Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. The Arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. The bottom of the page may be used for overall analysis of the /Evidence and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only Arbitrators and clerks may edit, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Motions and requests by the parties

Request to narrow initial focus

1)Please act to narrow the focus of this arbitration, at least initially, to the most urgent and weighty issue presented, administrative recusal.

Comment by Arbitrators:

My review of the evidence to date has not led me to question my initial view, expressed at the acceptance stage, that there is thin fodder for an arbitration case here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:13, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

(added later) I agree with NYB, except that there was one narrow issue, presented and developed in the RfC, and not resolved there. Most comment and discussion in the RfC avoided that issue, or implicitly accepted it but proposed inadequate or "shoot the messenger" solutions. Yes, thin. And for that reason, quickly resolved had scope been limited. For the future, ArbComm may wish to consider the principle outlined here. --Abd (talk) 12:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

This case became qualified through a focused RfC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3, on the topic of alleged failure to recuse when involved, and the evidence presented was limited to that issue. Whether or not JzG was "correct" in the actions was moot, and I acted (with some success) to prevent the RfC from becoming a laundry list of complaints against JzG. However, a majority of respondents in the RfC, which should be reviewed, did treat it as a content dispute and alleged misbehavior on my part. Nevertheless, WP:DR was not followed with respect to my alleged misbehavior, and that matter would ordinarily not be ripe for examination by ArbComm. It is obvious that if ArbComm determines that JzG did not violate policy, then my dispute was disruptive and my behavior would then be a proper topic for immediate examination. However, if JzG did violate policy, and if my behavior was within bounds as a following of WP:DR, then immature examination of my behavior, searching it for flaws, would be, in itself, a chilling example deterring others from similarly following WP:DR, and we need more of that following, not less. Hence I request the Committee to narrow the focus of this case, at least initially, to JzG's actions as an administrator, allowing, pending resolution of that issue, normal process to address my own errors, such as they may be. If the Committee does this, I need not answer all the allegations and irrelevant false charges being made on the Evidence page, knowing that, later, I would have an opportunity to address them if they do not become moot. There is some discussion of this at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG/Workshop#Possible motion to narrow focus of this case.--Abd (talk) 17:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that Abd's and JzG's actions each need to stand on their own. Even if Abd's accusations prove incorrect, that does not mean Abd has done wrong. On the other hand, if JzG is found to have misused tools, that does not exonerate Abd. There are possible outcomes where both are right or both are wrong. Jehochman ^Talk 02:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Jehochman. Unfortunately, I don't see any other support appearing for the concept of disentangling the issues. There is no argument with the decision of the arbitrators to examine the conduct of all parties; the question is only one of sequence. A person is not charged with frivolous litigation until after the original cause of action has been found to be baseless. We don't prosecute someone for false fire alarm until we first check to see if there is a fire, and we don't, to save time, do both at once. I know what I was suggesting, I know that it would simplify process, and I also know that Wikipedia does things the hard way, but it's really up to ArbComm. My experience tells me that when I make a motion and nobody seconds it, shut up and move on, it doesn't matter how right I think I am. --Abd (talk) 04:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue of JzG's alleged policy violations and my alleged misbehavior are separate issues, and only related in one direction. JzG's behavior was not with respect to me (or my interests, I was totally uninvolved at the time). My behavior was with respect to his, and is the subject of evidence and comment here only because that has been raised as a kind of defense of JzG, and as a coat-rack for other disputes. Hence whether or not my behavior was justified and appropriate is, at least partially, dependent on whether or not there were policy violations of substance. It's true, my behavior is ultimately an independent question, except that if, say, immediately before the filing of this RfAr, JzG had acknowledged the error and promised not to repeat it, it is nearly certain that any dispute over my behavior would be resolved short of arbitration, probably before RfC. Jehochman can testify that I seek consensus and that I use DR properly, because I did it with him, and you can see the positive working relationship that developed from it. The allegations re my behavior are immature for AC, not having been the subject of an RfC, and not being an emergency. (If they are an emergency, then ordinary recourse for disruption is available, I do not interpret that I have a free pass because this is at ArbComm, and, further, ArbComm could issue an injunction.) Similarly, I would not have raised issues regarding the usage of the blacklist by other administrators, because, again, it seems consensus is within reach though ordinary process and an ArbComm ruling not necessary at this time.

In addition, I don't raise this issue just for myself, but as a general issue about factors that cause arbitrations to become far more disruptive than necessary. If A/C confined itself to narrow questions, one at a time, and acted to restrict expansion of cases (quickly remanding immature disputes back to the community), it would become far more efficient, taking advantage of what is well-known in dispute resolution off-wiki. More cases, perhaps (though not many more), but faster resolution, by far. It's tempting to try to resolve multiple issues at once, but centuries of experience show that this is far less efficient and far less likely to find true consensus. I'd drop the request, here, completely, except that there has been so much comment that I can't. In ordinary deliberative process, no motion is debated until there is a second. For ArbComm to adopt the practice of prohibiting debate on a motion, here, unless the motion is seconded, a great deal of wasted time would be avoided. Nobody seconded my motion, and were I chair, I'd rule it failed for lack of a second, and it would be collapsed as closed for that reason. We'd have been done with it in quickly. Maybe there should be a process chair for ArbComm procedure, perhaps appointed by the committee, with rulings of the chair appealable for immediate determination without debate by the committee. I.e., what anyone here who has experience with real world consensus and deliberative process would see as normal. (Clerks sort of do this, but with no guidance on the point I've raised.)

So, I'm going to request that a clerk, absent objection, i.e., the appearance of a second, close and collapse this motion as having failed for lack of a second, and consider doing that with others. (It's reversible, should anyone later decide to support such a motion.) Be bold. --Abd (talk) 16:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." This is just as much about Abd's ongoing incivility, wikihounding and general disruptive behavior as it is about JzG's long past recusals or lack thereof. Hipocrite (talk) 17:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I see where Abd is coming from with this, but don't think the case will go any faster or be any more efficient a use of time if it is split into two. Fritzpoll (talk) 20:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Six of the 11 accepting arbs indicated an expilict intent to examine the actions of all parties (by my rough count). It's a little late for one of the parties to suggest their own actions shouldn't be considered until the other party has been examined. Especially since the suggesting party has used every possible avenue to have the "other" party examined and censured leading up to this case. Franamax (talk) 01:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Follow up: I think the problem here is that a finding of wrongdoing by JzG does not imply a specific finding (or lack thereof) with regards to Abd. JzG can have been found to have done something wrong and Abd could be sanctioned for having approached it inappropriately. I think Abd views this case as having two possible combinations of findings: (JzG = wrong, Abd = right) or (JzG = right, Abd = wrong). In reality, it is possible for both parties to be right or both parties to be wrong (crudely speaking) and so it is of greater efficiency to examine the parties together, when the evidence is necessarily overlapping. Abd is not being "prosecuted" for frivolous litigation, but his behaviour is being examined in how the complaint was pursued. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee should not limit its mandate to the issues as specifically put forth by Jehochman when he initiated this case, for indeed we have a variety of questions and issues to be dealt with here that go beyond the scope of simple mediation or dispute resolution: Arbcom should feel behooved to clarify whatever issues and disparities led up to this case in the first place - including the issues raised in the dispute-resolution process leading up to this case. However this case as presented by Jehochman does not (understandably) itemise all these issues and therefore the scope of the case is very poorly defined, and users seem to be adding some irrelavancies to the scope, and, are adding only some of the many relevancies to the scope, resulting in a distorted scope for the Arbitration Committee.

Furthermore, looking over this case, when we look at the Dispute-Resolution process leading up to this far, we see that Abd has extensively followed the dispute-resolution process (rightfully or wrongfully) leading up to requesting a case with ArbCom as a last resort which was in fact imminent based on the result of his last RfC; but his opportunity to present his case and propose his own mandate to Arbcom has been usurped/circumvented by Jehochman's case request; instead of being able to present his own case, he has to instead defend someone else's that has a totally different scope. I do not believe that the best interests of the project are served with an unclear scope as presented in good faith by Jehochman, and nor is it best served by cramming millions of issues into the scope of this case. In real life judges have the ability to separate trials/cases, especially when it is more economic to do so, or in the alternative they go to their jurists and present them with a very clear scope. Abd's request to "narrow the focus of this arbitration .. to the most urgent and weighty issue presented" is not totally without merit; and neither is NewYorkBrad's assertion that there is thin fodder for an arbitration case simply because Arbcom has not been presented with a thorough context or scope by Jehochman.

Some may call me cynical of ArbCom's capabilities but this may be mistaking my naivette, and my comments here are made with respect, in good faith of all parties, and with genuine concern -- mistaken or unmistaken. Rfwoolf (talk) 23:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I have also since remembered that one of the conditions of an Arbcom case is that previous attempts to resolve the problem through dispute resolution are required before a case can be opened (Arbcom is the final stage in dispute resolution). Here, dispute resolution has not been tested with regards to disputes of Abd's handling of the matter, and yet it is given full weight, meanwhile Abd's actual concerns as laid out in his RfC Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/JzG_3 which has gone completely through dispute resolution without consensus being reached has to share the same floor. Arbcom should of course be allowed to accept disputes that have not finished going through dispute resolution which is what I think has happened here, but that doesn't mean it is the best or most fair thing to do and perhaps there should be a guidelines discouraging it if a party was going to file an ArbCom case after his own attempts at dispute resolution, only to be beaten to the punch by another user. It is still "early" in the process, but so far things don't appear to be moving forward in a fashion that is befitting of Wikipedia's final step in dispute resolution. Under this line of thought, User:Jehochman should not have opened this Arbcom case because he was not the one following dispute resolution, Abd was. Rfwoolf (talk) 15:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed final decision

Proposals by Jehochman

Proposed principles

Policy and point of view

1) Verifiability, Neutral point of view, No original research, and What Wikipedia is not are core policies. They are not points of view.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

We welcome editors with different points of view. We do not welcome editors who persistently violate content policies. There are claims that Guy was involved because of his efforts to enforce these policies. Jehochman ^Talk 10:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Maybe I just don't get it. Who said they were points of view? Why does this need to be said? If there were specific application shown, maybe. Guy claimed reliance on policies, often, but his understanding of how to apply them was colored by his involvement. No allegation has been made by me of bad faith; he clearly believes that our policies would prohibit, for example, any linking whatever, for whatever purpose, to lenr-canr.org, and he even edit warred in an attempt to prevent it after we managed to get one page whitelisted. However, that same assumption of good faith requires me to consider that he hasn't been competent to judge when to recuse or not, and recusal when involved is also a policy. --Abd (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2009

Clarification Administrators cannot enforce NPOV with tools, this is a basic misunderstanding shared by too many administrators, not just JzG. This is because NPOV is not a POV that an admin holds; when an admin judges that text is POV, the admin has developed a POV, or is, as in the case before us, applying a prior POV. NPOV is not developed or enforced except through editorial consensus; where narrow consensus is warped, we broaden attention through WP:DR; however, the best negotiations are made in good faith between involved editors, i.e., those who know the topic and who have, therefore, opinions of weight, not merely knee-jerk reactions. The job of administrators in this is to mediate and enforce behavioral guidelines, and the process breaks down when an admin fails to recuse when involved or is applying prior prejudice, thus warping behavioral enforcement toward one POV. Examples abound, unfortunately, even though most admins very properly recuse when involved. Edit the articles or police behavior around them, don't do both, and, even though not editing an article, don't support just one side of a content dispute with tools, based on agreement with that side. --Abd (talk) 12:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Just wanted to point out that NOT is NOT a 'core' policy, at least by most people's definitions. It's a policy, but not one we die by, like V, NPOV, and NOR. rootology (C)(T) 01:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Contradicts WP:NPOV, which says "As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints". It's also unclear what the relevance is to this case. It's very common for content disputes to revolve around different interpretations of how to apply content policies in specific situations. Believing that one is enforcing a content policy is not normally an excuse for editwarring, for example, regardless of whether a later majority vote or consensus decision agrees with your interpretation or not. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

2) Dispute resolution is for resolving disagreements. It may not be used to intimidate, pressure or wear down an opponent.

2.1) Dispute resolution is for good faith attempts to resolve disagreements. It may not be used to intimidate, pressure or wear down an opponent. Likewise, editors may not exert improper influence, such as threatening blocks or bans, to deter others from making legitimate dispute resolution requests.

2.2) Dispute resolution is a process for resolving disagreements over article content or editorial behavior. It requires the same civility standards as every other action on Wikipedia and should not be abused to make personal attacks. Users who are misusing this process as a way to intimidate, pressure or wear down one or more editors may be sanctioned. Likewise, editors may not exert improper influence, such as threatening blocks or bans, to deter others from making legitimate dispute resolution requests.

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Comment by parties:

Necessary because there are allegations that WP:DR may have been gamed. Whether or not this happened, it is important to state as a principal that WP:DR may not be abused as a WP:BATTLE tactic. Jehochman ^Talk 10:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I added 2.2 to synthesize what I'd seen so far. I'm still not confident it's complete. DR hasn't been used with me, mostly, so I don't see it from that side; editors not infrequently warn me, complain about me, but don't take the next step of involving a third editor, especially of involving someone neutral. In the other direction, I've seen an RfC filed by admins on an editor when, clearly, the goal from the beginning wasn't to develop consensus but to ban the editor, with whom they were in content conflict, and simply to show a basis for that. Something I'd really like to see this RfAr encourage is for WP:DR to be followed by the book and by the intent of it. It works, usually, even at a quite low level, and it only fails when positions are entrenched, in which case escalation becomes necessary. --Abd (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Elemental but too vague. I think it should rather be expanded, maybe like this:

Dispute resolution is a process for resolving disagreements over an article's content. It requires the same civility standards as every other action on Wikipedia and should not be abused to make personal attacks. Users who are misusing this process as a way to intimidate, pressure or wear down one or more editors who hold different views can and will be sanctioned accordingly.

