Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 15

Archive 10

←

Archive 13

Archive 14

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

→

Archive 20

Request for clarification–Episodes and characters 2 (June 2008)

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.

---

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

• Kww (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• TTN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (blocked for a week on April 27)
• Rlevse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (blocking admin)

Statement by User:Kww

The decision text is : TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly. He is free to contribute on the talk pages or to comment on any AfD, RfD, DRV, or similar discussion initiated by another editor, as appropriate.

TTN was blocked for one week today, for edits that did not violate a single term of the restrictions from his arbcom enforcement. "Broadly interpreting" [1] and [2] as substantially amounting to a merge or deletion is a broad interpretation beyond all reason.

Can TTN still edit character articles to bring them in compliance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines? Or is any edit that removes material from a character article capable of being broadly interpreted as a deletion?Kww (talk) 21:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to make sure I'm understood ... I'm not concerned about applying the decision to video-game characters. I'm objecting to the idea that taking an article that was in truly miserable shape and fixing it substantially amounts to a merge or deletion.Kww (talk) 23:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to expand a bit here, and register my objection to the term of his latest block as well. Recapping his first block: I agree that the tantrum that starts every time TTN edits an article is disruptive, but he is not the source of the disruption, his opponents are. He was blocked for editing Final Fight:Streetwise. He was criticised for removing about 80% of one of the cruftiest articles around, and turning it into a reasonable video game article. He made three different passes at it, and was reverted by Zero Giga and an anonymous IP. Each pass made an effort to address the previous concerns. This editing was broadly construed as requesting a deletion, so he got blocked for a week. Black Kite shows up a few days later, and, instead of removing 80% of the article, only removes 65% of the article. Not a peep. None of the editors that so cheerfully reverted TTN's edits wholesale found a single line of Black Kite's edits to object to. The only conclusion I can reach is that the editors that were reverting him were not motivated by the material: they were motivated by the fact that it was TTN that had made the removals. Now, in such a situation, what is the appropriate action for an admin to take? It's to go have a chat with the editors that reverted the change, and make sure that they are undoing the change as opposed to undoing the editor. Instead, admins looked at the arbcom decision, and stretched the interpretation of "deletion" well past its breaking point, and blocked TTN for a week. Notice that the Arbcom sanctions called for blockages increasing to a week in the event of repeated violations. Even if this edit had motivated a block, a week is complete overkill ... they reached for the biggest hammer in their toolkit as the first step.

Now, TTN has been blocked for two weeks, based on the perception that he is repeatedly violating his sanctions. His offending edit was to the Fiction Noticeboard. The community is reasonably split as to whether this falls under the restriction of "project pages" or under the freedom of "free to contribute on talk pages". I can see both sides, and think clarification is warranted. Still, worst case is that it is his first offense, and an offense that reasonable people can see as not an offense at all. For this, he was blocked for two weeks, despite the fact that the maximum sanction in the Arbcom decision is one week.

I think that not only is clarification needed, but a strong statement is needed that the phrase "broadly interpreted" does not mean "block TTN at the drop of a hat". I sense that there is a group of admins that have decided that the easiest way to end the controversy is to simply block TTN at the time that any dispute involving him occurs. Sanctions against an editor are a serious thing, and, in order to be meaningful, but be subject to reasonable interpretation. Editing articles cannot be interpreted as "requesting deletion", and "up to one week for repeated offenses" cannot be reasonably interpreted as "two weeks". Kww (talk) 13:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask for an arbitrator to take the time to read my complaint and respond before banning me? Kww (talk) 03:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

So nice to be appreciated. How many arbitrators have to vote for the topic ban in order for it to become binding?Kww (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Can we have some clarifications, please?

This section is intended to be a place where previous decisions are clarified, not extended. You wrote piles of different variations of different sentences. Thought them over. Voted on different versions. Subtleties of different text were weighed, evaluated, and then chosen, based on their merits. Not a one of you really thought that when you selected TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly. He is free to contribute on the talk pages or to comment on any AfD, RfD, DRV, or similar discussion initiated by another editor, as appropriate. The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question. from all of the other choices that that text meant TTN and Kww should be topic banned. In good faith, none of you can claim that it meant TTN should be blamed for all conflicts that arise, and blocked at a rate greatly exceeding the specified enforcement. Even if those things are what you wanted to say, they are not what you said. If the community was requesting you to amend your previous cases, we would have made statements under Request to amend. No one has done so.

So, time for clarifications:

• At the time that you wrote TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly, did you intend for the noticeboards to be included as a project page?

• At the time that you wrote TTN is prohibited for six months from making any edit to an article or project page related to a television episode or character that substantially amounts to a merge, redirect, deletion, or request for any of the preceding, to be interpreted broadly, did you intend for TTN to be banned from trimming articles?

• At the time that you wrote He is free to contribute on the talk pages, how did you intend for that to interact with request for any of the preceding in the previous statement? Does his freedom include requests for deletion? Or not?

Please answer those questions. That's all this section is for. What you think of the situation now is interesting, but for another place. What you wish you had thought of is interesting, but again, for another place. What you think of my attitude is interesting, but, again, for another place. This is a place solely for clarifications, so, please, please, please, give us clarification.Kww (talk) 02:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Rlevse

Over the last week TTN has removed over 80% of the "Final Fight: Streetwise" article 3 times, which TTN claims are trimming and cleaning up, yet in fact whole paragraphs were removed, such as here. In the Mario characters, which have also been on TV as best I recall, he removed entire paragraphs, as here. Similar issues were brought here at AN. As video games are very similar to TV, they often appear on TV in some form, and the fact that this problem was evident during the arbitration hearings, and the ruling says "broadly interpreted", and TTN seems to be pushing the envelope, the need for a block was apparent to me.

An unblock was declined and supported by others.

Response to Kww's clarification...I'd have to say that removing whole sections, paragraphs, and 80% of an article amounts to deletion. This is not "trimming and cleaning up". Further consider that the remedy also said "The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question." This seems to have been clearly violated by TTN too. There has been no chat at Talk:Final Fight: Streetwise for a year. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry

I will be pleasantly surprised if the editors in this area manage to avoid another full ArbComm in the near future. The issues are not specific to TTN; one example is shown by this archived WP:AE report. In my view, problems exist in the behavior of both factions. It seems ridiculous to consider discretionary sanctions for this topic area; these editors should be able to work together to find consensus if they choose to. But if they don't choose to, we may have to end up with discretionary sanctions. GRBerry 13:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Statement by TTN

Can I please get some sort of clarification on what exactly I can do and cannot do? Can I cleanup articles by removing information? That's that's what I was initially blocked for. Can I revert at all? Edit warring is bad, but to have a block sustained because of two reverts (where one revert is a anon with a non-static IP) seems a little steep without some sort of restriction on that in the first place. Can I suggest that things be merged on talk pages of users, projects, and other articles? I assumed that the restriction was towards templates, but I was scrutinized for doing so. Can I point out bad articles? I guess I wouldn't ask one user single again, but can I just post a list of "problem articles" on a project talk page or the Wikipedia:Fiction/Noticeboard, and let them take care of it? If this could be responded to quickly, that would be appreciated. TTN (talk) 13:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sjakkalle

I am not exactly sure where to put this statement, since there are already two requests for clarification here, but I want to register my concerns here.

I have a deep concern that the ArbCom's admonition The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question. They are warned that the Committee will look very unfavorably on anyone attempting to further spread or inflame this dispute. is not being followed at all. Let's see.

First, "Cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question." (The redirection and unredirection of episodes and characters with little or no discussion is still taking place.)

Second, "...attempting to further spread or inflame this dispute.". Since the E&C2 case closed, I have seen at least two instances of parties from that case use the term vandalism. (And I have not been actively searching for these, there are probably more, from both sides of the dispute)

• Kww at 14:00, 1 April 2008 Regarding authors of fiction/fancruft articles: "I would happily treat people creating such articles as vandals, as opposed to editors". (After looking at E&C2, I see that Kww is not listed as a party, but since he initiated this clarification, and supportive of TTN, I think he is de facto party to it.)
• Eusebeus at 03:06, 6 May 2008 restores a redirect, calling the undoing of the redirect "vandalism". (And there are two more, here and here.)

I cannot imagine anything more inflammatory than calling the "other side" of the dispute "vandals".

This has got to stop.

Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment regarding Kww

When I listed Kww in my statement, it was not an attempt to single him out in particular. The reason I added it was that the statement struck me when I saw it as something highly inappropriate, and an indication of how low the "discussion" had sunk by this time.

However, I want to say that Kww is not by any means the worst offender in the FICT debate, his work in removing or consolidating fictional topics has to my knowledge not included edit-warring or massive swathes of deletion nominations or redirects. Indeed, I have no problem believing MartinPhi when he says that Kww has been able to work and contribute constructively on certain fiction articles.

I have no problem with Kirill's dismay at seeing the comparison between vandals and fiction editors, I continue to think that this particular diff was very inappropriate, and it was one which hit me quite close to home. There is a discussion between Kww and myself on my talkpage, and if I understood Kww correctly, his remark was directed against editors who add fiction with no sources, and edit war to keep it in. Calling this "vandalism" remains inappropriate, but I don't think he directed the accusation at all fiction writers in general. I don't know whether this diff is representative of Kww's attitude either, he assured me in the discussion on the talkpage that he was careful not to call any editor a vandal directly, and he also took time out to caution another editor that restoring redirects with an accusation of "vandalism" in the summary would only lead to trouble [3].

I am not going to tell ArbCom how to handle their cases, but when evidence presented by myself is used as basis for a sanction, I will state my opinion that I think issuing a topic ban for what amounts to one diff over six weeks ago is an overreaction. If this were an example of behavior from a person otherwise engaged in edit-warring in this conflict, I would probably be in support of something like this. I can understand an impatience that continued incivility and edit warring after two ArbCom cases is wearing the tolerance very thin here. If the ArbCom can find a way to send a very clear and unequivocal message that calling anybody in this dispute a "vandal" must cease, without perma-banning Kww from fiction topics, that will be much more preferable. Yes, I know there were two admonitions from two previous ArbCom cases, but I don't think Kww's single inappropriate comment has rendered useless all further input from him in this conflict. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment regarding TTN

My sympathy with TTN is at zero now. A look at List of Mario series characters shows a number of edits where TTN removes a little bit of content from the article, calling it "trim", most recently here, with no explanation given for this "trim". And this is not only unquestionable trivia he is removing, he has been removing content about which games the characters have appeared (isn't that relevant to the character?) like "Princess Rosalina also appeared as a hidden character in Mario Kart Wii". This seems to be an effort to slowly tap the list of content in a way which does not attract attention. Also on List of Sonic X episodes, this edit, which the edit summary claims to be "Set up basic table", is far more drastic that setting up a table, TTN actually removes all the description of the episode, and again this is without any discussion on the talkpage. Another "trim" on List of Kirby characters here didn't just trim the section on the characters Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright, it removed them.

I feel this is at the very least a skirting of the edges of the ArbCom restrictions. If the right to merge, redirect, or nominate for deletion is taken away, just move on to aggressive "trimming" instead. The proposed sanction from ArbCom on TTN, as opposed to the sanction on Kww, which I have opposed in the above section, is in my opinion, completely in order. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Lawrence

Can we place get AC action on this? It's starting all over again: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Request_review_of_2_week_block_of_User:TTN. I know you guys are busy, but this appears to be now a critical case and clarification action is needed. Lawrence Cohen § t/e 05:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite

Whilst using the term "vandals" to describe editors who repeatedly create multiple policy-failing articles on the back of the previous ArbCom decision is probably excessive, I'd certainly go as far as to use "disruptive". Topic-banning editors who attempt to balance policy against those creating reams of unencyclopedic articles (and then descending en masse onto any AfD which occurs with masses of WP:ITSNOTABLE non-!votes) is certainly a good way of reducing the quality of this alleged encyclopedia, which becomes less and less of one every day that such articles continue to multiply. It is time for ArbCom to realise that there are two sides to this dispute, and stop listening - as has happened so far - only to those that shout the loudest. If ArbCom actually wants to improve the quality of our articles, they either need to throw this proposed sanction in the bin, or add about another half-dozen users to it. Where are the sanctions for those that edit-war on policy pages, flood AfD with wikilawyering or revert TTN and other editors even when they are editing in line with policy?. Nowhere, it appears. I am astonished that at least two arbs (so far) appear to have looked at a few incidents yet not at the bigger picture. This is a ridiculous proposed sanction, especially on User:Kww who appears to be targeted for a single frustrated edit. Black Kite 22:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Kirill's quote here User_talk:Ned_Scott#TTN of "his (TTN's) reputation is such that anything he does will likely be reverted regardless of its merits—so all he's doing is needlessly antagonizing the editors supporting this material" - makes it clear that he is supporting topic-banning an editor because those with opposing views continually revert him especially as those editors reverting TTN are usually reverting against policy. I had to read this a number of times before I was sure he was serious. Black Kite 10:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ned Scott

TTN got recently blocked because he honestly did not think his restrictions meant that he wasn't able to start a thread on a project notice board, myself and several other Wikipedians in good standing were under the same assumption. That's not gaming the system or pushing the limit, that's nothing more than miscommunication. TTN even pleaded with you guys to get some guidance, and arbcom ignored the request for clarification for weeks. Now Kirill comes out of no where with a complete and total ban proposal? That's a horrible idea. TTN has been behaving very well, and hasn't been doing anything wrong. The flames seen are nothing more than the left over feelings from the past, not because of things that are happening now.

And Kirill comes completely out of left field with a proposal to ban Kww, who hasn't even had any kind of RfC or mediation, or focus of any kind in the last two cases. It's like swinging around blindly, smashing furniture and breaking walls, just to put out a candle. Take off the blindfold and put down the bat. I personally would do anything (within my human abilities as a Wikipedian) to get arbcom to reconsider this, and to actually look at the situation instead of the white noise. The fact that these proposals are even being considered is a very scary thing, and shakes my faith that arbcom can be fair and reasonable. -- Ned Scott 02:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

And no one even notes stuff like this. Please, I beg all of the arbs to not make assumptions here. -- Ned Scott 02:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like some more eyes on this: User talk:Ned Scott#TTN. Kirill's logic is that even if TTN isn't doing anything wrong, because of his reputation people will revert and argue with him, so Kirill wants to remove TTN by force. That seems very inappropriate to me. -- Ned Scott 07:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Casliber

TTN (and others) have had a year or more of multiple reports at AN/I and arbcom etc. to stop behaving like single-purpose content removal accounts, sending all and sundry scurrying about to ref or remove material, plainly not in the spirit of collaborative editing of a volunteer project. Some have shown valued roles and abilities in other areas, some haven't. I can't comment on KWW as I have not examined his edit details but am happy that he can think independently on some issues (we swapped sides on Jack Merridew's ban after all), which is a good sign. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

By Martinphi

Could you make an exception for What the Bleep do We Know?. Kww was one of those who was able to work toward NPOV on that article. He wasn't perfect, but he did manage it, and he was also a moderating influence on other editors of his own general opinion. Might need him there again. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by SirFozzie

So ArbCom is going to compound their mistakes by dropping further "clarifications" on an issue that has already seen the other side turn ArbCom's words into pretzels in an attempt to run "the other side" off the encyclopedia? I can't say as I agree with the suggested outcome. SirFozzie (talk) 07:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Vassyana

I recently blocked TTN for what I felt was an outright violation of his restrictions, compounded by what I perceived as pushing the boundaries (or moving against the spirit) of the sanction. I unblocked him when he agreed to refrain from initiating any merge/redirect/etc discussion and avoid asking others to act on his behalf, until such a time as ArbCom responded to these clarification requests.[4][5] There was some discussion of the block on my talk page, as well as TTN's.[6][7][8] My block was raised for review on AN, where the actions of Pixelface and a potential topic ban for TTN were also raised.[9] If the arbitrators feel my actions were inappropriate, I would welcome the criticism and appreciate any advice. Vassyana (talk) 07:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by sgeureka

I am quite concerned about the current motions to topic-ban anyone who dares try to improve the encyclopedia per policies and guidelines, or who sympathizes with editors legitimately trying to improve the encyclopedia. Before someone else does it, I'll do it myself.

