add my opinion and to note what wasn't correct in Nishidani's statements. For example: "That is an absurdly crass interpretation of the diff. The article already contained both Bennett and other people’s defence of his actions at Kfar Qana (see the left side of that diff) . My fresher diff just gave more background detail missed by earlier editors..." The truth is that Nishidani had to make such edits only after my Caution-2015-01-06. His 1st edit included only selective quoting of accusations against Bennett from his only source, omitting any refutation of these charges already existing in the same article (diff) It would be also interesting to hear why he then moved this sourse to the end of RS' list and placed {{cn}} for "Vanity of vanities, nonsense, a pile of bullsh*t", what was also referenced in my 2nd (after his 1st one) edit (diff). "The IDF link you cite for the phrasing you wanted is a deadlink". One can find it immediately at web.archive Position paper on the naval blockade on Gaza. , etc. --Igorp_lj (talk) 00:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC) '(I) had to make' because you threatened me? (I myself am waiting for serious details of Bennett's role in the incident, which may or may not emerge, i.e., field reports). If you see the link to the Times of Israel page, I read as far as the facebook page from Bennett reproduced there, and assumed, wrongly that the article ended there. It's as simple as that, and you are weaving fantasies of malicious POV pushing from this. Both Ashtul and yourself are now repeatedly taking content disputes to A/E a further sign, I suggest, you do not understand the elementary rules of this place. Please desist.Nishidani (talk) 11:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC) Yeah, this is the "waiting for serious details" what prevented you to present in the article both points of view already existed in Times of Israel, but allowed you to leave in it only rumor accusations against Bennett. :) "you do not understand the elementary rules of this place. Please desist" I can understand your dream to stay in the topic only with like-minded to continue to present without interference the same one side's POV. What I can not understand is why "this place" is so infinitely tolerant for your not NPOV edits and such personal attacks on opponents as above and in other wiki-places: "The fact that you have the primitive idea"; "You do not understand WP:NPOV"; "You have shown nothing, zero, zilch."; "I think you are well-meaning but this is silly"; "You have no knowledge of the topic" Look, Ashtul. You have no awareness of what editing Wikipedia requires ... Moreover, specific examples and diffs of such your actions may be removing from ARE discussion as it happened here. That's the pity, but it's such non-critical behavior of "this place" what allows you to consider yourself as infallible and do not respond to the comments of opponents. :( --Igorp_lj (talk) 12:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC) Anyone is welcome to click on these links, and read them in context and make up their own minds. I'm not offended if you mock me as a 'guru of fisking' - I didn't know that word: thanks. Likewise, you should not raise a bulldust storm over my many attempts to reason with editors like yourself and Ashtul, who spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on me, rather than on reading the relevant policies, articles and books that should form the basis for our contributions here. Please desist from this rather tiresome bickering. Thanks.Nishidani (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Template change request

Can someone please change the template for creating a new request that add's a section at the end of the request that reads currently reads Statement by {yet another user} to something else? This is rather snide, and implies that requests are unwelcome and/or a waste of time to those who work on the requests. Thank you. Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 14:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-in-question, should be changed to Statement by {user}. GoodDay (talk) 05:52, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Motion Index Table listing

On the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Motions page, at the top of the 2015 table is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Argentine History which was closed in 2013. Either this case is misplaced or the date is incorrect as all other cases appear in chronological order. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:25, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:48, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Callanecc! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

"If you must reply to another person's statement, do so in your own section"

The instructions at the top of this page say "If you must reply to another person's statement, do so in your own section" and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration says "If you must respond to some statement by another editor on the arbitration request, then you must do so in your own section. There may be no threaded discussion (that is, comments in any section but your own) on any arbitration request; any such threaded discussion will be summarily removed by a clerk or arbitrator." Yet I see one user, who is an administrator, making comments in other people's sections, which seems a bit unfair. If the "only in your own section" rule applies only to non-administrators, could the instructions make that clear? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Where? I don't see it at a quick glance, so either I missed it, or the user or a clerk fixed it. Either way, the "only in your own section" rule applies to administrators just the same as anyone else. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, JzG replies in several editors sections in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#AnsFenrisulfr. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The comments are in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#AnsFenrisulfr, in the Statement by Starke Hathaway, Statement by EChastain, and Statement by Bosstopher.