Thoughts? Regards SoWhy 20:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Normally, WP:BATTLE is in part defined as a failure to use proper DR channels. The wording here is very vague and eminently gameable; we may expect many disruptive editors to invoke it, if it becomes part of the decision. Durova^Charge! 23:59, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, WP:BATTLE has included instances when people used WP:DR with no intention of actually resolving a dispute. They were trying to get their opponents sanctioned, blocked or banned, by whatever means were available. See also vexatious litigation. Jehochman ^Talk 00:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The dispute resolution used here was conduct RfC, initiated because Abd saw a need for recusal with regard to the spam blacklist. Considering that within about the last day a site was removed from the spam blacklist by consensus, and that JzG himself agreed during RFAR that he probably ought to have recused, I am curious to know how this case might be distinguishable from normal and proper use of dispute resolution. What is vexatious about this? Durova^Charge! 00:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You're jumping ahead. This is a principal, not a finding of fact. Various people have alleged vexatious litigation. We should first agree to the principal that vexatious litigation is a bad thing. Then we can look at the evidence and see if that happened, or not, and explain why or why not. This is how we can get people on both sides to agree, hopefully. I have done a very large amount of negotiating in real life and have a pretty good concept of how to get to "yes". Jehochman ^Talk 00:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed principle: the sky is blue. How is that or this relevant to this case? Durova^Charge! 00:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Where I am, the sky is black. Shall we edit war over it? [snark, not earnest] Wishing you a beautiful sunset, Jehochman ^Talk 00:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The strange thing is you begin posting workshop proposals a day after the case opens before one of the two principal named parties has presented evidence, and then call the response to your proposals premature. Durova^Charge! 01:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hows about Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not about winning? Is that the idea you're after? rootology (C)(T) 01:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I really like that. Dispute resolution is not a competitive sport. Jehochman ^Talk 01:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Both the versions proposed by Jehochman and SoWhy refer to misuse of the DR process by intimidation and pressure. However, as Durova has noted, it is proper for some disputes to escalate through the process, and this is sometimes met with accusations this escalation is actually inappropriate pressure, wikilawyering or battling. I think Jehochman is right that a pinciple noting the inappropriateness of vexatious litigation is needed; however, recognition is also needed that attempts to intimidate people into dropping a case or not escalating to the next step in DR is just as wrong. The mere fact that someone has moved to the next stage of DR is not a reasonable basis for criticism. EdChem (talk) 14:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How about 2.1? There are allegations in this case that improper influences were exerted to prevent DR from moving forward. Jehochman ^Talk 14:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think 2.1 is a substantial improvement... it recognises both types of abuses - and I think there are allegations of both in this case. EdChem (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't kept it in mind, but there were instances of threats that I'd be sanctioned if I continued. JzG, though, only wrote something like this once, as I recall. Nothing I'd bring up. I suppose I could look it up if someone thinks it relevant. The RfC was filled with comments that I should be banned, basically for pursuing WP:DR, though of course it wasn't stated that way. Rather, as I recall, it was for "disruption," for "beating a dead horse," for harassing JzG, or for unrelated offenses. Hey! that dead horse just got up and ran out the barn door! (newenergytimes removed from the blacklist, lenr-canr.org has one whitelisting and really is a very similar situation to lenr-canr.org, so one-and-a half down, a few to go. None of the other issues have been presented for DR resolution beyond initial comment. --Abd (talk) 01:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. 2.1 is an improvement over 2, but I have concerns about this sentence: "It may not be used to intimidate, pressure or wear down an opponent." Giving someone escalating warnings, then applying sanctions or soliciting opinions from other users, with the ultimate goal of persuading the person to change their behaviour to conform to a policy or guideline, could be described as "wearing down" the person, and the use or warning of use of sanctions could be described as "intimidating", but such actions are a normal and necessary part of wikiinteraction. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The operative term is opponent. One should not be sanctioning an opponent. If you come into a situation as uninvolved, you are free to warn or sanction an editor as required to protect the project from disruption. I am sure the wording could be improved. Please propose something, Coppertwig. Jehochman ^Talk 23:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

CommentThis comes across as disingenuous (I know, AGF etc). You've proposed two principles. The first one you pretty much explicitly say is intended to move things towards your preferred conclusion (Guy is only seen as involved because of his darling efforts to enforce policy). The second one you then indignantly defend as just being a principle when people naturally see it as another step towards your desired conclusion. You say you have done a lot of negotiating in real life but is that really how you find it works - you propose a set of principles on the basis that the first one is directed towards exonerating party A and the second one is just setting out that if party B did what he's accused of then that would be BAD (let's agree that before discussing whether he did it...). Do you think that in negotiations outside of Wikipedia that party B would tend to view that as antagonistic? Why not start by saying how inappropriate it would be to make admin actions when involve in a content dispute, because Guy's accused of that? Don't get me wrong, you're allowed to be partisan I'm sure, but I don't think jumping backwards and fowards between partisan advocate and neutral negotiator is going to work. (disclaimer, not a party, yes a busy body, no account etc. etc. But that doesn't affect the point I'm making) 87.254.80.250 (talk) 19:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Using tools while involved is inconsistent with 2.1, at least as I read it. It is likely to be intimidatory. It certainly is using improper influence. And, it is questionable whether such an action is taken in good faith. However, I would agree that the principle that using tools while involved is inappropriate, potentially sanctionable, and that it invites additional scrutiny should also be stated. Admin recusal is definitely an issue in this case. EdChem (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've held off on this as long as possible. Both versions of this proposed principle include the assertion that dispute resolution may not be used to intimidate. Compare that wording to an occasion that happened less than one month ago in connection to the JzG RFC. I had posted to Jehochman's talk page saying "I have no wish to enter formal dispute resolution with you, but no reluctance to either. So if you wish to shake cyberhands, please post a few words to that effect. Best wishes," (full text here)[1] which Jehochman blanked with an unpleasant edit summary[2] and followed up at my user talk to say "I despise the way you keep threatening me with process," (full text here).[3] Now if--according to Jehochman's own words--that constitutes a misuse of dispute resolution on my part, then I am at a loss to conceive how I may ever use it properly. Are editors to be left without recourse when an administrator assaults their integrity? Durova^Charge! 21:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

No, editors may request dispute resolution at any time, if they do so in good faith. What they may not do is use threats of dispute resolution (vexatious litigation) in an attempt to dominate another editor, or overwhelm them to redundant complaints hither and thither. Jehochman ^Talk 23:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How do you reconcile that with your own reaction to my statement less than three weeks ago that you did not come to the JzG RfC with clean hands on matters of recusal, and that if I were the initiator of this case it would have been named Administrative recusal and included you as a named party? The terms upon which you initiated this case and have presented workshop proposals could be read as an attempt to frame the scope of discussion in terms of a microdispute between JzG and Abd, which might be laudable on the part of a truly disinterested Wikipedian, but the fact is that it also happens to be to your direct advantage to define the scope on these terms--in ways which you have not disclosed within the case despite your very active presence here as case initiator and workshop proposal writer. Durova^Charge! 00:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Sheesh! Look away for a few minutes and the kids are squabbling again. Durova et al, Jehochman's proposal is basically right and does no harm, especially if the best and most complete wording is accepted. I know that there is lots you can say about this, and it's mostly better left not said. Sure, I don't like Jehochman's "framing," not really expressed with this proposal, and, sure, it's part of the problem, but, one issue at a time. Part of building consensus is accepting whatever is, at worst, harmless from the other parties. With other proposed findings or principles, the "personal squabble" framing may come up, though the nails are falling out day by day. We can deal with it then and, Durova, I'm sure you'll have plenty to say on it if it does, and I may be right there with you. Meanwhile, I've got the rest of my evidence to prepare, articles to work on, and kids to get to school in the morning.... --Abd (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

If anyone needs proof that Abd and I are not two peas in a pod, there you have it. Now as everyone probably knows, Jehochman and I haven't always been best of chums either. Regardless, each issue I raise is presented on its merits--not as a pretext for supporting or opposing particular people. People can find themselves in awkward positions when workshop proposals go up too early; that probably applies on all sides. Durova^Charge! 02:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Durova, I have no doubt that you raise some valid points. Yes, I thought it was early myself; how about having a week's evidence? Is there some emergency here? I don't think so, JzG isn't editing at all (may have nothing to do with this), though some may think my editing a problem. But if that's an emergency, every admin has a block button and, besides, I respond to warnings from administrators. Even when I don't agree with them; I then, if I think it important, follow WP:DR with the warning admin or at least obtain community support before proceeding. But obviously Jehochman had a different view, and it takes all kinds to build a project. --Abd (talk) 02:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Spam blacklist

3) The spam blacklist is used to prevent the addition of links to Wikipedia which have been spammed abused widely. The spam blacklist is not for filtering out unreliable sources.

3.1) The spam blacklist is used to prevent the addition of links to Wikipedia which have been, or are likely to be, abused widely, or which contain malware or copyright violations.

3.2) The spam blacklist is properly used to prevent the massive addition of links to Wikipedia without review and consensus. As such, any addition of links, whether the individual links are proper or not, may result in blacklisting, if other means of addressing the problem proves inadequate. Content arguments, such as "not reliable source," are irrelevant to blacklisting itself, except that "reliable source" may be an argument for delisting or whitelisting specific pages. If there is no continued danger of widespread unexamined link addition, prior blacklisting, whether proper or not, should be irrelevant to a delisting request. - This is not my proposal. Please propose in your own section. Thanks. Jehochman ^Talk 13:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. May need technical tweaks. Jehochman ^Talk 23:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Support. Yes, it might need some expansion, because there may be some applications of the blacklist beyond wide linkspam. However, this statement does leave room for other possible uses, it simply rules out one that is, by consensus when considered, not legitimate. Going further than that here may not be appropriate. --Abd (talk) 02:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Ummm. As "spammed," the word might offend some editor, yes, but "abused" opens the door to discussion at the blacklist of what constitutes abuse. "Linkspam" is a term of art that refers to massive addition of links without finding consensus even if the links are legitimate, and routinely, I've seen sites blacklisted where every link was legitimate in hindsight, but being added in volumes such that there is also legitimate concern that the links aren't receiving due consideration. Then, because blacklisting creates a severe problem for naive editors who can't save an edit to any part of an article or section they are editing, because of some link that they won't necessarily recognize, the links must be removed. So antispam volunteers end up, sometimes massively, reverting good edits with no discussion. Convenient for the antispammers, but sometimes harmful to content. Instead of "spammed" or "abused," I'd suggest "to prevent the massive and rapid addition of links to Wikipedia without a showing of acceptability." Otherwise we will see what we've seen in Beetstra's evidence, that links added in a good faith belief that they were appropriate, over a long period of time, come to be viewed as evidence of abuse. "Abuse" is a term which could apply to any allegedly inappropriate link. "Copyright violations," unless massive or involving a site where we should know that copyvio is likely, is an argument that was used against lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com. Possible violations below that level create no legal risk for Wikipedia. Editors should not have to verify and prove that a page on a durable and readily visible web site is not a copyright violation, it turns quick edits into a red tape nightmare. Low-level copyright problems need no blacklist, the blacklist is quite clearly designed in MediaWiki for prevention of massive linkspam that can't be dealt with any other way. Possible exceptions to "massive addition without review" or whatever should be documented and accepted by consensus, otherwise there will continually be disruption about this. Absolutely, a A.B. notes below, malware is an excellent exception, one that can be treated as an emergency. What is essential is that broad generalizations about the supposed unusability of a web site ("Not reliable source") not become a reason for blacklisting. --Abd (talk) 17:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed 3.2 to reflect actual practice plus issue raised in the extended DR process over the original problem blacklisting. Blacklisting typically doesn't originally consider content appropriateness at all, and the case of Lyrikline.org shows that the concern is only massive addition; evidence didn't consider content arguments, and content was actually appropriate, as subsequently shown. There may be exceptions, no doubt, but use of the blacklist to enforce NPOV or "fringe" opinions or judgment of source reliability is a dangerous mixing of admin power and editorial process. The problem with blacklisting is generally not abusive blacklisting, that's rare. The problem is with excessive reluctance to delist or whitelist when a danger can be seen as past, and the "danger" is not that a source may be inappropriately used; that happens all the time. The danger is that links will be spammed, i.e., massively added without opportunity for review and consensus. --Abd (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The links Beetstra examined in his Evidence were generally used in Cold fusion, an article under constant and intense review, there is no danger of extensive inappropriate links remaining there. What Beetstra's evidence amounted to was a finding that two web sites, probably the most visible on the internet on the topic, were used for sourcing claims, sometimes appropriately, sometimes not. Basically, for blacklisting purposes, this was no evidence at all. The original blacklisting "notice for transparency" by JzG didn't provide the evidence normally seen, but just alleged "promotion" of the site. That could refer to linkspam, but, in fact, there was no linkspam at all, the "promotion" was the signature of an IP editor on Talk:Cold fusion, of "Jed Rothwell, librarian, lenr-canr.org" which was not a link at all, but a non-linked title, showing notable expertise, as well as conflict of interest, and these site mentions were not interdicted by blacklisting. --Abd (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Moved 3.2 to my own Proposals section. --Abd (talk) 17:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Generally support, though one might consider "The 'spam blacklist' is used to prevent the addition of links to Wikipedia which have been abused widely" (spam and spamming being negative perojatives which tend to offend people). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment: We sometimes blacklist sites on en.wikipedia that are extremely abusive but have not been widely spammed. Furthermore, URL redirects or malware sites are blacklisted on site on Meta. Copyvio sites are also often blacklisted even if not widely spammed. Finally, we'll often blacklist a spammer's other domains even if not yet spammed when the spammer has ignored multiple warnings regarding his spam domains. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Additional comment: the blacklist is occasionally used to filter out unreliable sources; the most prominent instance was Jimbo Wales' decision to blacklist blog.myspace.com. The instances are few and far between but appropriate in my opinion. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Is version 3.1 better? Jehochman ^Talk 22:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Whether 3.0 or 3.1, does this principle amount to ArbCom setting policy as to use of the blacklist? (Given that there is no "among other uses" clause) Is this within ArbCom's remit? Franamax (talk) 00:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Franamax here on reading 3.1 (the problem is less with 3.0).

