Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed decision

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

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Comments before proposed decision is posted

All discussions in this section have been archived as the proposed decision has now been posted. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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General comments

Statement by Ryulong

Why are "gender and sexuality" included in all of the topic ban proposals?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because we don't want this dispute, or clones of it, exported into parallel areas elsewhere on the Wiki, and because we want those t-banned to move on completely,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It just seems unnecessarily broad when the issue is more narrowly feminism vs. men's rights.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

WRT Protonk's section

Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

We've put very robust steps in place to deal with any new incoming SPAs. But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

But what about the obvious SPAs that are here now? The ones that you haven't bothered to cover? Loganmac is the most prominent of them and per the private evidence and what has happened while all this was behind closed doors shows that he cannot be neutral.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I interpret the "Single purpose accounts with agendas" remedy as allowing uninvolved administrators to topic ban SPAs who continue to edit with an agenda in that topic area, regardless of whether they were also doing so before this case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:24, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean the editors who are active now and have been active since this real world event started who have done nothing but try to sway the content of the article to cast them in a better light when the media does not and has not, particularly when this was covered by Nightline less than a week ago and in that time have resulted in multiple false police reports on people who simply don't agree with them, and apparently today led to a dog getting shot by the cops. Gamergate has been the only topic where I've engaged in this. I'm one of the most prolific contributors to this website, and there's a proposal to have me indefbanned because I was drawn into a real life dispute against my wishes when there are pages across the web attacking me for my participation. I can live with a topic ban. I don't edit the central page now and everything else I've done has been to question validity of sources and minor grammar fixes on peripheral articles. But this is playing into the hands of what the world at large is recognizing as a right wing hate group.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And I'm going to mirror something that NorthBySouthBaranof has said: there are so many people in these proposed decisions that have been subject to harassment and character assassinations off-site not only by the main stomping grounds of the topic matter but by parties of the case who are not being sanctioned at all. There is no reason I should contact the WMF regarding the harassment offsite when I sent to the arbitration committee several emails detailing parties to this case and other users who have participated in directed discussions to harass and demean me and others all because they think that they should be able to write the page about their movement and ignore the only reasons they have remotely got any press because of a constant application of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy and would rather present information in incredibly biased sources that are in no way valid reliable sources for Wikipedia, anyway, to push information. It is insane that the committee has decided to not sanction the most egregious performers of offsite harassment in regards to onsite actions but instead are proposing that every editor who has been subject to this harassment is to be banned in some capacity. The committee, and frankly Jimbo too, should not be caving into the demands of an out and out hate group because my presence and others is apparently damaging to the project when we should not be pandering to these people in the first place.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And they are prematurely dancing on our collective graves right now.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NorthBySouthBaranof

I find it somewhat ironic that the PD's "history of the dispute" section cites specifically several diffs illustrating the vicious campaign of off-wiki-organized harassment I have been subjected to, and then proposes to give these harassers exactly what they want by topic-banning me. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

To be quite clear, ArbCom, what you are doing here is giving into an off-wiki-organized harassment campaign, and don't pretend everyone doesn't know it. You've just written the blueprint for any contentious topic area to come — have anonymous trolls on throwaway accounts and IPs bombard BLPs with character assassination attempts, then harass and attack the established editors who respond to those efforts until enough "evidence" is ginned up to provide a pretext for topic-banning those established editors. I eagerly await the Gamergate 2 ArbCom request, when another set of established editors such as Tony Sidaway, Protonk or Bosstopher become the targets of 8chan and KiA. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is not the first time that a dispute has been imported and it won't be the last. We have put robust measures in place to deal with incoming issues,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