For some reason the revision history says that the latest edit was on 4 May 2014, so I was not able to generate diffs. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

That's AE, which uses separate rules from the rest of A/R. (Why is it under A/R again? It's not even managed by arbs, or clerks.) That said, AE also has a "comment in own section" rule. T. Canens (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a case of pushing ignore all rules too far. The arbitrators provided that instruction explicitly. They wouldn't have provided it if they didn't really mean it to be followed. I see the argument about ease of showing to whom a comment was made, but that is normally done by providing the name of the editor being replied to in one's own section, at the beginning of the paragraph. It looks to me like a case where the subject administrator meant well, but ignored a rule that was not meant to be ignored. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:41, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon, this main ARBCOM request page contains information taken from separate AC pages. You can find the page history for ARE at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.

And T. Canens, it is a bit confusing that arbitrators participate at ARCA, Motions and other AR pages but admins weigh in and close AE cases. But I imagine that ARBCOM doesn't need to take over another area of activity and increase your workload. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It does strike me, per Liz, that AE appears a bit out of place on WP:ACR. Enforcement requests aren't requests made of or to the ArbCom, requests aren't decided by the ArbCom, and participation of ArbCom members in the discussions is both incidental and infrequent. To be honest, I keep forgetting that AE is tacked on to the bottom of the page and I keep being surprised every time I drop by and notice it anew. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:48, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

If I go to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests I see a big red box on the top that clearly states "This page is for statements, not discussion. If you must reply to another person's statement, do so in your own section (see also this part of the arbitration guide)." and I see (in the AnsFenrisulfr section) replies by one user in other user's statements. The fact that part of the page is actually transcluded from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement (which has no such restriction in the instructions) doesn't change the fact that on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests there is what appears to be a rule being violated. My point is that the instructions at the top need to be changed so that I don't see a rule for what is allowed on "this page" followed by comments that don't follow that rule -- probably left be someone editing a page that had no such rule. It's one of those annoying little things that make Wikipedia just a little bit harder to use. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we should un-transclude it from that page. As for the comments, have you tried just asking those editors to move them? Or perhaps just move them yourself and leave a note... Regarding confusion about AE not being an ArbCom-decided thing, I actually think it makes sense that we do not have the same groups deciding the cases and enforcing them. Sort of a separation of powers thing, imo. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem isn't that AE isn't an arbcom-decided thing, but that it is being grouped together with 3 pages that are arbcom-decided things. T. Canens (talk) 02:11, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done NE Ent 02:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've added a explicit statement that it does not transclude AE requests (I was about to support the untransclusion and suggest that it be noted as not transcluded, but edit conflicted with NE Ent's comment saying he'd already done it). Thryduulf (talk) 03:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've undone NE Ent's unlink, as I don't believe this was a sufficiently public discussion for the creation of a consensus. Bring it to one of the noticeboards or VP. BMK (talk) 07:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: I do not think that there needs to be such extensive discussion about whether AE is translcuded on this project page or not. There was no objection presented here to doing so (and still has not been, as you are just objecting to procedure) and it does solve all the problems identified. If you wish you can link to this discussion from elsewhere, but I will redo the unlinking if there are no problems identified. Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

My objection is not simply procedural. AE is obviously quite closely related to the direct ArbCom sections above, and it's helpful, useful and very convenient to the community-at-large (or that part of it which reads ArbCom-related pages) to have them available on the same page at the same time. The pages have been linked this way for a very long time, and there's been no complaint about it that I'm aware of until now. Many people, I would think, have gotten used to the current format, and I don't believe splitting them up for what seems to be quite unimportant reasons is a benefit to the community. (We would find out what the community thinks about it if a discussion was held out in the open instead of here on a barely-ever-utilized talk page.)