Reply to Abd. A lot of spammers here come in good faith, and even SEO's do. They come here to 'enrich' our Wikipedia with their links, and with their information, and to enable the wikipedia community to find their products. They don't know that they violate our policies and guidelines, and hence abuse 'our servers'. Still, they do. Generally, we warn, and if there is no positive response (or it can not be expected due to changing accounts), then the abuse if of a form where sanctions aremay be necessary. You say here "Otherwise we will see what we've seen in Beetstra's evidence, that links added in a good faith belief that they were appropriate, over a long period of time, come to be viewed as evidence of abuse.". Some of the links I present there are recent links, at times where IPs are warned using captchas (I think it is "MediaWiki:Fancycaptcha-addurl", in this form since December 2007 "Your edit includes new external links. These may be much welcomed links to references. Please note that the nofollow HTML attribute is applied to external links in Wikipedia, instructing search engines to ignore these links when computing page ranks. For information on our standards for adding links, please see our External links Guideline."; question, do not autoconfirmed editors also get this?). And in times where discussions with Pcarbonn about POV etc. were already ongoing. I agree, blacklisting on single abuse is too harsh (exceptions are there, but generally), but if the abuse is over a longer period of time, multiple editors and multiple wikipedia pages, and at least some of the editors were at least warned (and note, that IPs are warned even if they don't have a warning on their talkpage!), or issues were discussed, then the distinction is different (I however would agree with a phrase "is the abuse here of a scale wide enough to allow for blacklisting?", but suggesting that there is abolutely no proof of abuse here .. hmmm ..). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Expand: Abd, you seem to be afraid, that "abuse" will encapsulate the blacklisting of unreliable sources without them having been abused or spammed. Abuse here means that a site was abused, that there have been editors who have used the site in any form of abuse. What constitutes abuse, and what is 'wide scale' is down to interpretation and discussion, but we are talking about cases where editors (including admins) have reason to blacklist because they see additions in the past which they see/interpret as a form of abuse. There is, in my opinion, for regular sites absolutely NO reason to blacklist without it having been abused (possible: redirectsites and malware sites, and sites which are part of a larger group of sites (where a number of these were already significantly abused, e.g. all websites registered to a spammer which reside all on one server) being exceptions, these exceptions should probably be mentioned separately in guidelines or policies). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, 3.1 looks better. I'd also add something along the lines of "The spam blacklist is also occasionally used to block unreliable sites that have not been spammed but only after very widespread community discussion and consensus." --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose 3.0, support 3.1. Stifle (talk) 14:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Totally disagree with 3.2, there are cases which are not covered, like abusive links (attack sites), links to malware sites (sites which are a threat to users following the link), redirects (tinyurl and such), pre-emptive blacklisting of links on same server (like porn sites, where the first sets were abused), or which are clearly a target of the same SEO (where the SEO is working for a group of websites, and has started spamming a couple of them), and actually, links which are totally unreliable sources (like blog.myspace.com). The blacklist is to stop abuse using external links, plain and simple, not just "to prevent the massive addition of links to Wikipedia without review and consensus", and that is better covered in 3.0 and 3.1. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)(strikethrough, you are right Dtobias --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC))Proposal removed, comment here unnecessery. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

"Attack sites"? Is WP:BADSITES still being used as an excuse to suppress links? *Dan T.* (talk) 13:23, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

What's this badsites thing I keep hearing about? It must be something from before my time here. Jehochman ^Talk 13:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Abd and dispute resolution

1) User:Abd has not used dispute resolution in bad faith.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I've said this before. While Abd might have pushed further than he should have, he was acting in what he thought were the best interests of the project. Jehochman ^Talk 23:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How could I possibly disagree with this? --Abd (talk) 02:32, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This gets into assigning motivation, which is dangerous ground for ArbCom. It also seems a bit misplaced - after all, the worst harm that has befallen this encyclopedia has been done by people unshakably convinced that they were acting in the best interests of the project. MastCell ^Talk 03:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't know motivation; true. We can draw reasonable conclusions based on observed behavior. Abd has been accused of causing severe disruption. At some point we have to decided this issue. If there has been a failure of community-based dispute resolution, we have to find out why. I am proposing that Abd has not acted so improperly that they could be deemed as acting in bad faith. Fact is, Durova supports Abd's position, so he's not alone in this. There's probably at least some merit to his complaint. Jehochman ^Talk 15:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this, it has maybe gone on a bit too far, but I do believe he is acting in what he thinks is for the best interests of the project. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:56, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Abd believes he's right. I also think this finding is unnecessary unless there is going to be something said about Abd's style in general, and I am finding it difficult to imagine what can reasonably be done there. Things could probably have be handled better, but I don't think ArbCom is about to pass a remedy urging Abd to use better judgement - and even if it did, what would that mean? EdChem (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Trivial and thus irrelevant. We are required to assume good faith unless there is overwhelming and blindingly obvious evidence to the contrary. Abd has not vandalized the mainpage, set up 50 abusive sockpuppets, etc. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG and Cold Fusion

2) JzG has stated that he will not administrate in the area of cold fusion going forward.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Just to make clear what was already agreed at the suggestion of User:Newyorkbrad. Jehochman ^Talk 23:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The only problem with this is that the issue wasn't Cold fusion, it was admin recusal. Do we need a separate promise for every article and situation that JzG might encounter where he should recuse? Does he promise not to block Nuxx bar? Quite simply, I didn't look for general abuse of tools, just with respect to one article. However, no big problem, it's just a fact, I think, if supported by a diff. It's just not terribly relevant. Let's see what the evidence page shows after a week, and especially after JzG submits evidence, if he does. --Abd (talk) 02:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it is clear that the specific instance serves as a warning for the general situation. JzG is clueful and well-meaning. I think he'll be more careful about recusal going forward. Hopefully he'll post something to that effect. Jehochman ^Talk 03:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to think that; unfortunately, the evidence shows otherwise. JzG was under an RfC for failure to recuse, and, in the middle of it, he removed an IP edit from the RfC and blocked, while, on the face, involved. Even if JzG had some legitimate reason for the block, the appearance of involvement creates an obligation to recuse. This block, a few days ago, shows a failure to take the matter seriously and to alter behavior, even under scrutiny. Cold fusion was merely an example. While it seems possible it was a coincidence that investigating Cold fusion history turned up so much evidence, it's unlikely. From prior cases, such as those of Tango and Physchim62, with showing of "pattern" less than seen here, the community and the committee seem likely to need an acknowledgment from the administrator that a subject action was a violation, and then, a promise not to repeat such violations -- with any involvement -- in the future. Physchim62 and Tango, no doubt, blocked in good faith, but showed, by the action, a disregard of recusal requirements, and continued, once challenged, to defend the actions as proper, as has JzG. It was very clear with Physchim62 (and, I think, Tango) that the community and committee would have forgiven everything if they had acknowledged the error. So far, after much request, JzG came up with, in his statement in this RfAr, "maybe I am not the best person to take action on that article any more, having become imbroiled in the dispute." This acknowledges no violation, in fact. So what happens the next time JzG encounters a situation, is involved, and thinks he should block or blacklist or whatever? Will he recognize the involvement and recuse? There is no question of punishment, but it is not punishment to prevent further damage when there is reason to suspect that damage will recur. --Abd (talk) 17:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

No comment on most of your post, Abd, but I just want to point out that this FoF only refers to JzG's further administrative involvement in the topic of cold fusion; it makes no assertion that he has stated he will similarly recuse himself elsewhere, which seems to be what you're concerned about. The statement you quote ("maybe I am not the best person to take action on that article any more, having become imbroiled in the dispute.") does state that he will stop using the tools with respect to cold fusion. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem, from my perspective, is that Abd keeps saying that Guy has had ongoing problems, but the evidence doesn't support that. Am I missing something? Is this block really the only instance of recent "admin abuse" to be found? Because I think you'll find it difficult to get people up in arms about blocking an obvious troll who followed Guy here from an off-wiki dispute. There's not much substance here. Time might be better spent organizing and presenting actual evidence of an active problem (diffs, log entries, etc) rather than repeating claims which seem to lack a sound foundation. MastCell ^Talk 21:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Clerks, please reserve comment sections for parties to comments by parties. This comment may be moved with those above by non-parties as a threaded response. I will present evidence of JzG incivility before the week is up. I had hoped to avoid that issue, in spite of substantial urging off-wiki to bring it up. Apparently it's necessary now. No, the recent block I do not see as uncivil, particularly, but as evidence of recent action while involved and flagrant disregard of what was already extensive notice to JzG by the community that it was a problem, as described in the RfC and, of course, including the RfC itself. I'm not seeking to "get people up in arms," at all. I'm asking for a sober judgment by the committee. --Abd (talk) 16:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree with this. Abd, this is about the cold fusion case, we don't decide here about possible 'refusal' to recuse in future cases, similarly to not blacklisting sites that can be misused in the future. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

One consequence of this case is that any finding here will serve as notice to JzG. Hopefully that would prevent any hypothetical refusal to recuse. Should that contingency occur, as Abd fears, I expect the Committee would take swift and stern action. Jehochman ^Talk 11:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Why should JzG fear Committee would take swift and stern action when someone who pledged to not revert JzG's adminstrative actions in front of ArbCom less than 1 year ago is reverting JzG's adminstrative actions? Pledges to do things in front of ArbCom are apparently unimportant and irrelevent - like pledges to be "open to recall." Hipocrite (talk) 12:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose unless a diff of an unambiguous statement to that effect is provided. 01:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC) I don't consider "maybe ... not the best person" to be such a statement; and there are also the past administrative actions which still stand. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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1) {text of proposed remedy}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Template

2) {text of proposed enforcement}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposals by User:Ronnotel

Proposed principles

Tools exist primarily to sanction behavior, not content

1) The use of administrative tools should be limited to the minimum required to prevent disruptive behavior. Using them to restrict access to material in a content dispute should be avoided.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I don't know about that. The delete button sanctions behaviour? The ability to move over redirects? To edit the MediaWiki interface? To see deleted edits? To edit locked templates? In fact, a large number of admins use tools without ever using them to sanction behaviour. Risker (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support --Abd (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Risker is correct, of course; rather, the reference is to admin tools that do control behavior or content. The ability to see deleted content is probably a privilege that could be more widely given out; other examples of admin privilege do involve risk when used to affect content. The proposed finding should certainly be edited to narrow its application. --Abd (talk) 21:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

At their most fundamental level, administrative tools are meant to be coercive - i.e. to discourage disruptive behavior and encourage productive. Their effectiveness is lost when they are employed against something incapable of learning, such as the content itself. Ronnotel (talk) 21:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the general statement, "Tools exist to sanction behavior, not content" however I would support "Using the blacklist to restrict access to material in a content dispute among established editors should be avoided." As to whether the blacklist is a behavioral or content tool can be a matter of semantics; It's commonly said in dealing with spammers that "blocking is a behavioral tool to protect Wikipedia while domain blacklisting is a content tool." We sometimes use page protection, another tool, in content disputes for brief periods of time. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I take your point, AB. However, I do think it's important to stress that the primary purpose of the tools is to address behavior. I believe a much higher level of care should be shown when they are used to address content concerns. I suspect this is something we can readily agree upon. Is the description of my proposed principal in line with your thoughts? If so, perhaps we can come up with a better tag line? How about Tools exist primarily to sanction behavior, not content'? Ronnotel (talk) 01:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've discussed this at great length with Beetstra. The general statement is accurate. "Should be avoided" doesn't mean that there are no circumstances where the blacklist process may -- nay, must -- consider content. Maybe a general statement about use of admin tools is important, but perhaps also a more specific one about the blacklist itself. Bottom line: blacklisting was designed to deal only with massive linkspam, that couldn't be handled other ways, so if that doesn't exist, there should be no blacklisting, and exceptions would require a strong showing of damage (such as malware, good example). Then, if the danger is past, delisting should probably be routine. I will, later, give examples. However, if there is real and present danger of massive linkspam, then whitelisting specific pages becomes a cumbersome but necessary way of dealing with legitimate use, and this, then, should require some showing of either necessity, or, possibly, simple, nearly automatic process whereby registered editors can easily request whitelisting, not be grilled about it, and it's granted by a neutral admin, and blacklist volunteer admins would not ever decline a whitelisting request, because of the circularity that gets set up. This means less burden on the blacklist volunteers, who do a very important and difficult job. --Abd (talk) 14:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Abd and I have discussed this at great length, and agree on the basis of the terms (sometimes disagreeing on some semantics or on terms, but well). Admin tools should indeed not be used to control content, we fully agree on that. But I disagree that page protection, blocking people and blacklisting links is 'controlling content'! The only 'content' that is blocked by blacklisting a link is the external link in the external links section. I still insist that blacklisting a link does not disable adding content to the body, and referencing it to the material on the blacklisted site (pointy example, but again, if I say, that I said in revid 283836766 on this wiki "I am not disputing, anywhere, that these sites contains good information and with the copies that are there there are no copyright issues.", then you are able to confirm that; it is more work, but it does not make it untrue, unverifyable etc.!) You only can't link to it anymore (in references, the link is a convenience link, not a absolute must, though it is certainly helpful (and I am talking about content space, not about talkpage discussions, yes, it also hampers discussion on talkpages!!). Also, it is not the end, specific links can still be whitelisted where needed. Blacklisting hence slows down the editing, and makes people think about what they add, and 'forces' discussion, but I do not believe that it really controls content. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:20, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I see that Beetstra, after stating it incorrectly, went on to acknowledge that blacklisting does not only control the External link section. Most spammers add links to those sections, they can find them quickly, so perhaps that's why Beetstra would be thinking of this. The blacklist, however, also blocks references, and it blocks Talk page references, where many links may be appropriate that are not appropriate for the article itself. For example, to understand background for an edit to Cold fusion, it may be appropriate to link, in Talk, a conference paper that's not directly usable in the article. The whole point in Talk is discussion of the material and the topic as related to improving the article, and so "convenience links" are even more important there, it's quite difficult to carry on a discussion when many of the editors can't read the sources! Now, I get around this in Talk all the time: I just put the URL inside nowiki tags, like http://lenr-canr.org -- but it's a nuisance, a continual reminder and it takes everyone just a few seconds more. For no good reason.