• Sgeureka 16:12, May 17, 2008 restores a redirect, calling the undoing of the redirect "vandalism". (By the way, the redirect needed to be semi-protected for two weeks before, and the undoer has been blocked twice now, the last one for "persistent vandalism", but I realize some people would continue to call my action vandalism.)

I agree with Sjakkalle that this has to stop, but there are two sides of the coin here. Someone described the current actions against TTN (and by extension any fiction mergist/deletionist, including Kww) as "lynchmob". I think no other word better captures my impression of the situation. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jakew

I became aware of this quite recently, when I noticed repeated and insistent demands (bordering on disruption) at WT:NOT to remove WP:PLOT from policy. This kind of thing is somewhat familiar, and although exceptions exist, when we trace the history we usually find repeated attempts (and often edit warring) to insert some material, which is removed per policy (often WP:NPOV or WP:NOR, though not in this case) and the user in question then decides that the issue is so important that policy must be changed to accomodate it. Such attempts rarely succeed, because consensus is that the user has fundamentally failed to grasp what WP is (and is not). That may be the case here.

I would suggest that the very fact that one side of this dispute has identified a need to change policy indicates that they may have previously been editing against policy. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are "wrong", per se, but it is hard to understand why other editors should be sanctioned for "enforc[ing] most policies and guidelines by editing pages, and discussing matters with each other". If there are behavioural problems (I understand from FoF #3 that there have been), then these need to be addressed, but please make remedies proportionate and understandable in a wider context.

Statement by Masem

• I have to agree with Ned, Sgeureka, and Jakew in that what is being proposed here seems very one-sided to the overall picture that was developed from the E&C 2. TTN, to me, seems to be trying to meet the spirit of the motion, but unfortunately due to his past actions, he's got a set of editors that watch most of his edits, and like to wikilawyer the specific wording. (Case in point, TTN posted a suggestion on the Fiction-related noticeboard, and some took this as violating where TTN is allowed to edit as, strictly speaking, that noticeboard is not a talk page. The "to be interpreted broadly" language in the motion is causing a lot of this trouble, which is why I think those looking to penalize TTN need to consider what the intent of the motion was, and not the specific wording - we want TTN to work collaborative with others to determine how best to improve articles on fiction on WP. There are some actions that TTN has done since the motion that are within the motion's restrictions and thus blocks are appropriate, but the thing is, he is talking and discussing proposed changes. That's mostly what people wanted out of the E&C 2 case, right?
• Unfortunately, this is really not true. The heart of the E&C 2, based on its discussions and the resulting actions since, has seemed to be to validate the fact that Wikipedia's coverage of fiction should not conform to WP:NOT and WP:NOTE, and that coverage of fiction can be broad and expansion based only on primary sources. Now, first, taking this position towards coverage of fiction works itself is not in any way wrong; if that's what the editors believe, I can't say its incorrect. But, in taking that belief, against what is probably an equivalent push to remove much of the coverage of fiction from WP specifically due to WP:NOT and WP:NOTE, there feels to be a strong effort to get rid of editors that do not share the same inclusionists beliefs towards fiction such as TTN and Kww, and to staunchly argue that policy must be changed to support the inclusionist view. The result of the E&C 2 case, based on the above scrutiny of TTN's actions since, seems to be validation that their approach is correct, but again, we have this second motion from this case that involved editors are supposed to help shape how such articles should be handled, not that one side is necessarily right. I have been working the past year to try to get WP:FICT to a point of balance between these extremes which has been long and mentally exhausting, much which rests on WP:NOT#PLOT, but as recent discussions at WT:NOT can show, there are some that simply want that policy gone and do not seem to be making concessions or collaborative efforts to try to figure out the balance, despite the fact that myself and others have offered wording changes and other suggested policy and guidelines to remove some of the concerns they have. That second motion from this case really needs to be considered a lot more in order to balance this out and make sure that the case was not validation for the inclusionists' point of view - unfortunately, the way its written, there's no teeth behind it as much as the TTN restrictions on editing, and it's impossible to show the lack of collaboration, only state that how one's actions in a debate may not feel collaborative. Thus, I feel that the first motion should be read in conjunction with the second, and specifically look at the intent of TTN's actions in regards to both motions regardless of the source of the complaint: is TTN working in a collaborative effort to improve the encyclopedia, instead of his previous hard-nosed and overburdening efforts? --MASEM 14:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kung Fu Man

I'm a bit late to this, but only recently caught wind regardless. I've dealt with both TTN and Kww in a few formats though, and I'm not going to sit here and speak about TTN: my stance towards him is neutral, he has his heart in the right place, but is overly forceful with his vision. I will speak in defense of Kww however. Kww has shown willingness to discuss proposals on subjects like merges and his edits have not had a negative impact on the related subjects. So despite where the ideals may lie, Kww is far from warranting a topic ban in this case.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by DGG

There's a difference between TTN and Kww--TTN is determined to disrupt the formation of consensus on each individual article in any way he can devise, and Kww is trying to get consensus for his general view--a view in complete opposition to mine, to be sure, but I do not see how is is doing it disruptively. I think a permanent topic ban for him is over-reaction. He did not address the word vandal to any editor, he used it I hope a little hyperbolically in a discussion on a policy page to support an extreme view about what ought to be the policy. I don't think it helpful to ban him from these discussions at this point. DGG (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by AuburnPilot

Also a bit late to this discussion, but having just discovered this case, I must strongly disagree with any ban placed on Kww. I've worked extensively with Kww on topics unrelated to this one, and have never found him to be anything but willing to help and discuss points of disagreement. I agree with DGG's statement above, in that a ban on Kww is an overreaction. - auburnpilot talk 20:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Woonpton

I have no experience with the fiction articles in question, but I've worked with kww on What the Bleep Do We Know, a very contentious article where he took the lead and worked with all constituencies to craft a compromise lead we could all live with and had it inserted by an admin into the protected article. This is the kind of editor I would think Wikipedia would want to protect and nurture, rather than punish and alienate. I've never seen him use the derogatory expressions used by some other editors to characterize those of a different viewpoint, and if he did so on a fiction article, then I would have to wonder if, unlikely as it seems, he might have had even more provocation there than on What the Bleep Do We Know, where his demeanor was always professional and respectful to all, during the time I observed him there. Also, though this is less germane to the issues at hand, kww is one of the very few Wikipedians who made me feel welcome and respected as a new editor. It seemed only right to speak on his behalf, though no one asked me to and though I have no information to offer touching on the present issues. Woonpton (talk) 20:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by The Rogue Penguin

Mostly reiterating the last few postings, the topic ban on Kww seems unnecessary. From what I've seen, I would make this analogy: TTN is skating on thin ice, and rather than get off, he starts jumping up and down. Murky areas or not, a little common sense would dictate that you don't push the envelope on such an open-ended restriction. Kww's got no such problem, and aside from some uncivil comments, certainly hasn't enough to warrant a topic ban. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 05:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Second Statement by User:Ned Scott

Full topical ban or not, arbcom still hasn't clarified this request. The only thing TTN did "bad" this time was to start a discussion on a notice board that was in the project namespace. Given that two arbs were able to support a ban for Kww then change their minds makes me wonder how much attention is being paid to this situation.

The two proposed bans are both atrocious, but only is the one on Kww easily identifiable (but still missed by two arbs, so far). It really seems like the only reason the topical ban for TTN is getting support is based on assumptions only, and has nothing to do with TTN's actions. Kirill himself has blatantly admitted this [10].

On May 4th, TTN practically begged arbcom to comment on this at #Statement by TTN. It's right there, on this same page, but I'll repeat it again since no one seemed to notice it:

Can I please get some sort of clarification on what exactly I can do and cannot do? Can I cleanup articles by removing information? That's that's what I was initially blocked for. Can I revert at all? Edit warring is bad, but to have a block sustained because of two reverts (where one revert is a anon with a non-static IP) seems a little steep without some sort of restriction on that in the first place. Can I suggest that things be merged on talk pages of users, projects, and other articles? I assumed that the restriction was towards templates, but I was scrutinized for doing so. Can I point out bad articles? I guess I wouldn't ask one user single again, but can I just post a list of "problem articles" on a project talk page or the Wikipedia:Fiction/Noticeboard, and let them take care of it? If this could be responded to quickly, that would be appreciated. TTN (talk) 13:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not some guy trying to skate around a restriction. He's honestly trying to understand his restrictions and abide by them.

I beg of the arbs, if you can find reason to question Kww's restrictions, then take some time to question TTN's. If TTN's topical ban does pass, is it for the duration of the original 6 month ban? And please, actually answer our request, which is all we wanted from you. -- Ned Scott 04:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Jtrainor

User:Sesshomaru could stand being looked at as well-- [[11]] bit on TTN's talk page, and his habit of spamming templates at anyone who reverts him tend to show a general lack of AGF on his part, as well as chronic incivility. Jtrainor (talk) 02:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

• This request has been retitled to "Request for clarification–Episodes and characters 2" (note the "–" after clarification, as oppose to the customary ":"). This is to differentiate it from the similar "Request for clarification: Episodes and characters 2". Please note the difference between the two, and be careful in linking to either thread. Anthøny 18:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I suppose it was too much to hope that the editors fighting over these articles would take two cases as an adequate hint that they were out of line. Oh well; we can always try the hard way, then. Kirill ^(prof) 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
• I could have supported a motion for this case and I still believe that there was no need for a clarification. However, after discussing this matter with the concerned parties and the ArbCom, I now believe that we can move forward. I don't see a real threat of disruption from user:TTN and particularly user:Kww who does not deserve more than a firm reminder: users involved in the area should be more careful with their actions and consider that any misguided action(s) can affect the atmosphere. I will assume good faith and trust the words of user:TTN posted on my talk page and understand that he is fully aware of the seriousness of the issue. I assume he now knows for real that he is not entitled to initiate any discussion on any article or project's talk page. I also would see no problem with him contacting users, admins or anyone on their talk pages where posts and comments should be judged by their own merits -unless there are users who would not want user:TTN to leave comments on their talk pages. That being said, I'll be glad (unfortunately) to have another general look on the issue in a wider scope anytime that would be deemed necessary. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed motions and voting

For these motions, there are 12 active Arbitrators, so 7 votes are a majority.

TTN restricted

TTN (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is prohibited from editing, commenting on, or otherwise having any involvement whatsoever with any article substantially related to a work of art or fiction (including, but not limited to, video games, movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, and so forth) or any element of such a work.

Support:

1. These senseless flareups will be stopped, one way or another. Kirill ^(prof) 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
2. I'm beginning to think we should have done this at the start. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
3. While many of the issues that reach arbitration are controversial due to the nature of the topic and will always be heated topics of discussion, I do not see this as the case with this topic. Instead, I see the problems here are due more to the manner of interaction between users. I think that removing users will be effective and will not hesitate to expand the list of involved users that are banned from this topic. Also, the purpose of the restrictions on TNN were to stop controversial edits. The list of restrictions was not exhaustive in this sense, and all controversial edits should be recognized as such. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
4. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 11:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

   FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Paul August ☎ 15:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Per my view above. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Shouldn't be needed beyond the case. But, if it really does become necessary, just block and throw away the key. James F. (talk) 11:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Abstain:

Kww restricted

Kww (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is prohibited from editing, commenting on, or otherwise having any involvement whatsoever with any article substantially related to a work of art or fiction (including, but not limited to, video games, movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, and so forth) or any element of such a work.

Support:

1. If you feel the urge to treat legitimate editors like vandals, it might be time to take a break from this topic. Kirill ^(prof) 20:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

   It's become necessary. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC) I am rethinking; may reinstate this vote or change it. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

2. See my above comment. And agree with Kirill. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

   Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 11:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Not convinced that restrictions on Kww are justified at the present. Seems to be based on a questionable interpretation of a single edit. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
2. On consideration, I'd rather a warning than a restriction at this time. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:30, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Kww was instructed and warned and not restricted on the related ArbCom case. A 6 months restriction would be reasonable this time. If problems persist Kww would face the same measures applied to TTN above. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

   Per my comment in the arbitratiors' view section above. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

4. Paul August ☎ 15:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
5. Per above. James F. (talk) 11:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Abstain:

---

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: Wikipedia:General sanctions (June 2008)

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.

---

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

• ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)

Questions by ChrisO

I'd like to clarify a couple of policy questions concerning the general implementation of discretionary sanctions:

1) Do restrictions imposed under discretionary sanctions supersede the requirements of standing policy such as NPOV, V, BLP etc?

2) WP:BLP requires editors to "remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" on living people and states that "The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals". If a 0RR is in force, does the same consideration apply - i.e. does the removal of such material count as a revert?

Grateful for advice. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This section is redundant now given my request further up this page. I'd be grateful if a clerk could archive it, please. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Penwhale

This is just my personal opinion, but...

1) Restrictions imposed under discretionary sanctions shouldn't trump NPOV, V, and BLP (although I'm having trouble picturing an issue where these would come into play at the same time). Can you provide examples?

2) Regarding the second part, I would tread on the cautious side and say that if it's not obvious, then note it to someone else and let others do it, if 0RR applies to one of the editors involved.

- Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 07:05, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the example in question is here. Specific answers should probably go there, and general ones here. I note that in that example, Elonka refers to ChrisO's citing of BLP as "spin", so there seems to be disagreement there over how to apply BLP. Carcharoth (talk) 00:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kelly

Recommend merging this request with #Request for appeal: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles, above. Kelly ^hi! 15:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

---

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 to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds (June 2008)

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.

---

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

• Theresa knott (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator) [12]
• SevenOfDiamonds (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) [13]

Statement by User:Kendrick7

I am fully in favor of giving the editor formerly known as User:SevenOfDiamonds amnesty. He has been a fine, if illegal, contributor under the guise of User:I Write Stuff for two and a half months, and was only caught out again because he was over zealously defending another user from rather tenuous charges of sockpuppetry very similar to the case under which he himself was banned, which seems a noble gesture if anything. Prior to this he used other accounts, which have also been blocked for no reason other than being the supposed sock of an indef blocked editor who once upon a time threatened the project with wanton disruption.

None of those accounts carried out the threats of the editor who ArbCom ruled he was a sock of:

• NuclearUmpf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Zer0faults (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

All along this editor has contributed to the project constructively, with all of one 3RR block. Block logs:

• SixOfDiamonds (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SevenOfDiamonds (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• N4GMiraflores (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• I Write Stuff (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Grimlight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• JessicaRamos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

And additionally has created 42 articles:

Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico, COCEI, Rodolfo Fierro, Narciso Bassols, Movimiento de Liberation National, Genaro Vázquez Rojas, Elvia Carrillo Puerto, Demetrio Vallejo, Arturo Lona Reyes, Adolfo Christlieb Ibarrola, Andrés Molina Enríquez, Miguel Caro-Quintero, Sonora Cartel, Los Negros, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, Sinaloa Cartel, Agustín Casasola, Heraclio Bernal, Luis Amezcua Contreras, Jesus Amezcua Contreras, Adán Amezcua Contreras, Colima Cartel, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Javier Barba-Hernandez, Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, Mariana Grajales Coello, Ponciano Arriaga, Don Pedro Jaramillo, Salvador Nava Martínez, Jose Antonio Llama, Mario Montoya Uribe, Zapata Swamp, Zapata Wren, BINCI, Harold Bedoya Pizarro, Colombian presidential election, 1998, Zapata Sparrow, Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante, Polaris (poker bot), Juan Carlos Ramirez-Abadia, Carlos Alberto Rentería Mantilla.