This seems to me like change almost entirely for the sake of change, with little real upside to it, and the downside of forcing people to alter there well-established habits. BMK (talk) 13:49, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Two days of discussion on page with 2,001 watchers over a piece of insider wiki-trivia that in no way affects the encyclopedia ought to be enough discussion -- if, in fact, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. The most common reference to AE is WP:AE, which goes to AE, directly to AE, and does not pass Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests. NE Ent 16:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, so splitting off AE for a bureacratic reason like "it's not under ArbCom's direct control" is, frankly, ridiculous. What's useful to Wikipedia's editors should be the operative factor, not bureaucratic trivialities. BMK (talk) 04:55, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It was split off because that solved the several problems discussed above, improving things for editors, not for "bureaucratic trivialities". Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, those "problems" were indeed bureaucratic trivialities, and the unlinking did not take into accounts the needs or wants of the community as a whole. BMK (talk) 00:23, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I can see the reason to untransclude the enforcement page from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests and sounds like a good idea, just based on the fact that it is out of place with the other sections.

Regarding the pink box, there is one for each of the sections on the page which relate to each section. That is, "This page is for statements, not discussion" applies to the Requests for arbitration section and there is another one for the Requests for clarification and amendment section and another one for the requests for enforcement section. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 13:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

None of which is obvious to the reader. If I got it wrong on my first reading, what hope does a newbie have? We need to fix the instructions on this page so that they don't mislead the reader. Perhaps simply replacing "this page" with the name of the page in each header template will do it, perhaps we need some different way of organizing/transcluding/linking the pages, but as it stands this is one of those things that makes Wikipedia just a little bit harder to use. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes something does need to change, and I think untransclusion is the simplest and easiest solution here, as any change of wording will have to work both on the original page and when transcluded. BMK strongly disagrees above though. Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I am just in a grumpy mood this morning, but in my opinion when someone decides to create a page that transcludes the contents of several other pages, it is their responsibility to make it so that the result doesn't have a red box on top saying things about "this page" that only apply top the top third of the page. If they are unable to accomplish that, the transclusions should all be deleted and replaced with links. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:04, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

How about this <includeonly>section</includeonly><noinclude>page</noinclude>? T. Canens (talk) 12:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Searching for prior alerts for editors who have changed names produces false negatives

Under the new alert system, I have noticed at least three instances where a DS-Alert had been given to some editor who changed user names shortly thereafter. In each instance, the user simply created a new account, with no behind-the-scenes tweaking of their original account. Using the new and separate account they then continued editing in the controversial subject area. Anyone doing a check for prior DS-Alerts on the new account name will get a false negative, simply because the server does not know about the user's name change.

I would like to teach the server about the prior alert, but the only way lowly editors like me can do that is to re-issue the DS-Alert to the new account name but this might be seen by some as a violation of the 12-month rule. Personally, I think re-issuance to the new account is consistent with the overall goal to prevent, not punish, but it would give us eds in the trenches a warm cozy feeling to have this spelled out so no one makes rumbles about disruption. The current text that concerns me is

Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned.

Before attempting to draft text or make a formal motion to resolve false negatives, let's have some preliminary discussion. Thoughts anyone? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@NewsAndEventsGuy: Sorry for the late reply, but I've only just spotted this question. My initial thought is that adding a single alert to the editor under the new username would not be disruptive. Perhaps the simplest way to make this clear would be to change the text to "...more than one alert per account per area of conflict...". That would also cover people using multiple accounts (legitimately or otherwise) where the editor giving the alert doesn't know they are operated by the same person. Common sense should prevail though and alerting user:Example and user:Example (public) with consecutive edits should be troutable. I'll flag this discussion to the rest of the committee for additional input. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Thryduulf, addition of "per account" is an elegant solution. Caution, however, on discouraging alerts to the second account even when the alerting party knows they are the same person, because another ed or admin coming on the scene later may not be privvy to the alerting ed's knowledge. All the newcomer will know is what is revealed by the server log or talk page history of the alter ego. If the alter ego's page is clearly marked as a separate account, then ok, I can see an argument for trouting. However, if that info is not publicly disclosed in a highly visible way (and if the template is truly a no-fault template) then getting a second alert at the second account is a teensy price for not disclosing the accounts' connection. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