So you're not denying that you're basically giving 8chan and KiA what they want in hopes the problem will go away. Good to know what level of support established editors who work to defend BLPs from off-wiki-organized character assassination campaigns will have going forward — none at all. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying anthing of the kind. We have put robust measures in place on-wiki; these apply as much to BLPs as anything else. There's nothing more we can realistically do.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger, you just voted to topic-ban or outright-ban four of the five established editors who were targeted by 8chan and KiA for a vicious off-wiki-organized harassment campaign because they dared to try and stop Gamergate trolls from using Wikipedia biographies as a weapon of character assassination against Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Please stop pretending that your actions here don't speak louder than your words. I'm OK with knowing that the ArbCom has no spine and gives in to off-wiki harassment campaigns, but it would have been better to know that before, so I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to stop Gamergate trolls from comparing Zoe Quinn to a prostitute in her Wikipedia biography. Someone else can do the dirty work from now on. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing BLP violations is a laudable activity. Edit warring and enflaming issues are not. It is in fact possible to have one without the other. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 00:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The evidence cited shows that I engaged in one edit-war on the article, in the first week of September, and frankly some of the linked edits (this one in particular) involved reverting material on BLP grounds — the statement that <redacted> is untrue and actually portrays Eron Gjoni, of all people, in a false light. I admit that my behavior has not been perfect, but "enflaming issues" seems thin gruel for a topic ban. And as per Ryulong above, yes, inevitably KiA and 8chan are now celebrating wildly at the scalps they are about to claim. That was predictable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger: What admin is going to risk taking those actions under DS, knowing that if they make decisions which Gamergate supporters oppose, they will be targeted for a vicious harassment campaign by an anonymous off-wiki mob and dragged before ArbCom with entire chanboard threads devoted to crowdsourcimg evidence against them? You are setting admins up to be GamerGate's next harassment targets, with the visible scalps of myself and others providing proof of the efficacy of their tactics. It is unsurprising that most admins have declined to put themselves in such a position, and I applaud Gamaliel and HJ Mitchell for being willing to step up and make decisions which invite such abuse. I would not wish upon anyone what I have been subjected to. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk

Is there a reason the committee totally ignored loganmac's conduct in the topic area? Protonk (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because there's virtually no actionable evidence,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

ell-oh-ell. Protonk (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"With the exception of arbitrators and clerks, all editors must comment in their own section only"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was wondering this too.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC) I am now greatly regretting the fact that I didnt bother sending any email evidence to this case... Assuming the thing about changing the sanctions to arbcom sanctions passes, will I be able to use privately submitted information in a request for enforcement? Bosstopher (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC) But seriously. This is and was a topic defined by SPAs, canvassing and harassment of editors by people acting off site. If we can't at least topic ban the editor responsible for a huge chunk of that (now a mod of KiA), then what have we really accomplished? You knew this was the case when you took it and you took an extra month in deciding but somehow that escaped your attention. Protonk (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC) It's obvious at this point that this decision is about giving KiA and 8chan exactly what they want. Congratulations, ArbCom, you're a hero to anonymous troll chanboards that have been the subject of international media condemnation, have viciously harassed Wikipedia editors and repeatedly attempted to character-assassinate their opponents via their Wikipedia biographies and related pages. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC) Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC) Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement." Roger Davies, no one is asking for the arbcom to act off site. We're asking for the arbcom to ban someone on wikipedia. What's the reason why action wasn't taken on site for this obvious and ongoing disruption? This isn't just a "oh, my preferred outcome didn't happen." The community placed faith in you to handle a situation that couldn't be resolved without "private evidence" and you essentially told us to piss up a rope. Protonk (talk) 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Further, we went through this entire case and this is still our expectation of discourse. Nothing has fucking changed. The GG article will still be an unreadable mess and community sanctions will still be invoked for arbitrary and totally unimportant things. What a complete embarrassment. What a waste of everyone's time. Protonk (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by DSA510

I thought I was already topic banned 5ever. Don't need to tell me twice. Besides, the KDE articles are very nice and tasty. The GamerHate article is ugly and boring and I'm writing about it on my blog anyways, so I don't see the need to topic ban me twice. Will I have to change my signature now? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The proposal is basically an endorsement of the community topic ban, and a conversion from that to an ArbCom topic ban. There's no topic banning you twice happening here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You aren't topic banned twice, you preexisting topic ban is now an arbcom topic ban and any appeals should be to the committee. Due to the fact that many users like to engage in endless wiki-lawyering about such things, we simply have tried to make it clear that all sanctions previously imposed by the community are now arbcom sanctions. I don't know what you mean about your signature but I'm guessing it's something silly that doesn't really matter. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not helpful or constructive. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Sexy. And apparently, according to people who read too deep into things, my signature is some sort of rape joke. Or something. And said rape joke is dark magenta and green, which is the color of that GamerHate girl or something? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {DD2K|Dave Dial}

