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Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 14

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Latest comment: 13 years ago by Ohconfucius in topic Preliminary injunction regarding pending changes and biographies of living persons
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Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kehrli 2 closed

Original announcement

Audit Subcommittee appointments: Invitation to comment on candidates

Latest comment: 13 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
Original announcement

I have a couple of questions that I hope someone (probably an arb) might answer:

  1. The format of the process means that only ArbCom knows who applied. I wouldn't ask them to disclose the identities of any applicants who weren't allowed to stand, but I think it would be good for the community to know how many (if any) of the people who filled in the questionnaire* weren't allowed to stand.
  2. One of the candidates is not an administrator. What would happen in the event that he were appointed to the subcommittee? How would situations be handled in which he might need to view deleted content? Would the Oversight permission give him the ability to perform "normal" RevDels? Is there anything else that CU and OS might give him access to that he wouldn't otherwise have without the admin it? I'm certainly not saying that AUSC should be "admins only", but I think it's important for the community to know whether or not he would have access to things normally only granted via an RfA.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I've taken your first question to the committee to check how we want to answer that. Should have an answer soon.
With regards to your second question, I'll quickly answer from my memory, which is a bit stale, and hope someone corrects me. The ability to see deleted content comes with a permission 'view archive' or 'browse archive'. The French Wikipedia gives this permission as part of the OS/CU packages, and they do have (or have had) OS/CU who are not admins. I expect we would similarly allow the non-sysop to view deleted content as required for their duties, and no other permissions would be granted to them without an RFA. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
In response to your first question: In order for editors to feel comfortable requesting or submitting an application to serve as a functionary, it is important that potential applicants for advanced privileges know that their participation in the vetting process will remain confidential. There has always been a reasonable expectation of privacy throughout the appointment process, and it is incumbent upon the Arbitration Committee to uphold this commitment by keeping information about individuals who did not complete their application, applicants who did not move forward to community consultation, and candidates who were not appointed, in strict confidence. That being said: during any appointment round, applicants or candidates who do not move forward are welcome to request further information or constructive feedback from the committee. –xenotalk 02:57, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
With the greatest respect, my question wasn't who applied, but how many (if any) applicants weren't allowed to progress. If ArbCom has decided it wouldn't be appropriate even to give that much information, then fair enough, I trust your collective judgement, or perhaps I should have been clearer that I was only seeking a number and not any names? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
No; your question was clear- while the number of applicants may seem like an innocuous detail, disclosing such information does not complement the objective of instilling a high degree of confidence in the confidentiality of the appointment process. –xenotalk 04:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
From a strictly technical perspective, the Oversight userright grants the ability to 'deleterevision' (see Special:ListGroupRights) which I believe is what you refer to as "normal" RevDel. –xenotalk 13:52, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Another thought: if I get appointed, I'm sure someone will come along and insist on nominating me for RfA anyway. I've already had a few emails along the lines of "get your butt over there!". bahamut0013wordsdeeds 14:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
One other issue that has been raised with non-sysops is that a successful request for adminship is a basic and necessary mark of community trust in a candidate. So long as a non-sysop appointee would not be unable to audit because of a technical inability to see deleted revisions, I think the lack of objection to his candidacy is just a valid a community endorsement as is RFA. AGK [•] 20:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

If we have a non-admin checkuser or oversighter, we will need to file a bug similar to bugzilla:21044. i.e. the following configuration change is needed to InitialiseSettings.php (warning: very large file) 

'groupOverrides' => array(
   'enwiki' => array(
      ..
      'oversight' => array( 'browsearchive' => true, 'deletedhistory' => true, 'deletedtext' => true ),
      'checkuser' => array( 'browsearchive' => true, 'deletedhistory' => true, 'deletedtext' => true ),
    ),

John Vandenberg (chat) 00:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

nl.wiki also has given deletedhistory, deletedtext and browsearchive to the groups checkuser and arbcom. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:54, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Monty Hall problem closed

Latest comment: 13 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Original announcement

Thank you

Thank you Arbcom for your kind attention to this dispute. Is there any point in saying anything else? Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Let's move on. Richard Gill (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Nijdam

From the 4 diffs the ArbCom present as evidence of my tendentious editing, one is not from me. Accusing me of "tendentious editing" is only possible if the content of the article is considered. In the first place does the ArbCom not judge about matters of content, and secondly has the ArbCom no knowledge whatsoever of the matter involved. Implicitly has now been chosen in favour of an erroneous article content. As for my poor conduct, I very much would like to see the evidence. Nijdam (talk) 17:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Advanced permissions and inactivity

Latest comment: 13 years ago11 comments7 people in discussion
Original announcement
  • Could one of the arbitrators please explain to me the purpose of the "including at least one community-requested logged action" clause? If an Checkuser is watching a topic area and runs valid checks every so often on his or her own initiative, assuming everything is fine with those checks, why should they be removed for inactivity? NW (Talk) 18:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't know if it's necessary, but it's not unreasonable to ask that functionaries make one action through SPI or the oversight OTRS queue in three months. That is, after all, the point of having them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:16, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
    • The purpose of advanced permissions is to be responsible to the community, not just to a circle of editors with whom a particular functionary interacts. While privately emailing a functionary has not been deprecated at this point, formal tracking mechanisms (SPI, oversight-en-wp OTRS queue) allow centrally tracked, logged actions to demonstrate response to community requests. If a functionary is only doing a few requests here-and-there for Wikifriends, however, the assurance that their use of advanced tools is serving the community and project as a whole is lacking. Note that I'm commenting for myself, not the committee as a whole in this assessment. Jclemens (talk) 18:22, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Since the committee's list of community-requested actions includes "those made in response to threads...posted on a CheckUser's personal user talk page", I don't really see how this can address the problem of "a few requests here-and-there for Wikifriends" - as long as the Wikifriend posted a thread at the CU's user talk every 3 months... T. Canens (talk) 18:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
        • It's probably more accurate to say that ensuring widespread responsiveness to all members of the community is the primary goal; as long as that's happening, there is no particular problem with specific responsiveness to well-established members of the community. Jclemens (talk) 18:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
        • Fulfilling an onwiki request allows at least some scrutiny of a CheckUser's activity by those who are unable to access the logs. –xenotalk 18:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Specifically answering the part of the question about logged actions in response to particular types of requests, the largest number of concerns we receive from the community with relation to these permissions are "slow" responses to SPIs or ACC requests that are checkuser-dependent, or alternately delays in response to an email to the OTRS oversight queue. (I'll note for the record here that the response in both areas is exponentially faster now than it was a few years ago, where weeks to months was the norm for SPIs, and oversight requests were lucky to get a response in a week.)

      As a side note, this process addresses only issues specific to inactivity. It does not preclude the Arbitration Committee removing a tool for other reasons, in accord with the authority outlined in the global CheckUser policy and global Oversight policy. Risker (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Technical question. I may have missed it, but I don't see it specified in the motion. Does the clock start blank slate from the time of the motion, or does a checkuser who's been inactive fot 2 months have to make the 5 actions in the next month to meet this requirement?--Cube lurker (talk) 18:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Two responses: 1) It's a "may", not a "must", so we'll be handling issues on a case-by-case basis, and 2) since we've discussed formalizing the process with the functionaries email list, some have become more active, while others have remained inactive, so we already have a pretty good feel for who is still interested in serving in this capacity. Jclemens (talk) 19:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Think I'm clear. A hypothetical checkuser who's been inactive for months, and who's shown so sign of becoming more active, you might begin this process at any time. Another hypothetical checkuser who's been inactive but has indicated they intend to be active and taken steps in that direction, you're likely not to be too focused on the past as long as they're fine going forward.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:34, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
        • That's pretty well it, Cube lurker. If someone with CU or OS permissions is willing to participate but is experiencing challenges, we'd rather work with them to remove the obstacles to their participation. On the other hand, if someone has been essentially inactive, and remains unresponsive, then it is time to seriously consider their need for the tool at this time. Even if some checkuser or oversight permissions are withdrawn, that should not be taken as a sign that their work within the project (usually over many years) is devalued in any way; however, we need to be aware that sometimes people move on in their lives. Risker (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

BASC Statistics

Original announcement

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Henri Coanda closed

Original announcement

Updated procedures for arbitrator activity and voting

Original announcement

Audit Subcommittee appointments (2011)

Latest comment: 13 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion
Original announcement
  • Just curious: what new user groups will Bahamut0013 be added to for his time on the AUSC? If administrator is one of those, will it too be removed after his term expires? NW (Talk) 16:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Pending his identification to the Wikimedia Foundation, Bahamut0013 will be granted the checkuser and oversight privileges for the duration of his term. He is, of course, free to seek administrator privileges of his own accord. –xenotalk 16:10, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Is oversight enough by itself to review the actions of oversighters? Are there any special permissions in administrator (such as view-deleted, I think it's called) that are necessary? NW (Talk) 16:15, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
        • While I don't think that it is absolutely necessary (as suppressrevision allows one to Review and restore revisions hidden from administrators), deletedhistory and deletedtext (and perhaps browsearchive) are probably a practical necessity for the role, and we are still finalizing how to handle this. One option under consideration is adding the requisite userrights to the CheckUser (such as at the French Wikipedia) or Oversight privileges. –xenotalk 16:23, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Well these are four very sensible appointments. I'm happy to concede it to these guys and I'm sure they'll do an excellent job. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Congratulations to the appointees, who I'm sure will do a great job. Ucucha 17:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Is it just me, or is Bahamut0013 the first non-admin with CU and OS access? --Dylan620 (t • c) 00:24, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
    • I'm pretty sure he's the first on the English Wikipedia, but it's SOP on some other wikis. In fact, I think there's even a couple where you can't hold both at the same time. — Coren (talk) 02:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd like to thank all candidates and arbs involved for volunteering to preserve this obscure but important institution, and to commend the committee for not being afraid to appoint a non-administrator. Best of luck in the term ahead, Skomorokh 11:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Criteria for appointment to the Audit Subcommittee

Latest comment: 13 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Original announcement

For the avoidance of any doubt, criterion #1 was not a factor in the appointments last month; that is, none of the candidates had any concerns regarding privacy or breaches of trust raised regarding them. Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Could you clarify what is meant in the announcement by "votes cast"? Given that the last AUSC selections were made by ArbCom appointment rather than straight elections, does "votes cast" refer to internal committee voting, volume of pro-con email from the community, community comments, or does this signal an intent to return to straight elections for future selections? Grazi, Skomorokh 11:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
It refers to an internal vote by the arbitrators. Kirill [talk] [prof] 11:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Skomorokh 11:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I've made this clear at the announcement, for posterity. –xenotalk 13:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Internal teams

Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Original announcement
  • At first I thought that this was useless waffle, but it's actually a neat idea. Smaller groups have more focus and less stagnation. AGK [•] 14:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence

Original announcement

Target timetable for cases

Latest comment: 13 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
Original announcement

The case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling was opened a month ago. Could you tell us when we can expect the proposed decision to be published? Regards,  Sandstein  08:18, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

  • I wonder what the purpose of shifting from a "cases will go on as long as they need to" regime to a "cases will typically last x weeks" one is? Targets as self-discipline, internal motivation? A stick with which to beat encourage arbitrators drafting and voting? Is it an indication that patience has run out on the megacases, and that sprawling evidence and workshop pages will be shown less tolerance going forward? Skomorokh 11:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
    • I think "consensus intention" is a good way of putting it. It's optative, rather than compulsory, unless everyone would like us to actually throw darts at a board if we don't get an outcome drafted in time. I sincerely hope now that we're into Q2, that us newer members of the committee are going to be in a position to take over more drafting responsibilities. Unfortunately, I have no particular insight into Sandstein's original question. Jclemens (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Sorry, what I meant to inquire about was the intent behind the decision to adopt a target timetable for cases in general. Skomorokh 14:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
        • ... Which is what I thought I was answering. Let me try again: By establishing a timeline, we're looking to prompt all participants (parties, uninvolved evidence providers, clerks, arbs, etc.) to collaboratively hit that target. Doesn't mean it will happen, but at least it establishes what we think a "normal" and uncomplicated case timeline should be. Thus, when the actual timeline differs, we can say "where did it deviate?" and "can we learn any lessons from this to help avoid such problems in the future?". Call it a stepwise approach to professionalism and process improvement. Jclemens (talk) 00:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
          • This is a good step, but to really get cases moving (unless there are genuine reasons for delays, which should be communicated to all parties and posted on the case pages), then you should consider encouraging drafting arbitrators to drop all other responsibilities when they come to drafting a case, or tell them to request help, or provide them with help if they are making slow work of it, or have someone shadowing them ready to take over if needed. I think you will also find, with the number of arbitrators, that some work slower or faster than others. The key is to really learn from drafting cases and hopefully see drafting arbitrators improving with subsequent cases (but please don't let all drafting be done by just a few arbitrators). Carcharoth (talk) 04:14, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be one of a number of internal process initiatives that are being published. I've commented on this one above, but wanted to ask in general whether there are there many more of these 'process' motions to come, and is the right balance being struck between this sort of work and work on cases (though some cases will always take longer than others) and the other ArbCom work? Have you considered resurrecting a published agenda, or is this being done on a more ad hoc basis or from an unpublished agenda? Carcharoth (talk) 04:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

There are several more in the pipeline: they are mostly overhauls/reviews of existing procedures. They have been worked on over the past couple of months and are not taking resources away from cases. I don't see much point in publishing an agenda as hardly anyone took notice of it when we did; and it would be subject to much change because of, as the Royal Navy used to say, the exigencies of the service.  Roger Davies talk 07:20, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

For me, the main benefit of target timetables is to set a date by which evidence should be submitted. This avoids the two unfair scenarios of an editor dropping everything else he or she is doing to compile evidence quickly, and it turns out he or she could have taken a more reasonable time, and on the other hand, a case moving to a proposed decision and then we hear "wait a minute, please, my evidence isn't done." Thus, a fair deadline, at least a tentative one, is helpful to the parties. Note that it's a target date, not a rigid deadline; if some evidence comes in later, our position isn't "that evidence is late, so it will be deleted/ignored" so much as "we can't guarantee we'll all see it before we start drafting and voting."

Since the Climate change case closed, I think many of the arbitrators (including myself) have rededicated ourselves to what was a declared goal at the time we were all elected, which is deciding cases more quickly. Target dates for moving the case to the proposed decision are helpful to this end, though of course they can slip sometimes. Interestingly, in three of the four cases I've wound up drafting this year, we've wound up extending the original target date not because of holdups on the arbitrators' end, but at least in part after a request for more time by one or more of the parties to the case. Such requests are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but as one can imagine, are often honored when they are reasonable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration procedures

Latest comment: 13 years ago11 comments8 people in discussion
Original announcement
I like it. Long overdue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, I guess Marek has said all there is to say and pretty much summarized the entire community's sentiments here.... Shall we close the thread now? :)
More seriously, that's kind of you to say, and I am sure that Roger and Kirill, who have spearheaded much of the procedure-writing work over the past few weeks, will appreciate it.Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:02, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to those who've brought it to completion. It was a long-time coming.   Will Beback  talk  01:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

While I applaud this development, prior experience makes me deeply skeptical that the Committee will enforce or adhere to the provisions they have stated here. The Committee has a long history of announcing evidence limits, conduct standards and the like but then declining to enforce them. This not only lets cases get out of control but sends the implicit message that one can violate the rules with impunity, or indeed that if you follow the rules, you're a chump. Do we have any assurance that the Committee will back up these sensible provisions with their actions? The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 04:46, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Since you seem to be saying you don't have any confidence in their already given word that these are the new procedures, what kind of further assurance would you expect them to give that would make any difference? Beeblebrox (talk) 06:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on the clerks' mailing list to establish precisely how these procedures will be enforced, but I expect that, now that the standard practice has been firmly codified, the clerks will be able to more consistently ensure these limits are followed by participants in the arbitration process. So your worries may not be as well-founded as you think, although we will of course have to wait and see. AGK [•] 11:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
@ Beeblebrox, you seem to have misunderstood my comment. I do not doubt that "these are the new procedures" but that they will be consistently enforced, given that similar policies have been stated but not been enforced in the past. What further assurance would I like? For a start, a simple statement that the clerks will be instructed to consistently enforce these policies would be reassuring. The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 13:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
@ AGK, That would be a good thing. I hope you are right. The Spirit of Neutrality and Truth (talk) 13:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
  • The evidence procedure is only one of several designed to improve case handling. The default timetable, for example, will also help reduce bloat by encouraging people to concentrate on essentials. Prohibiting evidence in user space is another way of keeping bloat down and increasing transparency. The biggest difficulty though has not yet been addressed: encouraging people to submit concise actual evidence, that is factual material in the form of a brief statement for context, plus diffs (ie "X" has been uncivil, describing "A" as "snivelling weasel", "B" as a "spineless worm" and "C" as a "two-faced rat").
    Equally, it's important that people have their say, especially in the early stages when the issues are unclear or in the process of being clarified but, obviously, brevity, relevance and focus plays an important part here too, which is a judgment call. An editor wishing to add evidence about several editors in a complicated case will be hard-pressed to do so within the limits. Equally, someone faced with many allegations from many editors will probably have difficulty keeping within the limits, especially if they also have new material about others they wish to submit.
    I suppose the underlying point here is that these are guidelines and there will be situations where they are inappropriate. However, 500 words and 50 diffs is a good starting point and permission to present a greater wordage/diffage can always be requested where needs be.  Roger Davies talk 13:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Changes requested to the checkuser and oversight permissions

Latest comment: 13 years ago156 comments23 people in discussion
Original announcement

Filed bugzilla:28440. –xenotalk 14:24, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