Hopefully this shows that he is not the disruptive editor he was accused of being. He would like to return to writing articles without the stigma attached and the constant on the run article creation. It's completely unclear, beyond reasons of personal egos of certain involved administrators, why this block continues. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to User:Merzbow, I'm uncertain whether sneaking back into the project and being a productive wikipedian is necessarily less respectful of the project than sitting on the sidelines moping for some indefinite period per WP:IAR. Having to constantly look over his shoulder for the INS for the past year seems punishment enough. Insisting he sit out now just seems WP:POINTy, and while he went a ways overboard with the G33 case, the history here makes it obvious why that case pushed his buttons. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to User:Horologium, there's been scant evidence of actual disruption, certainly none which ever rose to the level of a blockable offense apparently. Even the original ArbCom ruling made no finding that SevenOfDiamonds had in fact been disruptive, despite the arguments and evidence given in the case by certain editors of opposite political views. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to User:B, yes, an apology would be great, but it's uncertain what SevenOfDiamonds is supposed to apologize for, since he continues to maintain he's not NuclearUmpf; Mr. N.U. could be on a beach in Tahiti trolling 4chan on his laptop and not be about to apologize for anything. Insisting SoD confess that's he's this other guy and apologize for that guy's behavior seems a bit of a two + two = five situation. People with life sentences make the worst prisoners; therefore, if it's solely a matter of doubt at to whether or not we've managed to properly break his spirit, at the very least the block should be shortened to some value of time less than infinity, so he can comply with the ban with some reasonable expectation of eventual re-admittance (even with certain restrictions) to the community. I sincerely believe that's in the best interest of the project. -- Kendrick7^talk there are four lights! 02:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to User:Rlevse, I wholeheartedly agree that the community should cease wasting time with this, and I suggest some sort of amendment to the case would quite exactly make that possible. What we need to ask ourselves is whether, as our critics claim, wikipedia is about power tripping and WP:DRAMA or whether, as I secretly hope, it is about writing an encyclopedia. Because, despite our best efforts, that's what SevenOfDiamonds keeps doing -- writing an encyclopedia. And we need to face the reality that it's unlikely we will be able to successfully stop this behavior; we're just not getting through to this guy that our critics are right. Please raise your hand if you want to be preventing him from doing this for the next forty or so years because I think that's the true waste of time. As the lyrics of the one hit song by The Refreshments, "Banditos" says:[14]

So give your ID card to the border guard

Your alias says you're Captain John Luc Picard

Of the United Federation of Planets

Cause they won't speak English any ways

He'll make a few dozen articles, we'll figure him out again, and the process will repeat. -- Kendrick7^talk you didn't think I'd get that third Picard reference in did ya? 03:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Like Merzbow, I didn't pay attention to the case at the time, but I don't think any halfway decent computer scan would show a connection here, beyond both accounts being from metropolitan New York and being on a 9 to 5 schedule, which is pretty meh. Aside from the Allegations of U.S. State Terrorism article, NuclearUmpf/Zer0faults almost entirely edited in articles connected to 9/11, and occasionally regional graffiti artists and DJs, obscure Nato/Turkish/African military patrols, and the occasional Middle Easterner's bio (who probably have some 9/11 link). SevenOfDiamonds, et al., aside from the Allegations of U.S. State Terrorism article, most edited in articles related to Latin America militant groups, other Latin American topics, and (rarely) poker. The longer I look at it, the less it adds up. There are two outliers MONGO suggests. There's the band none of my friends under 25 would shut up about 2 years ago, the New York group Immortal Technique (made me listen to their song about 9/11 like 20 times), which Zero edited and SoD added to a template. And, Nuclear had a user subpage on Hugo Chavez, which hopefully you don't need to be an expert on Latin America to have heard of -- and who, as it says in his article, gives NYC tons of cheap heating oil, which makes him quite popular there (his article doesn't mention he does the same thing for Boston, and it sure makes him popular here). That hardly makes him the guy who's written dozens of articles on Cuba/Mexico etc. So these just don't convince me of a definitive link. Nor does the use of common messageboard speak (lol/rofl/+1). It's just "pop culture" type stuff for lack of a better term. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, yeah, User:FayssalF, I know where you are coming from. I'm happy to advise SoD to go completely away for two or three months as a show of good faith in the community and it's policies, at which point I'd be happy to file an appeal on his behalf, if this is something the Arbs felt would properly reshuffle the deck, so he can then get a new deal. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

:confused: You know, if I was playing poker at a live casino, and there was a dispute over a misdeal or an angle shoot, and I called the floorperson over only to have him mutter something about butterflies and wander off, I think I'd go on tilt :-) I'm busy all weekend, but if it's process you want, and it's not simpler to amend the original case somehow, I can also just open a case up on Monday, and let the chips fall where they may. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Or to simply be more blunt, whatever wisdom you are trying to impart has sailed way over my head; any more straightforward guidance would be appreciated. -- Kendrick7^talk 01:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten about this; I'm still crossing my t's and dotting my lower case j's here. Browsing the sock category, I found at least one example of a sock of Mr. N.U. (User:WheezyF, again, primarily editing NY DJs and rap artists before getting caught) claiming via another confirmed IP sock, User:TenOfSpades, to be SevenOfDiamonds, which, while unsurprising for an editor who has pledged continued disruption, complicates things. I want to confirm for myself that my contention is plausible before opening a case, but no smoking gun yet. I guess MONGO is right about that much -- N.U. indeed continues to pop in and cause problems. -- Kendrick7^talk 01:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Merzbow, that's the diff I was referring to. See here[15] for where Thatcher confirms all three are the same, yet on a different ISP from User:N4GMiraflores who we know with certainty is SoD. Yeah, it would be nice to find an example of prior art where SoD lists all the articles he created. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, aren't there are exactly two POVs on the U.S. state terrorism article -- people who want to expand it and people who want to delete it? Unless you are suggesting there is a subtler shade of POV I don't know about, that's not a cannon in itself. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you changed your argument to expanded your argument to include the 9/11 conspiracy article. I don't see how those two diffs relate though. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:11, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My head is spinning. It does seem N.U. also argued that he has created many articles as well in the past as can be seen on his own user page so I find the "smoking gun" diff odd but not inexplicable. As such, I will open a case soon, but I think one of SoD's account would need to be unblocked to act in his own defense if a case is opened, as I can't follow all the levels of intrigue going on here; especially when you start throwing Stone put to sky (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s socks in the mix. My hamper contains less socks than the U.S. state terrorism article and I haven't done laundry in three weeks. In the meantime, I strongly recommend SoD leave his comments on his own talk page, where they are permitted, and I will attempt to review them, rather than continuing to violate his ban. You are in a hole -- stop digging amigo!! -- Kendrick7^talk 22:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Merzbow, I noticed that right away and assumed you had as well; that's why I called it a "confession." Look at IWS's (illegally posted) argument below. If N.U. was in fact following/disrupting the original case as SoD/IWS claims, it's not unreasonable that he'd lay low and wait until it was finished to resume editing from a new account believing the coast was now clear. SoD came back during the same timeframe as User:N4GMiraflores who was even part of the same checkuser. If SoD and N.U. are the same person, why would he create two accounts using two ISPs to edit two different topic areas (Latin Americans vs. NY musicians), only to "confess" that they are the same person in the course of harassing SPTS, who was actually an ally of SoD? It doesn't add up; especially if what IWS says below is true: that they in fact edited from opposite POVs on the U.S. state terrorism article, which is something I was previously unaware of. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't think a ten day overlay is anything close to a precise fit; I mean, you'd have to assume SoD got a secondary IP and created the N4GMiraflores with the malice of forethought to throw away the Wheezy account by harassing User:Stone put to sky about sockpuppetry SPTS hadn't even committed yet, which is about equally "grassy knoll." And the big gap in your reasoning is that N.U. is SoD even though they disagreed about the U.S. state terrorism article, while Wheezy and SoD are the same precisely because they did agree. Either N.U. had a complete change of heart and became SoD, in which, yes, case he could be Wheezy, or he didn't in which case, no, he couldn't be SoD. And yet Wheezy claimed to be both. So I don't see how things add up at all here. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As I've tried to remind people are that page and it's subpages over the last few weeks, WP:PRESERVE is a policy, not a POV, so say of me what you will. But ultimately, I think the best thing to do is to submit a case; perhaps this aberration can be sorted out. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Bigtimepeace

I was contacted by SevenofDiamonds about this on my talk page and will comment here. SoD contests the findings at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds that they were a sock of ZeroFaults/NuclearUmpf. That's fine, but that was the ArbCom's decision, and quite frankly I don't think we should rehash it here. Rather than focus on whether or not SoD is ZF/NU, we should focus on the behavior of the user SevenofDiamonds and consider their request for an unblock.

I would support that request with some conditions. There is no doubt that SoD has written dozens of articles and thus contributed constructively to the encyclopedia. However they have also been mixed up in a number of rather contentious disputes centered around Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. Indeed this article (and perhaps some related ones) have been the source of all of SoD's troubles. That user has engaged in some uncivil behavior in the past (see here for example, and there might be some stuff under the account I Write Stuff, but nothing egregious unless I'm missing something). I would suggest that it would be reasonable for SevenofDiamonds to agree to the following as a condition of an unblock:

1. Indefinite topic ban on Allegations of state terrorism by the United States and related articles (defined as articles to which the dispute from the main article has carried over, such as Guatemalan Civil War. SoD may feel their behavior was not disruptive enough to warrant a topic ban, but given that this is an unblock request and that this article has been the source of trouble this seems reasonable.
2. No interaction with User:MONGO, who presented the evidence at the original arbitration case. It's possible that this should be extended to other users as well (perhaps User:DHeyward), but at the least SoD should stay away from MONGO and articles he edits.
3. SoD picks one account, informs ArbCom of it, and agrees to edit only with that account. Other accounts would remain blocked.
4. I assume all of this would be logged at the original arbitration page, and perhaps a link to that would be necessary at SoD's user page so that editors and admins know the situation should future problems come up.

There might be other necessary conditions but this seems like a reasonable start. Violation of any of the terms would lead to another indef block. It seems obvious that SoD will continue to maintain that they are not ZF/NU, so asking them to admit to that will be a non-starter. Maybe they really are, or maybe ArbCom got it wrong. Like I said it perhaps does not actually make much difference either way. SoD likes to write articles and I'm fine with unblocking to let them do that, so long as they completely avoid the areas which have got them into trouble in the past (if the user is going to keep writing articles no matter what, it seems silly to make them post the articles on my talk page). The committee could even say they still stand by the decision in the SevenOfDiamonds case that the user is NuclearUmpf, but so long as the user agrees to stick to one account, avoid problem areas, and not cause disruption they can be unblocked and allowed to contribute. These are just initial ideas and there might well be other issues to consider. I have no idea if SevenofDiamonds is agreeable to these terms or not because we have not discussed this issue, the user just informed me of this request via a talk page message and I am apparently here as a "friendly" party.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to Merzbow, I would not really have a problem with a waiting period but don't know what we gain by holding off for 6 months. If anything it makes more sense to have SoD agree to the above terms (and perhaps others) now rather than just letting them create more new accounts which could be disruptive. We should think in terms of what's actually workable. If we can find an agreement that lets SoD contribute but keeps them out of troubled areas then why not do it now? And we should definitely add William M. Connolley, yourself, and anyone else who wants to the list of people SoD should keep away from (within reason of course, we can't have a list of 20 people and I think it would only be a handful anyway - I think basically just a few people from the US State Terrorism article). Also if SoD was causing disruption in 9/11 articles a topic ban there would be justified as well. In general I'm quite open to broadening the restrictions I mention above.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I would add that, while I don't know if it was intentional or not, I find it amusing that SoD has created 42 articles. Given the popularity of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here at Wikipedia that should surely count for something.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Update. Given the strong objections below (and particularly given DHeyward's comment - I had no idea that NU had engaged in real-world harassment published private information about a Wikipedia editor [amended per DHeyward comment below]) I now think it makes sense to, at the least, hold off on this. I would suggest that SevenofDiamonds go about 6 months without creating new accounts and without violating the ban with IP edits. I would note though, and perhaps the committee can provide some guidance on this, that SoD (using another account) posted on my user talk page informing me they intended to submit articles to my talk page in the hopes that I would post them. That would put me in a rather odd position. I would certainly never proxy edit for a banned user, but on the other hand if they are decent articles (which seems generally to have been the case with SoD in the past) it would seem somewhat absurd to not put them in article space. Even if ArbCom rejects SoD's request as I assume they will I'd appreciate some guidance on that issue.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Merzbow

I urge ArbCom to reject this motion for now. It is true that IWS/Seven can contribute good content, but he also cannot stop the disrupting and harassing activity that got him banned in the first place: see this ANI thread for an overview of examples of both during the Giovanni33 ArbCom case; he also has a vendetta against WMC, starting an RFC here, then following WMC to an article IWS has never edited to revert-war against him ([16], [17]), then warning WMC here; etc. His unwillingness to respect a legally imposed ArbCom remedy and instead sockpuppet prolifically also does not bode well for his ability to work within the community. My advice to him is to stay away for six months to a year to show his respect for this community, then appeal for a second chance, which must come in conjunction with a topic ban for the areas that he only disrupts and never contributes to (i.e. articles on U.S. foreign policy and 9/11), plus a ban on interaction with those he's harassed (i.e. Mongo, me, to start). Yes, basically BTP's remedies, but not now, because that would be a reward for his deception, disruption and socking. He needs to take a long time-out first.

To BTP: 9/11 was in reference to actions under the NuclearUmpf account, which was infamous for pushing conspiracy theories in that area; some SoD's early edits did the same. Anyways, we don't give into blackmail here. A threat to continue to create new accounts "unless" should not be met by capitulation, because then every other banned user is going to feel it's OK. The bottom line is that via his actions, he has already shown he does not feel the rules of the community apply to him, so why should we give him a second chance until he can demonstrate otherwise by, you know, not sockpuppeting for a while? - Merzbow (talk) 22:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

For those who believe the NuclearUmpf/SevenOfDiamonds connection was weak: I was not involved with that case, but looked at recently, and they are the same person. If we have to go through it again, we will, and with evidence five times as detailed as that presented in the original case, if necessary. I implore ArbCom not to put the community through this exercise again unless they have new and extremely convincing evidence. For just an example of what we would see, I noticed that as part of the Mantanmoreland ArbCom evidence, somebody ran an exhaustive computer analysis of time-day-edits between thousands of accounts, and their conclusion (with graphs) was "User:SevenOfDiamonds and User:NuclearUmpf had remarkably similar editing patterns, with 0.7758 correlation coefficient, which is a bit better than the 99th percentile." (link here). (I would also note that Mantanmoreland was indef'd today after further evidence came to light of socking.) - Merzbow (talk) 00:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Kendrick: I didn't know that WheezyF (talk · contribs), who it seems nobody disputes is a N.U. sock, was CU confirmed to be the same as TenOfSpades (talk · contribs) (and ElevenOfHearts (talk · contribs)), a painfully obvious SoD sock (see this post, which appears to be the first occurrence of SoD's now patented list of created articles + whine). This appears to be the smoking gun, no? - Merzbow (talk) 02:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