Convenience links are far more important than Beetstra seems to imagine. Verification isn't just an ideal, it should actually happen. Readers who are serious students follow references and read the sources to learn more about the topic; universities teach students that, no, don't depend on Wikipedia, but use Wikipedia to find sources. Further, when readers do this, they will find errors in the article, where a source has not been fairly represented, and they may then fix the article. I found, in one of the ADHD articles, a reference to a journal publication. It said something that I thought strange. I couldn't find any copy of the paper on-line. Normally, for me, that's the end of it, I don't have ready access to a good research library, though one of these days I might fix that. However, in this case, I went to a hospital that had the journal and read the article. It had been grossly misrepresented, and the misrepresentation hadn't been noticed for well over a year. Sure, we trust editors, and if they cite a source that's a rare book, we don't usually challenge it. But it is far better if it is easy for readers to read sources and verify and it helps them not only to learn about the topic more deeply, but also it helps the project, because then we get source checking. --Abd (talk) 03:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly, Abd. I have absolutely no problem with convenience links, they are very nice, handy, and should certainly be used as much as possible! Verification should happen also (and it is part of one of the other things were I am working on here), and having accessible data would there even be handy (as certain data can be automatically verified then!). So no problem there. But! They are NOT absolutely necessery, they are not an absolute must, if it is NOT possible to have a live link, then that does not automatically mean that the information is unverifiable, useless, etc. On the contrary, references with or without link are both similarly valid and useful. That is what I mean with terms like 'necesserary', 'absolute must'.

Wikipedia should fairly represent the sources, but I don't go around checking references to check if Wikipedia is representing correctly what is mentioned in the references, in that case Wikipedia would be useless except for a linkfarm (and then SciFinder or Beilstein would give me (as a chemist) quicker and better results). I trust that the references are correctly used. And that depends on the reliability of the source. But I do see here, that these sources have been used in a way where e.g. the Wikipedia was expanded seemingly citing a reliable source (not hosted on these servers), but where the data was actually from an editorial on these servers that cited the reliable source, so actually using a tertiary source, not a secondary source as was implied. Thát is a very dangerous way forward to finally getting rid of the first sentence here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Proposed principles

The purpose of talk pages

1) The purpose of talk pages is to communicate. Users should make sufficient effort so that others can understand them.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Yah. Talk pages are not for obfuscation. Jehochman ^Talk 12:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed; paraphrased from the policy page WP:TALK. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Long, rambling messages

2) Talk page comments should be concise. Posts longer than 100 words should be shortened. Long, rambling messages are difficult to understand, and are frequently either ignored or misunderstood.

Comment by Arbitrators:

100 words limit per talkpage post? Geez, if someone enforces that against me, the only question will be should I retire, or just type every fifth word? (How long has that been in the guideline, anyway? Quite seriously, I've never noticed or heard of it before.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Short Brigade Harvester Boris, I read all of what Abd wrote below. It was not excessive in length, and I can see the point he is making and I agree with him when he says that "Longer messages may be clearer than shorter ones, as well as the reverse." I agree that some of what Abd writes is too long for most people to read (I've failed to finish reading some of his posts), but you (SBHB) jumping on his reply as an example of what you dislike is a clear example of setting someone up to fail. It is what is said, not how it is said that is important, even if there are problems with how it is said. Carcharoth (talk) 15:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Don't waste words. Jehochman ^Talk 12:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

There are two types of writing: exploration or detailed examination, and polemic. Polemic, to be effective, should be as brief as possible. Discussion, however, will vary in length, depending on many factors. When a writer has a lot to say, and only a little time, the length of comments expands rapidly. With more time and more polemic intent, the writer will boil it down. A very few people may be capable of highly effective, immediate, and concise writing, but every writer I've known who was brief and cogent spent hours polishing text. Tl;dr is fine as a reality, but often "tl;dr," as a comment, is a sarcastic expression of "I glanced at this, I don't like it, and responding would take more effort than I care to expend." Reading long, rambling, or off-topic posts on a Talk page is optional, and an editor sacrifices no rights by ignoring them. Where they truly damage communication, refactoring, such as using collapse boxes, is an option, and when done without hostility, can be effective. Invited to condense or summarize comments, I will almost always do it, and sometimes other editors kindly summarize what I've written. So, to boil this down: Should implies a goal. To communicate a conclusion, brevity is the soul of wit. Longer messages may be clearer than shorter ones, as well as the reverse. To explore a topic, to develop rapport -- with sympathetic editors --, greater length may be required. Proposed principle is true, but one-sided and unnecessary. --Abd (talk) 12:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for providing an example of the type of commentary that is of concern here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Please, someone inform me if threaded responses by non-parties in the "Comment by parties" sections are allowed. I'd say it shouldn't be, there is a reason for giving parties a special section, we have far more at stake. This response may be removed if the comment above is, or moved with it, presumably to the "Comment by others" section. Or SBHB is welcome to declare himself a party, and gain the privilege and risk with the rest of us. Maybe responding in the "parties" section should be considered joining as a party! --Abd (talk) 18:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. Taken near-verbatim from the policy page WP:TALK. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Struck the "100 words" bit per NYB. The important point is "Long, rambling messages are difficult to understand, and are frequently either ignored or misunderstood"; the 100-words specification is not central to the principle. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Nyb, although I agree about the 100 word limit, I think you ought to still take the rationale on-board (as stated at 03:04) and form a principle to reflect these views, which are, relatively widely held. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Widely-held views can be dead wrong, and not infrequently are. The real question is what happens when these views are carefully examined in an environment where arguments are compiled and compared in an organized way, which frequently doesn't happen outside of ArbComm or perhaps RfC (content or user -- and too often RfCs become free-for-alls that fail to address the core issue). Genuine consensus, the agreement of the knowledgeable, is truly powerful, and quiets disputes, but we too often short-circuit the process and assume consensus from which part of the crowd is shouting louder. --Abd (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't favor specific arbitrary limits, but in general people should try to be concise; we're not lawyers being paid by the hour to read and understand this stuff, but people doing it in our own spare time. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course. However, we are also not professional copy-editors paid by the hour to boil down comments. I've been such a professional, I do know how to do it, but it takes lots of time, it takes not only skill, but work. When I think it's important that as many as possible read my comments, I do boil them down, but for more diffuse discussion, I assume that many, or most, even, won't read them beyond skimming the first few words. Whatever is important from such discussion will come back around, being, then, much more specific and focused. I've seen this argument about long posts on-line for over 25 years; long speeches in meetings are a real problem. Long posts where people can skip the whole thing in a flash aren't. It was, 25 years ago, one of the exciting things about on-line discussion. Censorship to avoid people having to listen to long rambling speeches was no longer necessary. Yet people still complained, as if they imagined they had some obligation to read everything. Obviously, the dispute hasn't ended. --Abd (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I spend a lot of time on talk pages of controversial articles, and I've seen this come up before. The party line is that if someone is going on too long or disrupting a talk page, it's no big deal, because you can just ignore them. We're not obliged to read everything, as Abd notes. But the party line is wrong. A talk-page discussion is like a conversation, and it can just as easily be disrupted by a long-winded, disputatious, insistently tangential presence. I will leave it to others to determine whether Abd fits this description, but I think the harm caused by disruptive talk-page presences in general is grossly underrecognized. MastCell ^Talk 04:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. Less is more. Mathsci (talk) 09:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the goal. If the goal is imposition of majority view on a minority, as a decision that seeking consensus with the minority is undesirable, less is more (efficient). If the goal is consensus, it's well known that less is less (effective). Consensus takes discussion, and often a great deal of it. It is unsurprising that those who don't understand this have difficulty finding consensus, and come to be known for taking very strong and contentious positions on one side of a dispute. Present company? --Abd (talk) 13:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I find this post almost impossible to understand. What precisely do you mean? Mathsci (talk) 18:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, it was too short for you. I'll let someone else explain, if they care. However, if it's true that the post represents a mature understanding, you might actually have to take as much or more time to read and understand it than I took to write it. --Abd (talk) 19:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not too short. It's just poorly written, a stream of consciousness. Unlike you, a high percentage of my edits are in namepsace, where I add content in both the arts and sciences. Unlike you, I could not be called an SPA. My advice to you, Abd, is to stop making thinly veiled personal attacks. It's just childish and you are old enough to know otherwise. Any additional comments should be placed on the talk page. Mathsci (talk) 20:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Since all we really do on Wikipedia is talk, one's effectiveness ultimately depends on one's ability to convince others. It's probably worth taking some fraction of the time one devotes to pursuing wikilegal processes and redirecting it to consider what makes for effective communication. Short, cogent posts are more effective than long, rambling discourse. Imagine the following: someone is bloviating at length about a minor content point, raising all sorts of political arguments, citing censorship of minority viewpoints, employing Galileo analogies, etc, and discussion hits a brick wall. Then someone else comes in and proposes the same change in concise, cogent, direct language, and the change is accepted by all with a minimum of fuss. I see this all the time on Wikipedia. It's nonsense to imply that long, rambling posts are essential to consensus-building - in fact, they are directly inimical to it. MastCell ^Talk 18:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You mistake later stages of consensus building with earlier ones, and with the process by which people come to be able to make those "short, cogent posts" that are, indeed, more effective. Lengthy discussion isn't for everyone, it's really for a few. Then someone who then comes along and makes the effective post and may have read the longer posts. Ask Coppertwig. You seem to imagine that there are simply some people who get it all immediately, without lengthy discussion. Fine. Let such people do what they do, but also let people who get there in a more, shall we say, detailed way, do that as well. I just know that detailed and, yes, lengthy -- even tedious -- discussion is well-known to be necessary for standard consensus process off Wikipedia, and I'd say that the assumptions behind what you have said, MastCell, just might explain, if many editors are carrying them, why some disputes go on and on and on. These are disputes that can't be resolved without deeper discussion; occasionally they become moot because of some shift, and are then resolved, again, by those quips. I know, for myself, that, with a new topic, I can't write those sharp, to the point, penetrating comments, usually, until I've written at much more length, and have seen some response from others (even if only one editor) in response. Quite simply, I learn through discussion, including from going back and reading my own writing. Once I've done this for a while, you might notice, I then become far more concise; for me, being concise is a sign that I've developed a strong POV, which you could also call a "clear understanding." --Abd (talk) 18:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure this is something that the ArbCom wants to, or should, be ruling on. Stifle (talk) 13:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Mildly trivial note: As the original author of the 100 word "limit", I would like to note that it was originally, and still is, intended as a crude guidepost for when you're starting to get into "too long" territory, rather than a hard and fast rule or any kind of absolute limit. As the page itself actually says: "Be concise: If your post is longer than 100 words, consider shortening it. Long, rambling messages are difficult to understand, and are frequently either ignored or misunderstood. If you need to make a detailed, point by point discussion, see below for how to lay this out." ^Thanks, _{Luc "Somethingorother" French} 22:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The problem is less the length, its the rambling. Abd's talk page contributions all or nearly all come out as an uncontrolled stream of consciousness with little discernible content. Yes, it takes some effort to condense text down and to organize it. But it is a necessary effort. Forgoing it shows deep disrespect for the reader. Abd puts the onus of extracting possible meaning (if any) onto the readers, which, equipped with much worse tools all have to try to extract it - or ignore him. Maybe he writes to be ignored, but then he should not use a public venue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

What I do in discussion isn't exactly "rambling," it's more like taking a walk around a topic and noting what is seen. This is a typical ADHD phenomenon, actually. What I see as relevant many won't. But others will. I think what I write is clear and obvious and on-topic. However, others may see it as obscure and difficult-to-follow. To make it clear to them would take far, far more time, and, still, it would only be clear to those prepared to reflect on more than one aspect of an issue at a time, which can be difficult for many people. However, most people, if they simply stick around, read what is interesting to them and skip the rest, will, in fact, come to understand the topic better, and they would also notice that, on the same topic, my posts will get more and more brief. We are dealing with some difficult issues. They are obviously unsolved problems. If you think that unsolved problems are going to disappear with 100-word potshots, you are dreaming. It will take extended discussion, but not everyone need participate in that. Don't like my Talk page posts? Please, don't read them, they will just irritate you. There is no obligation and very little harm in skipping or skimming over Talk page posts. II assure you, though, the goal is the article, but to understand undue weight, in an article, we need to understand the topic. The real action is on the article, and you can safely make a revert of anything; it's only when you insist that some obligation exists to start reading the discussion, and for there to be any real risk, you'd have to ignore not only wall-of-text detailed comments, but also short and cogent ones. Unless, of course, you are editing Global warming, where you can be a newbie and get blocked as a POV-pusher very quickly if you dare to edit the article contrary to a virtual cabal's concept of established consensus. It's amazing how many editors commenting in this RfAr who were very active in, say, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GoRight, on one side. Or in editing Cold fusion, on one side. It was with that experience, where I first started gathering and presenting evidence in detail, that I began to see the problems with "majority POV-pushing." I happen to agree with the majority, as to the topic, but not as to how dissent was being crushed. --Abd (talk) 11:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Coppertwig