What is the purpose of giving CU/OS to non-admins? Is it just for AUSC, or is there some other situation where you'd want it? 75.57.242.120 (talk) 22:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
In Arbitration Committee elections in recent years, there have been viable candidacies of non-administrators; current Arbcom members may also wish to resign as administrators but still have need of the CU/OS tools whilst continuing their role on the Committee. We can also learn from some of our cohort projects; several of them have non-administrators in these roles, and it is possible that a suitable non-administrator candidate may come forward on this project as well. Finally, there is the philosophy that a userright should be a complete package and should not be dependent on other userrights to function properly. Risker (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
That sounds, WADR, like a patently bad idea. If someone is a qualified checkuser candidate, they should submit themselves for adminship. If the community doesn't trust them with the admin tools, they certainly wouldn't trust them with checkuser/oversight. As for former arbiters who wish to resign as administrators, but still be checkusers and oversighters? That falls into the category of "doc it hurts when I do this" ("don't do that"). It would be analogous to the President wanting to resign as President, but retain the nuclear football. This is a truly terrible idea and it smells like wanting to be able to "back door" somebody into adminship. --B (talk) 12:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid I agree with B. I don't wish to slight the one non-admin, but if you're trustworthy enough to be a functionary, you're trustworthy enough to pass an RfA. Even with the ability to view deleted content, there are a a host of other things that a functionary without an admin bit can't do. For example, a checkuser couldn't block based on their findings, they'd have to go to RfPP to request an article being targeted by socks be protected. What's the benefit of having a non-admin functionary other than proving that it's theoretically possible? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Keep in mind that not everyone actually wants to be an administrator. It sounds to me like you both think that being an administrator should be a social requirement for appointment as a functionary - and you should feel free to initiate a community discussion to see if there is consensus for that position. –xenotalk 13:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
That's possibly the most over-the-top analogy I've seen in a long time, B. "Nuclear football"? I'd suggest it's more akin to a cow-patty detection system. Checkuser results and suppressed/oversighted edits are involved in at least 30% of arbitration cases, and arbitrators need to be able to discuss them and review those edits/actions for themselves. The community has been clear that it will seriously consider good candidates, whether administrator or non-administrator, for the Arbitration Committee; there is no requirement that arbitrators be administrators, never has been, and the community has discussed it in the past and chosen not to add that restriction. Being an arbitrator has little to do with blocking people or deleting pages. HJ Mitchell, many checkusers leave the blocking to independent reviewers, particularly when doing SPIs. I note that neither of you have bothered to address the point that permissions should stand alone and not be dependent on other permissions, which is pretty standard in most systems. And, having watched RFA for a long time, I'm not terribly persuaded that it has much to do with trust at all, but that's my personal opinion. Risker (talk) 13:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict), talking to HJ. However, the converse is that we've proven there are true limitations to the current rights set that makes simply doing what CU/OS's are appointed to do quite difficult. For example, a suppressed edit that is to a deleted page is invisible to someone with the OS flag that is not an admin. I wonder if the same would be true while in the Checkuser interface- would CU refuse to display an edit that the operator didn't have the permission to view? I tend to agree that anyone with sufficient confidence to gain a CU/OS bit or be elected to ArbCom should be able to pass an RFA, but should they be forced to? These changes in the rights set have proven necessary just to make the tools work as they should. The other option is a blanket prohibition against any non-admin gaining CU/OS flags, which is a very divisive move- RFA is not a gate by which editors become somehow "worthy" to hold advanced flags- there are tons of fully trustworthy editors around this place who have no need or desire for the admin tool set. The other option is to sysop by fiat anyone who gets a CU/OS flag by ArbCom decision. And well, that would cause a riot from some sectors. (ArbCom elections could always be treated as a de facto RFA). This isn't the ideal solution, but it is necessary unless consensus changes to demand adminship as a prerequisite to gaining a CU/OS flag for any purpose. Courcelles 13:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I can't imagine a situation in which an Arb would want to resign adminship but retain CU and stay on the Committee. Giving up adminship would serve no purpose in those circumstances; anyone wanting not to use the tools could simply stop doing so. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 01:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I think all ArbCom members should drop their sysop buttons. Simply not using them doesn't remove the ability to implicitly threaten to use them. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Personally I'd like to see a situation where Arbs give up adminship, CU, OR, and any other positions they hold while on ArbCom—because it would mean people would stand only because they wanted to engage in dispute resolution, and wouldn't be able to wear multiple hats while doing it. I'd also like to see CU/OS removed if not used regularly. So if this were happening as part of a general reform I might feel differently about it, but even so there would have to be an election at some point: either an RfA, or a CU election, or an ArbCom election. It's not a good idea for ArbCom just to pluck editors out and give them higher permissions they've demonstrated no need for. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
What we did was RFC the appointment method, conduct an arbitrator vote on the appointment process, call for AUSC candidates, privately vet the applicants, publicly RFC the applicants allowing public and private comments, hold an arbitrator vote on each candidate and select the top three according to the appointment process. It's not an election, but it is a long way from a plucking process ;-)
The result is that Bahamut0013 is now a WP:AUSC member, and now has need for these three permissions in order to fulfill their duties.
That the RfA is passing comfortably (touch wood) is evidence that the process we used didn't produce a result that the community objects to. The RfA also means that the configuration change will not be needed in this instance.
This configuration change isn't 'reform', but it does remove the technical restriction that currently ensures Arbs, CU and OS can't give up sysop tools.
The "real" reform would be to create an audit and/or arbcom group which gives members the read-only permissions (browsearchive, deletedhistory, deletedtext, checkuser-log, suppressionlog, abusefilter-log-detail, abusefilter-hide-log, and oversight). Then members can see what needs to be seen, and they can shed any of the sysop, oversight and checkuser groups which they dont use regularly, or don't want to use regularly. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
I expect that even without the CU tool itself, auditors would still see a heck of a lot of private info by dint of their access to the CU mailing list. So it doesn't make much difference whether they also get the tool. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 19:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm as suspicious of authority as the next guy (well, as suspicious as an admin can be, I suppose), and some ArbCom members/decisions annoy me too sometimes, but I don't understand the apparent necessity in always attributing evil motives to every single action ArbCom takes. How do you reconcile "WADR" and "smells like wanting to be able to 'back door' somebody into adminship"? With all due respect, that seems kind of passive aggressive (see? I can do it too! You can't get mad, I said "with all due respect"!) --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
    Furthermore, we are only granting the ability to view deleted entries - administrators can do a lot more than that, so I don't see how this is a backdoor at all. Being an administrator is not a social requirement for appointment to checkuser, oversight, the Arbitration Committee, or the Audit Subcommittee, so why should it be a technical requirement? –xenotalk 13:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
  • How many times have non-admins stood for those positions? In the last ArbCom elections, there were only two candidates that were not either admins or could have gotten their mop back by a simple request on BN. Perhaps the kind of people that would have an interest in being a functionary highly overlap with those who would enjoy being an administrator? Or perhaps the fact that it had never been done before was discouraging non-admins from even standing for such roles. There's a correlation here, but I'd be very hesitant about implying any causality here. Courcelles 13:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
  • This year is the first time a non-admin was presented as a candidate for the Audit Subcommittee, and there were almost no objections or concerns raised related to his not holding administrative privileges. –xenotalk 14:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
  • While I personally support the move, I am compelled to point out that changing permissions affected to a usergroup should be a community decision. The ArbCom has been delegated the authority to oversee the use of CU and OS permissions, this does not extend to changing those permissions. I would especially not want this to set a precedent. There is no harm in asking the community for feedback at WP:VPR or another appropriate venue. If you expose it well, I'm sure it'll gain consensus pretty easily. Cenarium (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
    • That's a red herring. The actual background has been that CU/OS have required permissions associated with the administrator role to do their jobs right. Let's look at it this way: ArbCom can appoint advanced permission holders, but doesn't currently appoint administrators. If the choice is between ArbCom appointing administrators without going through RfA, or changing the permissions such that a non-administrator CU or OS can still do the CU or OS job effectively, which gives the community a more appropriate say? From a controls and auditing perspective, it's best practice for each role to hold every necessary privilege. Jclemens (talk) 16:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Another way of looking at it: Wikipedia:User access levels shows that we have two types of roles:
      • Standalone roles contain everything needed to accomplish a task. Reviewer, Researcher, ipblock-exempt, rollback... all of these roles have everything needed to do that finite, specific task.
      • Cumulative roles are essentially three: bureaucrat, checkuser, and oversight. Each of these relies upon privileges present in the administrator role. While that may have been a good idea for a small project, as things grow, enabling security access role granularity is just part of the growing up process: we're a long way from every administrator having 'root' access.
      There's two questions, really: 1) Is it consistent with information security best practices to convert the cumulative roles into standalone roles? That answer is obviously yes. 2) Is it the community's wish that non-administrators be excluded from election to the bureaucrat or appointed to CU and OS roles and that holders of these three roles must retain their administrator bit? That question is absolutely appropriate for community input, and the community has already failed to oppose a non-administrator being appointed to the audit subcommittee, an oversight role that requires both CU and OS. Jclemens (talk) 17:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Still, you should consult the community. You do not have power to grant rights over than CU and OS, and you do not have power to change permissions affected to a usergroup. If for some reason you think doing so would be good, then you need to consult the community. The recent appointment which you mentions doesn't justify that you step outside of your authority. Cenarium (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
    • The community's input isn't needed for #1: we don't hold RfC's on how to configure our networks or how much storage space to buy, do we? Why not? Because those are technical implementation details, just like this is. As far as #2 goes, the community's input was sought, and a non-administrator candidate has been approved by Arbcom after community input. The entire reason this change is being required is because the community endorsed a non-admin CU/OS. Given that this has gone from theoretical (e.g., Giano's recent ArbCom candidacy) to the actual, it's up to ArbCom to implement some way for our newly elected community audit committee represenative to do his job (which, ironically, is checking up on us). The reason the change is appropriate is because it takes away nothing from the community's decision making process: a CU/OS without administrator privs will be able to see things that a CU/OS needs to see, but not block/unblock, delete/restore, protect/unprotect, grant/revoke permissions, and the rest of things that go along with the administrator role. Jclemens (talk) 17:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Is this what you are talking about for the "community endorsed ... non-admin CU/OS"? An obscure page with three comments in support of this user is hardly a ringing endorsement of changing what has always been the de facto policy. And I think you well know that modifying user rights is somewhat different than deciding how much hard drive space to buy. --B (talk) 04:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
The request for comment was well advertised. While there may only be three public comments in support, there are also no objections to a non-admin serving in this capacity. We requested members of the community to privately inform the committee of their thoughts about the candidates. And they did. Again, there were no objections to a non-admin serving in this capacity. It looks like you didn't get the memo, so could you please cut to the chase and state plainly whether or not you think a non-admin, and in particular Bahamut0013, is suitable for the audit subcommittee. The technical change is merely implementing that appointment. If there is ever another non-admin candidate for these groups, it will be advertised just like any other candidacy; if the community doesn't want non-admins in these groups, they will have an opportunity to say so. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
No, I really don't think you should be giving advanced permissions to non-admins. I don't know how I can be any clearer than that. If this person truly has the trust of the community, they should be able to pass RFA. If they don't have the trust of the community, then why are you giving them advanced permissions? (I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the "reviewer" permission already exists today, so you could use that for this user rather than unilaterally changing permissions without discussion. I still don't think that would be a good idea, but it's an available technical means.) Unilaterally doing controversial things is one of the reasons that arbcom is thought of as being aloof and elitist, and is not particularly trusted. --B (talk) 12:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
You come across as implying that if editors do not have the admin tools, they are not trustworthy. I find that very disturbing. Risker (talk) 13:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I find it very typical of a deep-rooted problem within the administrator caste. Malleus Fatuorum 13:21, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for making up something that has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. I think you are seeing what you want to see. I said that if they have the trust of the community, then they should be able to pass RFA. That does not mean that all persons who have not passed RFA are inherently untrustworthy, by any remote stretch of the imagination. Nor does it even mean that all trustworthy people WILL pass RFA - just that they should. Indeed, RFA is a broken process that clearly has its faults. But what it does mean is that you shouldn't simply pretend that they have passed RFA and dispense with the process. --B (talk) 19:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
The reviewer permission has nothing to do with deleted revisions - see Special:ListGroupRights. Your position is that only administrators should be eligible for advanced permissions and appointment to the Audit Subcommittee or election to the Arbitration Committee. I don't believe that this belief is widely held, but as above, I invite to initiate a community discussion to verify that. –xenotalk 13:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Clearly, I meant "researcher". --B (talk) 20:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
That was an option we looked at briefly, however "researcher" is managed by the meta:Research Committee, and audit subcommittee members dont meet their pre-requisites. --John Vandenberg (chat) 07:37, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • You are giving me reasons why the change should be made, it's not the point of my objection, again I agree with the move. I am saying that this is not up to ArbCom to make the request. Any user (including an individual arb) can make requests on behalf of the English Wikipedia when they are non-controversial, but if they are, they should be based on an explicit community decision. This is how bugzilla works, always worked; arbcom has no special authority to make bug requests for the English Wikipedia (as you'd say, it's outside of your jurisdiction). So please, respect the community, stay within your role, you just need to consult the community on this specific point, it's no big deal. Additionally, there's no pressing need to have the matter resolved since Bahamut0013 is about to gain adminship. Finally, as a general request, I'll ask that before you make decisions, especially outside formal arbitration cases, you make sure that (i) it is within your authority (ii) it is not made in order to achieve a political goal (by political, I mean the question of what should be the WP policies, which is a matter for the community to decide, with a few exceptions). Cenarium (talk) 13:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
    • The community elects the Arbitration Committee to oversee advanced privileges. If the community wants us to consult them on every decision we make in regards to advanced privileges, there's probably not much point to having a committee in the first place. This change has nothing to do with political goals, it's a simple technical change that should probably have been applied at a meta level long ago. As food for thought, adding viewdeleted privileges to other rights bundles is not a new concept, as seen by the list that follows. –xenotalk 14:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
      • If this were a regular decision in regards to advanced privileges, I doubt it would have been posted on this noticeboard. It's the first time that ArbCom files a bug request requesting a change in the permissions of a usergroup, Xeno, you know very well that this is not a regular decision regarding advanced privileges. The community has delegated to the committee the authority to oversee the use of advanced permissions (granting, removing, ensuring policy compliance, etc, a task which due to its constitution is not suitable for the community to do directly), it does not extend to changing the actual permissions. I am still puzzled as to why you do not want to consult the community. The list below proves my point, fr.wp requested the changes as a result of a community decision (linked below), it was not decreed requested by their arbcom. Cenarium (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
        • I never said I didn't want to consult the community - I simply feel that a good deal of the community probably trusts the Arbitration Committee to make good decision for the betterment of the project (i.e. the role for which the Arbitration Committee is elected), and doesn't need to be asked about every minor detail. However, given your vociferous procedural opposition to a technical change that you actually support (apparently because you see this as some kind of "power grab"), I would wager the developers will ask us to consult the community (again). –xenotalk 17:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
          • I am concerned when arbcom goes beyond its authority, yes. But in no way I've been vociferous. This isn't really a question of procedure, but of staying within its role. This isn't a minor detail, this is a configuration change (requiring a bug request, etc), apparently politically charged. The community trusts arbcom to a reasonable extent, provided that it stays within its role. Most of the big controversies around arbcom resulted of arbcom going outside of its role. I've long been concerned by this, over the years I've seen several decisions which were going way beyond the role of arbcom. I won't expose the well-known ones (e.g. the ACPD), I'll just give two examples. Arbcom in Macedonia 2 'strongly advised' the community to effectively ban the replacement of "Macedonia" by "FYROM" (any instances of changing the word "Macedonia" to "FYROM" (...) shall be prevented) using the abusefilter. This is a content ruling, absolutely outside of arbcom's remit, and the suggestion to use the abusefilter to control content is appalling, I don't understand why there hasn't been more consideration given to objections by fellow arbs (note that the community never followed the advise). Another case which worried me is when several arbs wanted to formally request that the toolserver management "reevaluate the propriety of MZMcBride's continued access to the toolservers", that is to say, they pushed to remove MZMcBride's toolserver access. And that based on flimsy grounds, while there were no indication that the community wanted this, disregarding the benefits of MZM's access, it was obviously outside of their role, arbcom just can't make requests on behalf of en.wp to other sites, hopefully this didn't pass. Yes, I think the community should be watchful of arbcom's excursions outside of its authority. Cenarium (talk) 01:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

  • en.wp 'researcher' includes 'browsearchive', and 'deletedhistory'
  • fi.wp 'arbcom' includes 'deletedhistory', 'deletedtext', and 'undelete'
  • fr.wp 'checkuser' includes 'browsearchive', 'deletedhistory' and 'deletedtext'
  • hi.wp 'eliminator' includes 'delete', 'undelete', 'rollback', 'browsearchive', 'deletedhistory', and 'deletedtext'
  • nl.wp 'checkuser' includes 'deletedhistory', 'deletedtext', and 'browsearchive'
  • nl.wp 'arbcom' includes 'deletedhistory', 'deletedtext', and 'browsearchive'
  • pt.wp 'eliminator' includes 'browsearchive', 'delete', 'nuke', 'undelete', 'deletedhistory', 'deletedtext', 'autopatrol', and 'suppressredirect'
(list prepared by User:John Vandenberg)
The researcher usergroup has been mandated by the WMF, it's not 'under the jurisdiction' of the community, or Arbcom. The addition of the rights to the CU group by the french wikipedia was the result of a community decision, fr:Wikipédia:Prise de décision/Droits supplémentaires aux vérificateurs d'adresses IP. I would be surprised that this would not be the case for all others. The English Wikipedia arbcom is comparatively the most powerful of arbcoms in wmf wikis, and by far. Cenarium (talk) 16:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Cenarium, that's just for CU. What about OS? I can understand (as said earlier) how CU is slightly trickier, but not letting OS see deleted pages just seems illogical. Can you tell how fr-wp handle that? 75.57.242.120 (talk) 08:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
See fr:Wikipédia:Prise de décision/Oversight for the decision on oversighters ('masqueurs'). It was decided unanimously that oversighters were chosen among admins, so there was no question regarding addition of view-deleted and co for them, and actually they don't have them. Checkusers however don't have to be sysops, a few aren't, and checkusers with admin rights usually don't block users that they have CU-ed. Regarding arbitrators, the vast majority of them don't have CU or OS rights, and several don't have admin rights. Cenarium (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

break

  • The Arbitration Committee does not control how userrights are configured, and is not trying to. This announcement is a request from ArbCom that the developers institute these changes. If any members of the community disagree then, rather than criticising the request, they might instead try to get a community consensus in support of not making the changes. I do happen to think that the configuration of the CU/OS userrights is the purview of the arbitrators, but that's not relevant to this discussion because, as I said, this is a request, not a directive. AGK [•] 13:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Your position is contradictory. On one hand you say it's just a request, nothing like a decision. On the other hand, you say that instead of, as always, requiring consensus for making changes, the burden of consensus building should be reversed and it's up to the opposers to build a consensus against the move; but then it's not 'just a request', since according to you it reverses the burden of consensus. And no, the configuration of the CU/OS rights is certainly not under the purview of arbs, it's under the purview of the WMF and their devs; and they'd never give arbcom the 'purview' to configure such highly sensitive permissions. The community can decide to add some existing rights to the CU usergroup where it makes sense, but certainly not arbcom which has no authority to make bug requests on behalf of en.wp.
  • In addition, there has been a community decision on a related subject, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Persistent proposals/Straw poll for view-deleted. Remember that this discussion was done at the request of ArbCom ? It was soundly rejected, and Mike Godwin even made clear that this was not going to happen for legal reasons. Of course this is of little relation to this case since CU/OS have higher requirements, but this shows that you should really not do things like that without community consultation. Cenarium (talk) 16:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Late reply, but here you go. No, you misunderstand me. When I suggested that the dissenters get a consensus against making the changes, it was so that there was a request that the changes not be made to be considered alongside the ArbCom's request that the changes are made. I don't know how you managed to jump from me suggesting that to me implying that the request was a decision. AGK [•] 22:11, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I think there's a fairly simple solution here. If a user is granted CU but is not an admin they still can't block anybody, so there's really no problem there. Persons using OS who have the ability solely for AUSC purposes should be required to limit their use of the tool to viewing only and should not be able to actually suppress material without going through the regular process. Although I had thought that, as has been mentioned, the Foundation said we can't give the ability to see deleted contribs to non-admins. I can't imagine how there is any legal basis to that position, we don't know the real life identities of most admins and we do know them, or at least the Foundation does, for functionaries. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • oppose. If someone is trusted to be a CU, they're trusted to be an admin - although it does bring up "why do we allow resigned, retired or kicked-out-at-the-last-election'd arbitrators to keep associated userrights, userrights normally granted after a display of community trust, when the fact that they weren't re-elected or don't hold the associated role any more indicates they aren't trusted?" Ironholds (talk) 01:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
So you too are implying that anyone without an admin flag is untrustworthy. I actually find this more concerning than any of the other arguments on this page, and it bodes very poorly for the project that at least some administrators think the only trustworthy people on the project are...them. Risker (talk) 01:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
No he does not imply this. Please take more care at reading what users say before jumping to make such unfounded allegations. Cenarium (talk) 01:30, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, that is certainly how I read it, and I know it's how a lot of non-admins read it too; perhaps you are correct, though, and what he means is that we should give adminship to anyone we appoint as checkusers. I can't, however, imagine that such an idea would get even a single support within the Arbitration Committee. Risker (talk) 01:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Not at all; I'm suggesting that anyone without the admin flag has not got the required stamp of approval to be classified as that trustworthy. Sure, you can know the law perfectly - but nobody hires you as a lawyer without the exams to back it up. X or Y can be the most level-headed individuals to ever be considered for CU access - but without some sort of formal validation by the community, we have no reason to assume they are trusted to that degree. You don't seem to have actually read what I wrote. I didn't say "give all checkusers admin status", I said "*don't* give checkuser status to those who aren't admins". There's a gap between "trustworthy" and "trustworthy enough to get [specific and dedicated access]". Ironholds (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Risker is quite right. The idea that all administrators are trusted to even find their own arses using both hands is quite simply risible. Malleus Fatuorum 02:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I am relieved to hear that you don't consider the option to grant adminship by fiat as viable alternative, as the way Jclemens presented this as the only other option had me worried. That being said, it's really not helpful to make sarcasm of the position of others. I want to add that everyone wants high standards for granting CU/OS, and that it is perfectly reasonable to consider that passing RFA is a legitimate test of the trust of a user and provides for scrutiny and feedback (and would certainly provide much more than the CU/OS or AUSC elections as currently practiced). Cenarium (talk) 01:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I would be concerned about this proposal. The idea of handing out these rights was always that there was a degree of progression, with adminship being the entry level, if you like. The reason that matters (whether you think RfA is broken or not) is that there are lots of eyes on the candidate during RfA, so the hope is that, if there's an obvious issue, it will be spotted. The fewer eyes, the less likely that is to happen, and the benefits of extending CU and oversight access aren't obvious anyway. Is there a problem of not having enough CU candidates? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 01:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, yes there have been issues with inadequate numbers of both CU and OS candidates. However, unless I am mistaken this adjustment is just for purposes of the audit subcommittee. These users would not be involved in blocking anyone or actually suppressing anything, they would be auditing the work of the users who were appointed through the more traditional processes. I mentioned this earlier but nobody seemed to notice. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
"These users" is just one, at the moment, but yes: the entire point of decoupling permissions is to allow the isolated function of review of advanced permission use, without being able to function as or needing to be "an administrator". Jclemens (talk) 02:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
RfAs are often many years old, and many current sysops say they wouldn't pass another RfA now, so how useful is that as a prereq? My preference is that all OS/CU/AUSC appointments are done after an election, because at least that is fresh data, and focused on the candidates application for the specific role. However the committee has chosen to return to use a committee vote for the selection process, and it seems to be working ok as well. The "many eyes" of an RfA can also be brought to bear on the nomination pages, with the added benefit that ArbCom allows for private opinions. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
John, the reason I mentioned RfA wasn't for the popularity aspect, but because many eyes were on that person's contribs, which would often (not always) throw up any very serious issue. If the Committee is also not requiring elections for CU/OS, and wants applicants not to have been through an RfA, that means no community input of any kind is backing that candidate. It would mean the ArbCom alone simply choosing who to give CU/OS to, and who to place on the functionaries list. And realistically that will mean maybe just one or two people on the ArbCom, because when someone is suggested, the others won't want to object unless the objection is very serious. This can't be a good thing. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 18:24, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
It can be helpful in some cases, which is already a good thing. Just so that this is clear, I think adminship should be a requirement for regular CU/OS because this work requires to perform tasks often similar to adminship so this allows to see how good the user is at it, CU/OS is really just particularly sensitive admin work, and there are a good many practical advantages (for example, it's nice for an oversighter to be able to delete pages). However I don't view this as a requirement for ArbCom or AUSC (hence my support for the technical change, also for a few other minor reasons). Regarding at-large AUSC members, I think they should be elected together with arbitrators in the annual arbcom elections. Regarding the regular CU/OS appointments, it's true to an extent that an election may not have been the best appointment process, but I think the way this is practiced now doesn't invite enough community participation, whether you want it or not, people will be more inclined to participate if they can make a 'vote' that can make the difference. This is why we could have a confirmation vote, with a majority needed to confirm the candidacy, but whose comparative results doesn't bind arbcom appointments. Cenarium (talk) 16:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I partially agree with Cenarium. The mop itself is not the point, for me. Community approval is a prerequisite for adminship, so it concerns me that somebody (not wishing to make this personal, I've a lot of respect for Bahamut) can be appointed to a position thought of as "higher" than adminship without any community approvals process. I would have no problem with a non-admin being elected or installed by consensus as a functionary/auditor/arb, because that shows that the person has the community's trust. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I urge Bahamut to stand for RfA if he wants to obtain CU/OS, then take it from there. We can't have situations where the rules are changed to accommodate one person (I mean no disrespect to Bahamut; I know nothing about him, so I'm speaking generally). We had a situation during the last ArbCom election where people were suggesting we change the rules mid-election about identifying to the Foundation. That kind of thing takes us in the wrong direction.

We want to become fairer as a community, less cabal-oriented, more professional. The Foundation has just made it a priority to recruit new editors and retain established ones, because the trend shows people are leaving and not arriving in the same numbers. The one thing that has plagued us for years is this appearance of cabalism at the top; and it doesn't matter whether it's accurate or not—we know it often isn't accurate—but the perception of it increases every time there's one of these proposals aimed at a specific person or group. Please, let's just stick to the system we have. Almost everyone who really wants to succeed at RfA does so in the end, if they keep plugging away at it—so for one person simply to refuse, but to ask for the higher permissions anyway, that's not something we should encourage. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 18:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

He has CU and OS and he is standing at RfA. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Then I'm confused on two points: (a) I thought this was a discussion about whether to make a technical change that would allow a non-admin to have CU; and (b) if he's standing for adminship anyway, what's the issue? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 21:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
There are some weirdness with how the tools actually work. OS without Admin allows one to see deleted revisions... but not if the page itself has been deleted. Jclemens (talk) 02:08, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
(ec) To your point about "accomodat[ing] one person", the fact is that Wikipedia's existing permission structures are pretty antiquated and don't follow security best practices. That's true with or without a non-admin functionary at the moment. Granted, Giano faced a number of self-imposed barriers to actually winning election to ArbCom, but there was a sizeable minority of folks who said "Why can't a non-admin serve on ArbCom?" So, given the proximate issue, we're solving the wider technical issue. By next ArbCom election, we should have the technical means for a non-admin to fulfill the ArbCom roles, such that what the community gets to decide is whether or not any particular non-admin is suited for the role. That's as anti-cabal as it comes. Jclemens (talk) 18:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
The issue with Giano is that he didn't want to identify with the Foundation; his becoming an Arb without being an admin wasn't a concern that I'm aware of. The difficulty with making the technical change is the danger of Arbs alone deciding to give someone CU—without there having been an RfA, without there having been a CU election, without there having been an election for promotion to ArbCom. That's where the cabalism unease will come from, not to mention that editors will be worried that someone who hasn't been through any of those processes will have access to their IP addresses. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 21:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't disagree with your summary of Giano's candidacy's failure, but the fact that he wasn't elected and thumbed his nose at the notion of identifying only postponed the need to intelligently deal with non-administrator functionaries. We have been actively debating whether a read-logs-only role (that is, access to who CU'ed who when) without the ability to rerun checkuser actions to verify that the conclusions reached followed logically from the findings would be sufficient for a non-admin Arb or a non-admin audit subcommittee member. Fundamentally, if we take away the "admin" bits, an auditor-like role could oversee other functionary use of the tools, without actually having the ability to initiate e.g. CU's on their own. While some appear to have assumed that no non-administrator could be appointed to CU or OS, the committee has not seen that as a barrier--one of the top three most recent audit subcommittee community applicants, based on both community feedback and ArbCom validation of that feedback, was a non-admin. Now, he appears to be well on the way to having that level of confidence confirmed by his own RfA, but that's somewhat beside the point: it wasn't a showstopper. Jclemens (talk) 02:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
That's exactly what I'm finding odd about this entire discussion. The AUSC appointments were widely advertised and open for comment for quite some time. Its only now that these objections are being raised. I took the time to review the candidates and add my own comments at the time. I didn't comment on Bahamut0013 because I didn't have anything to say. I don't recall any significant interactions with him and there were no obvious red flags. There was an open process where user input was specifically requested. The fact that it wasn't in the snake pit at RFA doesn't change that. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
My concern is that we've had security failures—if that doesn't sound too dramatic—after RfAs (people turning out to be someone else, or a banned user, etc). And we've had a couple of similar problems after ArbCom elections. So those two processes are very imperfect. But the solution is not to have almost no transparent process at all, because that's likely to mean more mistakes.
The ability to read everyone else's CU results going back several months has the potential to cause real harm when IPs are exposed, but a search like that isn't logged anywhere, because it's just passive looking. So there has to be some kind of filter for CU candidates—no matter how imperfect—that involves many eyes, whether it's an RfA or an ArbCom election, or a rigorous CU election process. Hardly anyone seems even to know when or how these CU appointments are made. For example, how did Bahamut come to be chosen from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/2011 appointments? (Again, no disrespect intended; I just don't know what the process is.)
The issue for me isn't—this person isn't an admin. The issue is—this person has been selected by a very small number of people, and it's not clear that they've demonstrated a need for the tools, or a prior interest in doing the kinds of things the tools are needed for. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 04:08, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Slim, do you have a problem with the technical change being proposed (to let CU and OS see deleted pages)? The policy issue (whether non-admins can have those permissions) is separate. OS can see suppressed edits, which are presumably even more sensitive than deleted pages, so letting them see deleted pages seems like a no-brainer. CU is a little bit different, but CU's are authorized to handle confidential about users, so I'd think they can also be trusted with deleted pages. But giving deleted page access to OS's while withholding it from CU's would in any case serve AUSC's purpose since AUSC members get both permissions. I also like the idea of letting auditors see the audit log of CU access without seeing the actual CU results, though the log itself is also privacy-sensitive. Finally, IMHO, re the appointments, arbcom made good choices. At least going by the candidate statements, Bahamut and Keegan seem like the best qualified (some others were pretty good too of course). And for "cabal"-phobes, Bahamut and Keegan's apparent prior relative non-involvement(?) in wiki-politics actually makes them more attractive as outside monitors. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 06:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Point of order, although the CU bit lets you examine a log of checks that have been ran, you cannot see what was revealed in that check without actually rerunning the check yourself, and therefore making an entry in the log. (Though, to be fair, an intelligent person could figure some information out just be examining what was logged in a rapid sequence.) Courcelles 08:15, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
The AUSC appointments didn't interest the community, the selection process is in the hands of arbcom, not of the community, so people won't be enticed to participate. During the 7 days of the AUSC appointment's 'community consultation' period, WP:RFA has been seen [4] ~1953 times, while Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/2011 appointments has been seen [5] ~589, even though it was advertised at cent, etc (not in the watchlist notice though ?, but it wouldn't have changed much). So clearly RFA is adequate at providing greater scrutiny and feedback, which is essential for candidates to the highly sensitive CU/OS permissions. Cenarium (talk) 00:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Well I'm sorry (and surprised) to have kicked off so much drama with what I thought was a non-provocative query. My thoughts:
  1. I don't have any problem with the bugzilla ticket on purely technical grounds, for reasons described just above (in my reply to SlimVirgin). The policy concerns of giving CU/OS to non-admins are separate (and valid), though Bahamut seems to be passing RFA nicely right now. More generally I'd say future AUSC appointments should get more attention from users if they have concerns.
  2. Re Jclemens "security best practices": I've long felt that access to deleted pages is the most powerful and dangerous ability that admins have. Just about everything else (blocking, deleting the main page, etc.) can only cause on-wiki disruption that's usually easily reversed. Deleted-page access is apparently unaudited and conceivably makes far-reaching disclosures (obnoxious BLP material, say) that can only be undone by erasing the person's mind. For that I'd consider CU/OS to be "cumulative" rather than "standalone" in terms of trust level, if they allow access to deleted pages.