OK folks, we have WheezyF start editing for the first time on 2007-10-19, a day after SoD's last edit ever on 2007-10-18. WheezyF's interest in rap provides a key linkback to N.U. not present in SoD's contributions, while WheezyF's PoV on "Allegations..." is identical to SoD's (and an evolution from N.U.'s). The smoking gun has just turned into a smoking cannon. (Also, I've found it instructive that one of N.U.'s last edits was a pro-conspiracy edit to 9/11 conspiracy theories ([18]), while one of SoD's first was to the same article with the same POV ([19])). - Merzbow (talk) 02:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Kendrick: I didn't change diffs, I just added an additional point (9/11) to the original point (interest in rap - half of WheezyF's history, lots of N.U.'s). Both diffs are from the pro-9/11 conspiracy POV; the latter obviously so, the former removed an unfavorable comparison of 9/11 conspiracy belief to a belief in aliens. (N.U. was a 9/11 conspiracy pusher on many articles, SoD also has other edits to this effect). My overall thrust is that the (ahem) "Nuclear option" - an entirely new case whose purpose is to overturn the first case - should be looking far less attractive now. What should be done is for somebody - preferably an Arb - to propose and get voted on, in this case motion, a path back to legal editing for SoD, based on some of the restrictions already suggested. - Merzbow (talk) 03:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Kendrick, the gun is even more smoking than I thought. Look closely at the list of articles created claimed by TenOfDiamonds/WheezyF: [20] - I just noticed that it includes articles created both by N.U. and SoD (e.g., Kimberly Osorio is N.U., and Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía is SoD). The only way out here for SoD is to claim WheezyF was created by N.U. specifically to frame him - a quite improbable scenario, given the account was made a day after SoD was blocked and continued editing for months. Nobody is going to believe N.U. came back from the dead after eight months (on the day after SoD's block) specifically to conduct an elaborate frameup campaign against an editor who joined Wikipedia four months after he left. - Merzbow (talk) 23:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Kendrick, N4GMiraflores was a follow-on account to WheezyF, not "of the same timeframe" - WheezyF edited from 10-19-2007 to 2-14-2008 (with a single edit at 2-22-2008), while N4GMiraflores/IWS edited from 2-12-2008 onward on a new ISP. - In other words, WheezyF almost precisely fills the gap between SoD's last edit and N4GMiraflores/IWS's first edit. If WheezyF was N.U. trying to sneak back in after SoD's ban, why did he all of a sudden decide to throw it away by announcing he was SoD (via TenOfDiamonds, plus editing "Allegations" with an identical PoV)? The alternative - that WheezyF was envisioned from the beginning to be a disposable account meant to last months, with hundreds of good edits, and frame SoD - is grassy-knoll material. Nothing adds up except for the plainest reading of the evidence - SoD is WheezyF, and thus N.U. - Merzbow (talk) 00:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not a ten-day overlap, it's a two-day overlap with a single stray edit on the 22nd. And yes, SoD's PoV moved toward the inclusionist side, but it was still noticeably less so than G33, SPTS's, or yours - so it's certainly not "opposite"; and note that SoD and NU again share a pro-9/11 conspiracy PoV, so that didn't evolve. More importantly, WheezyF makes this moot - you cannot claim NU did not evolve his PoV if you want to also claim NU is WheezyF (because WheezyF's dozens of "Allegations..." edits were pro-inclusionist, basically indistinguishable from SoD's). Your only other way out is to claim NU as WheezyF deliberately faked all of those "Allegations..." edits to frame SoD - a grassy knoll theory that makes about as much sense as the real grassy knoll theory (as I've explained above). The logic here is pretty airtight. Anyways, I think we've both written more than enough, and are in danger of being forcibly refactored by a clerk, so this is my final statement on the matter. Do what you will. - Merzbow (talk) 05:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

FYI: I summarized the above evidence in a more organized form here, as a statement in the now-rejected SoD2 case. - Merzbow (talk) 02:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell

I've not seen positive contributions by this editor which would outweigh the immense amount of time wasted in dealing with his independently disruptive socks. I'm also not clear on why we should condone the admitted evasion of an ArbCom-imposed ban, particularly when the editor in question continues to rationalize his ban evasion and deny any fault whatsoever. So User:I Write Stuff managed to edit constructively for one whole month before lapsing into disruptiveness. Have we sunk to the point where that's exceptionally praiseworhty? Editors able to contribute useful content without repeatedly running afoul of basic policy are not so rare that we need to waste more time on this. But admittedly, I'm grouchy at the moment since the USA lost 2-nil to England, so take that with a grain of salt. MastCell ^Talk 22:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Horologium

I would strongly recommend that the arbitrators reject this appeal. The almost continuous disruption caused by this account (under many names, the two most recent being User:I Write Stuff and User:SevenOfDiamonds) far, far outweighs the positive contributions. Sockpuppetry (especially of a particularly disruptive nature, as is the case here) is not something that can be excused, and allowing this user another chance opens the door to appeals of a similar nature. Does anyone really want to have to deal with JB196, WordBomb, LBHS Cheerleader, Pwok, Grawp, or any of many abusive sockpuppeteers asking for another chance, citing this as precedent? Horologium (talk) 23:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Giovanni33

It is reasonable to unblock this user. He has proven himself a net positive to the project through content creation, and I've seen many positive contributions. See his cooperative statement and evidence of his valuable contributions:[21]At a minimum, 42 excellent articles created by this user refutes those who claim, "no positive contributions." These many contributions are not negated by the possibility that may have been NuclearUmf in the past, and made poor choices then that led to him being banned back then. In so far as this possibility is true, it's only relevant to the extent that he replicates the problematic behaviors. He has not. At the very least his current conduct under the new accounts should weigh a lot more than previous conduct, if the original problems are no longer evident; he may not be perfect but he is certainly a lot better than many other established editors who we are not sanctioning in any manner. Thus, it's also a matter of equal protection and fairness for me, as well as pragmatic reasons. Ironically the "disruption" stems from the fact of his 'illegal' status here: it's the de jure insistence that he remain blocked and what follows from that fact, against his de-facto unblocked status that is the source of disruption. It is therefore counter productive in light of his actual positive contributions, which he will continue to make, and wants to make, no matter what. Administrative decisions, if they are in the best interest of the project, must be flexible and look at the bottom line: what is best for the project? Even if we believe that he was the indef.banned user (Nuclear), the new accounts were only banned on the basis of asserting such a link.

Also, if he is telling the truth about his original blocking based on mistaken socket-puppet conclusions, then I certainly can relate to that, and give him credit for proving himself loyal to the project inspite and despite the rules. It's a classic and ultimate case of IAR being put into practice. That is an area that is problematic, but the best way to deal with it is to make an evaluation on pragmatic grounds (what IAR was meant for).

Lastly, I want to point out that SevenOfDiamonds was not indef.blocked/banned by his Arbcom case. In fact, arbcom, in their wisdom, did NOT proscribe any remedy. They simply concluded that given the standard of 'more likely than not," one account was the other. They did not feel a need to issue any restrictions, or take any punitive measures. It was up to any admin to either feel a block was then warranted, or for him to be left in peace to edit. At this state, I agree with BTP, that it doesn't matter if SOD was Nuclear or not, or how likely he was, etc. Conditions should be ratified so as to codify a situation with the aim of minimizing as much disruption as possible while maximizing the positive. To me this means an unblock, perhaps with conditions, and for his opponents to reciprocate in abstaining from any uncivil interaction against him moving forward. If he wants to write articles, then who are we to stop him? To do so is to elevate form above substance, to raise the letter of the law above its spirit. Given the possibility that he should never have been banned in the first place, to continue to want him blocked no matter what strikes me as an irrational fetish of the rules for the sake of the rules.Giovanni33 (talk) 23:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In response to User:B. It is true he was circumventing a ban but notice he was doing it to prove a positive point, not a negative one, i.e. not to defy or disrespect arbcom or their authority, but to prove he was not disruptive as claimed, but a valuable contributor so he could make an appeal to them afterwards. Note he explains his reasons here, that he intended to request for the appeal afterwards, and does so now:[22]. This is not an act of a vandal/defiant rogue element that needs to be stomped out at all costs. Quite the contrary. Each case must be looked at concretely on its own merits so that does not give a green light to just anyone doing this; it goes without saying its risky at best. But intentions seem clear here and I feel intentions do count, even if it was flawed tactically.Giovanni33 (talk) 02:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

DHeyward's allegation about his real name does not appear to be truthful to me, so I want to respond. First of all, I don't know what his real name is, nor do I care to know. I would never tolerate any harassment of anyone, either. To insinuate that I've done something like that is quite wrong.

DHeyward, the only thing I do know is that you have two user names, an old one and the new one. I have provided both before simply so that people know who I'm talking about. The reason for this is because you are known by your old user name more so, such as on the Allegations article, where under your old user name you've blanked sections a lot, edit-warred. I also know you had a block log that is no longer shown with your new account. Your past behaviors there rather poor on that article under the old account; the new user name, though, is clean from those misbehaviors, and gives you a face-lift. I also note you're less aggressive. So that is why I link them, so people know who we are talking about. It has nothing to do with what your real name is.

Also, you have never send me a message informing me of the situation, if your old user name was to be mentioned. The only time, and the first time I realized you did not want this displayed is just recently when I provided both user names in my arbcom case. I also know that both user names are not a secret and you specifically requested a change of your user name, not because you were trying to hide your real name because people were harassing you, but because you wanted to have your new user name be your real name--the one that you use now. I refer to this statement of yours about it: [23]. So your claim now makes no sense. I had just assumed you wanted to use your real name, as you stated, or wanted to disassociate your past behaviors linked to your previous user name, or your posts on conservative forums, etc. If you are mischaracterizing what I've done, your allegations against SevenOfDiamonds in the same vein are called into question.Giovanni33 (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:B

I am completely uninvolved in this case and only tangentially followed it. I encourage arbcom to reject it because it would reward circumventing a ban. If a banned user abides by the ban, then apologizes for whatever issues led to their ban, and promises not to repeat their transgressions, then I'm all for second chances. But someone who does not abide by the terms of the ban and gets caught socking should not be permitted to return. --B (talk) 02:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Rlevse

Banned means he's not allowed to edit. This is a sock of a banned user. Period. And the ban was partly for socking. Rewarding that behavior is counterproductive. Too much time has been wasted on this user already. Let's not do it again. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Reply to the email situation--While I have no idea what is in the email that was sent to arbcom, the fact remains that SoD intentionally evaded their ban. That is not the sort of behavior we should be rewarding. SoD should have brought this up first, rather than circumventing things and then saying "see I'm not so bad afterall". — Rlevse • Talk • 20:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:DHeyward

User:NuclearUmpf published my real name, employer and other personal information. He did it both on and off wiki in a malicious manner. Other editors commenting here have continued to make sure that the stalking continues (notably Giovanni33 and Inclusionist). My employer was contacted because of that. I was cyber stalked because of that. It continues on sites such as WR today. He should not be allowed to return and contribute in any way either as sockpuppets or as himself. --DHeyward (talk) 05:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Response to BTP: I don't know that NU was the one who did the actual harassment. He is the one who published the material that the harassers used. The only reason to publish that information was to aid the harassment. --DHeyward (talk) 13:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

response to Giovanni33: Here's my block log. In total. Only Tyrenius's block wasn't considered a mistake (I said a 9/11 truther was lying on a user's talk page). None for the "allegations" article as you seem to not be in command of any factual evidence. And your claim of ignorance and innocence is not credible either.

• 2:20, September 24, 2006 Tyrenius (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Defamatory comment after warning)
• 13:16, April 22, 2006 Curps (Talk | contribs) unblocked ‎ (not)
• 11:38, April 22, 2006 Curps (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (vandalism)
• 18:40, March 27, 2006 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) unblocked (after reviewing it appears Tbeatty made only three reverts)
• 17:01, March 27, 2006 Gamaliel (Talk | contribs) unblocked (appears to be an incorrect 3rr block)
• 19:02, March 26, 2006 Ruud Koot (Talk | contribs) blocked with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (3rr vio at Union of Concerned Scientists)

--DHeyward (talk) 21:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:William M. Connolley

This is a repeated sock abuser. Reject as a waste of time, and to judge from the state of the G33 case, you're short of time William M. Connolley (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Guettarda

While I am not familiar with the underlying case, I would challenge Kendrick's assertion that IWS is a "fine" contributor - his behaviour has been problematic for a while. Not ban-worthy in and of itself, but needlessly combative. The suggestion that he has reformed doesn't ring true. Guettarda (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Rocksanddirt

The original arb finding that Sevenofdiamonds was Nucularumpf (or whatever) was IMO very weak. The evidence was substantially weaker that the recent evidence regarding Mantanmoreland, which the committee felt was uncompelling. While the harrassment by numf is NOT OK, BY ANY STRETCH, I'm not sure that SoD is the same person. I would ask the committee to review the finding. If appropriate to unban, I think a topic ban on 9-11 and similar conspiracy articles would be appropriate as SoD seemed to struggle with appropriate behavior in that relm (not substantially worse than others, but still). --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Pokipsy76

I find just incredible that this user was indefinitely banned because arbitrators thought "it is more likely than not" that he was a sockpuppet of another.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO

I stated at the RFAr case that SevenOfDiamonds would return under a new name anyway since it was pretty obvious that he had already been banned or blocked as NuclearUmph/Zer0faults previously and he has created numerous other socks to evade, edit war and to avoid a 3RR violation.[24] His actions as SevenOfDiamonds in terms of civil discourse also left much to be desired. He has a history of wikistalking his adversaries[25], posting other's real life information and being a general pain in the arse, frankly. That said, I also stated I was a reluctant participant in the 7OD case orginally precisely since I knew it would be a waste of time overall...as is this nonsense...since he knows fully that he can return anytime he wants and has proven this time and again.--MONGO 04:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

Two ideas here - blocking should be preventative, not punitive; and indefinite does not mean infinite. If this editor is capable of working within our norms and improving the encyclopaedia, after time served, I have no problem with his return, although given past activity it may be advisable for ArbCom to either require a notice to be placed on his talk page, or to impose some kind of parole on the offences which brought him to the attention of the community. As per my comments at Poetlister incident, there is no need to revisit the old facts - unblocking now does not say the old offences did not occur or that they weren't serious enough to demand blocking at that time, just as parole from prison on good behaviour does not mean the murder or burglary did not take place. (It may well not have but that's not a decision for us to make here.) Orderinchaos 05:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by AuburnPilot

I'd just like to reiterate what I said in the SOD case, that I don't believe SevenOfDiamonds is/was a sock of NuclearUmpf. The evidence presented was cherry-picked, ignored the majority of SOD's contributions, and the case as a whole was an embarrassment (See my comment during the case for more). A productive editor was blocked, not because he was the reincarnation of a banned editor, but because one editor cherry-picked evidence that made it look like he might be. I believe the case should be revisited, and SOD should be allowed to return. Ban him from interacting with certain editors if it you must, but a total ban doesn't make sense. - auburnpilot talk 01:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Daniel

Only to get this moving and get a definitive answer from ArbCom on this, I propose the following motion to be voted on:

--- START PROPOSED MOTION ---

SevenOfDiamonds (talk · contribs) is unblocked. He is restricted to one account, and can only change accounts with the explicit approval of the Arbitration Committee. This unblock does not affect the standing of findings of fact or blocks/bans on any other account related to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds.

--- END PROPOSED MOTION ---

See also the Poetlister approach. ArbCom should finalise this sooner rather than later, if only to quash the ambiguity in the comments below as to the next step forward. Daniel (talk) 02:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I am fully in accord with Rlevse on this issue. Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• On the basis of a detailed email that came to the ArbCom, I feel we should look properly at this matter. Assuming a request is posted, I'd vote to accept a case. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• The email from user:SevenOfDiamonds is promissing and sincere. Contributions look good. However, the editor should have first contacted the ArbCom for a ban appeal. I am concerned by the RfC started on user:William M. Connolley, the involvement in the user:Giovanni33 ArbCom case, fishing user:Merzbow with CU. I am more concerned by the creation of multiple accounts (are they needed?). I am concerned by all that. A lot of good process is missing in here. We can discuss conditions of return if a proper ban appeal is filed but I don't see the need for one at the moment. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • To user:Kendrick7... The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. - Rabindranath Tagore -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 09:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Kendrick, I am unconvinced myself that SoD and NuclearUmpf are the same. You can accept IWriteStuff and other accounts' contributions even though they were made under block evasion. However, the fact that SoD put themselves into regular disputes again while using IWriteStuff is unacceptable. I also don't understand the need for creating multiple accounts even tough it is technically legitimate in this case. Yes, it is certainly about time. I prefer SoD do as the butterfly and not count months or days. It'd be about the moment SoD decides to embrace a less combative behavior. I hope it is a fair deal. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 08:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
• I would just as soon not reward banned editors for evading their bans. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 15:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• I am far from convinced that SevenOfDiamonds is the same person as NuclearUmpf (the ArbCom, by a vote of 4-1, only ruled that "it is more likely than not"). Moreover the ensuing contributions, though not problem free, have been substantial and constructive. I'm inclined to allow this editor to continue editing, perhaps with restrictions. Paul August ☎ 15:08, 30 May 2008 (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 injunction and restoration of deleted RFC: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Intelligent_design_editors (June 2008)

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.