It is incomprehensible that ArbCom has Tarc(who was barely involved) banned from the project, TaraInDC topic banned, and doesn't even list LoganMac. There is no reason or excuse for that at all. Incomprehensible and egregious. Just the off-site harassment should have been enough for a perm ban. What the Hell is going on here? Dave Dial (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I just want to add, I know this is volunteer work and that ArbCom members spend a lot of time devoting themselves to help the project when they become ArbCom members. But I think what others are saying is that by sanctioning long-time editors who have had to deal with deplorable, egregious off-site(and many times on-site) harassment, while letting one of the main coordinators of that harassment go unmentioned, tells regular editors(volunteers themselves) and admins that protecting the project from BLP violations coordinated from off-site will not only get you sanctioned, but the perpetrators will be rewarded with no sanction. Because I can put my hand in front of my face and tell you that I'm invisible, and if you say you can see me, you're in trouble. Take care all. Dave Dial (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

I think the proposed decisions to ban Tarc, Tutelary and TDA seem a bit on the harsh side. Tarc has seemed to responded well from the last case in my limited observations of him since then. I likewise think the banning TDA or Tutelary seems overkill. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Cryptic

One has to wonder where exactly the committee expects to find uninvolved administrators to implement remedy 10, given how clear the eventual result will be. —Cryptic 00:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by MLauba

Good luck with finding any admins to enforce the DS for you. The message this PD sends is loud and clear: Arbcom doesn't have your back. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

You'll have to explain that ... you seem to have it the wrong way round.  Roger Davies ^talk 01:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

There is an error with regards to the claim about past misconduct. You claim I was sanctioned in "May 2012", but that is referring to a sanction on a completely different editor. I was sanctioned in October of 2012 with a one-way interaction ban under the discretionary sanctions, which was made mutual by ArbCom along with several other similar interaction restrictions in September 2013 due to the other party's conduct with regards to another person who had a one-way interaction restriction with him. Said party was site-banned soon after for conduct towards yet another person in violation of the newly imposed mutual interaction restrictions. Furthermore, the 2013 Scientology restriction was lifted by ArbCom because it was generally recognized as a wrongful sanction. The 2013 "warning" regarding Pseudoscience that you describe as a sanction is because I made two reverts on an article that had recently been subject to 1RR. As I said at the time, I had not been aware of the 1RR being imposed and gave a reasonable BLP concern regardless. Outside of the blocks in this topic area, only one of which stuck, the only block I received after 2012 was rapidly reversed as being inappropriate.

My other concern regards the claim of BLP violations. As far as I can tell this must be about the singular comment I made on a BLP talk page, but I felt I gave a very reasonable response regarding it in my e-mail as I felt there was a legitimate BLP concern to keep in mind regarding content on that BLP. I am not sure why that singular instance would be enough to warrant mentioning it when Ryulong, Baranof, Tara, and Red, have all engaged in blatantly derisive unsourced and unnecessary commentary regarding living subjects on various discussion pages in addition to some BLP-violating edits in the article itself without BLP violations being mentioned explicitly in their respective conduct findings. With concern to the rest, I see most of the evidence concerns my edits regarding Anita Sarkeesian and in that respect I raise no objection to being barred from anything about Sarkeesian. The conduct I have encountered on that page is probably worthy of its own arbitration case if it continues, but I would rather stay away from it as the environment is much too stressful and it would make it harder for me to waffle on my already stated commitment to avoiding it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe I fixed the date issue in this edit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by PeterTheFourth

Very odd that Loganmac, an editor who has been very explicitly coordinating harassment on a very publicly linked account on Reddit, faces no sanctions. Given the severity of some punishments (indefinitely banning Tarc, for example), it's odd to see somebody who seems worse in behaviour get away without even a warning. Is the arbitration council concerned purely with editors past records, and not at all for their present behaviour? Recidivism seems the only reason for some very, very harsh measures. PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NE Ent

Re:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel_reminded

While I understand the committee's reasoning here, in this particular context -- given this was an acrimonious external conflict imported wholesale, the administrators who were willing to step up and volunteer in an exceedingly difficult arena deserve not only our thanks, but a broadly construed application of WP:NOTPERFECT. Vote no on both of these. NE Ent 02:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {username}

Editors may make relevant statements addressing general aspects of the proposed decision (which are not related to proposal).