NewsAndEventsGuy This isn't a name change though, it's a clean start. Users are not permitted to use clean starts to avoid scrutiny, which is what leaving alerts behind does to some extent do. However, as alerts as so cheap and easy, it's not really the end of the world as they can easily be re-alerted under the new account. I'll think more about this and come up with some language for the next hoursekeeping motion (probably in two months time).  Roger Davies ^talk 11:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Roger, I'm all for genuine clean starts. However, in the cases I've personally observed, the new account continued working in the same topic area and if memory serves even participated in the same disputes. In other words, it was not a genuine WP:CLEANSTART at all. Some guidance for alerting the suspected alter ego without going through formal SPI would be helpful. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

For now, I think it is safe to say that if you give a DS alert to someone in the good faith belief that they are a new user to the topic area you will not get in any trouble if it turns out they have previously been alerted under a different user name that is not conspicuously linked to their present one. Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course, but the question is different because I'm asking about cases where I know, or at least believe, it is an alter ego situation. Examples,

(A) Suppose the new account ANNOUNCES their old account name, which I alerted last month. If the new account edits in the same topic area, can I give a second alert to the new account despite my ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE it is the same editor? ('Why would I want to', you ask? See below.)

(B) Same facts as A, except the new account is silent about the connection and there is no SPI. There is only my firm belief they are an alter ego of the ed I already alerted. Can I give that new account a second alert?

I think the answer in both cases should be "yes, without fear of being accused of battle or harrasment" because for the DS alert system to really be no-fault without the stigma of the old 'warning' system , everyone in the topic should have one and it should be a simple matter to determine if others in the topic area have received one. Protecting alter egos from second alerts stands in the way of those goals, whether the alter egos are announced, innocently covert, or intentionally covert. It would be nice to have some alter-ego related language attached to the no-second-alert-in-12-months rule. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:49, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with that, and unless someone else comes up with something better I'll be proposing the "per account" addition when the housekeeping review comes up in a couple of months. Yes, I'd prefer it sooner than that, but it's not so urgent that changing it now outweighs the advantages of doing this at the same time as other housekeeping changes. Thryduulf (talk) 14:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a good plan; it's certainly not urgent. Thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:41, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

ARCA behavior

Trouts to @Bishonen, Floquenbeam, TenOfAllTrades, and Thryduulf: (listed alphabetically). The purpose of WP:ARCA is fairly simple: to get the committee to do the right thing, whatever that may be in a particular instance. You need a majority of votes. If you're not trying to persuade committee members (if you're not one), or discussing the merits of the case (if you are one), you're in the wrong place. Like it says in the pink box on top of the page This is not a discussion.

@Thryduulf -- if you don't like Hipocrite's off topic commentary, email the clerk(s) and have them remove it. Like the pink box says Arbitrators or Clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. It's better if a) you get a clerk to do it, and b) you comment as little as possible.

@Bishonen, @Floquenbeam, @TenOfAllTrades: "desysop"? Melodrama much? If you feel some new SPA should be blocked for disruption / socking / what have you, do it. There wasn't much fuss when User talk:Six.Mar (new SPA for commenting on OS/CU) was indeffed. What Thryduulf said was an editor without administrator WP:UAL shouldn't be making noise on ARCA, but rather finding an admin to address it -- not that admins shouldn't do the admin thing. NE Ent 01:57, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Declined requests

It's a small thing but could the Jan-March 2015 declined cases be placed in reverse chronological order? It's confusing to see the cases listed out of order and some without any dates at all. The ex-librarian in me thanks you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:15, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Archive

I should, unfortunately, know proper protocol by now. I recently brought a request for administer intervention based on what I consider problematic editing. It was archived without comment from anyone who can do anything. Another editor brought up a similar concern the other day.[26] Can we get some guidance? I might be over reacting so even"no, it is fine" works. Is it OK to unarchive this or is it best to let it drop?Cptnono (talk) 04:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Where did your request take place: AN/I, AN, A/R/C, AE, an RfC or was it a discussion on a talk page? This is important in order to know where the request was archived. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: Split Collect and American politics cases now

There is obviously a strong majority in favor of two cases: Collect and American Politics redux. Wouldn't it be good idea to separate the two case request, and move some of the comments from the Collect case to the America Politics case? Some of the statements as they stand now are drifting far afield, and are also exceeding the mandatory 500 word limits by a very large margin.- MrX 12:08, 20 March 2015 (UTC)