    Admin has never been treated as "root access"--that's why we used to say "adminship is no big deal", because admin tool operations were considered reversible. Adminship is a big deal now mostly for policy reasons (admins have much more authority in DR than they used to) rather than "security" (controlling access to the technical tools). (FWIW, I'm squicked out by the existence of "researcher" and I wonder what purposes that bit has been used for--I guess I should read the meta page about it...) U

  3. I think the viewing of deleted pages by admins and others should be logged by the software with the logs visible to CU, for reasons given above. That gets off-topic for this discussion though.
  4. I don't see a problem with the idea of arbcom endorsing a bug report/RFE. They've certainly informally encouraged various software changes in the past.
  5. Before Bahamut's situation arose, I kind of doubt it occurred to anyone in this discussion that CU/OS didn't already have access to deleted pages, and I doubt anyone would have minded if they did. So I don't see much point to getting worked up about it on the technical side now. I thought we had gotten past the idea of turf battles between users and arbcom.
75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:26, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
You don't need to be sorry for sparking questions. As I see it, you have several members of ArbCom explaining politely to several dedicated community members what we were thinking and wny. As far as access to deleted pages goes, I suppose I could use a little bit more education on why it's such a big deal. Bad person A writes something, user B notices, Admin C revdel's and contacts oversight, Oversighter D removes it from admin view, and audit subcommittee member E reads it later. Actions of A, C and D are logged, but B is not (and B may be Google's indexing service). While B may have a time-limited window and E does not, what, precisely, is E going to do with something which was posted publicly then oversighted to cause harm to the project? I get that a lot of stuff is icky, nasty, defamatory, whatever... but not how access by one or more non-admin oversighters will make a significant difference in the risk profile. Jclemens (talk) 07:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm talking about bad stuff that is deleted but not oversighted (there are tons of it). Most admin tool misuse (delete main page, block Jimbo) is visible and can be undone easily. From what I understand, accessing deleted pages by admins isn't even detectable. I think you can figure out the rest. This doesn't pertain to AUSC (which is why I called it off-topic); it's just pointing out a flaw in the theory that admin tool use is reversible. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 16:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


  • Maybe we need a RFC on the policy issue. To avoid conflating issues, we should not consider there the assignment of CU/OS to arbitrators. The question would be: should adminship (obtained via RFA) be a prerequisite for being granted CU or OS rights (other than through arbcom elections) ? (Of course I'm excluding meta/WMF assignments of rights.) This would include AUSC, because as of current practice AUSC members are appointed by arbcom, and while users can make comments, the selection is made by arbcom, not the community. (And it's unlikely to change in the short term, fully electing AUSC members would require a modification of the arbitration policy.) When the policy issue will have been clarified, we'll see more clearly the technical issue. Cenarium (talk) 23:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
    • You mean an RFC to enact a not-previously-existing restriction that users must be Administrators before ArbCom can appoint them to CU or OS roles? Unless I'm missing something somewhere, the restrictions listed (vetted by ArbCom, identified to the Foundation) don't mention administrator status, regardless of what folks have assumed in the past. Feel free to initiate one if you like, but I don't see correcting the permissions issue as contingent on a possible future change. Jclemens (talk) 06:50, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

← As an FYI, a developer has interpreted the four or five objections above as indicative of a lack of community consensus for this change [6], so it will not be processed until after an RFC or similar process. –xenotalk 12:44, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

  • A wiki-wide RfC wouldn't be a bad idea, asking how we want CU/OS to be distributed. It seems to have changed a lot over the years (sometimes election, sometimes appointment), but as I recall it was handed out in response to need, which usually meant the recipient was an active admin—and, specifically, active in areas where CU/OS are needed, such as dealing with sockpuppets, vandalism, BLP issues. But if it's going to be given to non-admins and non-Arbs, that may mean it'll be handed out for reasons other than need, and I think that's the worry—what exactly the criteria are, who's deciding them, and what are the risks, if any, of bypassing the RfA/Arbcom election processes. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This is insanity

We are talking about a relatively minor, even superfluous change. We are also talking about a change which reduces the implicit social status of administrators (a platform which is laid out, but rarely followed at WP:NBD). The admin bit should be a strictly technical right. Whatever social privilege we have injected into it has only made RfA worse and relations between admins and editors worse. I'm absolutely stunned there is so much opposition to this change. Lets just start an RfC in order to allow the devs to make a change like this, please. Protonk (talk) 22:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Protonk. If we didn't think that this sort of sentiment was the "silent majority" that was represented by the lack of opposition to Bahamut's appointment as a community AUSC member, we wouldn't have ever proposed it. One of the problems with a consensus-based system is that those who don't see any problem with a proposal often don't show up to register their lack of issue. Jclemens (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
No doubt you're right, but Protonk makes a very good point about the "social privilege" that has accrued around the admin bit, ossifying any hope of changes like this one. Even more radical reforms are needed to stall wikipedia's heat death from the admins' cold dead hands, but very little hope of that. Malleus Fatuorum 22:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Malleus, you may not care if people know where you're editing from, but please imagine that you did care—that you sometimes edit from work, that you sometimes edit contentious articles, that you've sometimes had editors you've opposed try to find out who you are. So the question is: who can be trusted to have access to your IP addresses? Who can be trusted to have access to the functionaries list, where private issues are often discussed—not only locations but all kinds of private stuff?
No system is going to be perfect. But it makes sense that, the more eyes are on the account, the less likely it is to be an account that's going to cause serious problems for you. If you have a system where it's simply someone chosen by the Arbs, it increases the chance of an error. That's all anyone is arguing. The issue isn't pro–admin; that's a red herring. It's pro–more eyes, and RfA and ArbCom elections give us those eyes. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
While this may be a side issue, if I was faced with the history of attempted OUTING you have faced, I would use a proxy from here on out, and I would recommend that for any other user who's been similarly pursued. It's why I don't put myself on "do not call" lists: instead, I just never give out my real phone number and pay the small fee to have it unlisted. People can't disclose what they don't know. But this is really a philosophical discussion better suited for over a beer than over the Internet. Jclemens (talk) 23:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Just noting that I wasn't talking about myself in my post above. We have lots of editors not aware of these issues, not aware of how to use proxies. The Foundation has just made it a high priority to attract new people, and we can't expect everyone to be aware of these ins and outs. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Jclemens, I think you're underestimating how easy it is to make mistakes with proxies, even for technical people who know what they're doing. Forgetting to turn a proxy on or off isn't much different from making a logged-out edit by accident now and then, something that happens to lots of people. Proxies themselves are also less effective than they might sound, in an environment like this. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
But there is nothing about the admin bit that is at all connected w/ CU/OS. We don't ask questions about CU/OS issues in RfA, we don't expect admins be trusted w/ CU data (or oversighted revisions), and the RfA process is not designed to handle serving as a catch-all judgement about reliability in areas outside the purview of the admin bit. If we think that the CU/Os processes are insufficient to judge suitability to handle private information we ought to address that, but we shouldn't continue to load more social responsibility on the purely technical distinction of adminship than is necessary. Protonk (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
The committee had a frank discussion about whether adminship was required for AUSC community representatives, and there were arbs who recommended that the tradition of adminship prior to appointment be maintained, but the majority didn't see it as an issue. I'm not sure that I would characterize the situation as nearly as dire as you just did, Malleus, but I personally am committed to making sure that Wikipedia is run for the content creators and improvers, rather than by the admin and functionary corps. A subtle semantic difference, perhaps, but one I consider important. I think this one decision was pretty minor, but indicative of the mood of the current committee towards the issues that have been raised recently. Jclemens (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Where was this discussion held? All I see is the final decision. I strongly support the right of the ArbCom to discuss the details of cases in private, but discussions of policy changes should be held on-Wiki.   Will Beback  talk  23:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
What policy change? We were discussing the technical requirement. –xenotalk 23:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Correct, this is not a policy change, and there never was such a policy. There is no policy that forbids non-administrators from consideration as checkusers, oversighters, AUSC members or arbitrators, and there never has been. Risker (talk) 23:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Even so, configuration changes, like policy changes, are outside of the authority of arbcom. Cenarium (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
But there's a community understanding, Risker, that people will be given CU/OS because they need it, and that they need it because they're active admins or Arbs working in areas where it's helpful. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
The de facto policy has been to only grant CU/OS to admins. Changing this well-established practice without any on-Wiki discussion or effort to gain community support seems precipitous.   Will Beback  talk  00:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed the well-advertized WP:AUSC/2011, wherein we presented a non-admin candidate - and received no objections from the community at large as regards bahamut's candidacy? –xenotalk 00:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any mention of that candidate not being an admin.
May I ask again why the ArbCom's discussion of this change was held in private? Does the ArbCom lack an adequate forum or page to hold discussion on-Wiki?   Will Beback  talk  00:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Again, there has been no change. Bahamut's lack of administative privileges was discussed during vetting prior to the candidates being announced. –xenotalk 00:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Where was it discussed, Xeno? The problem may be that people aren't aware of these discussions, not that they don't care. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 00:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
All the applications were discussed and scrutinized Mar 7-14 internally by the committee during the vetting phase; see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/2011 appointments#Appointment process. The community was asked to scrutinize and voice their opinions or objections to all the candidates and were given the opportunity to object to bahamut's candidacy for the Audit Subcommittee on the basis of non-adminship. The Arbitration Committee voted on the candidates after reviewing all the comments submitted publicly and privately and and all other relevant factors. bahamut0013, having met the criteria for appointment, was appointed. The issue of viewdeleted was discussed at various points, including Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 14#Audit Subcommittee appointments: Invitation to comment on candidates and #Audit Subcommittee appointments (2011). The oversight privilege's inability to view deleted revisions became immediately apparent in relation to an open case. Having had no objections to this point, we requested the necessary technical change. –xenotalk 01:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps people didn't realize, during the public discussion, that Bahamut wasn't an admin. The process is a bit mysterious to people I think, and I'm guessing editors feel a bit disenfranchised. I know the reason I don't comment there is that it feels pointless (wrongly, I accept that, because it's self-fulfilling), and it's not at all obvious why Bahamut would have been chosen (again, no disrespect to him intended). Also, the issue of private comments to ArbCom is quite problematic. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 01:44, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
If those objecting at this late stage did not notice that bahamut0013 was not an admin, then I wonder: to what extent did they scrutinize the candidate(s) at all? All the comments submitted by the community from any vector were read in full by every arbitrator who voted on the candidates - suggesting that the community has not been invited to participate in this process is ingenuine at best. See also: #Non-administrators are not prima facie untrustworthy. –xenotalk 02:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm with Xeno, if the objections are that Bahamut didn't put "not an admin" with the blink tag on the top of his candidacy, that's asinine. Protonk (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
One thing I would ask is that the discussion not be personalized, and that people not be made to feel bad for disagreeing. Disagreement is good, it's healthy, and the concerns are valid, even if you disagree with them, not insane or asinine.
Xeno, I think that's what people are saying, that these things aren't read carefully. That page, for whatever reason, doesn't attract the input that RfA and other pages do. Some editors don't know it exists. Some don't understand the process. Some feel their input may be pointless. Others don't care. So yes, the scrutiny or participation on the community side is not optimal. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I did everything I could think of to ensure participation. If you have any suggestions on how to obtain additional meaningful feedback, I'm all ears. (serious question) Perhaps the 2012 candidate pages should be transcluded at WP:RFA? –xenotalk 03:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm happy to tone it down but characterizing an argument isn't personalizing the discussion. I'm truly shocked that a beneficial (in my eyes) and nominally uncontroversial change has provoked such strong pushback. The response to this change--which basically means that the admin bit will no longer be given to CU/OS recipients automatically--strikes me as so far off base as to be characterized as insanity. Ditto the complaint about someone's candidacy for functionary status not promoting the absence or presence of user-rights. No person engaged in this discussion is insane or asinine. Everyone here is acting in good faith and all that. I'm just talking about positions staked out. Protonk (talk) 03:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
In what way? We're responsible for the use of the permissions on this project. Frankly, I don't understand why the permissions weren't designed this way in the first place, except because they were whipped up quickly and then never properly reviewed again. I'm not going to blame the developers for that; they have plenty of more important things on their plate. But when changes were made to the oversight permission a while back by the developers, it would have been the right time to quickly review both permissions and make them standalone, which is standard in just about every single system I've ever seen. Risker (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Again, where was this discussion held? If it was not on-Wiki, was there some reason it had to be secret?   Will Beback  talk  23:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
You're responsible for the good use of the permissions yes, but how could it possibly give you the authority to change the actual permissions ? Bugzilla requests are made, have always been made, by the community of users, developers will never recognize an arbcom-decided bug request regarding wikipedia (of course in case it isn't obvious, I'm not talking about bugs concerning your mailing lists, arbwiki, or made by arbs in a personal capacity). Cenarium (talk) 23:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Bugzillas are made by whoever makes them, with or without discussion with the community. Only a very small percentage of bugzillas filed involve discussion with the larger community, and often they are filed by someone who just happens to notice something and thinks the developers need to be aware. I don't understand where you get the idea that bugzillas are community-driven.

In this case, the bugzilla was filed because the permissions are not standalone, as they properly should be in any secure system. That's not speaking ill of the developers; remember these toolkits were whipped up on the spot when specific issues needed to be addressed, and the community was in no way involved in the discussion about them. Risker (talk) 00:08, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I shouldn't have to repeat myself, why don't you look at what I said on this a little above before commenting ? Of course anyone can make bug requests, but when they are controversial, the wiki's community makes the decision. And this one was controversial, so even if there was an arbcom decision, the devs discarded it because the community should make the decision. Cenarium (talk) 00:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
FWIW I'm quite encouraged by the committee's stand on this issue. Malleus Fatuorum 23:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
FWIW I'm quite encouraged that Malleus is quite encourged by the committee's stand on this issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

break 2

I agree with SV, I think this misses the point entirely. The issue here is not 'social', of course there's a social issue regarding the status of administrators, but this is not what matters here, and it would be wishful thinking to think that this technical change would have any kind of positive effect on this issue. Requiring adminship for CU/OS rights is about providing enough feedback and scrutiny for candidates to a position which is highly sensitive. It's absolutely clear that the review made at RFA in addition to the review made during the AUSC appointment can provide much more feedback and scrutiny than just the review at the AUSC appointment. Also Jclemens, I don't see the 'silent majority' argument, why those who didn't have a problem didn't show up in Bahamut's appointment but they do show up here ? The explication stands rather in the lack of interest for the AUSC appointments due to the marginalization of the community participation in the process, it even more justifies use of RFA in addition. Cenarium (talk) 23:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree entirely. The only arguments against it are social, not technical or practical. Risker (talk) 23:47, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Providing greater scrutiny and feedback is a social argument ? Cenarium (talk) 23:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm struggling a bit Cenarium to see the relevance of RfA to CU/OS rights. Can you explain why you see a connection between the two? I can't ever recall seeing an objection at RfA along the lines of "can't be trusted to have CU/OS rights". Malleus Fatuorum 23:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
You become trusted when you have been scrutinized enough and nothing was found that made you untrustworthy. RFA can provide scrutiny, several RFAs have revealed evidence of sockpuppetry, copyright violations, and other inappropriate behavior. The way an admin use their tools can also indicate whether that admin would make a good CU/OS or not, since it's similar work, just more sensitive. Cenarium (talk) 00:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I do have to point out that the only people saying that CU/OS holders must be administrators are...administrators. Really, this is a social issue, not a technical one. Risker (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Here's the point where you run out of arguments. Cenarium (talk) 00:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
No, I think my arguments are pretty sound. The toolkit is a technical issue. You've started out with "it's invalid because you didn't ask me/us first", but that's a non-starter; bugzillas are filed all the time without community input. Then you've moved on to "but they didn't go through RFA", but there has never been a requirement that Checkusers, Oversighters, AUSC members or Arbitrators be administrators, and there is no correlation between the activities of checkusers/oversighters and administrators. Now you're saying that there's a trust issue, but RFA has very little to do with trust; it has to do with whether or not the candidate knows what A7 is, and what percentage of their edits were made with automated tools, and whether or not they've written "sufficient" content. Lack of trust is rarely identified as a reason for opposing at RFA. This is process wonkery. Toolkits should include all the tools needed to do the job. The fact that both Checkuser and Oversight permissions were cobbled up many years ago very quickly because of an urgent need should not prevent them from being reconfigured properly so that they do what it says on the tin. Risker (talk) 01:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
So you make me repeat myself again... When bugzillas are controversial, the community is asked to decide, it's because the vast majority of bugzillas are noncontroversial that the community isn't involved. I never said there was a requirement, never. I'm asking if there should be one, and considering how marginalized the community has been by the selection process, I figure it needs RFA to counter-balance. RFA has to do with trust to an extent, because it provides scrutiny and you're trusted when you're scrutinized enough and no ground for making you untrustworthy are found. I've already said that I support the technical change. Cenarium (talk) 01:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
You're making adminship into something it's not. Adminship is the ability to [un]protect, [un]block, [un]delete, and a few other tidbits. RfA is one process by which the community has decided who gets those bits. You're essentially arguing that a selection process designed to ascertain appropriateness for one set of tools be used as a prerequitite for a different set of tools, instead of the different trust evaluation criteria which have been set up by those tasked with giving and taking away those tools, who would be ArbCom. Jclemens (talk) 01:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm not talking about adminship here, I'm talking about RFA. In either case you need general scrutiny of the candidate (sockpuppetry, copyvio, other difficultly identifiable behavior issues), the current appointment process doesn't provide for enough scrutiny, arbcom isn't omniscient, the more scrutiny the better. Even if we improved the appointment process, that plus RFA would be even better. Cenarium (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
"I'm not talking about adminship here, I'm talking about RFA." What. Assuming a succesful RfA the two are synonymous. Digging a bit deeper I would argue that our whole notion of RfA as a guarantor of trustworthiness in general is blatantly false. At best RfA is a decent heuristic for trust with the tools. Even if we establish the best case as the norm, trust is not transitive. Protonk (talk) 03:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
What I mean is that we need a process by which candidates are scrutinized more heavily than what would occur only with the ausc or cu/os appointments. Passing RFA isn't a guarantor, but it does provide scrutiny (it allowed to identify sockpuppetry, copyvios, etc). However, I recognize that the social argument against requiring RFA is convincing, so I'll cease from arguing in favor of requiring it. Instead, I will in the following months make proposals for increasing the community participation in the CU/OS appointment process, and propose that 'community representatives' be elected alongside arbitrators in arbcom elections (not any time soon to avoid fallout from this discussion). Cenarium (talk) 12:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Non-administrators are not prima facie untrustworthy

The bugzilla seemed uncontroversial because no one from the community at large had objected during the entire process where a non-admin was presented as a candidate who would need to see deleted and oversighted contributions. I think what some administrators are forgetting is that not everyone wants to be an administrator; and further, that not everyone wants to be an administrator forever. This does not make them untrustworthy people. The fact that the administrative rights package is currently a technical requirement for the proper functioning of other privileges should be remedied, and that is why the bugzilla was filed.