---

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

• Odd nature (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Random832 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Notified: [26]
• moreschi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Notified: [27]

Statement by Odd nature

Based on evidence I uncovered of harassment by a organized group of editors of another group of editors yesterday I filed Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sceptre, Sxeptomaniac, SirFozzie, B in an attempt to compell that group to disengage. Less than 24 hours after filing and less than four after being certified, Random832 nominated the RFC for deletion [28] and moreschi deleted it outside of process and without a clear consensus to delete.

I'd like the RFC reinstated to allow the community to show some consensus and Random832 and moreschi, or any other admin or editor related this group, enjoined from deleting or taking any other admin action related to this RFC.

Statement by Moreschi

Oh, for heaven's sake. A) ArbCom is not a court of law, B) this belongs at DRV, and C), please see my comment at ANI here. Improperly certified RFCs get deleted quick-smart and "consensus" is not required. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 19:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

And I'm "related to this group"? BULLSHIT. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 20:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jim62sch

Denmark.•Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• @Lar -- Now, now, WP:NPA. Denmark is an obvious reference -- a literary one to boot (and since this is an encyclopedia, such references are a propos. As for Latin or any of the lingua I know, I'll peper and solt my responses (or edit summaries) with them as I plese. Remember, our task here is to bring knowledge to the world! •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Random832

I took no admin action. Am I being accused of having taken admin action? Have you provided evidence that Moreschi was involved? I was actually just coming back online to withdraw the MFD since on further reflection I'd decided it's worth keeping around as evidence of the way some people make accusations accompanied with links that don't support those accusations. --Random832 (contribs) 20:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Odd Nature has a tendency to see conspiracies everywhere, to accuse everyone who individually does something he disagrees with of being "friends" with everyone else. Where have I crossed paths with any of the other "involved" editors outside of this, that you can claim that I'm their "friend"? --Random832 (contribs) 20:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

And I'm "related to this group"? BULLSHIT. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 20:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC) - You took action, therefore you're related. Maybe if they keep it up everyone can be related. This is a farce, seriously. --Random832 (contribs) 20:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

To be completely honest, I don't even particularly like Sceptre, and the others I don't really recall meeting at all. --Random832 (contribs) 20:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, an RfC against a group by another group is a bit unconventional, just as an RfAr against a group by another group is a bit unconventional. - Except, neither of those is a valid characterization of anything, considering that there is no identifiable "group" opposed to the set of editors that the original RFAR was filed against - there's just you claiming that everyone who dissents from you in any way is somehow a WR conspiracy, and any neutral user who steps in and fails to agree with you becomes incorporated into that supposed conspiracy. --Random832 (contribs) 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

Jim62sch: Please assume that not everyone is as clever as you are, or as you think you are (whichever applies), and try to make statements that those for whom English is not a first language can parse. I think maybe I know what you mean by "Denmark"... but then again, maybe I don't. Communication wasn't did. Ditto for your use of Latin elsewhere, it's not helpful. This is an English project, not a Latin one. As for the requested injunction itself, I see not much harm in restoring the RfC as it will make those who initiated it look even sillier than they already do. But not much benefit either, so whichever. ++Lar: t/c 20:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:B

The content relating to me in this RFC was retaliation/harassment for my presentation of evidence at C68-FM-SV. As such, to the extent that the arbitration committee wishes to take action relating to it, there is already a suitable forum available. --B (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Filll

My impression is that this issue was going to be sent to the community for input in one or more RfCs. Clearly, an RfC against a group by another group is a bit unconventional, just as an RfAr against a group by another group is a bit unconventional. I thought that the entire motivation for having one or more RfCs was to gather more concrete evidence of any purported ill behavior by any involved. I will draw your attention to the quote by User: Thatcher on May 30, 2008: "And remember that your conduct in bringing the case will be looked at just as closely as the conduct of those you name in the case, so using the RFC as an opportunity for flamewars and personal attacks is going to be self-defeating." This deleted RfC was just a vehicle for looking at all the participants from a different vantage point. Probably one needs more like 10 RfCs, not just 2, but certainly 2 is much better than 1.--Filll (talk | wpc) 21:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Addendum by User:Filll

I have noticed that User:LaraLove and User:Dtobias and User:Ncmvocalist and possibly a few others have protested their inclusion in this dispute and the associated administrative actions, including one or more of the associated, impending and threatened RfCs. These editors object on the grounds that they are not related to this dispute and want to opt-out of it.

However, I will respectfully point out that this is exactly the situation that the members of the ID Wikiproject, and even a group of editors that are not members of the ID Wikiproject, face in the ID RfAr filed by User:Sceptre, User:SirFozzie et al [29]. The same is true of the impending RfCs and potential Arbcomm actions. As User:Durova noted, this form of mass group administrative action where the group has poorly defined boundaries sets one or more precedents, and might not be the best conceived approach to settling any underlying dispute [30].

The ID RfAr broadly supposedly targets the ID Wikiproject, naming in particular User:Filll (who is no longer a member), User:Orangemarlin (who is no longer a member), User:Guettarda, User:KillerChihuahua, User:Jim62sch, and User:Ali'i even implies that User:JoshuaZ (never a member), User:Baegis, User:Odd nature, User:dave souza (never a member), User:Raymond Arritt (never a member and scrambled his password because of repeated intimidation, including the ID RfAr filing), User:Badger Drink (never a member), User:ScienceApologist (never a member), User:QuackGuru (never a member), and User:FeloniousMonk are also to be included in this broad attack. The RfAr makes allegations of evil collective behavior. There are all kinds of vague and unsubstantiated claims in the RfAr, even though at this writing it has been open for about 13 days, which should be more than enough time to produce at least some minimal evidence of substantial wrong-doing, which has not yet been forthcoming. All of these editors are treated as some sort of evil monolith, and all are blamed for a mistake made by any single editor, and any purportedly uncivil wording of any given editor is attributed to all the members of this ill-defined group.

As User:Thatcher stated on May 30, 2008: "And remember that your conduct in bringing the case will be looked at just as closely as the conduct of those you name in the case, so using the RFC as an opportunity for flamewars and personal attacks is going to be self-defeating." If we going to allow a precedent where 14 editors can be named as targets of a vague catch-all WP:COATRACK-y assault, then the side bringing these complaints will have to endure a similar treatment and scrutiny of their actions associated with this dispute or leading to this dispute, as Thatcher so fairly and presciently states. In fact, since I have been attacked mainly for doing nothing more than defending other members of this purported and mystical "cabal", then those same standards will have to be applied to all. So by that standard, clearly User:LaraLove and User:Dtobias are suitable targets for one or more administrative actions. In addition, User:LaraLove was deeply involved in provoking, enabling and defending some of the behaviors that are part and parcel of this dispute, so should be included on that basis as well. I do not know the particulars of Ncmvocalist and any potential others who might be more tenuously involved, but given that there are demands by SirFozzie and Sceptre et al that they be allowed to attack the widest possible group of editors, then it is only fair that the exact same standards be applied to both sides in this dispute.

I would repeat the previous appeal of User:FeloniousMonk for all involved to just disengage and walk away from this RfAr, the RfC drafts, and any further impending administrative actions, which he made in the deleted RfC Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sceptre, Sxeptomaniac, SirFozzie, B. I forsee nothing but wasted time and irritation from this series of RfAr proceedings, RfCs and Arbcomm proceedings. As Thatcher stated, everyone's behavior is going to be under investigation and scrutiny if this goes ahead. No one should be allowed to "opt out", and probably no one will be allowed to "opt out". Any mistake or misunderstanding or ill-considered remark made on Wikipedia, or possibly on other sites such as Wikipedia Review, will be open to examination and second-guessing and potential misinterpretation. Highly improper and uncivil comments like Sceptre's gleeful edit summary that was used when he opened this RfAr are going to be criticized. I would ask everyone on all sides to please use some rationality here and please walk away from this potential huge time sink and impending disaster. All those attacking the ID Wikiproject should not feel so smug, since it is quite likely that a serious examination is going to turn up evidence of bad behavior on the anti-ID Wikiproject and pro-WR side that is not going to necessarily reflect them in the best possible light.

What can be done to resolve this

(1) Stop talking about the members of the ID Wikiproject off-wiki (2)Start assuming good faith of all ID Wikiproject members (3) Stop calling the ID Wikiproject a cabal (4) Stop undermining the credibilitiy and ability of ID Wikiproject members to function effectively.

I personally feel harassed and would like it to stop. I feel I am being driven off the project, since I am constantly being undermined through exaggerated accusations. I have withdrawn from RfAs and RfBs and other polls because of this harassment. I have withdrawn from editing all evolution, creationism and intelligent design articles and all other controversial articles because of this harassment. What more can I do but just leave the project?

So I ask all concerned: Please reconsider.--Filll (talk | wpc) 17:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Reply to LaraLove

I do not intend to misrepresent LaraLove's position. And as for evidence, I am hoping that we do not have to get to that stage of the RfC process where evidence is compiled to make assorted negative charges and assertions against LaraLove and others. As I have stated about 10 times now, I would like both sides to just walk away from this dispute. I firmly believe that if supporting evidence and full arguments are compiled against LaraLove and others, that very bad feelings will result. So I am pleading with everyone to just disengage and back off. Please drop this silly dispute, or I fear things will get far far worse.

I also will state here publicly that I did not see any request from LaraLove to remove the word "missy". If I had, I would have removed it immediately. I also did not see a clear statement from LaraLove that the term LaraHate or LH, which I was given to understand are her current or previous chosen names on Wikipedia Review, was grossly offensive to LaraLove. If I had, I would not have used it and I would have removed it from any post of mine. I think it is a little peculiar that LaraLove chose a term she regards as grossly offensive as her username, but whatever. That is her choice. And if that is her assertion, she free to make such a claim, no matter how it appears.

Also, if I have caused by my actions some dispute to be prolonged, I am not aware of it. If I have been, I apologize to all concerned, whatever it was. I will point out that I do reserve the right to mount a defense when attacked, or defend associates in situations where I think they are being unfairly vilified. I have noticed that several points in this dispute, others have implied that it is an offense to even defend oneself or to defend others, at least for those in the ID Wikiproject, or those that they have assigned to the ID Wikiproject even though they are not members. I really hope that this is not to become some sort of standard part of the Wikipedia culture, because frankly, it is very unfair and looks terrible.--Filll (talk | wpc) 15:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Dtobias

That RFC was ridiculous for many reasons, one of which was its scattershot approach of making (but hardly proving) accusations against a whole slew of different editors, including some who weren't even parties to the RFC... myself included. Like Random832, I was accused of being a "friend" of Sceptre, when I don't even particularly get along with him, and I was lumped in with a whole fundamentalist conspiracy against science regarding the evolution-related articles, which is a laff riot given that (1) I'm not religious at all, (2) I support evolution, not Intelligent Design, and (3) I haven't even edited any of the articles in question as far as I can recall. Still, I don't mind at all if this RFC were to be undeleted; it's good comic relief, and might prove useful in the future as something to cite against the people who brought it in future actions. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Sceptre

Jeff Fahey is a very quoteable person. Sceptre ^(talk) 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by SirFozzie

Considering the fact that the RfC was leaning heavily against Filll/Jim/OrangeMarlin at the time of deletion, I wish that it was merged to the THIRD RfC opened on this (which seems to be another chance to try to smear everyone involved rather then a true RfC), rather then deleted but agree that Jim et all are doing it all wrong in demanding that it be restored here instead of via DRV, etcetera. SirFozzie (talk)

Statement by LaraLove

I was misrepresented in this RFC. My name was mentioned three times but there was not one diff of evidence. I'm not one to claim harassment or yell incivility or assuming bad faith, but the claims being made about me lately with no supporting evidence are getting out of control. Lara❤Love 03:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Response to statement by Filll

(Response to part of it, rather... I only read the first part then CTRL-F'd my name to read other relevant-to-me parts.) I am once again/as per usual being misrepresented by Filll. I have not, at any point that I can recall, said that I don't believe I should be involved in any of this. What I said was (wow, I've had to say that a lot lately) that there is no supporting evidence of the claims being made about me.

I've found that Filll has an extremely bad habit of twisting people's words around and coming to random conclusions that he then presents as fact. He is selective in his reading and, in my opinion, fails to properly process the thoughts others convey, which leads to him misrepresenting editors and events. He interjects himself into situations which results in escalation rather than anything remotely resembling mediation and, in at least one case he, along with another editor, he derailed attempts for a situation, which they were not involved in, to be resolved.

If I had been posting messages to Filll the way he posted messages to me today, I most certainly would have been accused of harassment. He boasts of this policy of his where he will strike any comment another finds offensive, even if he doesn't agree. That is not true. He referred to me as "Missy" and later made two statements that I requested he strike. Additionally, I stated that it offends me that he keeps referring to me as LH (a reference to my alternate nick on WR that was created after losing the password to my LaraLove account, which I've now restored and returned to). Rather than strike, he responded with a customary snippy reply wherein he referred to me, once again, as LH. LaraLove||Talk 04:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ncmvocalist who formally requested the deletion

This whole request is bogus and needs to be dismissed. There was no sign of attempting to resolve the dispute. As I stated at the [ANI], User:Odd nature labels me, Cla68, LaraLove (LaraHate at WikipediaReview), Giggy, Dtobias (Dan T), The undertow, ThuranX, and Gnixon as "supporters" of the subjects of the RFC and insists the entire group "steer clear of participating in discussions regarding members of the project occurring anywhere on Wikipedia".

I'm uninvolved and have participated as a third party in several disputes (whether it be here, or at WQA), and at ANI - his accusations, I suppose, stem from me daring to participate and state anything he disagrees with. His gaming of the system to make unsupported unwarranted accusations against third parties, under the guise of satisfying a request from the arbitrators is unacceptable, and constitutes harassment, particularly when they're repeated as a smear campaign. The unacceptable manner in which he tried to have it certified - as if it is one dispute, when in reality, all he's done is referred to several disputes with several different users was another problem.

I therefore made the request to remove the bogus RFC and thankfully, Moreschi took action (the right action).

User:Odd nature needs to be reprimanded. Not only is it an abuse of process (as RFCs are part of DR, and intended to help resolve disputes), but it's an attempt to force uninvolved editors from commenting, when he disagrees with those comments. This is purely unacceptable harassment on his part. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Addendum by User:Ncmvocalist

When third party input is given, they do not become involved or even tenuously involved just for stating their view (which disagrees with that of a group of involved editors). For all related purposes, they are uninvolved. What is shown by Filll's addendum is he's endorsed an RFC without 'knowing the particulars'. The intent of the RFC was not to attempt to resolve a dispute, but to begin a new one against users who (potentially) dared to comment (at anytime) on the misconduct of those involved. Similar to what B has stated above, it is in retaliation for my proposals at the workshop of the more recent case C68-FM-SV.

The Committee needs to promptly reject this request in order for third party input to continue in dispute resolution - no uninvolved user will be willing to give their input if involved users are allowed to make baseless/meritless accusations, attacks and persistently harass them in this manner, among others. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by user:bwrs

I again suggest that all users involved in the content of intelligent design and the related BLPs go to mediation, which will focus the debate on content, and defuse the debate on conduct. [I think the article seems to lack fairness of tone; if all 3 of the editors with whom I disagree (none of whom are well-known parties to the conduct dispute) are willing to go to mediation, then I shall too.] Bwrs (talk) 02:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

This request is a waste of everybody's time - a quick examination of the situation on the ground is that it's well and truly moved on and a new RfC which isn't simply an attack on a rather nebulous group of editors is now functioning. (It's disturbing that it's the third RfC on the same topic in a week, but that's neither here nor there.) I agree with Ncmvocalist that the behaviour, lack of assumption of good faith and increasingly weird conspiracy theories by one user in particular are becoming problematic and a hindrance to any resolution. Orderinchaos 15:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Reject with prejudice, per Moreschi. James F. (talk) 18:31, 16 June 2008 (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 to amend prior case: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Privatemusings (June 2008)

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.