Proposed principles

Dispute resolution is not for punishment

1) Dispute resolution is for resolving disputes about how things are to be done in the present and future. It is not for punishment, either by the community or by an individual, for things someone has done in the past.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agreed. Note: desysopping is one possible outcome of this process, though not the desired one on my part. Desysopping isn't punitive, and it is only in order when conditions lead to a reasonable fear that an administrator may abuse the tools in the future. Administrative status is a special privilege, and properly retained only by those who, among many other characteristics, are capable of understanding recusal policies and have not shown unapologetic disregard of them. --Abd (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Content policies are enforced by editors

2) Enforcement of the core content policies often involves nuances and requires judgement. Editors often differ in opinion as to whether a given edit conforms to the content policies, requiring discussion to resolve the dispute. Content policies and guidelines are best enforced by discussion among multiple editors, calling on broader community consensus through established channels when necessary. Content policies are normally not enforced through use of administrative tools except by uninvolved administrators acting on community consensus.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Agreed. Clear. --Abd (talk) 18:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

We have a fair number of editors who like to play stupid. You tell them over and over again what the content policies are, and they either don't understand or refuse to understand. At some point the behavior becomes disruptive, and may be dealt with by administrators. Editors can be sanctioned for habitually violating content policies. Jehochman ^Talk 13:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, but again this would need significant proof of JzG being involved in the article, and also here if the tools were used to control content, or to combat abuse. Otherwise, I do not see why this is relevant. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Enforcement of content policies and involvement

3) Content disputes frequently, perhaps usually, involved disagreements over how to apply content policies and guidelines in a particular situation. Therefore, believing that one is enforcing a content policy (even if such belief is justified) is not a sign that one is acting in an uninvolved administrative capacity; on the contrary, it's a sign that one is involved in editing the article (except in cases of obvious vandalism, obvious copyright violation or obvious BLP violation, or other exceptions noted in WP:INVOLVED^{(17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC))}).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support. This isn't just about JzG, use of tools based on a content judgment is fairly common; if we could read minds, we'd prohibit content arguments as a basis for administrative actions, but we can't. However, such arguments as "disruptive," "fringe," "POV-pushing," and others are clues that content judgments are involved. If you think that a position is "fringe" or "imbalanced," (see Beetstra's Evidence), you are making a content judgment, and shouldn't be using tools to enforce it unless violation of behavioral guidelines is crystal clear. One of the issues raised in this case is the use of the blacklist to enforce content judgments by administrators where linkspam is absent, but "abuse" is alleged.

It's tricky to define "edit warring," but we are very clear about the "bright line." We will block for 3RR violation even if an editor is enforcing content guidelines, excepting what qualifies as emergency: clear copyvio (i.e., where we are hosting copyvio), BLP violations, blatant vandalism.

It's rare to see an admin use tools to support a fringe POV, because "fringe," by definition, is a minority view (often very small minority); the danger is in the other direction, that admins use tools to enforce "majority POV," even when an editor is, in fact, following sourcing guidelines and policies for edits that appear to be "fringe." The usual argument (it's been advanced by Beetstra) is that these edits "unbalance" the article, but that judgment requires a judgment of what constitutes balance, which is one of the most difficult content judgments to make unless there is firm reliance on using preponderance of sources, balancing supposed "fringe" facts with "mainstream" facts from sources of equivalent reliability. And, then, to make the judgment requires familiarity with the topic, a familiarity which quite likely results in a POV. As has been pointed out by Carcharoth, at this point an administrator can probably do more good by joining the circle of involved editors. Use of admin tools rarely resolves genuine content disputes in a clean way.

Cold fusion is a particularly difficult case because there is a widespread belief that cold fusion was conclusively shown to be bogus in 1989-1990, but if one examines RS carefully, with particular attention to sources of high reliability (peer-reviewed or panel review), the claim of conclusive refutation vanishes and can be seen as a political claim, not a scientific one. This is a huge topic in itself, not to be resolved here, and there is sociological reliable source on it, but the point is that media sources can be used to claim such things as "The Pons and Fleischman results were never confirmed," which is a gross oversimplification, given the existence of 153 peer-reviewed papers confirming the Pons-Fleischmann effect (anomalous heat in a palladium deuteride system). Preferred sources of high reliability show something else; as an example, by the time of the 2004 U.S. Department of Energy review, half of the reviewers found evidence for the heat "convincing," whereas the other half found it "not conclusive." "Not conclusive" doesn't mean "bogus," it means that the implications of anomalous heat are enormous and the very strong evidence needed to prove such was, in their view, not yet developed, thus the possibility remained, for this half, that some unknown experimental artifact was the cause.

Every reviewer in 2004 recommended further research. That is not done with pseudoscience or even with true fringe. It's what could be expected with "emerging science," where much controversy remains. So if an editor arrives at Cold fusion and starts editing the article based on recent (last decade) peer-reviewed or academic source, where the weight favors cold fusion, the editor is easily seen as "POV-pushing," because, in most media sources, until recently, this is a rejected field. Media sources recently reporting the rejection as conclusive (there were many reports in March due to a major development in the field) have mostly been doing what media sources do: rely on earlier media sources; those recent sources which show that they have done new investigation have been coming up with opposite conclusions. (See Talk:Cold fusion for reference to a report by CBS Sixty Minutes.) None of this is to be resolved here, but the point is about the effect of POV judgment on administrative action, and it is easily damaging. Content, including balance, should be determined through editorial consensus, with review through WP:DR as needed, not through administrative fiat. --Abd (talk) 13:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

This is described in WP:INVOLVED, 'One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. This is because one of the roles of administrators is precisely to deal with such matters and if necessary, continue dealing with them.'. The policy describes that 'may .. wish to pass ... not required to'. This would need to show again that JzG is involved significantly outside of this policy section. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This should not be passed as it stands. It is an invitation to choas because it allows uninvolved adninistrators to be tagged as 'involved in a content dispute' for any action in relation to a content policy or guideline. Already-problematic civil POV-pushers would have a field day with something like this.

I also take issue with Abd's statement that So if an editor arrives at Cold fusion and starts editing the article based on recent (last decade) peer-reviewed or academic source, where the weight favors cold fusion, the editor is easily seen as "POV-pushing," because, in most media sources, until recently, this is a rejected field. The hypothetical editor might be seen as "POV-pushing" because they are, well... POV-pushing. The declaration that anyone disgareeing with edits made based on recent sources is doing so because of media coverage is unjustifiable and potentially offensive. Just as an example, if an editor wanted to rewrite cold fusion based on a 2006 two-page paper "Miraculous Breathrough in Renewable Energy Research: Cold Fusion in Palladium Deuteride System Confirmed" that was published in the peer-review Journal of Royal Geological and Tiddlewink Society of the People's Democratic Republic of Western Togo, I would have objections... and they would have nothing to do with the media. EdChem (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, you take issue with it. Part of my point is that "POV-pushing" is not a problem if done according to policy and guidelines. As to the JRGTS/PDRWT, recent papers are in, say, Naturwissenschaften, the same journal Einstein published in. It's a mainstream journal. Every argument in the book has been used to exclude this material: in the case of Naturwissenschaften, it was claimed that this was a Life Sciences journal, apparently based on how many articles it carries on the Life Sciences, and would therefore not have the peer-review expertise to judge a paper. A paper on what? Is it physics, or is it chemistry? Naturwissenschaften is published by the Max Planck Institute, I think there might be a few physticists available. My point wasn't about the conclusions, it was about the process: we need to find editorial consensus, and the issues aren't simple. Nobody is trying to weight the article based on some obscure paper, certainly not me, but even that statement could be challenged, because I did add material on what theories are being advanced to explain cold fusion, for which one must necessarily refer to sources that, er, advance cold fusion ideas, and this was based on the most reliable secondary source on that topic, and it's claimed that this is undue weight. But how undue weight is to be determined when the goal of an article section is to present the alleged "fringe theories," is a little tricky. If the whole topic is Cold fusion, and if this is a fringe science, how do we cover it? It seems that some editors don't want the theories presented, don't want the evidence for cold fusion presented, even when it's present in reliable secondary sources, because of an assumption of "fringe" and "not mainstream" that is not, itself, represented in peer-reviewed academic sources that are of current application, but only on media sources where the source hasn't investigated and is just parroting what the media said almost twenty years ago. As I wrote, it's a problem. I haven't demanded some particular solution other than informed editorial consensus, which takes time to develop. Lots of time, sometimes. --Abd (talk) 16:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd... if I might suggest, take a deep breath and calm down. I know we disagree on civil POV-pushing - let's agree to disagree and leave that to another time, as it seems clear it won't be addressed in this case. My second point was that there are reasons for concern / objections in relation to edits with more recent material that are not due to media coverage. The fake paper I suggested - disturbingly short given the ridiculously over-the-top title, and placed in an (I hoped humourously) obscure fictitious journal - would give plenty of valid reasons for concern. I'm a scientist and I find the idea that I'd evaluate a scientific issue based on media coverage alone (or even mostly based on it) offensive. Content debates specific to cold fusion don't need to be carried out here, and I agree with you that there are some difficult balances to be struck. My major point was that the proposed form of words is an invitation to chaos and endless disputation. For example, suppose there is talk page conensus on an issue of weight and an editor continues to make changes against that consensus, and an administrator is ask to intervene. Is the administrator who acts enforcing behavioural policy, or if the revert the changes are they changing content under WP:UNDUE? Is that administrator then conflicted out of ever acting on that page again, even if that was her or his first edit to it? A lot of changes can be argued as relating to both editorial and behavioural policy - so saying editorial policy involvement necessarily leads to be involved for considerations of tool use is dangerous. EdChem (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Gee, is there an EEG attached to my keyboard? Ed, you make my point, actually. First of all, you are a scientist, correct. However, what's going on in science is far more than you can personally cover. You might make no judgments based on media, but I've been talking to scientists about cold fusion and, guess what? Most of them have their information on it from the media. And they are shocked to find out how far this deviates from the reality of actual scientific research, evidence, peer-reviewed reports and peer-reviewed and other reviews of the field. Have you looked at the recent CBS coverage? What's your field? Have you read the SPAWAR work in Naturwissenschaften and other journals? We agree on the basic point: there is a difficult balance to be struck. WP:UNDUE is not a behavioral guideline, it's a content guideline, so if an admin is using tools to enforce WP:UNDUE, the admin is crossing the boundary. From the other perspective, JzG edit warred to keep the whitelisted link to Martin Fleischmann out of the article. He pushed it right up against -- but not across -- 3RR. (I was not the only editor asserting the link. And, in fact, I didn't put it in, Enric Naval did, and you might notice his position re JzG and me expressed in this RfAr.) So, I went to AN/I, since there was edit warring by an administrator. (He hit 3RR, I think, but he'd removed the link many more times, just not in one day). I said, "Suppose he's right about the content. Is it allowed for him to edit war to keep it out?" The majority opinion at AN/I was that this was a content dispute and therefore administrative tools were not to be used. EdChem, that principle is consensus. They were wrong on the fact, it wasn't a content dispute, it was a behavioral one, I didn't go to AN/I over a content dispute, but they were right that, had it been a content dispute, it wouldn't have been a matter for administrative attention. What I did about the content was to discuss it, in detail, documenting consensus and expanding it, until the consensus became to use the link (whereas it had originally been divided; the flap over edit warring had attracted some editors initially sympathetic to JzG's position and buying the farrago of arguments he'd raised; previous to that, there was clearly rough consensus to use the link.) At that point it was put back, and I think JzG took it out once more, he was reverted and that was that. This was one of the links he had removed when he blacklisted.

The principle is sound. Content policy is not to be "enforced with tools," excepting mission-critical policies like COPYVIO and BLP. --Abd (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

(1) On technical / scientific issues, I am shocked when the media coverage is accurate. Distortion, hyperbole, and profound ignorance are the norm for media coverage of science and medicine, in my experience - that's why if I hear a news story that is relevant to me or interesting, I'll check with a reliable source. I can't speak for the practices of other scientists, however.