Question: How does holding the consensus discussion at a page with a prefix other than Wikipedia/Requests for adminship/ detract from the community's ability to scrutinize the suitability of a candidate for advanced privileges? –xenotalk 01:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The audit committee appointments page is barely publicized, and ArbCom makes decisions independently of community input, so it's not clear why certain people are chosen and others not. Also, people are allowed to make private comments to ArbCom, which the candidate may never see. So it's problematic for all these reasons. More transparency would help a lot. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 02:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I advertised it at every relevant venue including WT:RFA and {{CENT}}, and requested a watchlist message (which was declined). Any form of comment at the consensus discussion was acceptable, one could even use Oppose: as a prefix to their comment if it pleased them. All the comments submitted were read by every arbitrator voting on the candidates. Getting off-topic, but candidates are able to receive anonymized feedback about the privately submitted material upon request. –xenotalk 02:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't contest that you thought it was uncontroversial at first. I also recognize that there is a social argument for not requiring admin rights. Citing my reply to the similar comment you left at VPT: The problem with the appointment is that arbs would still make the final decision. Users aren't inclined to participate because their participation has no clear weight on the final decision. A possibility would be to have a confirmation vote, i.e. users need a majority of support to be confirmed as candidate, but the comparative results between confirmed candidates doesn't bind in any way the final appointments by arbcom. This incitement would provide for more participation, and therefore scrutiny, comments. Regarding AUSC, I think they should be elected during the arbcom elections. Cenarium (talk) 02:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
(to Xeno) Okay, thanks for that information. I know for my own part that I don't comment in these places because the ArbCom is making the decision, so it's not clear what the value of input is. Also, I think it's unfair that candidates only see anonymized comments. They should be allowed to see who wrote it too, because that often makes a big difference. I've gone right off the idea of people corresponding privately with the ArbCom about other editors, where the latter are not allowed to see it. I used to support it (speaking as a writer and as a target), but it's been misused so much I really wish the ArbCom would put an end to it, except in the most extreme of scenarios. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 02:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I would not be happy to learn that a significant number of people are withholding relevant comments on the candidates publicly or privately because they think their comments will be ignored or not have a meaningful impact on the result: this is simply not the case.
You seem to be holding somewhat contradictory positions - you want the candidates subject to intense scrutiny, yet you wish to discourage people bringing up relevant concerns privately? Someone may wish to submit their concerns privately because they may fear reprisals (e.g. from a politically powerful and possibly soon-to-be advanced privilege-holder) or because the editor is their school/workmate, and the like. Forcing everyone to comment publicly is going to discourage people from bringing forth concerns related to privacy and trust.
And those are the most important things here - respect for privacy and a high degree of trust. And neither the requests for adminship process nor the administrative rights package conveys these qualities: they must be present in the editor themselves. –xenotalk 02:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
If RFA is a better venue for evaluating AUSC candidates and yet we want non-admins to be able to serve on AUSC, I don't see any problem with expanding the scope of RFA to also evaluate AUSC appointments. I could easily imagine being willing to support someone for auditor but not for admin. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 05:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
RfA is widely perceived to be broken, but opinions differ on how to fix it. Go read WT:RFA's archives if you don't believe me. Now, given that RfA is avoided by many good editors who simply don't want to subject themselves to that particular style of adversarial review, and that the number of editors seeking adminship is declining, why would the community want to require candidates for jobs only somewhat related to adminship be forced through that process? I don't have a problem believing that the community as a whole may indeed be fed up with RfA as a bottleneck and willing to tolerate candidates for advanced permissions who don't necessarily have track records as Wikipedia admins. Jclemens (talk) 06:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Question Is the ArbCom uncomfortable with discussing changes to policies and procedures like this on-Wiki or on a publicly viewable mailing list? I keep seeing references to discussions in which things were decided by the ArbCom with only an on-Wiki vote for the community to see. While "executive sessions" are obviously necessary when discussing editors, there doesn't seem to be any cause for secrecy in regard the policy on granting permissions.   Will Beback  talk  02:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

What change was made? –xenotalk 02:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
What was discussed off-wiki was essentially "Is it a current policy requirement that CU/OS'es be admins, and if so should we reject Bahamut's application outright?" That's part of our job in vetting candidates before submitting them to the community. ArbCom consensus was that there was no requirement that an AUSC community member be an admin, so since no other issues were raised by the arbs, Bahamut was submitted for the appropriate community comment period just like the rest of the candidates. Jclemens (talk) 02:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Why was it necessary to have that policy discussion off-Wiki?   Will Beback  talk  02:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Please familiarize yourself with the published appointment process. The applicants were vetted by the committee prior to the candidates being announced. One of the queries in the vetting process was whether policy requires a user to hold administrative rights before they may be granted advanced privileges. It does not. As there were no issues preventing bahamut0013 moving into the candidacy stage, we presented him as a candidate. –xenotalk 02:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
It would have been good at that point if ArbCom had said: "No matter what policy says, let's ask the community whether it wants people with CU/OS access to be admins first." I think what people are looking for from ArbCom is interaction and transparency, as far as possible, and an ArbCom that divests itself of power, rather one that makes those decisions in private. An ArbCom that opens itself up more, and is more responsive, will be more popular, so it would be a win-win situation. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 03:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I find it strange that some ArbCom members seem to be saying that policy is only what is written down. The written policies are simply descriptions of the practices the Wikipedia finds acceptable. Just because no one ever felt it necessary to write down the long-standing practice of only appoint admins to CU/OS roles does not mean it wasn't the understanding of the community. I suppose there's also no policy which says that the Arbcom can't hand out the deletion and blocking tools to whoever it wishes, but if it decided to so that would be a policy change, not just a technical change.   Will Beback  talk  03:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
SV: We did. It was advertised appropriately. No one objected at the time, and the decision was made on that basis. Are you suggesting that ArbCom should, in the face of raising a question and having it answered affirmatively, though perhaps anemically compared to a typical RfA, we should have kicked out a perfectly good candidate and/or stopped the entire process pending an RfC on the topic? It sounds like a recipe for analysis paralysis to me.
Will, you can call it a policy change if you want, but the fact is that no one cared enough to document such an expectation, and no one objected at the time when a non-admin candidate was put forward. It appears that a few administrators assumed it was policy, didn't comment on the AUSC nomination process, and are now dissatisfied with the results. That's OK, but that's not somehow ArbCom's fault for not complying with such an undocumented "policy". Jclemens (talk) 05:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Past consensus doesn't bind current editors. If the community didn't notice that the intent was to appoint non-admins and so didn't object, that doesn't mean that the ability to object now has been lost. As for unwritten policy, do we need to write into policy that the community decides who is given the deletion and blocking tools, or does the ArbCom acknowledge that the unwritten policy is that those tools are bestowed on users who have passed through the RFA process?   Will Beback  talk  06:11, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, since there's an RfC at WP:VPP on it, and the initial community response seems to be endorsing ArbCom's interpretation of policy, I think either proffered option is premature. Jclemens (talk) 06:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
A community discussion is what should have happened first, not an announcement that the change is a fait accompli. While discussions of editors should be private, discussions of issues like this should be transparent. Would that be a problem?   Will Beback  talk  06:35, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
(sigh) If there had been a policy change it would have indeed been brought for community discussion; ArbCom doesn't change policies by fiat. You'll see plenty of fairly minor things being brought forward for community discussion and ratification over the next month or two. The way this practice was distinguished from a policy was through the community input process and the written codification of existing policy. Both the AUSC candidate feedback prior to appointment and VPP afterward are not finding a problem with the revised practice, and we are all agreed that at no point was the Administrator expectation codified in any of the relevant policy pages. I am not a mind reader; I cannot tell what people will find objectionable, nor can I tell what people will object to if prodded enough, but I suspect that given enough invitations to object, we can find a Wikipedian or two to object to essentially anything. Jclemens (talk) 06:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
You're right that it's impossible to know what people will object to. That's why it's important to find out by making proposals. Open projects are messy that way. But Wikipedia was founded on transparent decision making. I hope that in the future the ArbCom will chose to hold discussions more openly when they don't require secrecy, even if that's less efficient.   Will Beback  talk  07:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
WP:AUSC/2011 was an open, nonsecret proposal to appoint a few members to a subcommittee, one of which happened to not be an admin. No one from the community at large objected to the candidate based on their nonadminship. After we appointed him, we requested the necessary technical change to allow him to function in his role. I'm not sure what more we could have done, and am confused by the objections at this late stage. If there are other unwritten considerations by which you feel the Arbitration Committee should be guided when granting advanced privileges, please seek to have them codified your earliest convenience. –xenotalk 10:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was clear from the initial announcement that non-admins could submit candidacies for AUSC. In the initial discussion about creating AUSC, I considered (don't think I posted) proposing that AUSC have some members from completely outside the en.wp community, e.g. checkusers from non-English wikis with no connections to enwp politics or personalities, i.e. actual non-editors and not just non-admins. I still don't know if that's a bad idea or not. Bahamut's non-admin appointment to AUSC was announced the WP Signpost 2011-04-04[7] and I thought it was uncontroversial. In retrospect, I guess someone should have called more attention to it during the candidate discussion. The question of CU/OS for non-sysops is certainly a social rather than technical one, just like "the same person must not have two admin accounts" is not enforced by the software. So, I don't see it mattering much what the software does in a non-admin CU situation, if that situation can't happen due to policy. By now, editor are thinking hard enough about the policy question that I think there's not much chance of a non-admin CU appointment happening "under the radar" anytime soon. Therefore it doesn't much matter whether the code change is made or not made before the policy decision concludes. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 22:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Seconded I had considered putting my name in for consideration of candidacy for AUSC to represent a community (non-admin) position. I observe that adminship, while claimed to be "no-big-deal", is a "big-deal". The recent RfAs have either been gigantic landslides, schadenfreude laced inquisitons, or snowball "not a chance in hell" closes. The landslide approvals see many administrators giving weak reasoning. To me it appears like a "old boys club". Having someone on the "review" board that is not part of the club gives the community at large an opportunity to select someone they trust to review the CU/OS decisions should a objection be raised. I liken the community non-admin representative to the role of the muslim familes controlling the lock and key for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Hasteur (talk) 13:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

You know, I had no idea this was as big a controversy as it seemed until today. I never meant to sow this kind of discord. But I'm struck by two things:

  1. If there was an issue with me getting the CU/OS bits as a non-admin, why didn't anybody raise any concerns until well after I had recieved them, and then submitted for RfA because of the technical issues we ran into on a case? The AUSC appointment page was sufficiently advertised, and there was an option to submit questions and comments securely/anonymously. It's not as if I was secretly snuck through the back door under the cover of night and given permissions out of nowhere.
  2. If this really is an issue of trust and being vetted, I think the fact that I passed RfA rather overwhelmingly (in fact, all of the opposes and neutrals were based on the mistaken perception that I'm some kind of right-wing nutjob extremeist who will aggressively push a POV in articles I've never edited) proves that ArbCom's selection and vetting process works. They were elected because the community trusts them to do things in thier name, most of which are highly sensitive. The AUSC committee was formed to help them do thier job of policing the CU/OS crowd, who were likewise vetted and elected (as well as the functionaries they are policing); it was a lack of interest in the most recent election that changed the method to appointment (further highlighted by complaints that the 2011 appointment process got limited community participation). The ArbCom has the trust of the community (albeit with a very vocal dissenting minority); and they proved with me that they still have thier finger on the pulse of the community.

So, let me ask this: nobody is unhappy that I got put into a functionary position? I think that seems to be the case, since people have been careful not to malign me (which is appreciated). If that's true, and nobody thinks I was "backdoored" in, then why would it be a problem to formalize it? bahamut0013wordsdeeds 12:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

There are two things going on, one regarding your status—which does not appear to be the problem. The other appears to boil down to (IMO) an uneasiness in the community over WP being increasingly run by a clique; were it merely for their own benefit that would be one issue, but that's not the concern—it's that decisions are made potentially affecting the community (as in this instance) for which no one is held accountable because decisions are made which are not transparent to the community—or if the decision is transparent (what it is, who made it), not all the criteria are transparent, again, making the decision ultimately still non-transparent. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 14:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC on technical aspects

Since several users above and the responding developer feel the requested change would benefit from a formal consensus discussion, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Make userrights self-sufficient. –xenotalk 15:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Woah, that discusses unbundling a whole lot of different bits (not just OS/CU), making the privilege graph a LOT more complicated. I wasn't expecting that and it makes things different. I'll try to comment over there. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 22:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful if the policy theorists here (SV, Cenarium, etc.) could look at the technical RFC. I see some issues arising from it that I don't really have a handle on. I made some comments (basically "go slow") but I'm probably out of my depth there. 69.111.194.167 (talk) (was 75.57.242.120) 04:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander closed

Latest comment: 13 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion
Original announcement
Oh, hey, Arbcom has finally learnt to issue topic bans that are indefinite and broadly-interpreted across all namespaces and that-means-all-edits-that-deal-with-the-topic-even-those-made-in-articles-that-weren't-originally-about-the-topic. Hopefully topic bans will become useful tool that actually cut all disruptive edits. Instead of, you know, causing the banned editor to switch from "disruptive POV-pushing in articles and talk pages" to "disruptive wikilawyering everywhere about the scope of his ban". --Enric Naval (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I can understand its use in this instance given the incendiary nature of the topic in question, but employing what amounts to a gag order is an extreme measure and should be enacted very rarely, certainly not as a de rigeur feature. If you want to disincentivize scope-lawyering, address that directly; blocking for any mention of the topic by sanctioned parties by default in the absence of disruption is excessive, open to abuse, and would in all likelihood lead to serious chilling effects. Skomorokh 17:26, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Enric, the attempted evasion of topic bans is quite vigorously enforced at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard—at least in my experience as somebody who has been active at AE for quite some time. AGK [•] 21:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking of Captain Occam, where the vagueness of the R&I topic ban caused a total of six AE requests: one, two, three, four, five, six. And I am not going to hunt for the requests for clarifications (there was more than one?), the discussions in AN/ANI, in user talk pages, etc. Maybe I'm only noticing the exceptional cases, and in reality most cases are dealt with swiftly and without drama? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:18, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
It is an unfortunate truth that we take more notice of the poorly-handled cases than the well-handled ones. But in my experience, almost all requests are actioned sensibly and with minimal weight given to wikilawyering respondents. I may be wrong, of course! I do however certainly think that the pool of administrators currently keeping AE ticked over are level-headed, sound folks who deal with topic ban complaints well—although there admittedly is quite a diverse, and interesting, range of approaches from sysop to sysop. AGK [•] 22:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I have deep doubts about topic bans generally, but if we choose to enact them they need to be broad and concrete. The value of making topic bans narrow lies more in congratulating ourselves for our judgement and beneficence than it does creating a useful and persistent restriction. Protonk (talk) 19:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Does the recent "Race and Intelligence" ruling mean that if a regular editor at Israel-related topics accuses another editor of anti-Semitism, as happened to me once, they can be taken to the ArbCom enforcement board? Cla68 (talk) 23:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi Cla, I think we're not going to get into hypotheticals, and instead ask the parties to use their best judgement and consider the discretionary sanctions carefully. We're not going to be looking to pound a square peg in a round hole. SirFozzie (talk) 23:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
No problem. Hopefully, something like that won't happen again so no one will have to try to figure out what to do about it. Cla68 (talk) 00:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Happy-melon Oversight resignation

Original announcement

Checkuser practice regarding the association of IP addresses to accounts

Latest comment: 13 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
Original announcement

It would seem to me that the IP address of a user would qualify as personally identifiable information (privacy policy: "contributor's IP address, and [...] other personal information"), and should only be released under the circumstances underlined here by the privacy policy. It is therefore perhaps incorrect to state that the "practice of declining to publicly link such activities to an account is merely a tradition" (emphasis added). Under some circumstances it is acceptable to link a user account to an IP (e.g. if it's necessary as part of an SPI), however, there are plenty of other cases where doing so would be a violation of privacy, not just a breach of tradition. SpitfireTally-ho! 13:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

"… declining to publicly link such activities to an account is merely a tradition, …" (emphasis mine) – such activities refers to the sentences before, which qualifies them as certain disruptive behaviors that are considered valid reasons per privacy policy.
The tradition is that CUs generally try to avoid linking IPs with named accounts publicly and explicitly even if the privacy policy would allow to do so, and instead often handle them through quiet blocks (by themselves or by proxy). Amalthea 14:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
I fully concur with your second paragraph, and I am confident that the checkusers on the English wikipedia, yourself included, are highly professional and very aware of privacy (I was somewhat aware of the circumstances of the report that this notice pertains to, and I personally did not see cause for concern). As for your first point, rereading the notice it is clearer that each sentence leads on to the next, and that it only suggests that CU discretion may be exerted within the bounds of the privacy policy; must have been half asleep when I first read it. Apologies for the hassle, kindest regards, SpitfireTally-ho! 19:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Surely CUs (if they don't already) should consider what information can be gained by looking up an IP. For example, if you CU'd me, you'd see I edit from an 86... IP. A knowledgable person can tell from the first two digits who my ISP is and in which country I reside, but that's the extent of useful information you'll find from WHOIS etc, so I'd have no issues (on privacy grounds) with my IP being public knowledge, but if somebody edits from work or an educational institution, revealing their IP could very easily reveal where they work or are educated, which is a little more personal than knowing that my ISP is BT. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    You are correct; I've seen many instances of CUs taking into account how much information can be determined by revealing the IP, and this being part of their decision making process. Several times the CU has issued a trout slap by telling the offender (either publicly or privately) what sort of information the CU could reveal: an unveiled threat that should the disruption continue, the CU wont be so circumspect next time as policy doesn't constrain them. At least then they have been forewarned. John Vandenberg (chat) 08:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I find it somewhat odd that we have now been told by the Audit Subcommittee that we are allowed to reveal IPs (where allowed by the privacy policy, of course), but we were previously told by the Audit Subcommittee that we should avoid even revealing a person's ISP (which is by definition less personally identifying than their IP). So which is it? Are we to ignore the previous directive? --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 13:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Deskana, didn't recognise your new signature since it's just a bunch of boxes on my computer. The point that is being made here is that disruptive editors cannot log out to hide behind the privacy policy in order to perpetrate their disruption; there is a specific exclusion in the policy that states that information can be released to protect projects. This does not mean that the IP address(es) of every disruptive user will be confirmed; in almost all cases, CheckUsers will have no reason to directly link the IP with the user, or the user's action will make it obvious that the two are connected. Risker (talk) 23:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the clarification. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 07:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling closed

Latest comment: 13 years ago56 comments21 people in discussion
Original announcement

As the administrator submitting the request for arbitration, and as one who has spent countless hours helping with arbitration enforcement, I am very disappointed with the decision. The bottom line, as far as I can tell, is that the Committee is simply not interested in having its decisions enforced effectively, and is not interested in administrators doing their job, that is, preventing the disruption of a collegial and civil editing environment in particularly designated sensitive topic areas.

Even though the decision tells us that AE actions may not be unilaterally overturned, its practical effect is the opposite. That's because if admin A were now to decide on a whim to undo admin B's AE action (because A is certain that their judgment is obviously better than B's), B will not do anything about this, if they have any sense at all. Because doing so, if this case is any indication, will mean that B will have to waste two months of their time to pursue a full arbitration case (which few people have the stomach for in any case), and that after two month of stress, nothing of any consequence happens thanks to A's facile apology at the very outset of the case, while all of B's own minor mistakes are leisurely scrutinized for two months. And then, of course, C comes along and undoes another AE action of B, who then has the option to do nothing or to start the two months cycle all over again.

A clearly communicated rule that is not enforced is not taken seriously, and neither are the people who make the rule. The decision purports to recognize that "the Arbitration Committee appreciates the work performed by [AE] administrators, without whom long-term remedies imposed in our decisions would be meaningless", but does not acknowledge that this (non-)decision has made these decisions substantially more meaningless. Without support from the Committee, administrators cannot give meaning to these decisions. And by support I do not mean blind support of admin actions – these can be just as mistaken as anyone else's, which is why there is an appeals process – but the clear and predictable enforcement of an orderly procedural framework, without which no useful work at all can be done in an atmosphere characterized by, to quote the decision, "bitter long-term editing disputes and involving intractable and strongly opinionated editors". By not enforcing their own procedural rules, the Committee sends the message that they do not value or intend to support the volunteer work done by AE administrators on their behalf. Consequently, as I have already said during the case, I conclude that AE work under this Committee is a waste of time, and will no longer process AE requests. I may still use discretionary sanctions as a matter of convenience to deal with disruption I happen to come across, mainly because they allow for solutions other than blocks, but I am no longer under any illusions as to their authority.

Even apart from the outcome, the case was not handled competently. Most of the Committee's activity, such as it was, was devoted to drafting elaborate rules for AE, which may even be useful, but would have been more easily developed as codified procedure outside the context of a case. It would have been much better if the Committee had rapidly resolved this incident by motion, desysopping or in some other way substantially sanctioning the administrator who had held their current rules in open contempt, and then they could have worked on new rules at their leisure. The period of two months from the request for arbitration to the final decision, in a case whose facts consisted of a mere handful of edits, adds to my general impression of a body dominated by sloth, factionalism, or both. Three "active" arbitrators – Cool Hand Luke, Elen of the Roads and Iridescent – even took the liberty to simply ignore the case, even though they were otherwise active on Wikipedia. The fact that Ludwigs2 is now both "cautioned" and "reminded" (both of which remedies are of course equally pointless) makes the remedies appear even more random and meaningless. Additionally, because the scope of the case was never made clear, the participants in the underlying pseudoscience-related feuds happily junked up the case pages with what must be megabytes of irrelevant petty insults aimed at one another, without little if any intervention from clerks or arbitrators. The Committee therefore kindly provided a forum for just the kind of disruption that the decision I attempted to enforce was intended to prevent.