---

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

• Privatemusings (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Statement by Privatemusings

The committee indicated previously that after a little while they might lift my indefinite restrictions in editing BLPs - is now a good time? I'd like to edit unencumbered.

Any help in properly formatting this request is appreciated, and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have! - In particular I should note that I have reverted some BLP vandalism whilst under this restriction (which you've discussed previously as being acceptable, I think) - and lately I've unintentionally and accidentally made a couple of very small edits to biographies (one of which inspired me to make this request - and see contrib.s for all the info...)

cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to thank the commentators below for their kind words, and faith - and the imp in me can't help but note that this clarification has now taken longer to deliberate than the original case! This being a wiki - I'm going to 'be bold', and adopt the following plan from here on out;

As well as continuing to remove vandalism from biographies, I'm now going to edit BLPs in what I consider an uncontroversial manner - removing unsourced material, adding pic.s etc. - I started doing this shortly after this application, actually, and am glad that it's all working out ok thus far. After a month from today, should all go well, I will post freely to BLP talk pages, and after a further month I will consider myself unrestricted. I hope this works out ok for all.

I totally see the merit in FT's proposal below, and I will continue to seek wiki-advice from the many friends I've made around here - ironically, largely since sailing into choppy waters. I'm not absolutely sold on the merits of a formal 'mentor / mentoree' label, but am happy to give it a go, and will ask around a bit.

Once again, thanks to all below! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 23:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Update! - I'm back to not editing BLPs following some discussion on this page's talk page, and my own. I would like the restriction lifted if possible... cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 02:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Anonymous Dissident

This might be moot, but I would urge that ArbCom approach this case with due consideration and good thought. This is a complex and tricky case in which various factors need to be considered, and, as FT2 notes, BLP could one day be the bane of Wikimedia. I urge caution, but I also urge that we really look at Privatemusing's growth as an editor. I believe he has changed and flourished as an editor and Wikipedian since his vices were placed, and I would like to pledge my personal, humble support for him and the removing of his BLP-related chains. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Daniel

Similarily to Anonymous Dissident above, I wish to note my full support for removing these restrictions. My interaction with Privatemusings on biographies of living persons issues in recent months have been extremely positive, and his attitude is (in my opinion) compatable with the current policy and the current environment. If you need to consider some form of monitoring or similar for a couple of months just to make sure there's been no reoccurance of any problems, I'd be happy to assist and I'm sure others would too. I believe the remedy is no longer needed and is detrimental to allow it to continue. Regards, Daniel (talk) 13:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Swatjester

I say go for it. Like Daniel above me, my interactions with PM have likewise been good, and he shows a desire to better Wikimedia. It's not like you can't reinstate the restrictions anyway, but especially given the recent special BLP decision, it seems like it takes much of the hardship away from removing these restrictions (as any uninvolved admin could reapply them). PM of course would have to keep that in mind, but personally it's something I'd like to see. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Avruch

Per my last request on this page for the same purpose, I still believe that the remedies on PM can be safely removed. Swatjester correctly points out that, following the close of the Footnotes case, any admin can reapply the same remedy at need. I think, however, that there is no higher risk with Privatemusings in this area than with any other editor. If the Committee doesn't believe that the restriction should be lifted now, even given the Footnotes case, perhaps you could consider putting a fixed time limit on this remedy as an alternative. Avruch^T * ^ER 21:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Giggy

I say go for it. I'm sure PM will be watched, closely, regardless. giggy _(:O) 10:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Carcharoth

I would like to second the requests for the Committee to set an actual timescale. Open-ended sanctions help no-one, and "a little more time" is too vague to be helpful. PM said previously he had been told "after a little while". I fear that if the committee don't set a timescale, some people will start to say PM is returning to this issue too often, but to say that would be unfair if the committee had failed to set a timescale. I realise that setting a timescale can lead people to just keep quiet until the time period is up, but if that is the case then an undefined period can be used first (to see how things go initially), followed by a defined period (an indication that things are going in the right direction), followed by (if deemed appropriate) full lifting of the sanctions or restrictions. Carcharoth (talk) 10:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Shalom

Add my voice to the chorus calling for Privatemusings to be freed from his constraints. From recent discussions on his podcast (WP:NTWW) and at WT:OPTOUT, he clearly understands some of the issues involving BLP, and is clearly willing to follow his own principles. If this turns out to be wrong, we can always send it back here, but I'm more than willing to let it fly and see how it goes. Yechiel (Shalom) 22:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

So, given the votes below, should a timetable be set, or how should we as a community approach it? - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 07:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• The underlying concerns over judgement and what might be generally called "clue" in contentious areas persist.

Privatemusings has made quite some improvement in this area, and all signs says he aims to do so more, but for me this is a blocker. BLP are our most sensitive articles. They above all should not be the experimental ground where PM explores whether he yet understands how to handle himself and his approaches/ideas. That mostly doesn't change, whether his stance may be more towards privacy, or more towards disclosure on BLPs, since done poorly, both can (and do) create a problem (or add fuel/oxygen to one) where none existed before. I'd as soon, for his own benefit, protection, and learning, as well as for the wiki, that Privatemusings stayed off BLPs a considerable while longer, until he shows consistently a little more of what might be termed gravitas or careful judgement beforehand (for lack of a better word), in his judgement when, whether, and in what style and manner of posting, to dive into contentious issues (which BLPs as a class can be).

The intention is good - but good intentions that lacked that judgement got him into problems last time. I've been in dialog with him enough to form a view and as he'd acknowledge, we have covered areas like this a few times, I'm fine helping him on the way. A considerable while longer, probably, and a fairly solid judgement track record when he joins any contentious topics - and said with the express aim of him being a better editor and avoiding a repeat while he's still very much figuring this aspect out, rather than any kind of punitive or disapproving sentiment. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Update - regarding a duration. Nobody can tell what is needed. But I agree some path, or measure, would be good to give. I would like to go directly to the point here. I'd advise Privatemusings to seek a mentor, someone who does gravitas, measuredness and "clue" well, and when tempted to post on some topical matter or high profile issue or dispute generally - ask them by email before diving in, for feedback on the proposed post. In brief, I want to see actual consistency and good quality calls in these areas, rather than a set period of time. Posts on project matters, user pages, etc are a sample of how he might be if admitted back to BLPs. Still too "frothy" to feel we can do without this remedy at this time. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• Per FT2, I am greatly encouraged by the changes in PM since the case, but think that a little more time would help. This is not meant in any way as a punitive measure. James F. (talk) 18:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with the above but would add this. As the community is becoming aware, we have recently given administrators additional power and encouragement to act on problems in BLP articles. Should those prove to work, I would regard them as rendering a separate editor restriction on the same topic as unnecessary and otiose. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:38, 19 June 2008 (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.

Secretive hearings: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin (June 2008)

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.

---

• Request submitted by Irpen. 20:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimer: my sole encounter with Orangemarlin was highly displeasing. Some months ago he left an uncalled for rude message at my talk at one occasion. To the best of my recollection, I have never interacted with him before or after this incident. So I am submitting this request without any personal sympathy to this editor since I have none. Irpen 21:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Update, OrangeMarlin has delivered a very respectful apology to me yesterday. While I did not consider that old incident notable in any way, I think I should state this here for the record. --Irpen 19:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

A question from Irpen

The ArbCom have recently published Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin thus establishing de facto a new precedent, the secret case heard entirely off-site with:

• secret evidence submitted and studied completely outside of public view, general scrutiny and without the right of the editor to face the accuser and rebut the charges.
• secret voting allowing arbitrators to cast votes anonymously and avoid comments and criticism.

My questions are:

1. How the ArbCom sees this permissible under the current arbitration policy which only allows private evidence submitted under exceptional circumstances and does not allow completely secret cases even if part of the evidence is private?
2. Am I correct to assume that this evidence was found, collected, assembled and presented to the committee by a sitting and non-recused from the case arbitrator who also discussed this case at the private list and argued for a decisions?
3. Are we to see more of these in the future?
4. Are there other secret cases now heard?
5. Does Arbcom realize the chilling effect of this practice?
6. What other surprises are we to see?

--Irpen 20:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

A question from Cardamon

This edit, by arbitrator (Kirill, states "As far as I'm concerned, these announcements have no authority or binding weight whatsoever. "These announcements" apparently include Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin. So my question is:

1. Is Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Orangemarlin or is it not really an ArbCom decision?

--Cardamon (talk) 23:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Messedrocker

First of all,

• Arbitration Committee statements are binding
• Kirill says that the recent decision is not binding.
• Therefore, it is not an Arbitration Committee statement, as they are binding. They're some other form of statement, involving the Arbitration Committee.

Also, I think the notes should be made available, albeit with redaction performed when sensitive details come afoot. That's how the courts in the States do it. --MessedRocker (talk) 02:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ghirlandajo

I'm not surprised that there are secretive hearings at all. It was during the hearing of the Digwuren case that I received multiple e-mails form the arbs asking me to draft a proposed solution. After I replied that it would not be ethical for me to draft a decision for them, I was found guilty of "incivility" for this edit which was not aimed at anyone editing Wikipedia. In disgust, I left the project for Russian Wikipedia. Having reviewed the recent cases, I see that the ArbCom has thoroughly disgraced itself with its repeated failures to deal with the IRC plague, which allowed certain unediting wikipedians to turn the IRC into a sysop farm, or an adminship mill, or whatever you call it. In three cases running, Arbcom has now picked and chosen what issues it wants to address and/or has created the case itself specifically to address an issue. In other words, it's changed itself into an activist agent rather than a review body. What a disgrace. --Ghirla^-трёп- 10:05, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment by hbdragon88

The way and manner of which the Orangemarlin case was decided isn't new. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nathanrdotcom was also decided in secret. It was also more extraordinary. The user was already banned and there was only one thing to consider – whether to unban the user or not. This case was a lot more complex and it was not normally opened with a request on this page like Nathanrdotcom was. hbdragon88 (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Badger Drink

So, let me get this straight. With all due respect to the parties involved, it seems that - to put this in a caustic, sarcastic nutshell - Mr. FT2 had it up to the proverbial "here" with something Mr. OrangeMarlin said, went off and wrote a boatload of (very well-written) text, sent it to a mailing list, there were highly advanced grunts of various sorts, and as a result of this process, an established editor is met with sanctions passed nem cot by a high-ranking kangaroo court, operating in secret quarters far away from the prying eyes of dangerous subversives. I was particularly amused with the bit over in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Orangemarlin/Evidence#Summary/Evidence which read, "Actions that . . . deny [editors] effective recourse to dispute resolution . . . are completely unacceptable".

The last time something like this happened, it really didn't go over too well.

But hang on a minute - we're doing this to "avoid drama"! Ah, yes, the horrible evils of the big D word. A very vocal minority of people that dominate discussions around these parts tend to conflate the natural process of consensus-forming with "drama". It's a pity that this vocal minority takes such ridiculous - at times verging into "extremist" - measures to sidestep what they regard as "drama". It reminds me of my mother - bless her soul - who, for reasons best left unexplored, had a terrible aversion to a certain highway artery in the area in which I grew up. In order to make a certain simple fifteen mile journey, this wonderful woman would take a circuitous, twenty-five mile route, encountering all known forms of urban and suburban roadway evils, from traffic jams to dangerous high-speed intersections to the dreaded left-lane merge, in her quest to avoid a certain seven-mile stretch of road. Much like how my mother's route through the city took her through twice as much of whatever evils she wished to avoid, the actions taken by the "anti-drama brigade" tend to only create deeper drama - be it the BADSITES scuffling or be it the drama centering around a certain well-known contributor's talk page. I submit that the claims of "drama prevention" can be read either as an anti-social, neurotic aversion towards the very human pastime of heated discussion, or as some blatantly "catch-all" rationale to make sure a certain clique's opinions are the only opinions that will be considered. I suspect it's more the former than the latter, but anybody who denies that the latter describes the inevitable consequence of such measures should be briskly beaten about the head, neck, and nether-regions.

Regarding MessedRocker's statement

So, if it isn't an ArbCom decision, then what exactly is it? "A random sysop or two deciding to enact 'civility restrictions' on an editor of good standing, without input from the community" is the best I can do, but surely there's a better way to spin this?

Regarding hbdragon88's statement

As you seem to be saying, the NathanR case is an apple. OrangeMarlin is... well... --but I hope the ArbCom truly doesn't place Mr. Marlin's "naughty manners" in the same light as Nathan's behavior.

Badger Drink's inevitable conclusion

What a fucking disgraceful situation. Shame on you, FT2, for even thinking this could be deemed kosher, and shame on you, ArbCom, for your complete and utter lack of common sense. --Badger Drink (talk) 21:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Will Beback

There are two separate issues here: the secret hearing and the announcments by FT2 and Kirill.

There are precedents for non-public considerations of cases, and for quick actions by the Arbcom. Reasonable people can see the necessity for both. However the ArbCom should develop procedures for handling such cases. At a minimum, it should notify affected parties of claims made against them and ask for any exculpatory evidence. At the conclusion they should publish as much of the case as they can. Note that in both judicial deliberations (the U.S. Suprme Court) and in executive (secret) sessions held by ordinary committees it is standard to hold the final voting in public session or at least announce the voting results.

In the real world, the first thing that a standing committee does is elect a chair and a secretary. The Arbcom has no one who can speak for it with authority. Situations like this, where one member claims to speak for the committee but another denies his statements, confuse the community and lower the prestige of legitimate Arbcom announcements. I urge the Arbcom to choose someone as a chair, secretary, or spokesperson who can be relied upon by the community to faithfully communicate whatever Arbcom decisions makes outside of normal arbitration proceedings. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by BirgitteSB

I have serious concerns that evidence presented thus far in this case does not reflect a full understanding of the events it covers and also that it fails to present all these events accurately. I strongly feel that a confident decision cannot arise from this evidence alone. I urge the Committee to not certify any decision without examining alternative presentations of evidence in this case. I urge the Committee that if they ever need to try a case privately in the future to ensure that at least two people develop presentations of evidence in isolation and the parties concerned are at least allowed to review the presentations of their owns actions for errors and omissions before any decision is reached. These are the most basic requirements that must be met for the Committee to have any rational claim to confidence in it's own decision. However the greater the amount review that any evidence receives by disparate parties the higher the level of confidence that the resulting decision merits.--BirgitteSB 23:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Blueboy96

There are circumstances under which it is appropriate--indeed, necessary--for ArbCom to 1) hold an in-camera arbitration and/or 2) make a summary decision. This isn't one of them. What is even more troubling is that this was made without any opportunity for OrangeMarlin to mount a defense. The evidence appears to spell out unacceptable behavior by OrangeMarlin, but to deny him even a chance to defend himself is highly troubling, to say the least. The rationale for this action offered by FT2--which basically amounts to "We've heard this before"--is not even remotely convincing. Blueboy96 00:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kendrick7

"And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.

But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God." -- Jesus, Gospel acccording to John, chapter 3, verses 19-21, New American Bible.[31]

Comment by User:B

Thank you to Charles for your explanation of events. It does, however, leave some questions unanswered. (1) What was the reason behind private consideration to begin with? (2) When you say "a number" of arbiters objected to private consideration, what was that number? If it was everyone other than FT2, ok, fine, but if it was 1 or 2 (both of which are also numbers) then that points to a severe lack of judgment on arbcom's part. --B (talk) 16:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

The following is an official statement of the ArbCom on the matter. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Explanation of what went on

Orangemarlin was handled in a way normally reserved for serious socking. The matter is weighty with wide ramifications. Even so, a number of Arbitrators were in the end, and after review of the case, not convinced of the need for such summary implementation. This course of events could have been avoided by better use of internal ArbCom communications, and it is not going to set any precedent for the future.