(2) You appear to have misunderstood the point I was making about WP:UNDUE, and it was important so I will try to clarify. I suggested a situation where there is talk page conensus on an issue of weight and an editor is making changes against that consensus. Administrator intervention is requested, and an administrator new to the page examines the situation. The administrator forms the view that the edits are disruptive and against consensus, reverts, and issues a warning. The editor forms the view that the administrator is taking sides in a content dispute about the application of WP:UNDUE, and thus argues (following the reasoning of the proposed principle) that that administrator is then conflicted out of ever again acting on that page. See the problem? The administrator is acting on behavioural grounds but also needs to revert for content policy reasons; however, it should not follow that the editor and administrator have engaged in a content dispute. As many administrator actions can be characterised as relating to both editorial and behavioural policy, I maintain that an administrator's action having content policy involvement necessarily leading to that administrator being considered involved in relation to future tool use is inappropriate and highly undesirable. EdChem (talk) 23:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - that was an excellent expression of the practical concerns evoked (for me, at least) by this proposal, and by attempts to clearly delineate "content" from "behavioral" issues. MastCell ^Talk 20:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I too agree with EdChem's point and echo what he says about hyperbole in media coverage of science (there are a few exceptions, eg the excellent Simon Singh). Since Abd has mentioned "Majority POV-pushing", I note that he has prepared a personal essay User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing. It seems to give a "rationale" for dismissing individual editors who try to maintain WP policy on fringe science in articles like cold fusion, by categorizing them as members of a giant tag team. Mathsci (talk) 10:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the plug for the essay, Mathsci. That was just a quick draft. I'd say your review of it is a tad biased. However, it would be helpful, if something is wrong there, if you'd make comments on the attached Talk page. What I actually was trying to get at is the problem that "majority POV-pushing" is still POV-pushing and that a "virtual tag team" can exist, since the POV is, by the conditions of the problem, a POV held by a majority. It would be totally silly to "dismiss" editors because they hold a majority view, so, I'd suggest to Mathsci that he meditate on WP:AGF, an aspect of which is to assume that an editor might be saying something legitimate before dismissing it by assuming it's making a ridiculous proposal. Perhaps we need a guideline, WP:DAS, Don't Assume Stupidity. --Abd (talk) 15:02, 7 May 2009 (UTC)your edits

Abd's essay and comments do not seem to chime with the findings of the previous ArbCom case on Fringe Science. Again, there is no such thing as "majority POV-pushing" or "anti-fringe editors", just a simple misunderstanding of WP core policy and of what consensus means. Many of Abd's namespace edits have been reverted recently by multiple editors: this could be because other editors have found problems with his individual approach to science. Mathsci (talk) 21:54, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Dirk Beetstra. I've added a mention of the exceptions in WP:INVOLVED. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No use of admin tools by parties in a dispute

4) Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Yes, but I am not sure how this is relevant. Jehochman ^Talk 12:58, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Jehochman, eh? This truly worries me. If Jehochman doesn't understand this, and there is in fact some allegation here by another editor that he doesn't, perhaps the Committee should consider that. However, I know Jehochman, and expect he will clarify this; he's been attempting to protect me from sanctions and I certainly don't want to go after his bit, and he would be far, far from the worst offender whose name has come up in this case! In fact, I don't even want to go after JzG's admin bit, I just want what I've asked for all along, most clearly in the RfC: an acknowledgment of error by him that then forms a foundation for continuing to trust him as an administrator. If he can't do that, this is quite worrisome as to future behavior, and ArbComm would need to consider how to proceed. --Abd (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I understand this just fine. Relevancy != correctness. Jehochman ^Talk 13:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. From Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse of administrative tools. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

To Jehochman: What do you mean, you're not sure how it's relevant? This is the whole heart of the issue: the question is whether JzG has violated this policy by using admin tools in such a way as to advance a position in a content dispute in which he was involved. You might try to argue that he has not violated this policy, but I don't see how you can miss its relevance. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I keep asking, and nobody is showing me actual diffs where JzG was engaged in a bona fide content dispute. Mere reversion of spam or vandalism or socking by a banned editor is not a content dispute. The above text was plucked from WP:ADMINABUSE, but you left out all the exceptions. Jehochman ^Talk 13:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree, but as, with Jehochman, I have not seen a full violation of WP:INVOLVED, I don't see how it is of interest (yet?). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Following deletion procedures

5) The Criteria for Speedy Deletion set out the circumstances under which an administrator may summarily delete a page based solely on their judgement that it meets the criteria. Administrators also have the authority to delete pages as part of PROD or AfD processes. In other circumstances, unless there is a reason to invoke Ignore all rules, the community has not given administrators the authority to delete pages based on their judgement that the pages do not meet content standards or are not useful to the project.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed. It's fine for some people to have more deletionist tendencies than others, and it's fine for them to express that by tending to vote "Delete" in AfD more often; but to allow deletionist administrators to summarily delete pages (other than per CSD) would be tantamount to setting deletion standards equal to the judgement of the most extremely deletionist admins, rather than according to consensus. I mention in my evidence a number of pages JzG deleted without process. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Template

1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Template

1) {text of proposed remedy}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposals by Abd

Proposed principles

Usage of spam blacklist

1) (was 3.2 under Jehochman's proposals) The spam blacklist is properly used to prevent the massive addition of links to Wikipedia without review and consensus. As such, any addition of links, whether the individual links are proper or not, may result in blacklisting, if other means of addressing the problem prove inadequate. Content arguments, such as "not reliable source," are irrelevant to blacklisting itself, except that "reliable source" may be an argument for delisting or whitelisting specific pages. If there is no continued danger of widespread unexamined link addition, prior blacklisting, whether proper or not, should be irrelevant to a delisting request. In addition, the blacklist may be used to prevent linking to sites hosting malware, or for other emergency protective measures. Where a site is blacklisted, sites related to it may be blacklisted as well to prevent URL-hopping as an avoidance measure.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This was proposed as a further version of the proposed principle above, it was struck by Jehochman, suggesting I start my own section, so here it is. Beetstra commented on it above as "totally disagree," (later struck) but it's blatantly clear that blacklisting process does not normally consider whether or not links are actually improper; the standard evidence consists of lists of editors and lists of edits, and does not examine whether or not the links are actually appropriate, and it would be impossible to make that judgment in the time available to blacklist administrators. I mentioned Lyrikline.org above. This was a case where links were added, slowly at first, to many articles on poets with pages hosted at the web site. The user did register here (home wiki was apparently de.wikipedia.org) as Lyriker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I have yet to find an actually inappropriate link added by Lyriker. The article Lyriker created was speedied, but, when I discovered this case as part of my investigation of JzG and blacklisting practice, I was able to get the article restored, and I've slowly begun adding back in links. Was the blacklisting of lyrikline.org proper? I think so! Lyriker was adding way too many links.

I added some text about additional uses consistent with blacklist limitations, as suggested by Beetstra. Beetstra, in a comment he later struck, did not seem to understand that links which are totally unreliable sources (like blog.myspace.com) represents content control and judgment; if a notable person or group has a blog there, known to not be impersonation, a link might well be usable in a biography of this person or article on the group. The blacklist was clearly designed to be used only as an extreme measure; if it's going to be used to control content (i.e., blog.myspace.com), then consensus should be found on this that is broader than that of a handful of blacklist administrators and volunteers who are more concerned about spam than about content. However, blog.myspace.com isn't exactly blacklisted. Myspace.com is. The original addition was, apparently, at the request of Jimbo. We have quite a few whitelisted entries, but most editors won't bother to whitelist, they just won't use a link, or will nowiki it, so the whitelistings prove only that a few usages were considered legitimate. My guess is that many more would exist if not for the blacklisting. Would these be "abusive"? Some would. But source abuse occurs all the time, the blacklist can do little about it. Better: bot discovery of usage of a "commonly-abused but not linkspammed" site, creating a project list, and leading to efficient examination and clearance of specific usages, or removal, which wouldn't take administrator time. This would be a focus on content, not on spam. --Abd (talk) 18:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Respond to Beetstra: I wrote, about finding no inappropriate usages by Lyriker of Lyrikline.org links, "as far as I knew," and I've looked at many of them. If Beetstra is willing to waste his time to find one that isn't at least reasonable, he's welcome. There was one usage on de.wikipedia I noticed, it was, I think, the only one reverted there before Lyrik (the de user) gave up, by an admin there who didn't like the link; since I considered it a good link, I discussed it in Talk both on de and on our parallel article on Shona language and then added the links back with no opposition. Which proves little, except that, since what I've done on this is quite visible, (Beetstra reverted one of my additions to de.wikipedia, then apparently thought better of it and reverted himself), it's probably not really bad. As to what the list was designed for not necessarily limiting current practice, perhaps, but don't you think that when there is mission creep for a software feature, it should be widely discussed? My point about design was that the designers knew that this would be a dangerous tool, that it could warp content. Beetstra seems to be a bit naive about how content is actually created. If an editor wants to use a site, very few editors will go to the trouble of whitelisting just for one link. It took weeks to get the first link to lenr-canr.org whitelisted. All that for one link? Why did I bother? Because I saw that there was more at stake than one link, that's why, there are thousands of possible links, my guess, being blacklisted. (Start with blogspot.myspace.com!) I know of several hundred very reasonable links to lyrikline.org, plus possibly several hundred articles that might be created with information from that site. The community confirmed my position, and I think that the implications of this have yet to sink in for some.

Beetstra has elsewhere alleged that cross-wiki addition of links to 'pedias of languages other than the interface languages of lyrikline.org were inappropriate (Lyrik/Lyriker and known same-user IP did this). That's a content judgment best made at the 'pedia in question. I know that there are many links here, on articles about poets who write in other language than English, to non-English web sites, and there seems to be no guideline against this. When I want to read a site in a language I don't know, I just use Google translation, and I expect that many people who don't read English use such tools; however, I also would guess that many (most?) internet users the world over do read English, though I'm sure that is also shifting. My point: it's a content question being enforced with administrative tools (in this case, on meta).

As to redirect sites, that's also an obvious exception, because they can (and would be) used to bypass the blacklist, easily. We could come up with a comprehensive list, I'm fairly sure, such that additional exceptions would be rare. Remember, I didn't want to resolve this at ArbComm! Nevertheless, a finding here does not suspend WP:IAR, it simply becomes a tad more difficult to abuse.

It may not be obvious, but I favor easy blacklisting when needed, combined with easier delisting and especially single-page whitelisting. One of the obstacles: once a site is listed, and if it is proposed that it be delisted and that there is no reason to believe that it will be again spammed, the argument is given: of course it's not being abused, because it's blacklisted! With lyrikline.org, the vast majority of links were being added by a single individual, who stopped when warned, was blocked anyway, and who, on de.wikipedia, actually started removing the links he had added. Nevertheless, lyrikline is a site that would be fairly hard to use abusively and it's beyond me why the many attempts to delist it at meta have been rejected. De.wikipedia, after being refused delisting, went ahead and whitelisted the whole site. Beetstra, here, whitelisted the English language interface, in response to my single-link request (a previous single-link whitelist request here had been denied, and the editor simply gave up, in fact, it was seeing this that led me down the trail of lyrikline).

Comment by others:

This combines principles, please keep it simple. This is better split in a principle like 'the blacklist is to stop abuse' (already above) and something like 'the blacklist is not for blacklisting of reliable sources' (also somewhere above, and well, it has been done already, blog.myspace.com was blacklisted for not being a reliable source, not for being spammed or added massively). Moreover, 'massive' is a) a judgement call, and b) links have been blacklisted which were not added massively (redirect sites).

No need to drag lyrikline into this, Abd. I don't know what you are trying to proof with that, except if you do an analysis of all regexes in this way. And what the blacklist is designed for does not have to reflect current practice. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I support this concept. The blacklist is a blunt instrument which should be sharply limited to prevent improper "mission creep" where it ends up being used to circumvent editorial decisions on individual articles and impose the viewpoint of one clique on everybody. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Suppport per Dan T. I think it's better not to split it as Beetstra suggests: to me, it's essentially a single concept, like "drink your juice in the kitchen, not in the livingroom". Abd's wording properly takes into account the fact that different editors will have different opinions as to what is a "reliable source". Beetstra, I think Abd is mentioning Lyriker as an example of a situation where the links themselves are actually good content, but blacklisting is nevertheless "proper" (according to Abd) because of the speed of addition of links without review and consensus; this illustrates the divorce between the definition of linkspamming, and content decisions. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Resolution of recusal failure

2) When an administrator is found by the Arbitration Committee to have failed in a duty to recuse, and has acknowledged the error and is therefore reasonably considered to have understood the failure, and has assured the Committee and the community that the error will not be repeated, the Committee may reasonably decline to request the removal of administrative privileges. However, if this acknowledgment and assurance has not been forthcoming, the Committee may consider removal of privileges necessary until such time as it is satisfied that there is no serious risk of such failure.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Stonewalling on a matter as serious as failure to recuse, and maintaining administrative privileges, are incompatible. --Abd (talk) 01:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

My wording was a bit clumsy because of my understanding that ArbComm does not technically remove admin privileges, but requests it, and the request is routinely honored. So instead of "may reasonably decline to request the removal," read "may decline to remove." As to Fritzpoll's objection below, this simply means that acknowledgment of error is grounds to forgive and proceed with an assumption that the lesson has been learned. If there is no acknowledgment of error, on what basis would the Committee conclude that behavior would change? In this case, in fact, there was prior AC remedy applicable to JzG, he can be presumed to have been aware of the rules, though not necessarily of the application to Cold fusion. (But it was so blatant that, if he didn't understand the application, we must then doubt his competence as an adminstrator.) The issue for ArbComm with removal of admin bits is never past behavior, in itself, but always anticipation of future behavior. We do not punish, but we also do not overlook past behavior, because it, plus present showings of intention and understanding, are the only guides we have to forsee future behavior. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we routinely consider that past behavior will continue. We warn, usually. Was JzG warned? Is there anyone who has read the evidence here who thinks he was not warned? --Abd (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

In normal deliberative process, precedent questions are answered before consequent questions are even considered. That we are now debating proposals that will be moot if it isn't decided that JzG was sufficiently involved to warrant recusal demonstrates how highly inefficient this process is, how much time it wastes. --Abd (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Not sure this is necessary. The Committee in practice may reasonably do anything to resolve the arbitration of a dispute. Codifying this seems a little restrictive for Arbcom, which needs to remain more flexible. Plus it is not entirely consistent with previous practice, as I expound in your proposed sanctions. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Per Fritzpoll. The "may reasonably refuse to decline" language implies that it would be unreasonable not to remove the bit if these specific conditions are not met. This ties Arbcom's hands too tightly. The "stonewalling" issue should also be weighed in light of WP:PARENT and WP:BAIT (this is a general point regarding the principle and may or may not apply to the present parties).Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:22, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Concur with concerns of both Fritzpoll and Short Brigade Harvester Boris. EdChem (talk) 16:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessary per Fritzpoll and SBHB. Mathsci (talk) 06:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. If the Arbitration Committee finds that someone has violated policies, they are free to select the response they judge best. Sanctions are not for punishment and are not inevitable; sometimes a warning is appropriate, for example. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

JzG has not acknowledged involvement

1) JzG has not acknowledged that he was involved with Cold fusion and in dispute with Jed Rothwell.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This one would be easy for JzG to make moot, but until he does, it's far from moot. It's the whole point. --Abd (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This would need significant proof of a violation of WP:INVOLVED. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. Proof of violation has been given, in my opinion. (see Abd's evidence, and the RfC). Acknowledgement of involvement would be helpful in demonstrating understanding of the policy. The issue is whether JzG will follow policy in future. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG has not acknowledged his duty to recuse

2) JzG has not acknowledged that he had a duty to recuse and that he failed to do this.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

As with (1), above, this would be easy for JzG to make moot. The failure to acknowledge error was the sine qua non of the desysopping of Physchim62 and Tango. If those administrators had been willing to acknowledge that they had been involved, and had acted while involved, and that this was an error, they would likely not have lost their bits. --Abd (talk) 01:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. The statement "maybe ... not the best person" did not acknowledge past error and is not a clear statement that he does not intend to repeat the actions, even "maybe" on the same article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

JzG desysopped

1) JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) administrative privileges are revoked. JzG may apply to have them reinstated at any time, either through the usual means or by appeal to the Committee.