I deeply regret that the many individually competent people on the Committee have, in this instance, not met by far the expectations I (and probably others) had in them as a body.  Sandstein  22:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you disagree so strongly with the Committee's decision in this matter, but you can have the consolation that your input throughout the case was carefully considered. What happened here was that you imposed an arbitration-enforcement sanction, and it was reversed by another administrator based on comments by several editors who disagreed with your sanction, coupled with the other admin's own view of the situation. This, as we have reaffirmed, was not a sufficient basis for overturning an AE sanction, which we have emphasized requires a consensus of uninvolved administrators, not a few passing comments on a noticeboard. But I thought, and my colleagues agreed, that we had sufficiently emphasized the point that AE sanctions may not be overturned unilaterally by obtaining an assurance that the administrator in question would not repeat his action (which he has not), by admonishing him, and by reaffirming the principle.
I understand your belief that only a desysopping would have been a sufficient response, but I don't agree with you that the way we have responded devalues the work of administrators on AE, nor that it will encourage a raft of unilateral overturnings (it's been several weeks since it became pretty clear that this case would end without a desysopping, and I don't see that our forebearance has had any negative effects at all). In that context, I thought that desysopping Dreadstar for a single, now acknowledged mistake would have been an overreaction that would have deprived the project of a competent, active administrator while yielding only a symbolic benefit that very few editors, other than yourself, seem to have believed was necessary.
With regard to the scope of the case, it sometimes is quite difficult to determine precisely what the scope of a decision will be until the evidence is finished. You are probably right, however, that we could have done a better job of defining the parameters of what subjects were likely to be considered, at some stage of the proceedings.
I do agree that the case took longer than it should have to be resolved. We are making concerted efforts to move cases more quickly. One issue here was that the decision was literally written "by committee," with several different arbitrators contributing portions. I think recent experiences are leading me to the conclusion that a single strong lead drafter is needed for efficiency's sake in most cases, although of course that does not mean that any other arbitrator is not also free to add additional proposals.
Thanks for your candid input and for your past participation in AE. As discussed on another page recently, your plan to take a break from this area may be for the best at this point, and I look forward to seeing your work on other areas of the project. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Newyorkbrad, for your explanation, which I understand, even though I do not agree with it. Although I proposed a desyop, which I think would have been appropriate, I did also say that some other sort of tangible sanction, such as a restriction on unblocks, would equally have sufficed to send the message that the Committee takes AE seriously. But this message was not sent. Consequently, the bottom line for administrators working in AE is, your actions can now without consequence be undone on a whim and with no communication, and if you do not like this, you can spend a ridiculous two months litigating an arbitration case to arrive at the very same non-result. This is what every admin in AE now needs to be ready to repeat if they take any AE action. I'm not ready to waste another two months on this, so I'm leaving this area of admin activity. Good luck dealing with these people yourself.  Sandstein  05:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
I can't speak for Cool Hand Luke and Elen of the Roads, but I explicitly didn't take part in this case. I was inactive at the time the case opened so didn't post a formal recusal at the time, but explained the decision to the other Arbs; I felt that I'd had enough acrimonious discussions with various parties in the case, that I could reasonably be considered non-neutral by an impartial observer. – iridescent 01:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Additionally, looking at the workshop and proposed decision pages, it appears Cool Hand Luke was active for the case. It seems a party who was knocked off his pedestal is unhappy so he has started to make unjustified accusations about the people who dared to advise him to take a walk. (For example, shortly after writing the essay above, Sandstein proceeded to file a frivolous AE request against an editor who presented evidence against him during the case). Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Ncmvocalist, don't you cover ArbCom issues for the Signpost? If so, shouldn't you try to maintain some publicly reserved distance from giving opinions about cases? Cla68 (talk) 07:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee is Decadent and Depraved? Archaeo (talk) 07:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
If only... John Vandenberg (chat) 08:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure everyone (or most everyone) appreciates the Committee's clarification of best enforcement practices. Brad, I've noticed in several instances that you refer to Dreadstar's unblock as an isolated incident. Could you explain why the evidence I presented about Dreadstar's involvement in fringe topics and his prior misuse of tools in this area was apparently overlooked? In particular, I believed that Dreadstar's creation of this article and his later use of delete and revdel on said article represented, at a minimum, poor administrative judgement and a clear statement of opinion in the area of fringe topics. Skinwalker (talk) 01:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
With apologies for answering a question I was not asked, it seems reasonable to AGF here. One assumes that the evidence was not overlooked, but that ArbCom didn't agree with it, or didn't think it justified further sanctions. I notice that Dreadstar is on the list of admins open to recall if you feel that strongly about it. But it might be perceived as unseemly, if not completely out-of-process and pointy, to start that process so soon after this case closed.
I don't have any relevant comments about Sandstein's essay, but for what little it's worth, I think the committee made the right choice to show a bit of leniency to all those involved. Archaeo (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Skinwalker's evidence was archaic and unconvincing in context. BE——Critical__Talk 07:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Let's let this go, shall we? NW (Talk) 07:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for a recall here. Archaeo (talk) 07:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
(responding to Skinwalker) To be clear, I wasn't saying that the incident that led to this case was isolated in the sense of being the only questionable administrator action that Dreadstar ever took; I meant simply that it was the only instance in which he had improperly reversed an AE sanction, and I don't think anyone has disputed that. With regard to your broader evidence, I didn't think we needed to get into it to resolve this case, in part because (as noted above) many of the incidents you refer to occurred some time ago. I do hope, and expect, that Dreadstar has considered all the points you made and will bear them in mind going forward. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your response, Brad. I will drop the matter for now, but I may bring it up in the future if Dreadstar uses administrative privileges in a fringe dispute. To others, I don't think recall is a good idea at this point for a number of reasons. If you actually read my statements in the case, I never asked for or advocated a specific sanction for Dreadstar. Skinwalker (talk) 16:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Just for the record, I was I think the first Arb to support taking the case, and fully intended to take part. However an accident in the family required pretty much my full attention from 9-18 April (and was moved to inactive or should have been), and I was only at home 4 days out of seven for the following weeks. I knew I couldn't devote the time necessary to fully evaluate all the discussion, so remained inactive.Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • What a total fucking joke. Did ArbCom actually listen to a single word that wasposted in the evidence or the workshop? Because it looks to me like you couldn't be arsed to come up with proper dispute resolution and so thought you'd go for a five-minute hatchet job. Two months to change nothing? No mention of reducing discretionary sanctions, only a passing mention of the burden they place on admins and token support for the small group of admins who voluntarily devote hours of their time to cleaning up your mess? You should all be collectively ashamed of yourselves. Although my presence there will not be missed nearly as much as Sandstein's (whose loss is something AE will very quickly come to lament), I will also be parting company with arbitration enforcement and I would urge other over-worked admins to let ArbCom clean up the mess their pontificating creates. I have the utmost respect for the dozen individuals who heard this case, but they have collectively dropped the ball and I have no confidence in the ability of the current ArbCom to do what it was elected for. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
With all due respect, HJ, did you expect something else? The principles seem pretty clear on the best practices in this area, the committee promised to be clearer, etc. Anything else would've required a bit more agreement within the committee that wasn't there. Archaeo (talk) 02:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
What principles are pretty clear? Is there any statement about what would happen if another Dreadstar situation arose (first admin makes what they claim is an AE block, and second admin unblocks and declines to reblock even after the meaning and implications of an AE block are explained, and with no clear consensus for an unblock in a central discussion)? My reading of the decision is that people should try harder to be nice to everyone, however we need ArbCom to stop community bickering, not to tell us the obvious. Johnuniq (talk) 02:45, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
If they are stating the obvious, the fact that this series of missteps occurred anyway is a reflection that it is not obvious enough. All admins have therefore been put on notice; this case gives the warning/incentive to stop letting this sort of situation arise, and it also provides guidance on how to stop letting it arise (which I presume you term as 'the obvious'). That is, if it does arise, it reflects poorly on ALL involved; not just a single party. (1) When asking the Community for assistance on a given issue at a noticeboard, avoid inappropriate remarks. In the event this was not avoided sufficiently for whatever reason, then use clear communication and have the comments redacted, (which was incidentally, the step Dreadstar took immediately after the unblock - unfortunately, that happened too late in the piece, because discretionary sanctions were invoked). To avoid invoking discretionary sanctions unnecessarily, admins need to remember: (2) Discretionary sanctions must be used with caution where the Community is already dealing with the specific issue; seek input prior to applying a novel sanction or when a reasonable, uninvolved editor may question whether there is no pressing need for a given sanction. (3) Warnings and notices must be clearly communicated. (4) When actions are overturned, don't take it as a personal rebuke; learn from experience and feedback, and try to appreciate why someone felt it was necessary. When an admin is finding ways to unnecessarily escalate issues as much as possible, it is not helpful to either the Community, AC, or the project. Supposing an admin did not heed these principles and applied AE sanctions anyway, then (5) Remember that longstanding principle on reversing sanctions still applies. Supposing an admin overturned something without the requisite permission or consensus, then whatever action taken is unlikely to excuse the out of process action. Reblocking and/or desysopping would not stop bickering in this case because punitive measures are not endorsed by the Community (Newyorkbrad has also explained why desysop was not taken). At the end of the day, AE sanctions (as intended by the Committee rather than as intended by any single admin) are to supplement the Community's processes and DR; they are not to be used just because your actions are unlikely to be reversed when taken under that scheme. All of that is clear from the principles, Fofs and remedies; that's not the problem.
It is my understanding that HJM's frustration is with a situation where no formal indication has been given by ArbCom to reduce the reliance on discretionary sanctions and to come up with a more effective appeal process (particularly for short blocks). I don't think it was possible for this case to come up with such a process on the spot; that would require work outside of the case. However, only arbitrators can respond to the anticipated questions which lead on from that: Are AC going to reduce reliance on DS, and if they are, why was no formal indication given in the case? If they aren't, why not? Does AC plan on doing work on an appeals process for DS (particularly short blocks like those found in this case, and shorter ones than that), if they are, why was no formal indication given in the case (or if they are, is such a process actually going to be worked on)? If they aren't, why not? Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
If an admin makes a good faith judgment that an AE block is needed, the community or ArbCom can deal with it. Except for obvious stuff like a possibly compromised admin account issuing an AE block to Jimbo, endorsing a decision to reverse an AE block is a one-way street to bedlam. The decision appears to say that a second admin can overrule an AE block providing they issue an apology when it's all over. Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
If they could deal with it, we would neither have an unblock, a case, or a need to comment here. I think the decision says it was the totality of the circumstances which prompted this ruling; the apology was merely one of those circumstances. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
This is one of the things that gets me, the assumption that Dreadstar "got away" with his unblock only because he apologized. The decision is awfully clear: undoing an AE block is a Bad Idea. It continues to be a Bad Idea despite the fact that no one lost their bit over it this time around. I fail to see how ArbCom is "endorsing a decision to reverse an AE block," but perhaps I'm missing something. Archaeo (talk) 07:42, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
AE blocks are infrequent, and reversals of them are rare so we may never clearly see a connection between this decision and future events. Nevertheless, the precedent is now set that a second admin can decide on the weakest of grounds (a preliminary community discussion with some disquiet but no consensus to unblock) that they can overrule an AE block. A third admin reversing the unblock is almost assured of a desysop for wheel warring, but the second admin merely has to offer an apology when it's all over. People seem to be factoring in a belief that Sandstein's warning, or block, or claim of an AE block, were faulty. However, there was no emergency, and if Sandstein was in error, a consensus would have arisen to unblock, and the precedent is now established that an AE block is no different from any other (except that reversing an AE block might lead to a reminder). Johnuniq (talk) 08:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Sandstein should change the following sentence in his case request statement from "I therefore respectfully ask the Committee to take the steps it considers appropriate"
to "steps I consider appropriate" 31.166.57.231 (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • (responding to various comments above) I expected that ArbCom might show some indication that they listened to ahything that has been said in the last two months. It took me three hours to write up my comments on the evidence page and another two or three to come up with my proposed decisions in the workshop. I'm not naive enough to believe that ArbCom were going to be hanging on my every word begging to impliment my proposals, but I expected they might at least take them into consideration. If the result was going to be a bit of a bollocking for the two admins involved and no change to anything, then they should have done that two months ago.

    Allowing the names of two excellent admins to be dragged through the mud for two months while they watch from upon high is not an acceptable way to handle things. Nor is a complete failure to give more than token recognition to the admins who spend many hours of their time cleaning up ArbCom's mess and nor is allowing an admin who so clearly violated their own precious ruling to get off scot free (I'm not advocating a desysop, but something more than "oh, that wasn't great, don't do it again because if you do we'll be cross"). ArbCom have failed to take action against someone who vioalted their own ruling, they have failed miserably at resolving the dispute and they have wasted many hours of the valuable time of dozens of editors. So, given that, how can any AE admin expect their block to stand up now and how can editors have any confidence in the current ArbCom? Can I make a motion of no confidence in ArbCom? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

    • The following response is specifically limited to the part of your comment which starts from "nor is allowing an admin....". I think that by pushing a view that an admin got off scot free, you are giving a very different reason for many admins to continue staying away from AE (and it has nothing to do with whether rulings are being "violated", but everything to do with the unfortunate attitude and values that some admins who work in that area appear to have developed). ArbCom are given the same message from the Community that you as admins are given: do not impose punitive measures and do not do so to make a point. You are here to help the Community and the project in achieving its ultimate purpose; not to focus on your own purposes or priorities which can conflict with the ultimate purpose. Your work is meant to supplement, not unnecessarily disrupt, tarnish or choke. ArbCom is expected to treat each user on the basis of the evidence and the circumstances; users are not mere symbolic pawn pieces to be played or gambled or to be used to make points. Most cases, like this one, are distinct. It is only after informal and other attempts are not working that formal and increasingly blunt measures are required. Here it worked fine, because based on the evidence, circumstances and communications which were submitted, including those generally between Dreadstar and ArbCom, a reminder was the only formal thing left to do for this user. Of course, you may have some other evidence about this particular individual, or you may have decided to make an unpleasant assumption about him; that's in your court. But I don't think one is justified in saying that a dispute is resolved only after the most harshest warning to the individual is used. If you genuinely believe that you are only going to be reminded if you do something like what he did (or what 2 other admins thought was OK to ignore in the past), you have the ability to test that theory by gambling with your reconfirmation (though I would specifically not encourage it, least of all, after people have suggested it was a waste of time in your case, and generally, I have a lot of respect for what you say/do so I don't want to see you go down the wrong route). Again, making no comment on the questions about reliance on DS or appeals, which is probably the more important point which got lost in the noise again; responses to those questions might be able to sort some of this out (well, hopefully anyway). Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I hope no one minds me commenting here. HJ, one thing that I think is getting overlooked here, is that a significant part of the Committee disagrees with a fundamental part of your comment, that Sandstein's actions was a valid Arbitration Enforcement action. Coming from that direction, it follows to those people that Dreadstar's unblock was just a normal administrative action (albeit still with some controversy). I can tell you that I personally tried to read as much as I could in regards to the Evidence, Workshop, etcetera. As for your proposals, I'm all ears on how to tone down the use of Discretionary Sanctions as a panacea or cure-all, while still giving administrators and the community a way to handle problematic topic areas and editors without requiring month-long (or longer) arbitration cases constantly. I think the idea of Discretionary Sanctions are a good way to provide administrators the flexibility they need in some areas, but if there are better ideas out there, I'm certainly willing to hear them.
      • As for the idea that not sanctioning Dreadstar further will weaken the ability of AE admins to make tough decisions, as Brad said, first off, we haven't seen anything like that, and de-sysopping Dreadstar has not been on the table for quite a while... and I would personally add that while it falls short of having your mop taken away from you, I think the hubbub that happened here would in itself be a deterrent.. I think that having to go through a Arbitration Committee hearing admitting from the first that your behavior was not optimal (apologizing), and that everyone would spend the next two months calling for your (theoretical) head anyway.. I almost think an instant "Take my mop away please" would be preferred. SirFozzie (talk) 18:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
But that's presupposing that the admin whose action is reversed is feeling like initiating such a hearing in the first place and ready for "everyone [spending] the next two months calling for [their] (theoretical) head" as well. T. Canens (talk) 18:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
SirFozzie, thank you for your response, but (you knew there was going to be abut, but what precedes it is sincere) the validity or otherwise of Sandstein's action is wholly irrelevant. It couldn't have been clearer marked as being made pursuant to an active arbitration remedy (and those who read my evidence will know that I believe Sandstein's action was not a good one, regardless of its validity as an AE block). As for Dreadstar, I was among the first uninvolved editors to advocate against a desysop, but I agree with Sandstein that some sort of sanction or at least "or you will lose your bit" should have been appended to "don't do that again". What people have to bear in mind is that admins do not block editors (aside from vandals, who are fair game) lightly, and do so even less lightly under AE rules precisely because of how difficult it is to overturn an AE block. All that aside, though, what gets me hot under the collar is that you (ArbCom collectively, not you personally) took two months to come out with this non-decision. You would have wasted a lot less of people's time if you'd just declined the case or resolved it by motion. There is no excuse for this case taking as long as it did when the result is just a lot of hot air. I'll briefly address the discretionary sanctions point by saying that ArbCom should spend a few weeks enforcing its own decisions, becuase I think those of you with AE experience have forgotten what it's like "in the field", so to speak and because you will quickly realise that it's impossible for 18 very busy people to keep up with the demand. I'll just add that discretionary sanctions most certainly have their uses, but they seem to have become a substitute for, rather than a supplement to, meaningful dispute resolution, and now I'll pipe down. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Pardon me for disagreeing, HJ, but when you say "admins do not block editors [...] lightly, and do so even less lightly under AE rules" you are contradicting the evidence in this case. The block I got was useless, unnecessary, hasty, apparently punitive, and in all ways ill-considered. Not even Sandstein has argued that there was a functional purpose to it - he's focused his arguments on the technical point that it was his right to make that block at his discretion, regardless of the value of it. Good admins screw things up from time to time, that's not a problem, but I think the point of this ruling is to say that admins should not to be careless with powerful tools like AEDS in the first place (particularly when their actions are at a questionable edge of a ruling), and if they screw something up somewhere they should be sensitive and open to the fact that they erred, and not stick to their guns on technicalities till the whole durned ship sinks around them.
With respect to your other point, as I said below that's really the fault of improper rules and procedures. Let one person dump a little raw sewage into the stream, and next thing you know everyone's dumping raw sewage in, and the stream gets choked. After that, getting what you need out of the stream is an unpleasant, time-consuming task. --Ludwigs2 21:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Putting aside Ludwigs's comment, HJ, several of us made clear that only extenuating circumstances (the nature of the block and the fact that he did apologize) prevented a probable majority to remove the administrative tools, and again, many of us made clear in our statements in the workshop and the decision that if it DID happen again, we wouldn't even need a case, the removing of the tools would be by motion. It may not say that in the actual findings, but I hope that it is sufficiently clear to all. SirFozzie (talk) 21:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and dealing with one of your other points.. I think that I'm not airing any Committee dirty laundry to state that the Committee was divided on how to view (and thus, how to handle) this request. Everyone has a vision of ArbCom being a vast monolithic entity (The way it got put to me by an interested onlooker was "There is fifteen Arbitrators, but everyone assumes you speak with one voice").. when the truth of the matter is, like any other group of editors, there's no groupthink (at risk of stirring up long dead memories, ArbCom is not a hivemind). We see problems differently, we think of different solutions for problems, we have different visions for the project (in the details, at least). Sometimes we disagree with each other as to handle a case, so then we have a case decided by the committee, which in general will not please everyone, and sometimes anyone, but it's the least worst thing that we can all collectively accept. SirFozzie (talk) 21:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
@Ludwigs, I suppose what I should have said is that admins don't generally do this kind of thing lightly. I think the block that started this mess was an error in what is usally unimpeachable judgement by Sandstein. Certainly I don't make AE blocks lightly, and I've made my fair share.
@Fozzie, I can see that the Committee was divided, but you all seem to so rigidly adhere to cabinet collective responsibility that that it's difficult to know what you really think. Obviously, it's necessary to an extent so you can all have confidence in each other, but it creates the impression of a "monolitihic entity" rather than a group of human beings. Leaving aside everything else, surely you and ArbCom must acknowledge that taking two months to leave us basically back where we started is not a satisfactory outcome from anybody's perspective? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
SirFozzie, thanks for the explanation. It is very disconcerting to hear that the (non-)decision depended substantially on "part of the Committee" disagreeing that my block "was a valid Arbitration Enforcement action". This is of course an opinion that people may hold in good faith, even though I disagree with it, but it should not have affected the outcome:
  • If the AE block was ultra vires or otherwise wrong in some way, this argument should have been made in the context of an orderly appeal, as prescribed by the instant decision, and if there had been consensus that the block was an invalid AE action, it would have been undone by me, or overturned by someone else with no objection from me.
  • The bottom line now seems to be that AE blocks may be be unilaterally undone in cases where enough arbitrators happen to agree afterwards that the block was wrong (because, as here, such unblocks are not sanctioned). This is inconsistent with the instant decision, which purports to recognize that AE blocks may not be unilaterally undone. It is also inconsistent with the discretion (in the sense of independent judgment) AE administrators are supposed to exercise. Furthermore, it greatly complicates the resolution of disagreements about the block, since the question of whether the block was wrong is then automatically shifted to an arbitration case rather than to a simple appeal discussion. Finally, it introduces great uncertainty, because it makes the decision of whether or not to desysop the unblocker dependent on whether the original block is deemed correct or not, which is something that people can in good faith disagree about, rather than on the much more easily answered question of whether a block was undone without consensus.
  • Even if one were to agree that the validity of the block ought to be relevant for the purpose of the decision, the failure of the Committee to arrive at a clear decision is still a failure of leadership and organization on the part of all arbitrators. If you think that it matters whether my block was valid or not, you should have held an open vote on this issue, and then sanctioned either me (for making an invalid AE block) or Dreadstar (for overturning a valid one), depending on whether the block was deemed valid or not. What you should not have done was passing a substantially meaningless "lowest common denominator" decision merely for the sake of superficial unanimity.
  • Ultimately, the decision illustrates that "discretionary sanctions" are meaningless under this Committee, because arbitrators are unwilling, contrary to the text of the remedies, to let administrators actually exercise the discretion to determine which measures are best suited to stop disruption. Even worse, the message seems to be: go ahead, do the dirty work for us, risk your reputation, become stressed out by arguing with rabidly argumentative Truth-bearers and generally make yourself unpopular so that we won't have to (because angering so many vested contributors would compromise our chances of re-election) – but should we ever happen to disagree with what you do, we won't support you in any way, and instead we will spend two months criticizing you. Even if adopted unconsciously, this is a deceptive and thoroughly disloyal attitude on the part of the Committee, and another reason why I decline to do the dirty work for them any more.  Sandstein  23:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • While it's nice to know I'm not the only one frustrated by this decision, the validity of the block as an AE block is not something that should be litigated on at all when it comes to deciding matters related to it's reversal. Whether or not it was a valid AE block, it was marked as being pursuant to a active arbitration remedy. My understanding was that that means it's treated as an AE block until consensus says it's invalid. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
    • The problem with that (as I have pointed out numerous times) is that you're basically asserting that an admin should be able to use AEDS to block an editor for any reason whatsoever so long as s/he can somehow establish some remote connection to some arbitration case, so that the editor is question is effectively screwed - unable to edit and forced to waste time and effort going through an extended process to get the sanction removed, even if the editor did nothing really sanctionable. 3rd world police tactics extended to Wikipedia - wunnerful. The only people who would benefit by this extreme license would be admins who are intending to abuse the system; any admin who is trying to apply DS judiciously and thoughtfully would never get into a situation where there was any meaningful question about the validity of the sanction. --Ludwigs2 00:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Not my position, mate, it's ArbCom's. I've always thought it daft that one admin is not allowed to reverse what another did just because the first called it an AE block. My understanding of the Trusilver ruling and subsequent discussions, clarifications, etc is that you have to get consensus that the block was ultra vires before you can overturn it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
        • Well, then we agree it's daft. I guess the only real difference in our positions, then, is that you want to rationalize the daftness, and I just want the daftness to go away. Different roads to the same end... --Ludwigs2 03:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment on procedures

Speaking clinically for a moment, the main difficulty in this case - which is a difficulty everywhere on project, but particularly in ArbCom cases where bad feelings are already running rampant - is that there are almost no controls on discussions. Anyone in my academic field will tell you that there is a profound difference between talking and communication, and any practical, real-world venue for pubic hearings (from courtrooms to town-hall meetings to governmental hearings from the smallest town council to national congresses or parliaments) have strong and heavily enforced rules about the kinds of evidence that are considered acceptable, the kinds of statements that are proper, the kinds of behaviors that are allowable. In the US, for instance, everyone who speaks to Congress or a court is technically legally required to stay narrowly focused on the topic at hand and observe strict standards of decorum, because doing otherwise is viewed as contempt for the system itself and is potentially subject to hefty fines and jail time. Had the interaction that occurred on the case page been seen in a US courtroom, almost everyone involved would have spent a month or so in jail.

Put simply, Wikipedia allows people to run on at the mouth, and it destroys the discussion process. People just aren't good at formal communication. Left to their own devices, most people in the world will:

  • indulge petty grudges
  • get indignant over about minor perceived insults
  • declaim self-righteous opinions
  • militantly oppose imagined threats
  • expose scandals, personal details, and engage in other forms of tabloid reasoning with salacious glee

And what's worse, these kinds of behaviors breed: someone indulging a petty grudge or exposing some supposed scandal will cause someone else to register an indignant complaint, which will lead to self-righteous claims on both sides, which will mobilize outsiders who see the conflict as a threat to their positions... We need structures to keep ourselves in line, because so very few of us have the capacity to keep ourselves in line by ourselves, and if we are just allowed to talk our own emotional incontinence will never allow us to actually communicate effectively or meaningfully.

If you want my advice, ArbCom needs to seriously tighten procedures. That would mean (at least in part):

  • creating clear rules of evidence, so that people aren't allowed to say any old thing that comes into their head.
    • basically limit people to strict relevance, narrowly defined, and prevent fishing expeditions int unrelated areas
  • creating an 'evidence introduction' process
    • editors are required to formally request that a particular line of discussion be introduced into evidence before presenting anything on it, giving arbiters the opportunity to deny or limit what gets said before it gets poured all over the page and stirs up trouble
  • establishing clear and stringent rules of decorum
    • in AC cases it's better to err on the side of over-enforcing politeness, even if it constricts freedom of speech
  • giving the clerks the right and responsibility of redacting improperly presented evidence and behavior that doesn't conform to standards of decorum, and seeing to it that they do so diligently, fairly, and evenly.
    • of course this would mean that there would have to be an appeals process as well, where people could request that their comment (or a modified version) be reinstated.

Had this kind of tightened procedure been in place prior to this particular case, more than half of the evidence would never have been entered into evidence because it was so thoroughly off the topics that the committee wanted to deal with; 80% of the material on the workshop and talk page would have been redacted by the clerks because it failed rules of evidence or decorum; tremendous amounts of bruised egos and bad feelings would have been avoided; and people would be much more satisfied with the ruling because they never would have been under the delusion that their emotional venting might be taken seriously by the committee.