Where we go from here (procedural details)

1. The decision is not in effect and is vacated.
2. The evidence cited by arbitrator FT2 now is deemed as the submission of a request for arbitration. The Clerk shall note the request on the main arbitration page and give immediate notice of the request to Orangemarlin, Oddnature, and other appropriate parties. The parties and other interested editors are invited submit their views within 48 hours regarding whether the case should be accepted, following which the arbitrators will then vote on-wiki on acceptance or rejection.
3. If four or more net arbitrators vote to accept the case, it will be opened and considered on an expedited basis with the parties advised to present all evidence and workshop proposals within one week.
4. If the case is accepted, the decision previously posted by arbitrator FT2 shall be considered as a set of workshop proposals and the Clerk shall post them as such for consideration and comment.
5. If the case is accepted, it will be considered without presuming the correctness or incorrectness of any portion of the previously posted decision.

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: Scope of the Arbitration Committee to create new policy and process. [32] [33] (July 2008)

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.

---

Statement by Barberio

Recently, two 'remedies' have been passed by the Arbitration committee that seek to establish new policy and processes affecting en.wikipedia content. This is a both a step beyond their usual remit of only responding to user behaviour issues not content issues, and only recommending that the community develop new policy to address issues.

I can find no part of Wikipedia:Arbitration policy that enables the Arbitration committee to do so, and I suggest it goes against the spirit of wiki policy. The exact wording in the Arbitration Policy states that all remedies MUST be in the form of "User X is...". In essence, remedies were intended under the policy to apply to individuals. It has been stretched over time to cover groups, but now it has been stretched far beyond it's original intent.

Again, I must make this clear, Wikipedia:Arbitration policy as currently written bars the Arbitration Committee from making remedies that cover more than a single person. I also suggest that those who voted for the Arbitration committee's current make up were not informed, and may not approve, of this extension of the powers of the committee's members.

Can the arbitration committee members please explain to the community

 * Where the power to mandate these new policies and processes comes from;
 * Why they did not feel the need to consult with the community, or allow for community discussion;
 * How they would react if the community rejects these new processes;
 * and any sanctions on editors they may enforce for failing to accept these new processes.

I would prefer individual, and full explanation of their decisions from each arbitrator. I think it would also be fair to ask the dissenting arbitrators to explain their positions too. I do think this issue is important enough to the way Wikipedia is supposed to work, that all arbitrators must explain their actions to the community, beyond a simple 'aye or nay' vote. --Barberio (talk) 12:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

From the weight of opinion being expressed both here and elsewhere, I think I can state that community consensus is forming around the following points -

• These remedies constitute either new policy, fundamental changes to current policy, or at the very least creation of new processes that must be followed
• The community wishes to retain primacy in creating policy through consensus unless mandated to assume policy by the foundation
• The arbitration committee have departed from the original intent of the arbitration policy by moving from remedies targeted at individuals, to remedies targeted at groups and subject matters, to remedies targeted at the entire community.

I welcome, and urge, comment from the Arbitration Committee to address these issues. --Barberio (talk) 19:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MBisanz

I take this opportunity to point to m:Foundation issues which is a list of issues made by the Wikimedia Foundation that are beyond the debate and alteration of the local communities. Point five reads in part: "The Arbitration Committees of those projects which have one can also make binding, final decisions such as banning an editor."

I therefore submit that if Arbcom is the final binding authority, it may make its decisions however it chooses and may make them as broad or as narrow, as novel or as regular, as it feels necessary. MBisanz ^talk 13:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment to Barberio by InkSplotch

I think it's fairly straightforward here...I've never seen anything to suggest the Arbitration policy is either prescriptive or proscriptive. It establishes the remit and scope of ArbCom, and if anything is truly binding the sections Scope and Rules are it. The rest seems fairly descriptive of the process, informing others what to expect. In this case, that particular remedy does follow the "similar to" format described, neither does it violate the scope or rules clauses of their remit. I think you've a bit of an uphill battle here, needing to establish fully that:

• The aribitration policy is a binding, proscriptive document.
• That these remedies violate the spirit of the policy.
• That these remedies are, in fact, new policy themselves.

I've been following the discussions in several places, from the talk page of the Footnotes:Proposed Decision page over to the BLP pages. Personally, I don't like the remedy as written, and fear it's far too open to abuse. Procedurally, I think it belongs more under Principles than Remedies (something I decided on reviewing the BDJ case earlier today) and I wonder if it would have raised as much fuss there (I suspect so). The more I see from current and former arbs, the more I think I understand why they wrote these remedies, and I'm being swayed that they're not actually "new policy." I still think a good bit more effort needed to go into the writing of things to get this point across, and minimize attempts to wiki-lawyer things.

Barberio, I've seen you passionately argue on these topics before. I think you could have some constructive input over on the BLP talk pages. Trying to strike this down as procedural on this page, however, is just plain wiki-lawyering and it won't really fix anything. We might need more discussion before we all understand one another, but the issues here are real and they're not going away. --InkSplotch (talk) 13:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by WAS 4.250

Arbcom rightly has binding authority over behavior disputes between editors that the normal resolution processes fail at solving. It is quite a stretch to say that the case that was brought represented a behavior dispute between editors that normal process failed at and that this ruling is a response to. It is an ill conceived, poorly written, unjustified, variously interpreted terrible ruling that will create and has created drama. In the future it is very likely to create NPOV violations that can not be fixed without even more drama. To embolden admins in this way either creates a honeypot to catch and desyop admins or it is a get out jail free card that will create even less incentive for acting responsibly. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ned Scott

Unfortunately I don't think much good will come from this request for clarification. We're asking arbcom itself if arbcom can do this or not.. This is a good example of why we need some form of checks and balances. However, I still encourage editors to leave comments here, as the discussion itself my pressure arbcom into re-thinking the issue (as it has in the past when the community got in an uproar over a past decision). -- Ned Scott 21:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Carcharoth

Taking a different tack on this, the history of the Arbitration policy is quite interesting, especially how it was actually put together, and especially when you compare it to how things work now. The initial version of the policy was posted over four years ago on 1 February 2004. See here. I think the version that was voted on (see oppose votes 12 and 14 at Wikipedia:Arbitration policy ratification vote for early uses of "arbitrary"... <ahem>) is here. Anyway, aside from the history lesson, what I really wanted to try and point out, was whether the policy document has actually changed to fit current practice (ie. is it descriptive rather than prescriptive?). Judging my the last year's worth of edits, tweaks are made on a fairly regular basis. Though I will note that this citation tag has remained in the policy since November 2007. There was also an edit war in September 2006 over whether the Arbitration Committee itself should be able to rewrite the policy, plus some other issues. See: [34], [35], [36], [37], [38]. Currently, the bit at the top says: "This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. More so than other policies it should not be edited without considerable forethought and consensus among Committee members." That current version stems from this edit. Just some examples of how the policy has been tweaked over the years. Carcharoth (talk) 01:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

• Sir Thomas: "Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
• Roper: "Why, yes! I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
• Sir Thomas: "Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it, Roper!--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

• From A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt.

A challenge to provisions made by the final dispute-resolution apparatus of this community should be treated with care. The arbitration committee is elected and it is in our interests, while telling it when we think it may have made a mistake, to ensure that we do not challenge its legitimacy. We don't want to have to face those winds. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 01:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

And of course I forgot to say that we're scheduled to hold another arbitration committee election later this year. About half a dozen arbitrator seats will be up for election. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 03:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by brenneman

These questions need to be asked.

I too have spent some time recently reviewing the history and role of the Committee, and in particular its response to community input. While I do not believe that this is the appropriate venue, some general threads are already appearing in this very short discussion:

• The tension between policy as "what we do" and "what is written." This is the premise of this entire request, no?
• The tension between Wikipedia as a functional collaborative community and the foundation-level ability of ArbCom to rule by fiat.

The community (and the 'Pedia) have grown enormously. It's well and truly time to go back to first principles: Asking what is the function of the Committee, what problems are they intended to solve, and what the best way to move forward is. Arguments that suggest that we simply cannot disband the committee are well, simply avoiding the substance of this debate.

The most beneficial, the most "wiki" way forward is to have a wide-ranging discussion with the community. You know, the one that actually writes the encyclopaedia?

brenneman 02:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Dragon695

Some arbiters are saying that this is similar to remedies imposed on a collection of articles that have been made for awhile now. I just have to disagree with them on this one. The number of BLPs alone is a magnitude of 100x what any of those previous collective remedies covered. To make matters worse, WP:BLP has become like a cancer, creeping into articles and subjects which have very little to do with BLP at all. However, because a living person is mentioned, the entire article is covered by BLP in the minds of some BLP extremists. So, with that factored in, this general remedy is in the order of 1000x what previous general remedies covered. I'm concerned that arbiters are not paying attention to how some very well protected administrators game the system using these policies and general remedies as outlined in C68-FM-SV evidence. Look at what happened to Cla68 when he tried to call out SlimVirgin on her wrong-doing, he was crucified. Did you know that SlimVirgin popped in over at the BLP Special Enforcement talk page to let us know that she would not be abiding by the statement of ArbCom that only uninvolved administrators should apply this remedy, since the word univolved contradicted language in WP:BLP? This is exactly the kind of thing that I and many others feared. If you refuse to revisit this decision, will you please, please, please make it clear that only uninvolved administrators are entitled to invoke this remedy. --Dragon695 (talk) 16:29, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kendrick7^talk

I second what Dragon695 says. While anyone can remove problematic information per WP:BLP, involved admins should not be handing out long term blocks, especially where it's easy and commonplace to dress up content disputes as BLP issues. I don't understand why ArbCom can't understand the problem with turning our encyclopedia into a bunch of little fiefdoms. You'll drive off productive editors when they realize they are essentially serfs. If the Middle Ages taught use one thing, it's that feudalism is a crappy way to run things. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Septentrionalis

I have misgivings about the wisdom of both delegations made here. The BLP delegation has been sufficiently discussed; but ArbCom would do well to observe that even advocates of a sweeping BLP policy are decrying this as precipitate, permitting admins to cut down all the protections of consensus by shouting "BLP!" We will see what happens.

But the Sourcing Adjudication Board has the potential to be even worse. The reasons why not to have been discussed in the Homeopathy case: they boil down to: the SAB members can be, and probably will be, carriers of POV themselves. One of the worst editors I know of, now largely departed for Citizendium, was (and Citizendium acknowledged him as) a professor at a small college, with a creditable academic output. This did not prevent him from collecting and citing sources for his Point of View which actually said something quite different; I believe he had put the words he wanted through Google Scholar and did not check whether the sources found supported him when read in context and in full.

We need to do something about source disputes; but there is no reason we cannot do them in public: ask uninvolved editors with access to good libraries what the sources say, and have quotes posted on this puiblished Wiki. Please don't consult privately with volunteer editors and emit sanctions based on the result without hearing the other side. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Robster2001

I have no opinion, at this time, about the BLP or SAB policies themselves.

I simply have a question about the process -- until now, the Arbitration Committee has acted as Wikipedia's judicial body, limiting its role to enforcing existing policy.

With the BLP and SAB decisions, the Committee has assumed legislative authority, which until now has been vested (for the most part) in the community. And it is doing so not in public view, but in two obscure arbitration cases. There are many editors who will be affected by these major policy changes that will have no idea that they have been implemented, and no idea where to look for them.

Realistically, would any non-involved editor (the huge majority of them) know to look for a new sourcing policy in the remedies to a case about Homeopathy articles?

If the Committee intends to become a policy-making body, it should do so in the full light of day -- not by adopting policies in hidden corners of policy-wonk territory, then expanding them out to the greater Wikipedia population.

Even the best-intentioned, and best-designed, policies will fail when adopted in darkness. After all, it's easy to ignore a rule that nobody saw being passed.

Wiki-wide policy simply should not be made this way. It will cause unnecessary dramatics, and divert attention from the merit of the policy to the merit of the process, as this arbitration request has already proven.

There are, of course, larger governance issues on en.wikipedia -- specifically, policies haven't really adapted to the growth of the service -- but that discussion is out of scope here. One hopes that discussion will, eventually, take place.

Some good points here worth addressing.

I would not wish to see the Committee becoming a legislative body (in the usual public sense). Sometimes it will need to reach a binding decision how best we communally work towards achieving our already existing goals, or the processes and standards that existing norms will be operated and measured by, and this is one of its tasks. We do that every time we set out principles in a case, since 2004 - "this is how to think about it in the context of communal standards, norms and policies; this is where the users went wrong". This may be one or two users, or an entire area.

In that sense the committee is doing a role similar in its core to other forms of arbitration - namely, taking a serious situation where multiple sides fail to find a way forward, hearing all sides, and giving a binding statement of the way forward (processes, practices, decisions on areas of contention, etc) that will be adopted in light of their inability to do so themselves. It also does this to make clear if a case arises in future, the standards and expectations it will use to rule on it, so that the community as a whole becomes aware and has fair notice of the standards we would feel best to apply/expect if needed.

On your main points I concur. I have this interesting observation on it, though. At Arbitration, we see a gradual ratchet of cases over time - as we learn to handle routine cases, they get more and more handled by the community so the difficulty of cases we see here and the issues they bring, will steadily and perennially increase. That's the nature of our work, and a good thing too, it keeps us on our toes as the project progresses and shows the lesser cases that used to flumox the community are now readily handled by it much better - they don't need arbitration nearly as often. But by the same token, the community needs to understand that there is a second ratchet over time too - a quality ratchet. Thinking "these articles are sort-of-okay(-ish)" might have been fine a while ago, but the community too needs to learn to demand of itself and its corpus, that higher standards of vigilance and expectation really are possible - it's not just words or "nice ideas". They are genuine expectations that benefit the project and which have had huge debate and little action. As we are constantly stretched, so is the community, and quality is one area where a number of editors are unfortunately just a bit too happy to go along with "last years standards" or "whatever gets by". Not good. Must change.

Having considered the nature of the problem, the solution we adopt to BLP disputes is a broad one, but still purely a remedy. This one's called "special enforcement" and past wide reaching admin tool discretion for unresolved issues were called "general sanctions" is secondary. It's the exact same approach we've adopted to get action on many perennial disputes since 2007, and we feel that the community having produced no workable idea, it's time to try ratcheting a stronger variation of it on this other problem area, too. Basically, "expect to be required to meet a higher standard against our norms and communal policies when it's a BLP - regardless whether it's conduct, judgement, collaboration, or handling of concerns". We haven't say what BLP content should look like, just that we expect to see more realization and greater seriousness that a higher standard of baseline is needed and now expected, for editors (admins and non-admins alike) wishing to engage this area. As ever, WP:AGF and good editorship/adminship is fine. But it must be with more careful thought and better working together, than often in past years. Guidance to follow.

Some thoughts... and thank you for the comments. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Alansohn

When the community takes a dispute to arbitration, and the issue is accepted by Arbcom, the rather reasonable expectation is that Arbcom will deal with the subject of the arbitration. That it may "impose binding solutions" is explicitly listed in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee, but so is the clearest directive that it "is the last step in the dispute resolution process". The arbitration used to impose BLP special enforcement had nothing to do with BLP or the inability of administrators to impose solutions related to biographies of living people using its existing arsenal of remedies.

I would have loved to hear what Arbcom thinks about inclusion of brief quotations in footnotes -- the nominal subject of this arbitration -- but Arbcom decided that the subject of footnoted quotes was a content dispute outside of their purview. The original arbitration then became a fishing expedition, with editors from all over coming up with subjects that they wanted reviewed and addressed by Arbcom, regardless of how tangentially-connected or utterly irrelevant they were to footnoted quotes, the titled subject of this arbitration.

Under bizarre circumstances that I have already discussed elsewhere, Arbcom decided that enforcement of WP:BLP was the issue it needed to address here. The only problem is that BLP was never an issue among the editors involved in the arbitration. No editor or administrator had ever raised any BLP issue with the articles in question between the involved parties. The BLP issue was somehow related to an article that I had last edited in January in which (as I still see it), BLP was used improperly as an excuse to keep thoroughly-sourced, neutrally-worded material out of an article.