If the committee works out these kinds of tightened procedures, they will find that AC cases progress far more smoothly, far more civilly, and far more quickly than they currently do, with far less negative fallout at the end. It requires more effort at the front of a case of course, from ruling on the applicability of particular lines of evidence, and will increase the workload on clerks as they monitor discussions more heavily. But if the rules are defined clearly, the extra effort should be minimal, and the result will be greater peace of mind for the participants, quicker and cleaner discussions, and greater respectability for the process. --Ludwigs2 14:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This is good, especially the "evidence introduction" part. BE——Critical__Talk 18:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Effectively replacing inter-party sniping/conflict etc. with the clerk-party equivalent would come with its own friction. The largely pugnacious sort of Wikipedians who end up in arbitration don't react well to perceived busybodies[a] telling them their input is unacceptable, as the free-flowing nature of discussion in the rest of the project has created a cultural expectation of the right to speak one's mind. The existing regime has already seen significant conflict between clerks and parties (Climate change, anyone?), and this would likely be amplified. I expect a narrative of ArbCom as a discerning elitist body which will hear only what it wants to hear[a] would quickly come to the fore. Relevance of evidence aside, more stringent standards of "decorum" would in all likliehood be highly contentious, given the widespread contempt of the civlity policy as it stands.
Having said that, I do think the basic contention that the culture of arbitration pages can and should be changed is valid. The move from more-or-less free-for-all aticle talkpages to ones where comments will routinely and without substantial opposition be removed on grounds of WP:FORUM and WP:BLP show this is possible, although I expect it would be more difficult in this case. A more muscular (and numerous) clerk presence, where parties are given notice to refactor irrelevant evidence as well as overly-long statements (as is the case now) could work. It's worth documenting expected standards of behaviour and trying out their enforcement in some of the more minor cases to come before the Committee in future.
I would also recommend making clear what the Committee wishes to investigate when it accepts a case, so as to discourage contributions on irrelevant topics. Granted, hints are given in the accepted list of parties and the name adopted, but I'd say there were more than a few editors surprised that this particular case focused almost entirely on Sandstein/Dreadstar and not Ludwigs2/QuackGuru.
^ Not my perceptions, you understand. Skomorokh 18:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
I utterly disagree with "in AC cases it's better to err on the side of over-enforcing politeness, even if it constricts freedom of speech". AC cases are exactly where we should be giving people the benefit of the doubt unless they're clearly intending to be offensive. Wikipedia editors don't come from a single cultural background; what seems a polite formality to one editor can seem to be abusive passive-aggressiveness to another, what seems necessary bluntness to one editor can seem a personal attack to another, what seems a friendly attempt to lighten the mood to one editor can seem a vicious belittling of beliefs or culture to another. – iridescent 18:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
There was extensive discussion on the clerks' mailing list a couple of months ago about the limitations on the role of the clerks. We had been asked by an arbitrator to vet some evidence for suitability and relevance to the locus of the dispute, but I, and most of the other clerks, were distinctly uncomfortable with being asked to do so. (There was then general agreement with the argument that the request in question would be outside of the scope of the clerks' role, and I think that the full implications of the request were perhaps not realised at the beginning of the discussion. That is to say, I don't think that there was some attempt at subverting the limitations on the role of the clerks.) The role of the clerks is precisely clerical. Enforcing conduct standards is perhaps the most adventurous thing we do today. It may be that, as a clerk who joined the office some years ago and under a very different Committee, I am a little 'old-fashioned' in my views; but I would not accept any evidence-vetting by the clerks. A sounder model might be forming another sub-committee, or another internal team, to vet evidence. AGK [•] 20:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Rather than bothering with new subcommittees or internal teams, wouldn't it be much more expedient to simply ask the committee to guide the process a bit more than they've generally done in the past? This case didn't occur in a vacuum; once someone is listed as a party to an arbitration, the knives come out, always. Perhaps it might work better to flip things around. Have an initial voting round where the committee decides what the scope of the case will be, with principles, and then ask the parties to show evidence related to those principles?
Of course, like I mentioned in the case pages, just as the Enforcement case wasn't going to "solve" AE, I doubt we're going to "solve" ArbCom here, either. Of course, it's amusing to think that anyone will fix it at all; if the committee changes its process by fiat, there'll be a riot, while if we wait for an RfC to finish that describes a new process, well, by then, I might have enough edits to run for ArbCom myself. Archaeo (talk) 20:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
The one clerk active on the case did a fine job. ArbCom cases are primarily about conduct, so Iridescent's remarks are very relevant. If ArbCom had indicated earlier that there was no interest in discussing QuackGuru or any related issues, that would have considerably shortened the case (and some of the case pages). The Noleander case, in comparison, was expertly managed and quickly dispatched; there was surprisingly little ill-feeling between those presenting evidence from differing points of view. Mathsci (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that it is generally not possible to determine a priori whether some avenues of inquiries will end up being relevant or not before the extent of the evidence is seen. — Coren (talk) 22:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
Hey, while you're here, I'm curious as to why QuackGuru wasn't addressed. Was it because the committee thinks he doesn't need addressing, or was there some other reason? BE——Critical__Talk 00:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm.... well, I want to make it clear that I'm not indulging in whimsical thinking here: every deliberative body that deals with significant public input, everywhere in the world, has rules of this sort. Some do it better, some do it worse, but they all do it because they have to do it. Can you imagine what would happen at the US Supreme Court if they allowed random citizens to stand up and say whatever came to their mind at whatever length they desired? Let's see them tackle an abortion ruling under those conditions... Wikipedia can no longer afford to act like it's still a small group of computer geeks puttering away in some unseen corner of the internet; The project has to adapt to the fact that it has global scope, and that means growing up a bit and making respectable institutions that keep things on an even keel.

A large part of the respect and dignity of a deliberative body comes from the fact that limitations are placed on speech and behavior. When I look over the case and read the masses of irrelevant vituperative tripe that got passed of as meaningful discussion (some of which I passed off as meaningful myself, sad to say), the first thought that comes into my head is (no offense to anyone) "What's wrong with these [...] arbs that they would allow this kind of bull to go on under their very noses?" Yes, people will get annoyed if you tell them that they cannot say something that they *want* to say (because everyone believes that what they *want* to say is oh-so-desperately important, always), but in general people cope with strong-but-fair restrictions far better than they cope with open mic night at the crap-fest.

Again, the purpose here would be for arbiters to preclude material that they (and common sense) determine is off-topic, inappropriate, unnecessary, and/or just plain pointlessly crapulent. Everyone will obviously have the opportunity to make a case for being heard - e.g. "I think it's important I talk about X because..." - but it should be the Arbiters' prerogative to say that it is not important and preclude it. Everyone will obviously be entitled to make necessary criticisms of other editors as they arise relevant to the case, but it should be the Arbiters' prerogative to determine what is and isn't relevant and where valid criticism should be blue-penciled out so it doesn't inflame tempers and start to reflect badly on the system as a whole. Remember, polisci 101: placing restrictions on what people can do is the only way to ensure people have real freedom. Free speech is worse than meaningless if people decide it means they have an inalienable right to continuously shout profanities at the top of their lungs. --Ludwigs2 02:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought Wikipedia is on the down side of the editing and editorship curve, so that if WP survived where it was 3 years ago it can survive indefinitely without doing much different? It seems like wikis are out of favor in general, and WP is no longer a very happening place. LOL :P What you say may be true if WP is growing or somehow changing in a way which would make it more necessary to have rules... BE——Critical__Talk 03:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
lol - well, the 'everyone' was poetic license. I'm sure enough people read it to be, err... - annoyed, dismayed, repulsed; what is the correct word here? - by it, and hope that many people had enough common sense to ignore it completely. The point is that they should never have been put in the position of having to ignore it in the first place.
with respect to the other point: Wikipedia may be growing or shrinking (I don't know, and don't care much), but the point is that it is so far outside of the 'small, homogeneous, easy to navigate community' realm that acting as though that were still the case is borderline delusional. Now it may be that Wikipedia is headed down the path where it will become just another usenet-style site (where each individual dons his/her helm of self-righteousness and sword of petulance and sallies forth to do meaningless battle with the forces of perspectival darkness and ignorance - essentially World of Warcraft without the graphics, and where no one thinks it's a game). But one hopes that's not the case, and if Wikipedia is to avoid that fate it needs to set itself above and beyond that kind of behavior. I'm not making a judgement, mind you, I'm just noting (as a professional in this particular discipline) that the project is sooner or later going to have to choose to manifest and institutionalize its own ideals, because if it doesn't do so its ideals won't be worth spit, and the choice will be made for it by people who could care less about ideals. I dislike Hobbes on principle, but one thing that Hobbes was quite correct about is that in the absence of defined structures people are worse than animals, because animals have natural self-restraint.
take it as you will. I'm fascinated by the potential inherent in Wikipedia for a really properly liberal-democratic system, but in the long run if it decays I'll shrug and see if I can get a few published papers out of it. --Ludwigs2 05:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
True that. I'm not sure what you mean by liberal-democratic, WP is already a monarchy with elements of representative democracy, bureaucracy, and gangs/mobs. BE——Critical__Talk 18:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
wp:CONSENSUS, wp:NPOV, and wp:CIV are liberal-democratic ideals. The first implies equal footing in decision making for all, the second reaches for balanced, multi-positional relativism, and the third largely revolves around mutual respect. It's not a monarchy of any sort because there's no sovereign. As I said, it's a tribal system: a loosely organized collectivity, where individual members are largely independent within kith and clan groups of various strength, and which has a weak decentralized authority structure administered by knowledgable, trusted elders (who operate largely independently, but adhere to a common passed-down ideology). --Ludwigs2 21:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Very astute, though you're missing (IMO) the very strong flavor of Chinese scholar-official bureaucracy that permeates much of our process (in principle, administrators are mandarins selected on merit through an examination and higher functionaries taken from their ranks as experience and skill warrant). I actually had a talk on that subject in Gdańsk.  :-) — Coren (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm... If there's a transcript of that talk or paper associated with it could you post a link? I'd be interested in taking a look at it. It may just be my relative inexperience with procedures, but I have a hard time seeing the mandarinism. As best I can tell, admins are chosen through a combination of experiential acumen and popular approval (i.e. they've been around for a while, learned the practice and the philosophy primarily by digging in and participating rather than by studying, and earned respect from a broad range of others in the process); that fits better in my mind with a tribal modality than a more sophisticated bureaucracy. Plus -pragmatically - in a real mandarin-style bureaucracy the political tactics I consistently see used on project wouldn't work; there'd be an entirely different set of political games in play. Although, I suppose that given the nature of the project as an encyclopedia, there's a natural scholarship link; people with scholarly interests are more likely to participate and more likely to want to be admins...
Eh, dunno if we want to get sucked into this kind of political maundering here, much as I enjoy it.   --Ludwigs2 23:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


Why doesn't Jimbo count as a monarch? He can ban anyone unilaterally. What about the board of directors? BE——Critical__Talk 00:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Russavia-Biophys

Original announcement

Committee procedures relating to Ban appeals and to Discretionary sanctions

Latest comment: 13 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Original announcement

The following pages should perhaps be updated with or cross-referenced to the new measures:

Cheers, Skomorokh 13:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The last page is not in use. The top page is cross-referenced from the actual procedure. The middle one also should be updated, yeah… ;) AGK [•] 13:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
1) Then it and its associates should probably be dispensed with or tagged as such
2) Needs to be clear from the other end too; the "Discretionary sanctions" page should have or at least link to all the relevant info on its topic
3) And that's why we have clerks!
Seriously, AC procedures are intricate and spread over enough pages as is, the least that can be done for the despairing searcher is to make it consistent and signposted. Appreciate your work, Skomorokh 13:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I've rewritten Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions to ensure that all the pages relating to discretionary sanctions are tied up in one place. Things are a now lot less confusing and disparate with the current iteration of the page. Could you take a look and see if that's better, and indicate what else would be helpful? Note that I've asked Roger Davies to check my work to ensure that it's agreeable and I'm waiting on him getting back to me, so things aren't finalised yet. AGK [•] 18:45, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Changes in Checkuser/Oversight Personnel

Latest comment: 13 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion
Original announcement
my bad, see comment belowI don't really want a make too big of a deal about this, but isn't there another OS user who got in at the same time I did who has never used the tool? OS is something to be used, not put on the trophy shelf. Such a user can still peep at suppressed sensitive information despite not contributing anything to the team. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Who do you mean? Jafeluv (talk) 08:19, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I presume he was talking about Phantomsteve, who has since then, requested for his OS bit to be removed. He is no longer an oversighter. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Rolling six month statistics are available here, if it isn't Phantomsteve. NW (Talk) 10:44, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I don't think Beeblebrox was referring to me for two reasons - firstly, I am in the announcement which 'brox was responding to, secondly I may not have used the tool much (hence why I have requested the removal of the OS flag before the OP by 'brox, because work and family commitments have reduced my usage of Wikipedia in general, and OS in particular) but I *have* used it a few times. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Might have been me - I am quite sheepish about the fact that for various reasons I was inactive with the tool until early March of this year. As with the cratstats though, I find these to be rather misleading - in both cases, (especially with the Crat tools) I make rather a lot of responses that don't use any tool, for every one that does. --Dweller (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I should have double-checked before posting that, the person I referred to didn't use it for several months after being granted access, but they have began using it recently. Sorry for th confusion, never mind.--Beeblebrox (talk • contribs) 20:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

New procedure for quorum for urgent resolutions

Original announcement

Updated procedure for handling ban appeals

Latest comment: 13 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Original announcement

I notice that there is no requirement in the procedure for the Committee or Subcommittee to inform the appellant of anything unless the appeal is summarily rejected for frivolity or groundlessness. Obviously it is common sense that the user be informed of other outcomes when they are decided, and so not listing it here is not the end of the world. I would though have expected that in the event of the Subcommittee requiring an extended period of time to decide on a recommendation that both the user and the Committee be informed of this, rather than just the latter. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

  • No doubt this is an unfair comment that doesn't adequately take into account everything else ArbCom does, but somebody has to say it. ArbCom seems to be spending a lot of time and effort in adjusting its procedures and policies to its liking and yet when it's asked to resolve a dispute, it seems to take forever. To take a look at cases handled by the current ArbCom, we have three new sets of discretionary sanctions, which is really passing the buck to admins; we have AE sanction handling, which wasted lots of people's time to produce a result that is essentially meaningless; and now we have the Racepacket case, something that needs to be addressed quickly, in its third week and apparently due to take another two. It's not my place to tell the arbs how to spend their collective time, but if it was, I would suggest they focus more on resolving disputes (which is what they were elected for) and less time making meaningless rulings about procedures the majority of people really couldn't care less about. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Better procedures make for better case handling in the long run, and it is not clear that the two are mutually exclusive in the short. I for one am glad to see the Committee thinking critically about putting its house in order. Skomorokh 10:40, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
  • HJ Mitchell: That's a very valid point. But, per Skomorokh, I don't think these general improvements to internal procedures are valueless (even if they do use up time that might be better spent doing other things). ArbCom is free to at any time update its internal procedures (and perhaps next, passing that bloomin' updated policy draft that's been languishing for years!). I for one would rather it did so now, when there isn't a terribly large workload, than later in the year, when perhaps things might get far busier. AGK [•] 20:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding hyphens and dashes

Latest comment: 13 years ago21 comments12 people in discussion
Original announcement

Motion 2 is quite possibly the worst-worded motion I have yet seen from ArbCom. "Interested parties are instructed..."?? Seriously, people... Looie496 (talk) 21:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

(To clarify the point, ArbCom has a number of powers, but instructing editors on how to spend their time is not one of them.) Looie496 (talk) 22:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
I wrote it - yes, looking back, several other verbs might have been better - e.g. "urged", "exhorted", "requested", "beseeched/besought". Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:59, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Was that correct hyphenage? Killiondude (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I do not intend to insult Cas, but it took all of my willpower to not re-write the text of the actual motions when I was copying them over to WP:AC/N for announcement :). I felt as though the wording needed to be more crisp, and further was also, per Looie496, rather questionable. The motions will serve their purpose, though, so it's not worth dwelling on! AGK [•] 20:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Meh, we have our bad days :/ Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
  • It's nice to have something with teeth to put an end to this nonsesnse. It would have been nice to have something specific detailing what admins can do to enforce the motion, but I guess we'll have to sort that one out when someone appeals a sanction. Speaking of which, if I make a block in accordance with this remedy, is it an AE block (and thus subject to appeal at AE, with no single admin allowed to overturn it) or can it be appealed like a "normal" block? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Is WT:MOS#RfC: simple resolution to disagreements over dashes and the subsequent discussion over many sections what ArbCom has in mind? If not, what would be, and would ArbCom mind indicating a model? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not particularly concerned whether this is settled by (a) a long rambling discussion in which you all thrash out something you can all live with; (b) an RFA style semi-headcount; (c) a formal Ireland/Republic of Ireland/Ireland (state)  style Alternative Vote on all the various options; (d) the toss of a coin or (e) some other process. If you can come up with a process with which you can all agree will produce a fair result, then all's well and good and said process will run for all of June and half of July. If that doesn't work, then this clause gets dusted off and we get a rerun of Date Delinking which will last until September. Come September the two-year moratorium on moving Republic of Ireland expires, so I personally would really hope the Great Endash Debate will be resolved one way or another before then. – iridescent 20:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
  • My reading of the first motion is that no editors are currently allowed (for lack of a better word) to make any moves involving a hyphen or dash. For example, am I no longer permitted to move an article from 2010-11 random sports team/league season to 2010–11 random sports team/league season? As I understand it, and perhaps PMAnderson will be able to correct me if I'm wrong, moves like this have never been in dispute. Please advise, Jenks24 (talk) 21:03, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
    FWIW, there's solid support in style guides of all flavors for en-dashes between numbers, indicating a range, and I haven't personally noticed any disagreement over this (but I haven't gone looking, either). - Dank (push to talk) 21:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
    I tend to agree with Dank's claim; but there is a minority which would settle the matter here by throwing out the endash altogether (as a non-keyboard character), which is only slightly smaller than the minority in favor of the present text of MOS. I don't belong to them, but why can't this wait? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
    To answer "why can't this wait"? I certainly won't be moving an article like that until this whole issue has been resolved. I guess the real point of my question was that a lot of people to do not watch the MoS page or the ArbCom page and therefore won't know that moves involving dashes/hyphens have become controversial. It would hardly seem fair for someone to cop an arbitration enforcement block for something they have been doing uncontroversially for years. While I'm here, I'll also ask should complying with MOS:DASH be removed as a criteria at WP:CFDS, and what should be done about this RM? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 21:38, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
    I type subject to correction, but in my opinion:
    • AE should certainly warn (and revert) anybody who hasn't commented on the Arbitration Request - and most of those who have, who may not know the motion passed.
    • The CSFD language should be removed. That suggestion is controversial; even if the present language of MOS were to become consensus, there would still be disagreement on whether it meant that example.
    • The RM has been been notified (and I hold that a colon is preferable to either dash or hyphen). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Poor wording is forgiveable. I appreciate how difficult it must have been to draft a motion that is fair to both sides, whilst also achieving the primary objective of minimising disruption to the mainspace. But "proactive" enforcement of decision 1. will make endash usage controversial in areas where it previously was not.

In the area I spend most of my time in (sports), proactive enforcement would most likely polarise people who previously only did this work in the interests of internal consistency. Not least in football, where large numbers of related articles in the XXXX–YY format are created annually. I'm sure even advocates of total removal of the endash from wikipedia would concede that year ranges are a black-and-white area, and that the final solution for year ranges should be universal. I would therefore request that this motion is amended to make a qualified exception for year ranges (what "qualifications" are necessary would be entirely down to the committee, I don't know the ins and outs of this case). —WFC— 23:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I suggest for people that this is an all-consuming fever, I'd look at the reaction from neutral people in the ArbCom Report at the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-05-16/Arbitration_report. SirFozzie (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
I hope that the issue itself is not an all-consuming fever. But whether for simplicity, due to oversight, or simply down to twelve elected people having an off day simultaneously, this motion makes a pretty good attempt at giving what should be a non-issue traction.
Sorry if the following paragraph is a little TL;DR. And before I sink my claws in further, I acknowledge that Arbcom was right to step in. Arbcom's raison d'être is to safeguard the project; prolonged, uncivil edit warring falls within that remit, however petty the root cause.
Given that, the purpose of this motion should be to prevent edit-warring on dashes/hyphens where the Manual of Style could be considered unclear. If part of the aim was to send out a message that escalation will not be tolerated, a broader 1RR rule on all dash-related edits would probably have done the trick. Article titles are an area that should be clamped down on hardest, granted, but that can easily be achieved by having a more severe penalty for article name related disruption. As far as I can see, Arbcom has not taken any action outside of article titles, yet on article titles it has gone far beyond that. Furthermore, it asks admins to proactively enforce it; a red rag to wolves who would take any opportunity to cry for help. In its current form, this will most likely shift the dispute from article titles to article text. Meanwhile, Wikiprojects that have reached clear consensus on dashes are mandated to leave inconsistency be until those entrenched in the issue resolve their differences. Editors who like to make use of page moving as a quick way of creating redirects can no longer do it.
As a final point, I disagree with Looie. I'm normally against Arbcom flexing its muscle, but applaud you guys for having the cohones to tell involved parties that the Manual of Style needs sorting out. But bear in mind that the interim measures are hitting hardest the very people who would implement any change to the MoS. —WFC— 01:22, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I understand that the arbitrators have limited time (and, for all I know, this may not be the correct venue), but I, for one, would really appreciate it if an arb (or indeed more than one arb) could answer WFCforLife's questions and my own questions. It would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 00:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out exactly what WFCforLife's questions are - yes I guess a broader 1RR on anything dash-related would (in hindsight) have been simpler. I was thinking in terms of the Request for Arbitration and hence the motions were a response to it, rather than broadening it. Ideally, if we get some broad input at a discussion page nutting out where/how we use each horizontal line, it'd be great if we got consensus broadly on a range of issues. I must say I was struck at how productive some of the discussion seemed to be a few days ago. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

PMAnderson as kindly set up the subpage at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/dash drafting with each possible segment of usage split to be voted on individually. Strictly speaking no-one need vote yet for another 12 or 13 days, but voicing opinion now is not a huge problem. Can folks ensure we have covered every bone of contention? Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Updated procedure for Committee resolutions

Latest comment: 13 years ago9 comments4 people in discussion
Original announcement
I don't see anything in this procedure calling for discussions concerning resolutions to be held in public unless there's a specific reason for privacy. Does the ArbCom lack a forum in which they can discuss resolutions without other editors interrupting? If not, why hold deliberations in secret if there are no privacy concerns?   Will Beback  talk  12:20, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
crickets
OK, I acknowledge that no one else is interested in having the ArbCom conduct routine business in the open. I won't bring it up again.   Will Beback  talk  12:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
The lack of response to your original comment is probably more due to the fact that that issue has been hashed to death several times in the past than because nobody is interested.

That said, the general consensus is that while openness is desirable in theory, and that as much transparency as possible is necessary, taking most day-to-day business of the committee to the open would complicate matters a great deal for no obvious benefit to either the community or the committee. Everyone does agrees that the committee should not act behind closed doors unless there are very serious privacy concerns, and that the committee should act with as much public explanation as possible—and this is where we are today. — Coren (talk) 13:08, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Every legislative committee or group finds it more convenient to conduct their business in private. Legislators routinely object to sunshine laws such as the Brown Act as unnecessary and likely to cause trouble. I am not aware of any consensus or extensive public discussion about this topic. In fact I don't see any public discussion of this procedure on resolutions (which clearly has no privacy issues) prior to its adoption. If I missed it I'd be happy to be corrected.   Will Beback  talk  23:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
My personal opinion is that you're making two unwarranted presumptions: that ArbCom is in any meaningful way comparable to the legislative arm of a government (we are not), or that laws such as those you describe do in fact have tangible benefit even on actual legislatures (I am not convinced there is evidence that they do).

What rules like this do is expose the boring day-to-day operations that aren't covert but prone to interference and misinterpretation while any misbehavior putatively done in secret would still be done in secret. The only difference is that now people would have the illusion that everything is in the open. — Coren (talk) 04:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I still can't find the consensus for this, or the lengthy hashing out which led to it, so I presume those discussions were held in private. A group that meets together to pass resolutions, some of which have the force of policy, certainly resembles a legislative body. While the committee was formed exclusively to deal with behavioral disputes, its scope has clearly broadened since then. I'm sorry you feel that exposing "the boring day-to-day operations" of the ArbCom seems like it would lead to "interference and misinterpretation". I think it would also lead to more transparency and understanding.   Will Beback  talk  19:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Will Beback, the overwhelming majority of resolutions approved by the Committee are posted onwiki. Those dealing with private or non-public personal information are not publicly posted, or posted in a manner that does not share the non-public information. Some that are of no significant consequence, such as who will be mailing list administrators or the like, aren't posted here. I hope that helps. Risker (talk) 04:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that reply, but I was addressing the issue of the discussions which lead to resolutions, not just their final texts.   Will Beback  talk  19:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
      • The Internet never forgets. Since at least one ArbCom member seems to have been using GMail to conduct ArbCom business since its inception, you can rest assured that Google knows what Arbcom thinks and how we conduct business. Should the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, I expect they will do something about that eventually. So, while there may be temporary obfuscation of the actual discussions, there is no chance they will be lost to antiquity. Jclemens (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Preliminary injunction regarding pending changes and biographies of living persons

Latest comment: 13 years ago97 comments21 people in discussion
Original announcement

And what happens, pray tell, when semi protection is not justified? One must first semi protect, then remove the semi protection? Such bureaucratic silliness arbcom, you disappoint me. A simple "Administrators shall review the possibility of applying page protection when removing pending changes protection from any article." would have done nicely. Instead we have this overreaching mandate that should be ignored. Prodego talk 16:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not a realistic proposal. For example—after protracted problems—I added indefinite level 2 PC to Carl Hewitt, in addition to indefinite semi-protection, with a view to stopping all but the most legitimate of edits. I had intended to remove PC and leave the semi in place. I certainly can't justify adding indefinite full protection. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 17:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Now I'm not an admin, I've got no ability to add/remove changes, and have little to risk here, but my interpretation is that admins should be expected to use common sense here. The way I read this, if a page had PC with 37 days left on it before expiring on an article, the new protection should be 37 days. Moreover, pending changes, like protections, are subject to reevaluation by and admin at any time, with possible outcomes including shortening the time a protection is applied and removing the protection all together, (especially if the admin that placed the protection no longer sees it as necessary). This injunction dosen't change this. It states that when PC goes down, protection of other means goes up, but says nothing about what is done to that protection afterwards. If someone really is worried here, a request for clarification should be filed, asking about the terms of these new protections. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:18, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Well perhaps we're reading it and seeing different things, but, to me, Any administrator who removes pending changes protection from any article flagged as a biography of a living person shall replace level 1 pending changes with semi-protection of an equivalent duration sounds like I am obliged to semi-portect a BLP if I remove PC from it (which admins are obliged to do by the closure pof the RfC). That's re-writing the protection policy, which is ultra vires. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Read the comments by the voting arbs. A majority of the voters, Jclemens, John Vandenberg, Risker, Kirill, and Coren all mention in one way or another that this is a stopgap and does not impede the normal process of removing unneeded protections. The point here is not to leave articles hanging when they need protection; to prevent a less than thoughtful admin from performing an en-masse removal and in so doing leaving vulnerable articles where some protection is needed.
If you want to remove PC, replace it with the prescribed protection, and then remove that prescribed protection, all in the span of three seconds, with an edit summary expressing that no protection of any type is needed anymore, you've done your due diligence in assessing the threat posted by removing protection. There should not be any problem with you doing that. Sure the extra step is a pain, but if it calms the worries of a large group of people, suck it up and make the extra two mouse clicks. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
That's beyond ArbCom's power. Protection is added, removed or modifed in accordnace with the protection policy at the discretion of the admin or as a result of an RfPP request. That can't be changed without seeking site-wide consesnsus. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
It's within arbcom's power in that the arbitrators hold the power to remove administrative privileges, and can use such to prescribe whatever rules of administration they like. The exercise of power may not be legitimate, but there's no doubt that in terms of sheer force, they have the ability to make the injunction stick. Given this injunction, and the willful failure to deal with Scott's wheel warring and involved blocking, many of the current arbitrators may have difficulty in seeking reelection. Unfortunately, there is no process for arbitrator recall. Chester Markel (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
I wish that they had added a qualifying word to that, such as "blindly". The PC test netted a range of articles, some of which had suffered vandalism, others not so much. The admins clearing out the list generally seemed to be taking time to figure out what level of protection was needed, as often expressed in their edit summaries. Since the process has now gone on past the target date, I can understand if some people rushed at the end, and the ArbCom announcement sounds like reasonable advice for people who don't have the time to figure out what the situation is with individual articles. With the notable exception that generally Pending Changes articles were protected for an infinite duration at the technical level, and for a two month test duration ending last year at the policy level, making the "equivalent duration" a hard thing to figure out. They should just have specified some fairly short fixed term and left it to be reviewed case by case after that. Wnt (talk) 20:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I think there's an overreaction here. There are folk who want to go through all the articles which have FR set and remove it. that's causing problems with BLPs, because anyone doing mass removals may well not be fully aware of why a BLP was flagged in the first place. What this motion allows is for those who want to go through and de-flag all articles to go ahead and do just that - but in a manner which does not lower the protection on any article. In many cases, the protection level can be removed or lowered. That can still happen, in the usual way, on a slower case-by-case basis. I'm the first to say that long-term full-protection is seldom if ever appropriate. With problematic underwatched BLPs a better response is to get them on several watchlists. That's what I've now done with the flagged articles I was tending, and I've removed the flagging now. This motion is a win/win, because it separates the desire to remove all flagging from the need to treat BLPs carefully on a case-by-case basis. If an article has been protected due to BLP violations, or (as in at least one case) because of an OTRS complaint, there's time to stop, think, consult, before lowering the protection.--Scott Mac 20:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The motion is irrational. A great deal of PC was added thoughtlessly, or with a view simply to testing it out to see how it fared. There is no way PC level 2 should be replaced in every case with full protection. Has there been lobbying behind the scenes about this by interested parties? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Not by me (and the question seems to fail to assume good faith). Actually, I mostly agree with you. Looking at most of the PC set, they were set explicitly as part of the test or to avoid simple vandalism. In such cases, removing and substituting little or no protection is fine. However, some have been set explicitly due to BLP violations, and in at least one case with reference to an OTRS ticket. Any such should not have lesser protection without at least a careful inquiry as to the problem and an insuring that we don't open up a particularly vulnerable article to problems - particularly if it is underwatched. In such cases, notifying the admin who set the problem should be a minimum. Already we're seen two mistakes in what Kww was doing. Two problematic articles that were unprotected without seeing the problem (one OTRS related). I'm not blaming him, it is an easy mistake to make when you are coming at this from a mass-article approach. I suspect the number of articles that this will apply to is very limited, but we do need some care.--Scott Mac 20:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, no, it's not fine simply to remove it, because now there's a motion saying we have to add full protection in place of PC2. I'm the admin who set the Carl Hewitt protection, and I've carefully reviewed it and notified myself that, if we're removing PC, then semi is now fine. But now I'm not allowed to do that. This is silly. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 20:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Heee. Well, use IAR on that specific case, and for good cause. If you get arbcommed, I'll be happy to write you a testimonial! Meh, this is what happens when we put aside pragmatism and common sense for inflexible blanket rules.--Scott Mac 21:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Just ignore it, Slim. Not even a GovCom as mad with power as this one has become is going to desysop an admin as effective and prolific as you for doing the best thing for an article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I agree. An action in the obvious best interests of a particular article is always justified.--Scott Mac 21:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The motion is just a sign that Arbcom has misinterpreted the case set before it. I removed protection from some articles, I protected some articles. I made one mistake that has been pointed out (and one supposed error that isn't one: no one has pointed out any reason to protect Tony Meléndez, an article that hasn't been edited in 9 months), but no one has provided any evidence that I was not using sound judgment about articles. I was acting with a quite strong consensus. Scott objected, and brought the issue to ANI. When the response at ANI made it clear that others viewed my actions as being within consensus laid out, I continued, and Scott blocked me for implementing that consensus, despite it having been made quite clear to him that his position was without merit. When it continued to be clear that he had no support for his position, he brought it to Arbcom. Now Arbcom is acting as if I was acting uniliaterally and causing mass disruption, and the answer they are providing is to deprive all admins of exercising any judgment in making protection decisions when getting this trial to finally end. Normally in a case like this, Scott would have been desysopped summarily the moment he filed the Arbcom report: instead, Arbcom is acting as if he was reacting to a threat to Wikipedia, and rewarding him by handing him what he wanted, and I'm being asked to go through all of my decisions and undo them as if I everything I had done was in error. I find it sad.—Kww(talk) 21:08, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The long-term viability of pending changes protection has been compromised by actions taken for the sake of short-term expediency. Not ending the "trial" after the prescribed two months, because of the belief that some articles would still benefit from the protection, has resulted in a situation where any efforts to create a long-term policy for implementing pending changes will be opposed by many editors who are angry with the trial situation. Exacerbating this problem, by blocking an administrator for attempting to actually end the trial as supported by community consensus, is ultimately very harmful to BLP enforcement, because it is going to make the anti-PC editors even angrier, and sink any efforts to apply the protection to a large number of BLPs per a new policy. Scott's actions are anti-BLP, and support the use of Wikipedia as a vehicle for anonymous defamation. Chester Markel (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


@Kww and SlimVirgin. We can keep fighting over this, or we can try to suggest to arbcom a better way. This isn't a matter of me winning or losing. I'd be content with a motion that said "Where flagged revisions has been set for reasons of "violations of BLP policy" or (OTRS or somesuch), the flagging should be substituted with the equivalent level of protection until the admin setting the protection is notified, and the article listed on a page for review for 7 days". That would allow most of your removals to stand, and articles with BLP issues to have a number of eyes on them, and ones with complications identified, before we lower their protection. Seriously, I think the practical distance between us is very limited here. Sarah, if we could agree on a better motion, more to your liking, I think we could pitch it to arbcom.--Scott Mac 21:20, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

We've pointed it out multiple times, Scott: individual admins exercising sound judgment, with the normal checks and balances that are always in place, are able to handle all of these cases. Neither of the "errors" you point out as evidence of some kind of sloppiness or rushing on my part are clearcut errors: both articles would stand a very good chance of being unprotected if a request was made at WP:RFPP. Articles which have not been edited in months, much less vandalized, are not generally left protected forever. You acted as if I was some kind of threat to Wikipedia: I wasn't, am not, and will not be. This injunction is a case of Arbcom reacting to the wrong thing, and it saddens me that you are going to feel empowered by this decision as if you had some kind of justification for your actions. You didn't. You wheel-warred and blocked me invalidly, all because you didn't understand that PC was coming to an end. Your misreaction has now generated much worse problems, as we now have Arbcom dictating an invalid protection policy.—Kww(talk) 21:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
I think there's a very large difference here, between admins who believe that BLP is ultimately best served by working through community consensus, since it is largely dependent upon the community to do the legwork of enforcing the policy, and one administrator who seems to feel that BLP is advanced by involved blocking to forcibly escalate the situation to arbcom, requesting action squarely in opposition to the community. Scott, how much cooperation in BLP-related efforts do you expect, after resorting to such high-handed measures? You will never be able to enforce the policy by yourself. Your best option would be to ask arbcom to reverse the motion, apologize to the community, and resign your administrative privileges as a gesture of penance. Chester Markel (talk) 21:36, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest something like this:

When removing pending-changes protection from a biography of a living person, administrators should replace it with semi-protection for the same length of time. Any other administrator may review the protection level and remove it, reduce the time period, or increase it to full protection, as appropriate. Where there is disagreement, a request should be posted to WP:RfPP for review.

SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 21:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
How about "When removing pending-changes protection from a biography of a living person, administrators should exercise sound judgment. Generally, articles that have been on pending changes should be switched to semi-protection, but the admin may, at his discretion, switch to either full protection or unprotection if circumstances warrant." There's no reason to prescribe a two-step process.—Kww(talk) 21:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Let's direct administrators to exercise sound judgement, as most have already been doing. We might want to create a special process with notification of the protecting admin and a 7 day delay for articles that were pending changes protected with an OTRS number referenced, but that's a vanishingly small fraction of all BLPs. Chester Markel (talk) 21:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Generally the "sound judgment" or semi-protection, is fine. However, since we know mistakes get made, and reviewing admins may not be in possession of the facts, then where OTRS or "BLP violation" has been given as the reason, the deflagger should also notify the protecting admin, and not lower to semi until either that admin is given a chance to review, or at least until another set of eyes looks at the article. If the BLP is underwatched, removing flagging for semi protection, at least has the potential for problems from confirmed accounts. It would also be good for the deflagger to watchlist any BLP articles, so that they see any problems their action might cause.--Scott Mac 22:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
How about just adding articles in general and BLPs in particular that you protect to your watchlist? I watch every article I've ever unprotected (except where I was reversing my own action) and I believe most RfPP/RfUP regulars do similarly. Notifying/discussing with the protecting admin, if they're active, is courteous and to be strongly advised in borderline situations, but we don't need GovCom to essentially tell admins to do what the community made them admins to do.

On a more general note, Scott, BLP enforcement is, of course, of the utmost importnace and you do a great job under trying circumstances, but you would find it easier if you worked with the community and your fellow admins rather than against them (emergencies aside, of course). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm curious; what would you have done this case? NW (Talk)

I don't understand why any admin without access to OTRS would modify a protection level with an OTRS ticket given as a reason. Can someone help me explain the reasoning behind someone wanting to do this? Jclemens (talk) 22:02, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

OTRS tickets are not a valid protection reason. It may be that the ticket contains such a reason, but then you should be supplying that as a protection reason instead. Prodego talk 22:09, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
But there's no harm in asking another admin with OTRS access to investigate before unprotecting and there might be a very good, but not so obvious, reason for the protection. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
The ticket most often contains the rationale, and often the information cannot (space reasons) and/or should not (privacy policy) be released. In cases where I cite an OTRS ticket, I almost always also use "Violations of the BLP policy" as the primary reason. NW (Talk) 22:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Indeed, the OTRS number is a pointer to a reason, not a reason itself. By listing an OTRS ticket in BLP protections I've done, I've intended to convey that 1) it is a good reason, 2) it's available to approved OTRS agents, and 3) people who need to know should refer to OTRS. I've always seen OTRS as a good place for this--if I get hit by a bus, no one knows why anything done "per Jclemens' conversation with the subject" really happened. Since the discussions are conducted through OTRS, any appropriate admin can pick up the conversation (including with the BLP subject) right where it left off. I'm still interested in hearing why anyone without OTRS access would think it's a good idea to unprotect such an article rather than referring to someone with OTRS access to read up on the history, first. Jclemens (talk) 22:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
@Jclemens. The stated reason was "Trial is complete" [8].--Scott Mac 22:12, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
This particular case is the only one of the unprotections that I made that can validly be described as a "mistake" (I missed the OTRS ticket), and, even then, I don't think it's much of one. OTRS ticket or not, an article that hasn't been edited in three months is generally not considered a candidate for protection. Unless I've missed it, there has never been a consensus for indefinite semi-protection on BLPs that are not chronically vandalized. There were not any rejected anonymous edits during the course of the Pending changes trial, and no apparent history of heavily vandalism with the article at all. There's one oversighted edit in January 2010, and there was one anonymous editor that blanked it several times, but stopped quite a while ago. Given that history, what protection level is justified?—Kww(talk) 22:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Just because no one is making valid edits to a page doesn't mean that there aren't folks waiting in the wings to make BLP edits. There are plenty of topics where IP editors will regularly make BLP-violating edits; Stargate fandom and GMT Games are two that come to mind. They need to remain indefinitely semi-protected regardless of how infrequently viewed or edited they are. Jclemens (talk) 23:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Granted, and that's one of the problems with semi-protection: people can't try and fail, so you can't see if people are interested in trying. That's why watchlisting articles that you unprotect is important. I reprotected Indo-Pakistani relations this morning due to the immediate resumption of vandalizing IPs, for example. This is par for the course: a standard part of protecting and unprotecting articles is to monitor the article for the results of your actions. Evaluating the long-term history of an article is important as well: I'd oppose any effort to unprotect Sacagawea, for example, due to the long-term history of vandalism. Peaches (pornographic actress) just doesn't give any indication of that necessity. There's a short burst o problems in February, but that's about it. If I hadn't missed the OTRS ticket, I probably wouldn't of unprotected it just out of an abundance of caution, but there really isn't a strong case for continuing protection on the article.—Kww(talk) 00:03, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Sure there is; it's called "due caution". That is, once an entity such as Wikipedia has actual knowledge of defamation issues, it could be legally actionably irresponsible for that entity (us) to allow them to recur when we possessed the ability to prevent such recurrence. Beyond the mere legalities, which are imprecise and vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, there's always the fact that it's the right thing to do. Jclemens (talk) 00:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
You haven't seen me take any steps to remove the protection once the OTRS ticket was pointed out to me, have you? I disagree with the concept that OTRS tickets last forever (and I would be interested in seeing a policy which says that they do), and, more importantly, we don't have any mechanism short of full protection that prevents defamation from being inserted in articles: all we can reasonably pledge is to react promptly when it comes to our attention. Remember: my inclination and preference is to completely disable all anonymous editing, effectively semi-protecting all articles. I don't get my way on that, and I know it. That I ever unprotect any article is a sign of my efforts to follow policies and guidelines. When I step through articles and remove PC, I do my best to follow policies and guidelines about what the protection state should become. In my judgment, on that article, it can reasonably fall either way: the only thing that nudges it towards semi-protection is the OTRS ticket, and I'm not aware of a policy that makes those tickets last beyond the apparent cessation of the problem.—Kww(talk) 00:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Jclemens, we ('users') are not legally responsible for Wikipedia. Legally we are users of a service, that's the WMF that is responsible for Wikipedia. For Wikipedia to have knowledge of defamation issue, it means that the WMF or its agents have knowledge of such issues. If mere users of the service, even if they call themselves 'admins' or 'arbitrators', have knowledge of a defamation issue, it doesn't make it that 'Wikipedia' as legal entity has knowledge of it (that's where your 'us' is incorrect).
The OTRS system however is indeed a way to inform the WMF of defamation threats, and OTRS personnel can be considered agents of the WMF (not mere 'users'). Those 'agents', in their interaction with 'users', must follow the policies set by the WMF. From what I understand, generally admins may not of their own discretion change OTRS protections, but consensus can unless otherwise directed by WMF officials (not mere OTRS agents). Cenarium (talk) 00:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Concern about legal liability misses the point. As a practical matter, if Wikipedia becomes "the free scandal sheet anyone can vandalize", we're screwed. Implementing level-two PC protection on a wide range of BLPs is an important tool in preventing that outcome. But the pending changes feature cannot be properly deployed in an atmosphere so degraded by authoritarian actions that the community will never agree to it. Regaining our trust needs to start now. Chester Markel (talk) 01:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Another suggestion, then, based on the above:

When removing pending-changes protection from a biography of a living person, administrators should replace it with semi-protection for an appropriate length of time. Any administrator may review the protection level and switch to no protection or full protection. Where there is disagreement, a request should be posted to WP:RfPP for review. Where pending changes was added as a result of an OTRS ticket, or BLP violations, the protecting administrator should be notified.

SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:21, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
"Same length of time" results in indefinite semiprotection in most cases.—Kww(talk) 22:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Add "if pending changes was set due to BLP violations, the admin who set the flag should be notified." I'd rather have them consulted prior to the protection being dropped, but I'll settle for notification. That means if semi isn't going to solve the problem (sleeper socks) and the admin removing flagging misses this, there's an opportunity for the flagging admin to sort the issue (probably by getting the article on multiple watchlists). As I say, I'd want more - but I'll compromise. Informing an admin isn't onerous.--Scott Mac 22:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, changes made. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
Just noticed that you are still mandating a two-step process. Might as well use a bot to do the robotic, judgment-free switch to semi-protection, and then have admins go over the result and do the real work. Or you can skip the bot, and just let admins do their jobs. Alternatively, I guess the first admin could semi-protect any article that didn't need protection for 5 minutes or so.—Kww(talk) 22:41, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree we should just let people do their jobs, but I'm thinking this would be a reasonable compromise. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Colleagues, this injunction by ArbCom is what is called adult supervision and leadership, two things which are often sorely lacking with this project, and, in the case of BLPs, the lack of such can and have caused serious problems. If you admins took protection of BLPs seriously enough, then this wouldn't be necessary. To be fair, there aren't enough admins with enough time to police all BLPs, which is why pending changes is necessary. Cla68 (talk) 22:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
    • You've hit the nail on the head: community involvement is necessary to enforce WP:BLP. So grossly insulting statements comparing editors opposing the injunction to children who require "adult supervision" are counterproductive. Scott + arbcom + OTRS + foundation staff members cannot possibly police every biography. Effectively stopping Wikipedia-based defamation and highly biased biographies requires buy-in by Wikipedia's 500+ active administrators, and tens of thousands of regular editors. Such a goal necessitates that the community to be treated with respect. Chester Markel (talk) 00:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I would just like to commend ArbCom for the swift decision on this. NewYorkBrad's closing statement on the RFC correctly dictated that we should be cautious in implementing the consensus to end the Pending Changes trial. Since we seemed to be incapable of following a softer, more flexible request to act judiciously (which resulted in an unfortunate block) an injunction more clearly spells out what Brad meant. Abiding by the spirit of WP:BLP while we carry out removal of Pending Changes is the right thing to do obviously, and should allow admins act on the consensus of the RFC without further drama. Once that's done, the community can move on to creating a lasting policy about how and where to apply Pending Changes, if at all, and this injunction will have served its purpose. Thank you again, Steven Walling at work 00:28, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Creation of "a lasting policy about how and where to apply Pending Changes" could have already been achieved, if the foundation hadn't already messed up the "two month" trial. At its conclusion, the PC feature should have been disabled by developers as a technical measure. The community could then have discussed a long-term pending changes policy, without having the debate continually derailed by complaints that the trial was unfairly extended. Chester Markel (talk) 00:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Arguing about the past does no one good, especially since I wasn't around or in charge for any Foundation decisions about extending the trial past two months. Steven Walling at work 01:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
        • The past is repeating itself, in the form of a community-disrupting injunction, and foundation endorsement of the same. Removing PC protection from the remaining articles was supposed to limit the damage caused by the never-ending trial, so that I could, say, propose a policy that PC level two protection is to be used on all articles with a history of BLP problems, or all "high-risk" biographies, or whatever, without being shouted down. Now, any such discussion will be disrupted by complaints about the trial and the injunction. Arbcom/foundation actions of which the community strongly disapproves are harmful to a community-based project. Chester Markel (talk) 01:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
          • "Arbcom/foundation actions of which the community strongly disapproves are harmful to a community-based project."? ArbCom is part of the community. In any case, I'm not convinced that it causes any harm to ask that admins apply some form of protection if they're going to remove Pending Changes from BLPs. Quite the opposite. It seems like simple common sense in light of our current policies. Steven Walling at work 02:11, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
            • Please read the injunction more carefully. It doesn't just mandate "some form of protection". It states that semi-protection must be used to replace level 1 PC, and full-protection for level 2 PC. Simple common sense would be for the administrator removing the PC protection to review the history of the article, and determine what level of conventional protection, if any, should be used to replace it, OTRS situations excepted. Instead, administrators' hands are tied with useless bureaucracy. Please review some of the comments by community members here, on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#BLP_and_flagged_revisions, and at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Mass_removal_of_Flagged_revision_from_BLPs to ascertain just how angry many editors are with the injunction, and the lack of sanction for Scott's wheel warring and involved blocking, which would ordinarily result in emergency desysopping. Chester Markel (talk) 02:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
            • Also, "ArbCom is part of the community" only in the sense that they are elected by the community, but cannot be recalled before the end of their terms, no matter how injudicious their decisions. If it were possible, we'd certainly be having recall elections right now. Chester Markel (talk) 02:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
              • Precisely. We are being enjoined from using judgment. Sadly enough, people have been assuming that I am guilty of poor judgment: I note that Steven seems completely comfortable with stating that my actions were "injudicious". I would invite him to review the protection decisions I have made during this time, and point out any that struck him as being "injudicious". So far, out of a couple hundred decisions I made, only one has been suggested to be counter to any policy or guideline, and no one has really made a conclusive statement on that one.—Kww(talk) 02:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
                • On the bright side, according to Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChartRecent, many of the current arbitrators responsible for creating this mess will be up for reelection in December. I encourage editors to vote the incumbents out. Chester Markel (talk) 02:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
                  • Arbcom cannot remove admin discretion with regard to protection; a few arbs acknowledged that admins could subsequently alter the protection level in accordance with the protection policy and though they emitted conditions such as 'after a review' or 'after a while', their opinions diverged and this was not mentioned in the injunction. So we should assume that we can immediately after apply discretion as usually (that is, after a review, with regard to the article and protection specifics, in accordance with the protection policy), and as pointed out above arbcom indeed would have no power to exempt those articles from the protection policy. This injunction is just a hype. Cenarium (talk) 02:51, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
                    • The arbitrators seem to believe they can make whatever modifications to the protection or any other administrative policy they want, because they hold the power of desysopping. Widespread defiance of, well, whatever arbcom wants, would precipitate a constitutional crisis, with admins being desysopped left and right, attempts made to community ban arbitrators, etc. While I have faith that stewards would exercise good judgement to eventually reign in a rogue committee, there's no need to escalate the conflict to that point. It's only a thousand articles, and half of the arbitrators will probably be voted out in December. That should be sufficient to send a message to those remaining on the committee that the will of the community must be respected. Chester Markel (talk) 03:05, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
                      • Or you could stand on a platform yourself and see what support the community gives to that platform. That would be an alternative to judging 1-3 years work by some arbitrators on their stance on a single issue. In my experience, voters at such polls tend to see single-issue voting for what it is, and the vast majority of voters look at what is said at the time of the election, and most specific incidents are long forgotten, especially when they happen 7-8 months earlier. Anyway, ask your questions at the election, and see what the responses are, but I doubt you will get the sweeping change you envisage. Carcharoth (talk) 01:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
                • Kww: nowhere did I say your actions in particular were injudicious. I never even used the word. In fact, I said that your block was unfortunate, and I meant that. (I'd also like to remind everyone that this is my opinion as someone asked to help the tech staff talk to you all about this. It's not an official Wikimedia Foundation "seal of approval" on anything or anyone. The word of the Foundation is not needed for a decision to be made about how the trial is closed.) Steven Walling at work 03:29, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
  • This is all very dumb. The reason we don't have a consensual permanent PC implementation by now is because of the actions by some overzealous people who wanted PC immediately. We finally have the consensus to 'end' the 'trial', the plan was to allow admins to apply their discretion in transitioning to no protection, SP or FP, with all due regard to article specifics and following WP:PP. This was part of the proposal, and the closer's discretion cannot go against that, the closer has no line veto; of course admins had to be watchful of BLP issues when evaluating the level of protection required (and if it's otrs), as always. Now because an admin made several such transitions in order to apply the consensus and among them two mistakes, he got blocked, this silliness got to arbcom, and arbcom made a swift rigorous injunction in order to appear tough on BLP. But unofficially arbs say that we can apply discretion subsequently. That's again an injunction for nothing but political interest. Keep going with such zeal, and PC will never be a reality on WP. Cenarium (talk) 01:48, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Indeed. Scott's wheel warring and involved blocking weren't his only recent imprudent actions in this area. The removal of reviewer status for wiki-political reasons, such as disagreement with an editor's talk page comment tends to confirm editors' worst fears that the PC tool will be used in an authoritarian manner. Users should discuss sources that may or may not be appropriate on article talk pages, rather than unilaterally adding them to BLPs. To punish an editor for daring to suggest that a certain source is usable in a biography by removing his reviewer rights has a chilling effect on discourse within the project, and may lead to the community avoiding pending changes protection altogether. Chester Markel (talk) 02:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Credibility is the biggest issue here, and those in charge of PC have lost it in a pretty big way, IMHO. Implementation and rollout were ill thought out. Its indefinite existence was a foregone conclusion, thus no proper planning was ever put into place for its dismantling. As I recall, the proposal was mounted in the face of considerable opposition, and it gained consensus on the promise that this would only be a temporary. The fact that we have only now voted to end the "2-month trial" without there being a real analysis of the results against the original goal supports my view of poor project management. Yes, post-trial, there are legitimate fears sudden dismantling would result in chaos, and the arbcom motion can be seen as an attempt at an orderly wind-down of PC. However, considering the vote to end, the motion is a knee-jerk which seeks to perpetuate the "trial" by locking in some default parameters requested by Scott but undiscussed by anyone else other than Arbcom. Having nudged Arbcom into passing the motion that it passed, Scott now seems to be seeking to apply the letter of the motion in a heavy-handed manner. Arbcom must agree that that was not the intent, and must amend the motion. Otherwise, Arbcom's own credibility will go down the tubes just as that of the project managers of PC.