Without any apparent discussion of the actual case or alternate remedies that might have addressed the article it had chosen to address, Arbcom decided that super-duper triple secret probation ("special enforcement") was needed to solve some unknown BLP-related problem that was never a subject of the arbitration nor a proper matter of dispute in any article raised at arbitration. Arbcom chose to decide an issue that it had no legitimate jurisdiction over to address as part of the arbitration.

Most of the efforts in signpost and elsewhere to draw people to discuss "special enforcement" provide no context or explanation of the supposed issue, the remedy Arbcom came up with or the drastic and chilling effects it will likely have if ever used. That so many in the community feel confused, flabbergasted or duped is a simple matter of an inability to understand why BLP special enforcement solves the issue of footnoted quotes, a still festering problem.

Simply stated, Arbcom chose to legislate from the bench on a topic which was not under dispute, and on which it has no jurisdiction.

Arbcom needs to clearly explain why it chose to accept a discussion on footnoted quotes that it acknowledged was a content issue. Arbcom needs to explain why it chose to address the BLP issue in the first place, which article had a BLP issue as a subject of the arbitration, how the proposed remedies "solve" the purported "problem" and how faith in Arbcom to be the last resort in dispute resolution when it seems to be issuing extremely broad dictates on topics that are not matters of dispute. Alansohn (talk) 19:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:DGG

Recent events make it all he more necessary for this to be discussed, though possibly not here: ArbCom cannot be the final decider of its own remit and limitations. The foundational principle seems to show a limited scope, and if it is not clear enough it can be changed. it did not always exist--arb com was not in existence from the beginning of the project. DGG (talk) 19:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:Martintg

Kirill's proposition to delegate ArbCom authority to admins is in fact a change in policy and the dispute resolution process; it effectively curtails general dispute resolution processes and arbitration as a last resort between individuals, to be replaced by a regime of "discretionary sanctions" applied arbitarily by admins across entire communities of editors on the basis of, what is in essence, racial profiling:

"The current trend of "general" remedies—which is to say, remedies which do not explicitly specify the editor(s) to whom they apply, but are instead left open such that other parties (typically administrators) may apply them without consultation with the Committee—is something that emerged from the large number of cases involving ethnic, national, and political conflicts that were heard throughout 2007 and into early 2008. The fundamental problem encountered there was that problems with editor conduct were not primarily an artifact of the individual, but rather of the group to which he belonged; in other words, the issue was not with the quirks of a specific editor, but with a statistically substantial portion of all editors who were members of some external national, ethnic, political, or other group."

"Attempts to deal with such cases by sanctioning each involved editor individually (as was done in, say, Armenia-Azerbaijan) were largely ineffective, both because new editors would continuosly arrive and engage in the same problem behavior, and because the ease of creating new accounts meant that editors who were the subject of sanctions could evade them with minimal effort. Short of instituting drum-head trials and increasing the current caseload by an order of magnitude or more, the arbitration model simply cannot scale to deal with such scenarios adequately; and so we decided to delegate a portion of our authority to the administrator corps in general, allowing them to essentially issue remedies in our name."

Working at the coalface I can unequivocally state (and examination of ANI and other boards confirms this) in the case of Baltic states topics, there is simply no veracity in the claims that individual sanctions have no effect, of disruptive new editors continually arriving or sanctioned individuals recreating accounts to the extent that it is a problem demanding a radical solution. In fact the reverse is true with good editors leaving the project in the case of the Baltic states. There is no rational basis now for the application of such sanctions across such a broad area of Eastern Europe. "Eastern Europe" is just too broad an area. Despite repeated requests for clarification of scope, and no clear concensus or even discussion about the need from the community and opposition from former ArbCom member NewYorkBrad and others, [39], [40], why is Kirill doggedly attempting to push this through for the third time? Martintg (talk) 07:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Alex Bakharev (talk)

It is my believe that Arbcom does have power to interpret our policies and to make binding decision based on their interpretation. Arbcom has no power to create policies by itself nor it has a proven track of success in creation of those policies. Both policies under question are good proposals that should be discussed and most probably amended by the community. Arbcom might have its word if there will be any dispute over these proposals unresolvable by lesser WP:DR means. It is important that the proposal being adopted by the community rather than Arbcom on two levels:

1. On the procedural ones - it is a violation of separation of powers and creates a wrong precedent
2. On the pragmatic level - Arbcom members were elected for their might in the dispute resolution not on their might in the content creation. Many of them are not fully familiar with all aspects of article creation and the whole range of possible problems there (I suspect no single individual on wiki could claim such a familiarity anyway). Thus, the projects written by such a committee might have significant deficiencies.

In short I propose to consider those two policies as excellent proposal ready to be edited and discussed by the community Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Messedrocker

This is how I see it.

The goal of the Arbitration Committee is to be decisive when others cannot. I have no problem with the Arbitration Committee creating policy if it resolves the argument at hand. Once the community has come to its senses, they can decide to do away with the created policy if they well please since it's not the Arbitration Committee's mission to create lasting policy, but rather to solve disputes (even if that means temporary policies are created).

It is unwise to put a blanket ban on Arbitration Committee-created policy.

MessedRocker (talk) 02:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

I suggest that you re-read the policy and also review our previous rulings for examples of remedies. Your statement does not reflect the actual wording or the spirit of the ArbCom's policy. In past ruling we have made Findings and Remedies about Wikiprojects and the Community. And our policies, like most Wikipedia policy, are descriptive not prescriptive. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

In responce, a direct quote of the portion of the policy,

Remedies will be of a form similar to: "User X is cautioned against making personal attacks even under severe provocation." "User X is limited to one revert per twenty four hour period on article A." "User X is placed on personal attack parole for a period of Y; if User X engages in edits which an administrator believes to be personal attacks, they may be banned for a short period of time of up to Z." "User X is prohibited from editing group Y of articles for a period of Z." "User X is banned from editing Wikipedia for a period of Y."

Can you please highlight which part of this allows for remedies that create new policy applicable to the entire wiki? I also directly dispute your statement, the arbitration policy by it's very nature is one of the few proscriptive policies. --Barberio (talk) 13:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your interest in discussing a concern, but you are mistaken in your interpretation of that section. That section of the policy describes the format of the written ruling and not the content of the ruling.

And by custom and practice, ArbCom writes the description of our policy. As always, I'm interested in listening to the opinions of users and will make my decisions after careful reflection on what is best for the Community per my understanding of community norms and policy. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for being forceful... But you are merely saying I am mistaken, but not saying why I am mistaken. You are making an empty argument, and an appeal to authority.

Again, I ask the simple question to which you now appear to refuse to answer.

Where in the current WP:Arbitration policy are you empowered to create new policy and processes in a remedy? --Barberio (talk) 13:54, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a fairly unproductive line of reasoning, at best. If you prefer, you may interpret every "general" remedy that we have passed as a statement of intent that we (a) shall desysop and/or ban editors that do not comply with it and (b) shall not to desysop and/or ban editors that do comply, both of which we are perfectly empowered to do by your interpretation of the policy. Kirill ^(prof) 03:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Overlooking, for the moment, the purely semantic matter of how general sanctions may be written in a way that complies with a one-editor-per-sanction model—as I've mentioned above, this is perfectly doable (albeit with more paperwork for us), but I don't think people are that interested in an extended discussion of ruleslawyering—I'd like to comment on the more substantive points raised here.

The current trend of "general" remedies—which is to say, remedies which do not explicitly specify the editor(s) to whom they apply, but are instead left open such that other parties (typically administrators) may apply them without consultation with the Committee—is something that emerged from the large number of cases involving ethnic, national, and political conflicts that were heard throughout 2007 and into early 2008. The fundamental problem encountered there was that problems with editor conduct were not primarily an artifact of the individual, but rather of the group to which he belonged; in other words, the issue was not with the quirks of a specific editor, but with a statistically substantial portion of all editors who were members of some external national, ethnic, political, or other group.

Attempts to deal with such cases by sanctioning each involved editor individually (as was done in, say, Armenia-Azerbaijan) were largely ineffective, both because new editors would continuosly arrive and engage in the same problem behavior, and because the ease of creating new accounts meant that editors who were the subject of sanctions could evade them with minimal effort. Short of instituting drum-head trials and increasing the current caseload by an order of magnitude or more, the arbitration model simply cannot scale to deal with such scenarios adequately; and so we decided to delegate a portion of our authority to the administrator corps in general, allowing them to essentially issue remedies in our name.

It's worth pointing out, then, that this method has been common practice since at least the middle of 2007 (and far longer, if we include the old "article probation" as a general remedy), with no general sentiment that it was incompatible with the stated purpose and structure of the Committee. The current situation is essentially an application of it to a type-of-article scope (i.e. BLPs) rather than to a subject-of-article one (i.e. articles dealing with Armenia-Azerbaijan); it is fundamentally following the same well-established model of delegating our authority in order to be able to handle the disputes in the area with some reasonable expediency. It is not "making policy" any more so than the other remedies of this form were; rather, it's simply a (quite necessary) form of delegation. Kirill ^(prof) 06:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you've explained how you got to this point... But this is not an argument in favour of letting the arbcom continue assuming powers by these extensions.

Let me illustrate... There's a path that goes up to a cliff edge, that we're walking up. It's a perfectly safe, level path, except it gets a bit lumpy and dangerous near to the cliff edge. Someone might walk along that path, each step automatic leading on from the one before.

But most people stop once they get to the edge of the cliff.

Perhaps I might suggest that the Arbitration Committee went just a bit too far in assuming powers to make subject-of-article remedies without first consulting with the community as to if they had those powers. I'm comfortably sure that the community would have granted those powers, but they would most probably limited them to areas of correcting editor conduct, not creating new policy and processes.

The major point I feel you're ignoring is that this fundamentally changes ArbComs role. From now on, if this stands, ArbCom will be rule makers, not rule enforcers. And not only that, but rule makers who don't have to listen to community consensus. And I don't think that was what you were elected to be. Arguing that it was a 'gradual assumption of new rolls based on previous actions', is not an actual argument in favour of assuming this new role.

Again, can you please give the community some valid reasoning as to why you should be able to create new policy and processes? Otherwise, I think the community might decide you are not?--Barberio (talk) 10:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

As I've said, there's no new policy being created here; this is merely a delegation of our existing, traditional authority. Kirill ^(prof) 17:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment by FT2:

There are two questions asked here - the remedies, and the committee's remit - and the precursor to this dialog took place largely on the mailing list ^{[41] - 'Arbcom legislation'}. I wrote an answer to the question, "what is the role of the Arbitrators in this project", on the wikien-l mailing list (actually two: an email + a wording fix). That covers a large part of the answer. Broadly speaking, Wikipedia is not just "the community", and "whatever the community decides" is not the be-all and end-all on Wikipedia. The community is only half of the equation. The other half is "a project to write a neutral encyclopedia". The Arbitration Committee is one of the project's key checks and balances. Elected by the community, with authority above the community on a number of matters ^[42], it is invested from the same level and same origins that gave consensus decision making to the community as its core decision-making process. Part of its purpose is to ensure that the actual needs of encyclopedia writing and the focus of the community on its intended project, as embedded in its various policies and norms, are not accidentally marginalized in favor of wiki socio-politics and/or society-building experiments ^[43], MySpace, and "drift".

If you pause and think what the request of this post is asking, it's attempting to contend that we may not introduce strong enforcement of BLPs (often our most sensitive articles) as a remedy for a range of communal BLP disputes, when it is plainly necessary, and when the community has repeatedly failed to reach a means to do so by dialog. That is exactly part of what this committee was founded to do. It is precisely one key role of the community-elected Arbitrators acting in their role as handlers of the community's most difficult disputes, to find ways forward that promote the aims of the project and the aims of its policies on such disputes. "We can't ensure good BLP enforcement for biographical articles, but you (arbcom) aren't allowed to make it happen either". No. We are a community together. Our role is to give a ruling to allow progress on "last resort" areas of serious dispute. We have all communally watched this one area try to be given higher quality with stronger enforcement expectations, against substandard editorship for a long time, and it needs a hard shove. This, with better guidance, may help. If not, guess what - we'll figure another way. One way or another, BLP's are being brought up to their intended aim of very high standard articles. There will probably be a sea-change of culture on this, from "well, its okay (maybe)" to "is it really impeccable?" Users can understand that shift, and the reason for it - or not.

The other thing is, this is not policy change. BLP has always been expected to be that way, as ideally all articles are. This is about achievement and laxness, it's about enforcement, and about process provisions to deal with the persistent concerns over under-enforcement or mis-enforcement of these existing policies. Nothing here changes how an article should be written, what standards are expected, what BLP or NPOV mean, what a reliable source is and whether we should have a policy on these. Both of the cited remedies are purely about remedying divisive issues between administrators (and in this case also non-administrators), whereby the community may apply some policies in a patchwork manner at times, or some policies may not be enforced as strictly as the project needs, because of uncertainties and failure of consensus-seeking about what to do in difficult cases. These are both remedies which give extra tools to support the enforcement and best interpretation of existing policies and norms, exactly like all rulings in complex disputes are intended to achieve. They are Arbcom doing one of its most difficult roles - grasping the nettle and using norms and policies to find ways to guide the project through a difficult problem that no other part of the community has been willing or able to fix to the standard we feel it needs to be brought.

Our response to the cases brought to us by the community is,

1. for BLPs (passed) - be much stricter, and we will post guidance shortly on what exactly BLP policy's best interpretations and practices seem to be, in order to indicate what we have in mind on that, and
2. for sourcing (proposed) - to take our authority to resolve all dispute topics (which does include content disputes, but which we strongly avoid applying) and use it to establish some kind of "last resort" arbitration (exact format being discussed and subject to decision) for determining if a source is being properly cited and represented in a dispute.

Cross reference Arbitration policy ("The Committee reserve the right to hear or not hear any dispute ... The following are general guidelines... but the Committee may make exceptions.... will primarily investigate interpersonal disputes..."). Cross reference other broad-approach remedies such as "general sanctions" that have gone into wide use, and been adopted by the community as workable. Cross reference my initial view as stated during the case itself ^[44] and at the time of initial proposed close (May 31) ^[45] to see that I have zero problem stating a view honestly held, and then doing so again, and that I would not say this unless I did concur.

Like the wider community we are not 100% sure what will ultimately prove "best". Unlike the wider community, on this occasion, we are less easily driven to doing little about it, by the limitations of large-scale consensus seeking and endless dialog. If in response, the community can produce a convincingly stronger and better regime driving higher quality, that does the job needed to meet the high standard we have communally committed towards, then these remedies may possibly become redundant. So far, despite varied attempts by a number of individuals and megabytes of dialog over a period of years, that has not happened. I will be pleasantly surprised if the community finds a better solution, but until such time as a better way is proposed, accepted, and works, the arbcom solution (subject to development and tuning in light of experience) is the current way forward on these key areas of quality and dispute. If this remedy leads to the community actually realizing the standards that can be achieved, and figuring out and agreeing a still better approach that actually works, then it will have achieved its ideal goal, and I hope that will be the case. Sometimes an issue can drift interminably, and an common effort is only really made when something serious happens giving a sense of urgency. That now exists; enforcement of high standards of editing is here, now, today; users (whether admin or otherwise) should take that on board today, and begin learning better collaborative and editing skills, if they wish to edit our BLP articles going forward without administrative action.

I hope this remedy works. I don't often speak strongly this way, but these things matter and we all know it. They are central to our writing, and the expectation of high standards - enforced to a matching high standard of fairness by experienced users and admins - must become adopted as a working new reality. If not, we'll find other ways to fix it. A discussion today reminded me just how people sometimes don't realize that we can greatly improve quality and handling of our BLPs (or they may only have a vague ill-thought-out concept of it as a theory read on some policy page or a simplistic "delete it all" idea). If they did, perhaps they would realize that we can, and should, strive for that -- not just talk about it.

With hopes that I am doing my best by taking a stance on encyclopedic content quality first, and willingness as always to listen to comments. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:53, 21 June 2008 (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.