        I agree with Harry that Arbcom appears to have exceeded its powers – the terms are well past what is reasonable or to encourage orderly unwinding. It's obvious that as a first and easy step, those bios with OTRS tickets can be taken off PC with immediate effect, and given a high level of protection. Then, had we done a proper study of the results, we would also know which articles can have PC removed without much ado. We don't, so now it will have to be left to interested admins to sort the wheat from the chaff. I don't envy them. The Arbcom motion is unnecessarily formulaic, and treats our admins were a bunch of machines. I say we should perhaps just ask Rich Farmbrough to send Smackbot in to remove PC in the manner prescribed, because such formulaic rules lend themselves well to this being an automated task to achieve the very unnecessary two-step proccess mandated. Slim Virgin is one of those prepared to get the bit between her teeth, and attack the problem in a sensible manner; Kww should be thanked and have his back patted for applying a bit of nous. I would thoroughly commend her on her efforts to propose a pragmatic and reasonable implementation. If we continue to have intransigence and bullying like we have witnessed, the only solution would be to say "fuck bureaucracy" and apply WP:COMMONSENSE going forwards. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

        • I think now that the arbitration committee. Is just giving power to disrupt wikipedia to make a point. The arbitrators have the power to there heads; it is just contradicting WP:NOT. Sysops should just use there own sense of judgement and use common sense. Also, full protection?! If there is not any more vandalism, no protection. If you put protection of pages like that, it is just a waste of time for the sysops that have better things to do. It will also have an effect on editors. Protected page edit-requests are horribly ineffective. It takes lots of time, and it might not look good, but it is. Full protection also may discourage editors. Our motto is "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Not everyone can edit pages with protection. ~~EBE123~~ talkContribs 19:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
  • PC has been removed from all mainspace pages. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The point of full-protection (which is usually undesirable) was to allow the immediate removal of PC, while also allowing a more cautious examination of articles to see what level of protection (often none or only semi) the merits of the particular article demanded. In most cases it appears that PC was simply set as a test and could be removed without any consequences, in a few cases it had been set because of extraordinary BLP issues, and it was important that consideration be given to what, other than PC, was needed to safeguard. As the person who sought (and welcomed) the injunction, I'll admit this one was probably overcautious in most cases, and has now probably outlived its usefulness.--Scott Mac 20:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I am still wondering what the answer is to the question that was asked here. Guy Macon (talk) 21:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Or here.. Guy Macon (talk) 11:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
This is ridiculous. For no reason should an article ever be indefinitely fully protected, even because of Arbcom's ruling. PC works; semi-protection doesn't—it's as simple as that. —mc10 (t/c) 23:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Semi has its uses. As does PC and, in extreme cases, FP. However, it is not within the remit of the Arbitration Committee (which, in name if nothing else, is a dispute resolution body) to dictate a new protection policy. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I believe the problem here arises from the conflation of issues. WP:BLP itself is a non-negotiable, foundation-approved policy. Should there ever develop a consensus to do something which arbcom believes violates the policy, the committee would be acting correctly in quashing it. However, the limited scope of BLP needs to be recognized. Primarily, the policy concerns itself with substantive standards for content about living people. To a lesser extent, it prescribes certain extreme remedies that can be used to directly enforce key portions of the content standards, such as involved blocking and page protection. However, BLP does not permit the following offensive behaviors, under any circumstances:
  1. Wheel warring over page protection. While even an involved administrator can place a page protection when reasonably believed to be necessary to stop badly sourced contentious material from being inserted, the community can decide to remove it, either immediately or later, if the circumstances are judged to be otherwise, consistent with the protection policy.
  2. Involved blocking to stop any action which does not directly affect substantive content about living people. Editors, even admins, can be blocked to stop potential defamation. But administrators must never place involved blocks against other admins to stop activities only indirectly affecting BLP content, such as unprotection of articles.
The correct level of protection for any article is a matter to be decided by the community, with due regard to BLP, but consideration also given to maintaining an editable wiki. While any level of page protection less than sysop only presents a non-negligible possibility of future BLP violations, BLP does not require freezing editing of the site. If an administrator is recklessly unprotecting articles in a manner which, evaluated against the community developed protection policy, portends an unacceptable level of future BLP violations, arbcom may intervene with emergency desysopping. But the committee should not use its power to rewrite the protection policy, force compliance with its rewrite, or countenance involved blocking due to simple disagreement with good faith administrative actions. Chester Markel (talk) 07:18, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
I admit the hypothetical possibility of a future consensus to undermine the blocking and page protection policies which permit BLP violations to be forcibly stopped, or community actions reversing blocks and page protections to such an extent that the BLP content standards are substantially jeopardized, necessitating foundation intervention. But we are nowhere near that point yet. The community generally does take BLP pretty seriously, and allows administrators ample use of blocking and protection tools to enforce it. Chester Markel (talk) 07:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Also, the phrase "BLP trumps consensus" is greatly overused. While the policy page describes certain principles that the foundation is willing to protect, its exact text has been under the control of the community, and its application to particular factual circumstances determined by consensus, with a few interjections by arbcom. BLP is certainly not a license to elevate one's own idiosyncratic view of the policy to the force of divine mandate. Chester Markel (talk) 08:11, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
BLP is by convention, necessity and practice more of a principle than a set of rules. It says "fairness of living people matters, and Wikipedia's practices must always take this on board". This needs a lot of judgement, and at times creativity. We can't tolerate our inhouse rules adding to the high risks open editing already exposes living people to. So admins need to be free to look at the circumstances of a case, and make a call - baring in mind the overarching principle. You can't write a policy page to cover all eventualities - so admins need to have freedom of action in defence of BLPs. Call that "idiosyncratic" of you want - I just call it flexibility to respond to unforeseeable circumstances. Sure, the call be carefully reviewed later. Often it is possible to say "well, OK, but actually we can do this, if we just do it this way instead." But what we must to is err on the side of extreme caution, till we've done the risk assessment. That's why an unreferenced negative bio gets nuked on sight. It may be that later discussion will show the contents factual and fair, but we don't publish until we're sure no one will be damned. It is the same here. Unflagging BLPs may turn out to be harmless, or indeed a simply check by one admin may turn out to be sufficient. However, when a risk is pointed out, we stop, err on the side of extreme caution, assess the risk, and then if safe proceed. Unfortunately, that was missed, which resulted in regrettable measured being taken. In the cold light of day, we can see other ways of proceeding, and have now done so. But the principle is right.--Scott Mac 23:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate that you are genuinely and passionately concerned with BLP enforcement. But so are many other admins, and other editors. In the future, if you believe that another administrator's clearly good faith actions are so misguided as to constitute a BLP emergency, blocking him yourself is neither acceptable, nor even useful, since the block may be quickly removed, as it was here. Instead, you should contact a steward on IRC, and request an emergency desysopping. Such requests are generally acted upon within minutes. The benefit of this approach is that it doesn't hold your own judgement of the matter as superior to other admins. Instead, a neutral, highly trusted third party will determine the correct course of action. If the situation actually constitutes an emergency, the offending administrator's activities will be halted in a way that can't be reversed until arbcom reviews the issue. Alternatively, if the steward declines your request and asks you to calm down, you can be assured that the matter wasn't as serious as you had thought. Chester Markel (talk) 04:07, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
And one reason the arbcom injunction is wrong is that administrators who can't be trusted not to take many injudicious actions on BLPs and open the floodgates of defamation shouldn't be admins. Human sysops whose judgement is sound do not require robot-like instructions - it's been observed that a bot account could have been used to more quickly and efficiently remove PC protection from BLPs in the way mandated. Being "free to look at the circumstances of a case, and make a call" is exactly what the injunction forbade admins to do. Chester Markel (talk) 04:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
An emergency desysop is quite ridiculous in these circumstances. The block was perfectly useful as it did have the desired effect of getting the admin to stop and the matter to be discussed. Indeed, with hindsight a shorter one would have sufficed. As for me calming down, that's beside the point. If my concerns, once investigated, prove unmerited then the mass action could continue. The important thing was to get the admin to halt so that there could be a proper examination. In hindsight, although I believe my blocking was justified, it would been wiser to get someone else to do it (as it would have caused less brouhaha. I was foolish not to have considered that.). There should be no big deal about a short pause when someone is doing something to BLPs on mass, and another admin in good faith expresses concerns. Kww's refusal to stop was quite unreasonable. Your second rant about floodgates and judgements is beside the point. Admins make mistakes. Having an admin take the unprecedented step of mass unprotecting BLPs runs the risk of serious mistakes. The point of the injunction is to slow that down, if people must mass unflag BLPs then temporarily they should protect them, so the ultimate protection for each can be considered at a slower pace, which has a lower chance of making mistakes. Anyway it is moot now, I just hope the lessons have been learned by all.--Scott Mac 19:29, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
Emergency desysopping is a perfectly reasonable response when an administrator's use of the tools is so disruptive as to create exigent circumstances. That was basically your justification for the involved block, wasn't it: that Kww's actions created a BLP emergency, and needed to be stopped immediately? Such desysopping would only have been "quite ridiculous" if there was no emergency, nothing justifying a forcible intervention to halt the removal of PC protection. While contacting a steward would have risked having your judgement overturned, that's the point: that your assessment of a situation does not override everyone else's. Judging from the community response to your block, and how quickly it was removed, I doubt any other administrators would have been willing to place it.
If arbcom thought that BLPs were being unprotected too quickly or carelessly, they could have imposed specific rate limitation and due diligence requirements. There was no justification for simply suspending the ability of administrators to exercise good judgement. Chester Markel (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
Rubbish. You are now taking this to extremis to make some silly point. It does not take an "emergency" to say "hey, stop, there's more sensitive ways of handling BLPs". Which ought to have resulted in administrators saying "Hm, OK. Let's talk about that. Maybe you are right - maybe not." This has nothing to do with "disruption" or with Kww. Risk should always minimised, and especially on BLPS that ought to be the aim of all of us. And we should always be willing to stop see if that can be done. I was of the view that the mass unflagging was a risk that could be reduced through discussion. Stopping the action was thus desirable in order to minimise the risk. No one is "suspending admins ability to exercise good judgement" - what is being said is that slightly slower actions, with a pause for review, is better judgement. You seem to be of the view admins can't improve what they are going, they should always be open to that possibility.--Scott Mac 20:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
If there were really exigent circumstances, then Kww being reasonable, and stopping the unprotections after he was unblocked couldn't have been relied upon. But if there was no emergency, which you now concede, then there was no justification for an involved block, the only type which was ever going to be placed against Kww in this situation. Reducing BLP risk through discussion is important, but certainly does not require the use of force. For instance, you could have reviewed some of the removals of PC protection yourself to determine whether semi or full protection was prudent, and asked other administrators to do the same. Kww stated that he reviewed the articles himself when unprotecting, and applied conventional protection where necessary, but let's assume that's not enough. There were only a couple hundred articles left under PC protection when you blocked Kww. If all the administrative energy that had been focused on your block and arbcom case in the next several hours had instead been redirected to examination of the articles that were PC protected, the situation could have been quickly resolved, simply by splitting the articles to be reviewed into small, easily manageable groups. In the absence of an emergency, administrators should resolve BLP issues through discussion and cooperation, not brute force power struggles. Chester Markel (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
It is hypothetically possible that certain articles are associated with such severe BLP problems that they can't safely be unprotected for even an hour or two. But removal of protection would then constitute an emergency, which you say didn't exist. Chester Markel (talk) 21:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
You are wikilawering now. Bottom line. There was a risk here. That risk could have been minimised. Kww unreasonably refused a request to stop and discuss. I blocked him for a very short time. Theoretically he could have resumed after the block was removed, but he wasn't that dumb. The idea that I should have checked every one of his 70 odd unprotections after the even is just silly. It was better to have a slower process. Kww should have stopped and discussed when reasonably asked (even if it turned out my fears were unjustified - there was no loss in a pause.) The block was justified as it was aimed at improving things for BLPs - it was perhaps unwise to do it myself, since it created a commotion (I'll not do that again). The notion that Kww should have been emergency desyopped is patently absurd - that would have caused 10000% brouhaha than a simple, quickly reversed, block. And, really, so is this discussion. Think what you want - I really don't care now. Unwatching.--Scott Mac 21:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
You're mischaracterizing my position. I never claimed that you personally should have double-checked all of Kww's unprotections. You could have asked other administrators for help. This is the fundamental problem with many of your actions: the attitude that you're one of the few defenders of BLP on the wiki. If no other administrators cared about this issue, you'd have no alternative but to do exactly what you did: wheel war with Kww, block him, then, when he was unblocked, file a request for arbitration, and threaten to block him again[9]. I assume that, had Kww continued to unprotect articles, you would have reblocked him again and again until you were desysopped for wheel warring, involved blocking, and block warring. This behavior is brute force power struggling, not cooperation with other administrators, almost all of whom strongly disapproved of your actions in the AN/I discussion and in comments on the arbitration request. You certainly made your point, but whatever negligible gains were achieved by ensuring that a few articles weren't unprotected for even a couple of hours are outweighed by the community goodwill towards you, and towards PC protection, that was lost. Why should you care? Because of the most potentially valuable uses of pending changes is to place many BLPs that have previously had issues under level two protection. We're talking about a large number of articles, not the few you were fighting over. But that can't happen until the community approves a policy to authorize it. After this fiasco, and User:Scott MacDonald/Removal of reviewer rights from User:Wnt, many editors will be genuinely concerned that any reauthorization of PC protection anywhere will serve as an excuse for harsh, authoritarian actions. To be honest, I don't know what I could tell them. Editors don't want to see reviewer rights used to suppress dissent by removing them from editors who make talk page comments of which you disapprove, or any more wheel warring, involved blocking, disrespect for consensus, and useless arbcom injunctions. You could assuage these fears by apologizing and promising to work more cooperatively with the community in the future. But until and unless you do this, approving a long-term policy for the use of PC protection will be very difficult, if not impossible. The result of delaying or never having a long-term plan for implementing pending changes protection will be more harm to living people, and the degradation of Wikipedia's reputation. Given your obvious concern with BLP, this isn't a result you would like. So don't let it happen. Chester Markel (talk) 04:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
The point of a "pause" was for multiple admins to see if more precautions were needed. It is better to have the maximum safeguards in place before protections are lowered, rather than scraping about checking articles later. In any case, if my fears were idiosyncratic, and other people involved in BLP did not share them, then a pause and discussion would have revealed that. There was no need for hurry here - except artificial deadlines. But we're going over old ground here. As for the removal of reviewer rights - the problem wasn't the removal - it was that there was no policy for granting them and they were being given out like cookies to people with no real clue (and who incidentally never asked for them). That's what made the whole trial so useless. If it isn't repeated, that's fine by me. If it is, you need to start be defining who gets rights, before you worry about how they are to be removed. Personally, I think the whole PC thing is a total waste of effort anyway wrt BLP, but that's another issue.--Scott Mac 16:36, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming that your recent actions were nothing but disruption to illustrate a point. If you believe that "the whole PC thing is a total waste of effort anyway wrt BLP", then there was no legitimate reason to create such a fuss over the removal of PC protection, since you claim pending changes was of no utility in preventing BLP problems, at least in its present formulation, as "the whole trial" was "useless". As many editors do believe that the PC tool can be effectively used to stop the most serious BLP violations, such as material that could be defamatory with no or inadequate sources provided, there was no need to scuttle the future of pending changes by inflaming community opposition, simply because you don't regard it as useful. This is a problem with many of your BLP related actions: the belief that your way is the only way. Chester Markel (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Based on your comment above, User:Scott MacDonald/Removal of reviewer rights from User:Wnt now seems like a WP:POINT issue as well: removing the privilege without a good reason is not an acceptable means by which to draw attention to the purportedly negligent granting of rights. Chester Markel (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
"The important thing was to get the admin to halt so that there could be a proper examination. In hindsight, although I believe my blocking was justified, it would been wiser to get someone else to do it (as it would have caused less brouhaha. I was foolish not to have considered that.). There should be no big deal about a short pause when someone is doing something to BLPs on mass, and another admin in good faith expresses concerns." Your (Scott Mac's) statement seems to indicate you are on some sort of a high horse. I think Chester's assessment is spot on. You cite some BLP emergency, block a fellow admin who was by all accounts acting in good faith but who you disagreed with based on some notion that it was the other party and not you that needed to calm down. Kww demonstrated that he was prepared to discuss the matter, only not to a level satisfactory to you. I see it as a legitimate difference of opinion – Kww thought you were being overcautious, and you thought he was being cavalier with unprotection. You raised DEFCON 5 when now you say there was no emergency. You still profess you've done nothing wrong in dropping the nuclear bomb. In doing so, you breached two important elements of WP:ADMIN, namely WP:UNINVOLVED and WP:WHEEL. now you are accusing Chester of wikilawyering. I find this extremely distasteful. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:14, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I was not trying to make any point. I'm uninterested in the trial - and broadly I'm unenthusiastic about PC - for reasons I've given at length elsewhere. However, if you are going to have PC, then reviewing rights need to be meaningfully given to clued people. As for the original dispute, it was for me nothing to do with larger consideration of PC, it was merely to do with a pragmatic approach to the articles before me. But way to assume bad faith. Anyway, I'm now repeating myself, and as you are evidently simply looking for stones hurl at me rather than a genuine attempt to understand my thinking, there's little point in continuing. You may have the last word. --Scott Mac 19:36, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Either pending changes, as formulated during the trial, with reviewer rights as allocated for it, was a useful tool for prevent BLP problems, or it wasn't. In the latter case, "a pragmatic approach to the articles before" you would have been to do nothing, since PC protection wasn't going to stop any BLP violations from developing in any case. Whether pending changes is useful at all is directly related to whether it's worth having this much of a fight over its removal. Did you really not consider this issue? Chester Markel (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

What did a section break ever do to you?

I don't have the will to read the entirety of the text above, but it seems that at least some people are pushing for a motion that says "use common sense." Or in expanded form: when evaluating protection options, you can unprotect, semi-protect, or full protect at your discretion. How is that any different from the current protection policy? Is it really necessary to re-declare that here? I don't like ArbCom as much as the next guy, but the answer isn't to try to prop them up with a corrected (silly) motion. Just ignore this one and move along. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Common sense is absolutely fine. If someone surveys an article and thinks the protection can be safely lowered, that's absolutely fine. They should obviously be very careful if the article has been the subject of BLP problems, and, if there's any doubt or possibility they've missed something, it might be good policy to check with the protecting admin. That is all fine, and always has been. The unique circumstances here was that admins were doing this not because "hey this article might be better with this particular protection" but because they were determined to remove all flagging by a strict deadline, and thus were removing it from multiple articles at once. That isn't normal, doesn't allow for the usual cautious pragmatism, and arbcom were really saying "if you are intent on doing that, to remove the protection by a strict deadline, just give the BLPs maximum protection, which can be reviewed later (as is normal) without any time pressure." It was a sensible measure for a unique (and time expiring) circumstance. It shouldn't stop any admin doing what any admin would usually do.--Scott Mac 16:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
There would be some irony in a body that so thoroughly fails to use common sense itself passing a motion telling others to do same. Resolute 16:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
That type of remark improves wikipedia how? Debate on issues is good, reasoned disagreement can clarify, inarticulate attacks do nothing constructive whatsoever.--Scott Mac 17:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Ok, how about this? Above, you had this comment: "We can keep fighting over this, or we can try to suggest to arbcom a better way." And my answer is to suggest that Arbcom butt out. Protection levels are, imnsho, a content decision that is outside of its mandate. Conduct issues surrounding the protection changes would be in its scope, but given the arbs don't seem interested in looking at your abuse of tools via wheel warring, handing out blocks against administrators enforcing consensus and despite being involved, removing permissions despite being involved and other examples of "sod the community" in a futile attempt at overriding community consensus, I am not seeing any real purpose for Arbcom to be involved in the slightest. In the end, my comment above is apt: ArbCom needs to show some common sense and learn that it should not exceed its mandate. They were not elected to govern Wikipedia. That is the Foundation's job. Not theirs, and certainly not yours. Resolute 18:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, that's a valid opinion, the spelling out of which is worthwhile and may even persuade. Simply saying "you lack common sense" is simply abuse. Articulating opinions is useful, hurling abuse is not.--Scott Mac 19:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Re: "Kww's refusal to stop was quite unreasonable" and "Kww unreasonably refused a request to stop and discuss." That is simply not true. You know that. I paused. I discussed at ANI. Your objections at the time had already been endlessly discussed, and you brought absolutely nothing new to the discussion. I explained that to you, and proceeded. Note that you were asking for people to go back and reinstall pending changes on all BLPs when the consensus had already been reached to remove pending changes from all BLPs. People sometimes react as if you were concerned that I was unprotecting BLPs, but, in fact, the articles you were objecting to were articles where I had increased the protection level. Your concerns had already been refuted innumerable times. There was no need for further discussion. There was no obligation on my part to stop, for the simple reason that you never, at any point, provided a valid reason for me to stop. When I proceeded with doing what consensus had already been developed for, you unjustifiably blocked me. I really wish that you would understand that. It's unfortunate that Arbcom ducked the case.
Whether they ducked the case or not, it's time for you to stop actively misrepresenting the facts of the case. Do not accuse me of unreasonable behaviour when it simply is not true.—Kww(talk) 20:03, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
It's high time to have an RFC on Scott. While pending changes is gone, for now, he could certainly find some new pretense for wheel warring, involved blocking, threatening to block war, and generally disregarding consensus. An RFC would ensure that, if this happens again, an effective remedy could be imposed. Chester Markel (talk) 20:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
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