1.1) JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) administrative privileges are revoked. JzG may apply to have them reinstated at any time, either through the usual means or by appeal to the Committee. Particularly in view of JzG's history of valuable contributions, the Committee takes this step reluctantly, due to the absence of assurances from JzG that he understands the issue of recusal and will comply with recusal policy in the future, and the Committee invites JzG to provide such, for review by the Committee privately.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Excessive and unwarranted, despite the prior findings and admonition (which I wrote). Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll have more detailed comments on this case in the next day or two. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This follows inexorably from the principle enunciated above and found in ArbComm precedent (not binding, but sound) that failure to acknowledge error prevents the lifting of reasonable fear that the error will be repeated. JzG must have been aware of the duty to recuse from the prior admonishment referred to below, plus he has been given opportunity after opportunity to recognize and acknowledge it, yet, in the middle of the RfC over his very failure to recuse, he reverted and blocked an IP editor with whom he apparently had an off-wiki dispute. The idea that he would, ongoing, not repeat this error, is wishful thinking. He was previously admonished by the Committee regarding incivility, and it's unclear that his behavior improved, his incivility retreated to less blatant forms, but did not cease. (I am not suggesting that the Committee sanction JzG for incivility, but only that he was given quite a pass with the prior admonition; his prior level of incivility was such that ordinary editors would likely have been blocked for it, it was beyond the pale, and that he retained his admin bit was generous.)

JzG did not directly respond to the prior RfC, but created a page in his user space. He did not apologize for or acknowledge the incivility, but excused it. I was unable to find any place where he assured the Committee that he would not repeat incivility; during that prior arbitration, he also disappeared for a time, as he has with this.

I remain hopeful, however, that JzG will make this remedy unnecessary. --Abd (talk) 02:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

NYB:Understand that if JzG were to acknowledge the error, I'd agree that it would be excessive. However, without that acknowledgment, and with the action taken during the RfC, just a few days ago, I can't see any alternative that doesn't just try to sweep it under the carpet, which is getting lumpy. Perhaps the proposed principle above should be addressed first. --Abd (talk) 02:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I provided 1.1 that clarifies that desysopping is only a measure taken in the absence of evidence that JzG understands that he was involved and is likely to similarly understand involvement in the future, and that he will refrain from use of tools while involved. Thus desysopping is not punitive, but only a protective measure, pending assurances. Because we do not punish, JzG could provide those assurances before the ruling and avert it, or later when he is ready. I have some concern about how far we are bending over backwards for JzG, but this is the reality of the situation and our approach to dealing with administrators, who are, after all, volunteers who devote thousands of hours, often, to serving the project. --Abd (talk) 02:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Certainly not. Guy has demonstrated an excellent improvement in his behaviour over the past several months, and from the edit history of the article, has been uninvolved now for around 4 months. There's no need for such an excessive course of action. This reinforces the impression that Abd is simply out for blood, I certainly don't get the impression that this case has been filed to improve the project, but to try and further their position with regards to Cold Fusion. I certainly hope the outcome of this RfAr isn't to further anybodies position with regards to fringe science, but to make findings that improve the quality of the project. Nick (talk) 11:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought long and hard about whether or not to propose desysopping. My view is that if this is not on the table, JzG will simply do what he's done this time and before. Stop editing for a while until it blows over, modify his behavior a little. And look how much disruption it takes to address a recusal violation where the editor is popular with enough editors! There is, in fact, a pattern shown, with blocks (two, I think) after recusal issues were raised. And to me, a single instance of failure to recuse without acknowledgment of the error, given sufficient process to make it clear that there was, indeed, a failure to recuse, is quite enough for desysopping. Look how much disruption and wasted time would have been avoided if JzG had simply said, early on, "Oops! My bad. I won't do it again." A matter of seconds for him, and possibly hundreds of hours of editor time saved. And if he can't do this, as some of his friends have claimed (and, indeed, I would have considered him a friend before this came up), then this alone disqualifies him as an administrator. Hence I believed it was necessary to put this on the table. I will probably be personally satisfied with the proposed admonition, but I question the principle, and suspect that recusal failure is likely to happen again; in this case, though, the necessary disruption would be substantially less. It would be AE, not the whole nine yards of WP:DR. --Abd (talk) 14:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Given Arbcom's previously stated principle that desysopping generally follows from an unaltered pattern of problematic behaviour, this seems excessive, given the evidence that JzG has essentially said he would recuse from matters relating to Cold Fusion.

There are exceptions to this principle of Arbcom, the most recent from my memory being that of Tango, which has been mentioned to me specifically as such an exception. In that case, however, as I recall, the Committee was primarily concerned that during the case, Tango still didn't appear understand what the problem was - indeed the initial proposal was (from memory) for admonishment, not desysopping. In this case, it is not as clear that JzG doesn't understand the problem based on his stated intent to recuse from this area in the future. A logical conclusion would then appear to me to be that desysopping is an action reserved for any future case where a greater pattern of problematic behaviour can be established than has been by the current evidence. That is, assuming that Arbcom wishes to remain consistent with the aforementioned principle of sanction for demonstrable patterns of problematic behaviour. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, how do you respond to JzG's block of an editor based on the editor's post of a (fairly mild) criticism of JzG in the RfC? This was just a few days ago. Suppose someone shoplifted an iPod. Would we be satisfied with evidence that the person wouldn't again shoplift iPods. Or would we look for evidence that the person wouldn't shoplift.? --Abd (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends: what was JzG's response when you politely enquired about it on his talkpage? Suppose someone shoplifted an iPod, and then said they wouldn't do it again in a believable manner. Do we parole them not to do it again and later prosecute them more harshly for further infraction, or do we lock them up and throw away the key because if we release them they might steal some headphones? I think this sanction is still based on forecasting rather than prediction - we need more evidence to reach the conclusion that we can predict a future where JzG is being an "abusive" administrator. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, how much of this administrators' history have you reviewed? Have you read RfC/JzG2? As a general statement, though, the criminal analogy breaks down in that we are not talking about punishment at all. The point is that JzG has violated recusal rules, clearly, it's not marginal, and the behavior continued after plenty of notice from the community that he was considered involved. The promise not to "steal iPods" -- i.e., not to use tools with respect to Cold fusion -- is too limited; for it then requires the re-examination, with all the disruption involved, of all possible forms of theft. (i.e., failure to recuse.) We do not parole them, to answer the criminal question, unless we are satisfied that all forms of shoplifting are unlikely to recur, not merely the specific form. In this case, we do not trust them with the admin tools unless we are satisfied, on some kind of evidence, that they will refrain from the same kind of error that they have shown they are capable of making. This is proposed as a general principle, based on prior ArbComm decisions and just plain common sense. JzG was already covered by a general admonishment not to use tools while involved. Just a few days ago, he again used tools while involved, in a matter not having anything to do with cold fusion. No, I didn't ask JzG on his Talk page, because he's clearly not going to respond to me, he's not responding to much less involved questions. There is an ongoing RfAr about this, it's been asserted in evidence, and he could easily respond here, and it could resolve most of this arbitration. The community, by not confronting this, is doing what's called "enabling," which is very dangerous, it encourages the behavior that can eventually lead to an even more serious fall. If JzG wrote, about the block, "Damn! They are right, I should not have done that, I'll avoid it in the future," most conflict here would be over. Or, not so useful, perhaps, if he justified the block and showed that the appearance was an illusion. He can't claim the emergency exception, because he made no notice as emergency bypass of recusal would require. But stonewalling? No. --Abd (talk) 15:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not sure that the iPod analogy is on point here — it assumes that there was misconduct on JzG's part. (Though I certainly agree with the general principle Fritzpoll's comment implies.) A logged-out editor was conspicuously abusing the RfC process as part of an ongoing campaign to troll JzG. (Note for instance Special:Contributions/81.156.251.147, Special:Contributions/81.156.248.79. Four edits total, reverted by four different editors.) JzG applied WP:RBI. Everyone else moved on. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

For the same reason as TenOfAllTrades states, I am quite happy with the block performed. In terms of the recusal from Cold fusion, I maintain that you are right and, as I said in the RfC, it would be better if JzG recused aways from any appearance of impropriety. That is not at issue. JzG has not, as far as I am aware suggested that WP:INVOLVED is not policy or is not an appropriate means of conduct. He has, however, acknowledged that he should recuse from this particular area. In my mind, viewing the evidence, there is evidence to suggest that JzG has made a significant error in this particular area. But there is no evidence that I can see that suggests that this is part of a pattern of repeated misuse of the tools through failure to recuse - and recusal is, as you have said repeatedly, what this is all about. I suggest a "final chance" admonishment, reserving the right of Arbcom to desysop by motion if there is a recurrence. As to RfC 2 - I was watching it as it happened, and it focussed principally (as I recall) on civility issues, which are rendered moot by the evidence that his behaviour has improved. I will reexamine the old RfC and comment again if I find anything of relevance. Fritzpoll (talk) 17:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

This suggestion is out of all proportion. No convincing recent examples of systematic abuse of tools have been provided. Mathsci (talk) 06:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Out of proportion under the current evidence, no proof of systematic abuse, no proof of using tools while being substantially involved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely inappropriate. JzG's positive contributions as a sysop far, far outweigh any negative ones. Stifle (talk) 14:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I generally agree on content issues with JzG, and have no problems with many of his actions, so I really really really hope this isn't necessary. My concern is it still isn't clear to me that he recognises where he should have stepped back - and certainly where it would have been better to step back. When Abd and then Durova raised recusal issues, there was no suggestion from Guy that reflection was leading him to reconsider any actions, and I am concerned that his view has not changed. A simple clarifying statement from JzG could turn this proposal from regretfully and unfortunately may be necessary to definitely over-the-top, lesson learned, move forward. EdChem (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and this was sought long before the RfC, during the RfC, and it's still true, I suspect. I know I'll drop my own proposal re desysopping if JzG makes some clear statement on this. (Many editors have raised recusal issues, see the RfAr/Clarification examined in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/JzG_3#Community_attempt, but JzG only attended to what he saw there as approval.) --Abd (talk) 14:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by Stephen Bain

Proposed principles

Use of administrative tools in a dispute

1) Administrators may not use their administrative tools to further their own position in a dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Standard. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Jehochman and others, an administrator engaged in ordinary administrative intervention against a user (warning them, etc) is not in a dispute with them, that's well understood already. --bainer (talk) 03:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Add the word "content dispute" so that this matches policy. Otherwise any editor who is warned for any reason will claim a dispute with the administrator who issued the warning. Jehochman ^Talk 14:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman's objection would lead to an inadequate remedy. What if an admin has a dispute with another admin over blocking an editor, or about some other issue, and blocks the admin? The full statement is quite correct. To interpret this as preventing an admin from blocking an editor who disagrees with the admin on a warning given is a misunderstanding. Ideally, the one warning and the one blocking should be different, but efficiency suggests that warning/blocking can be seen as the same process. "If you continue edit warring, I'll block you." Editor says "I'm not edit warring," does another revert, and admin blocks. Sure, it's a dispute, but not the kind of dispute that creates a need to recuse. Jehochman also seems to have a strange idea of how arbcomm findings are applied. They aren't applied by automatons, according to some ridiculous interpretation of the letter of the law. --Abd (talk) 20:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

example of how the community doesn't apply sanctions strictly when it makes no sense:

ArbComm prohibited ScienceApologist from editing articles on Fringe Science. SA made some spelling corrections. The community didn't notice them. So his friend Hipocrite went to AE to wave them in front of ArbComm and admins who might enforce the ruling. The AE report was closed as petty. It became apparent that there was a plan here to suck admins into blocking SA for making spelling corrections, the purpose was to make ArbComm, and any admin daring to enforce the ruling, look ridiculous. So, since that plan failed totally, the next effort was made. SA got permission from an arbitrator to make a substantial edit to a fringe article. He made the edit, and was blocked, the admin got plenty of egg-on-face, it worked perfectly. See, SA didn't disclose the fact of the permission where it would be seen, didn't add a note, for example, to the edit summary "by permission of [arbitrator]." In the end, though, the nature of the plot became quite obvious and SA was blocked. Hipocrite wasn't, though he'd done quite a bit to support the plan. No, there is no danger that the community would fall for an argument that an admin had acted improperly in the situation Jehochman described. The danger, is, in fact, that administrators seeing a mild sanction here will consider themselves safe from sanction and will act when involved, knowing that they can avert RfC/ArbComm by just saying "Oops!" and that even if they don't admit the error, and even if they continued after being warned about it, if they then simply shut up and don't respond, as long as they have a few friends and didn't block somebody really popular, they won't be desysopped. --Abd (talk) 20:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Where recusal comes into this (warning/block) is actually standard practice. If an admin does go ahead and block, the admin then recuses from ruling on an unblock request. (I've seen it happen, an example of failure to recuse; but, remember, there is always the emergency exception, where not acting could cause damage. I'll give an example of that, where full recusal (not using tools) actually did harm. See User:Abd/MKR incident. The admin should have immediately protected the page as closed, then notified AN/I and recused. The reason is that this was a case of abusive AfD and the nominator reverted the administrator closing based on abusive renomination, for leaving an AfD open causes editors to start to comment, and it then becomes difficult or impossible to close it. Had AN/I been functional, it would have been fine to go there, but, as we all know, AN/I isn't always functional. I think that those objecting to stricter statements about recusal often forget that administrators still have great freedom under IAR, including the freedom to act while involved, and that involvement in this case simply means that the admin then promptly puts up a notice of the action and recuses. As long as there is a reasonable claim of "emergency," the admin should be safe from being troutslapped over it, not to mention hauled before ArbComm with any chance of the case being accepted. Consider the first block of Jed Rothwell by JzG, December 18, 2008. He could claim, had he gone to AN/I and recused, that the editor's Talk:Cold fusion posts were disruptive and causing harm to other editors. Fine. However, in that case, the block would be for 24 hours, because that's plenty of time to get additional attention, instead of one month. Instead, he notified nobody (not even Jed Rothwell! -- who apparently didn't notice being blocked, as an IP editor on floating IP). And then he enforced the block by blocking other IP that wasn't Rothwell, but claiming it was; those edits were simply showing a similar POV. Similarly, he notified nobody about involvement re the blacklistings, which weren't an emergency by any stretch (there were no links being added at that time). It only came out weeks later. Recusal rules don't prevent any administrator from taking necessary action to protect the project, provided recusal is understood and requirements followed properly. And the emergency exception doesn't even need to be stated, it's WP:IAR. --Abd (talk) 20:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As jehochman says, this needs to be limited to content disputes. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Per Jehochman and Enric Naval, this needs to be narrowed down. This would now make WP:INVOLVED and, in a way, WP:3RR totally impossible, as this current wording would make any editor involved in a dispute with another editor on the first reversion, having to follow dispute resolution and having all to recuse from any further edits to the article (or at least to the involved parts of it). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to adopt the wording from the recent omnibus case, namely: Administrator tools may not be used to further the administrator's own position in a content dispute or, except in emergency circumstances or cases of blatant bad-faith harassment, in other disputes. Except for administrators' ability to use their tools to enforce policies on matters such as BLP or copyright violations, administrator status accords no special privileges in determining the content of articles. It seems to me this narrows the focus whilst also addressing Abd's point about non-content disputes. EdChem (talk) 16:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Administrators not to act unless uninvolved

2) Administrators may not use their administrative tools in situations in which they are not uninvolved. An administrator will not be uninvolved, for the purposes of user-specific tools such as blocking, if they have a prior history of conflict with the affected user(s). An administrator will not be uninvolved, for the purposes of article-specific tools such as page protection, if they have previously substantively edited the content of the affected article(s).

Comment by Arbitrators:

This is not an exhaustive definition but it is (an attempt at) a comprehensive general definition. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Missing the BLP exception. Also needs to be placed in positive language (i.e., "is involved" as opposed to "not uninvolved"). Risker (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Ideally there would be a balance between handing off to other admins to deal with, and recognising when the definition of "involved" is being gamed. A balance between keeping admins experienced with a particular area active in that area, and opening the door to admins being driven off by accusations of being involved. My view is that the best balance is struck by those admins who are willing in some areas to take off their admin hat and get involved as an editor. Sometimes, strictly abstaining from using admin tools and only acting as an editor really can work. To all admins who "look after" an area as admins and then find themselves at risk of being burnt out, I would suggest editing other controversial areas as an editor to get a feel for what can be done without using admin tools. Learning to report things, rather than dealing with them yourself. The experience can then feedback into the admin work done elsewhere, and can be pointed to as an example of how you act when involved (for the benefit of those claiming you are involved when doing admin work). Carcharoth (talk) 23:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Strong oppose - As soon as I try to control a disruptive editor, they will immediately claim there exists a conflict between me and them, and they will argue that I cannot use tools against them. WP:UNINVOLVED provides a clear exception for continuing administrator involvement in controlling disruptive users. This needs to be rewritten according to actual practice. ArbCom is not empowered to dictate policy to the community. You could just quote the relevant parts of WP:UNINVOLVED. Jehochman ^Talk 14:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools. -- WP:ADMINABUSE

One important caveat is that an administrator who has interacted with a user or article in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias, is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute. -- WP:UNINVOLVED

I think you'd get better results by rewriting or mashing up the above two quotes. Jehochman ^Talk 15:22, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. (though it needs some copy editing) The argument about "what if I warn an editor and they then argue that I can't use tools against them" is often raised in discussions of admin recusal, it's been raised many times before and generally, but perhaps not explicitly enough, rejected. Now that I have this bully pulpit, acquired at great cost and risk: Were I an admin, if I warn an editor not to do X, and the editor does X, what the editor has written to me or about me is irrelevant, I can block for X. However, if when I warn about X, the editor insults me, and I block for NPA violation or "disruption," or "trolling," that's action while involved. Wherever there would be an appearance of involvement, and certainly actual involvement, there should be recusal, which simply means that the admin asks for help, and I've seen many admins do exactly this, going to AN/I and stating the case, and normally they get quick response if the action is justified. In emergencies (this covers BLP), the admin may disregard a recusal obligation and act, but is then obligated to immediately recuse and refer (typically to AN/I). The immediate recusal means that any admin may revert the action without wheel-warring, taking responsibility for it. To pin this to immediate relevancy, there were no emergencies involved in JzG's actions asserted in this case.

Further, there was no immediate referral, and only referral in one case (a ban/block of Jed Rothwell), after being challenged, where no recusal or even the need for it was noted by him, i.e., the RfAr/Clarification filed by JzG and rejected by ArbComm, properly, as immature (cited in the RfC and my Evidence). The meta blacklisting may also be seen as a kind of referral, though forum-shopping; during the local discussion, which wasn't going well for his position, he went to meta where, as a blacklist admin there, he knew he would receive friendly and quick consideration that would overrule the local decision even if it went against him. He did not notify us of the meta process, nor did he inform the meta discussion that he was involved or that there was any challenge. --Abd (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth raises an issue: Ideally there would be a balance between handing off to other admins to deal with, and recognising when the definition of "involved" is being gamed. Recusal rules don't prevent an involved administrator from acting, and "gamed" would not refer to prevention of an administrator from acting, except in the very unusual situations where there is prior restraint on an administrator, which situation doesn't arise except by consensus or ArbComm action. Rather it would only refer to objection by editors about an admin who allegedly has acted while involved, after the fact. Recusal protects administrators from this. Let's suppose a situation where, we will assume, an admin isn't sufficiently involved to require recusal. An editor is disruptive, the admin blocks the user. The editor complains that the admin was involved. Well, if the admin wasn't involved before, the admin is now, and the admin shouldn't touch that user further absent emergency. This is normal practice, most visible in abstinence from declining an unblock request from that editor. The admin can ignore it, in fact. Only if the administrator realizes that the block was an error need the block itself be reversed. Recusal doesn't mean undoing actions, but abstaining from further action in a matter.

I was blocked last year based on a strong warning by Jehochman and a block decision by Iridescent. In a process which I considered quite successful, I resolved the issue with Jehochman, but never pursued it with Iridescent. One reason is that Iridescent, upon blocking me, immediately recused, giving permission for any admin to unblock. In other words, if she made a mistake, so what? I don't pursue dispute resolution unless there is some enduring importance, not merely some historical error. (Yes, I think the block was an error, but it's moot. And I have no opinion that Iridescent was involved, and even if she had been, it would still be moot because of the immediate recusal. Iridescent acted in good faith, wasn't involved, but still, recusal protected her from having to deal with an irate editor trying to raise a fuss, had that been me.)

Now, consider the block of IP that JzG issued during his RfC. For more than one reason, recusal was obligatory: first of all, he recognized the IP, I'd guess, from off-wiki and prior dispute, and from his personal recognition of the meaning of a comment. The second reason is that there was an edit from the IP to his RfC, if ever recusal was obviously needed, that would be a place! There was no emergency, no massive disruption. He could have dropped a note on AN/I and I'd say that a block would have taken a few minutes to happen. (At least one admin here has said that the block was blatantly proper.) Or, not as good but better than what he did, he could have blocked, recused (in the block notice) and notified AN/I.

I don't wonder that some administrators are loath to see stronger statements about recusal, but the importance of this is why I pursued this matter against some rather daunting opposition and even threats. (Note: I could not and would not have done this alone.) Had JzG shown, by his action with that IP, an understanding of the need for recusal, my position on the necessity of desysopping being on the table would have been reversed. By disclosing involvement -- or even the appearance of involvement, plus the actions of recusal -- he'd have demonstrated understanding adequate to allow ArbComm to reasonably settle on a mere admonishment in the other matters. But he didn't. And he still hasn't acknowledged the problem. --Abd (talk) 14:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

First sentence has triple negative (not * not * un). Simplify the expression by canceling the two nots. Ronnotel (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't do this: Don't take this the wrong way, but this reads like it was written by someone who doesn't do much work in controversial areas. I make a real effort to be above suspicion with regard to tool use, but if this definition of "involved" is adapted, you may as well desysop me now. Saying that a "prior history of conflict" disqualifies an admin is a wikilawyer's dream. Understand that taking any administrative action against an editor creates a "history of conflict". Understand that simply being yelled at or abused by a disruptive editor creates a "history of conflict". Also be aware that if I edited a page substantively 6 months ago and it's being vandalized today, I won't hesitate to semiprotect it. We already have a vanishingly small (and shrinking) number of admins willing and competent to handle tough problems - if this definition is adapted, you would have to be completely insane to volunteer to administrate any controversial area. I see what you're getting at, but it is imperative that you word it more carefully. MastCell ^Talk 04:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

An admin that has been enforcing wikipedia policies shouldn't be considered involved. Otherwise, you are going to run out of "uninvolved" admins in the most conflictive areas, as any admin with a few blocks and a few reverts of POV pushing is going to be labelled as "involved" in order to get rid of him. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the policy. Content policies are negotiated ("enforced") by ordinary editors, with well-known exceptions (WP:COPYVIO and WP:BLP), both of which can be considered emergencies. (Note that the problem with alleged copyvio with external links is a separate problem and not an emergency due to the nature of the law. Emergency copyvio refers to actual hosting on Wikipedia of material that violates copyright. Links to suspected violating material is speculatively copyright violation, requiring a showing of intentional violation, a much higher standard, and if the assumption of no violation is reasonable -- not necessarily conclusive! -- there is no legal hazard). There is no known problem of "running out of administrators," this is specious, and requires interpreting recusal policy in a ridiculous manner. If it truly occurs that there aren't any administrators to handle a request from an involved administrator (the suggested alternate route), then the admin may be able to go ahead under WP:IAR, with proper notice and recusal, and, by the conditions of the problem, there is no administrator to undo the action, so it stands. This argument has been raised over and over in prior cases, and perhaps it's time for ArbComm to make a much clearer statement about it. Recusal is fundamental! Failure to recuse does continual damage, of a kind that can be difficult to perceive or measure, as editors go away with a conviction that Wikipedia is biased and oppressive. As to desysopping MastCell, I tried to keep this case much narrower than it has been, and maybe ArbComm is going to do that in the end, but ... MastCell is welcome to add himself as a party, I won't object, then he gets to place his comments prominently. I do note that some arbitrators wrote that the behavior of all participants would be considered, and, it's true: I'm worried about any admin who shows through comments a failure to understand recusal policy. I'm not aware of any violations of that policy by MastCell, though, and what he has described would not necessarily be a violation.

As to "administrating a controversial area," there is quite a problem with the concept of assigned administrators specializing in an area, it tends to produce disruption by itself even as it quiets some other forms of disruption. Rather, what controversial topics need are mediators who know how to facilitate consensus among contending factions. Were I an admin, and I were asked to attend to a problem area, I'd probably recuse, at least upon becoming informed enough to have an opinion about the content! And then I'd ask for help, which, as an admin, I'd know how to get immediately. However, any experienced user can do this; I can get a page protected, if I have a reasonable request, almost as fast as I could do it myself. I can likewise get a vandal blocked, similarly. Think of the RfC on Elonka. For that matter, to see the problems with failure to recuse in a matter close to home, so to speak, consider Durova. Durova suspected a sock puppet based on private evidence, evidence she could not disclose for some very good reasons,she specialized in this. She went ahead (after private consultation) and blocked the suspected sock puppet. I have some doubt about the ultimate truth or falsity of the sock puppetry charge, but the point is that she shouldn't have blocked because of recusal rules, if they are strictly interpreted. (She very quickly unblocked, forty minutes I think was all it took, and that was before the big flap). She was the investigator who came to a conclusion. She shouldn't have been the judge in the same case! I think that one reason Durova might be sensitive about recusal rules is because of her own experience. If she had recused, and simply allowed someone neutral to make the decision, she'd still be an administrator. Given the common attitude here about JzG, her resignation might not have been necessary, but she saw, I noticed at the time, that her admin bit wasn't worth the disruption to keep it, and that's one reason why I have such high respect for her, she placed the needs of the project above her personal power. In this case, JzG won't even admit the error or show consideration for the concerns, but has attributed it all to alleged content bias. --Abd (talk) 16:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

That last is not true. Guy has, obviously, shown consideration for the concerns; after they were expressed earlier this year, he agreed to recuse himself from administrating cold fusion. MastCell ^Talk 18:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The "concerns" were about recusal, not about Cold fusion, and JzG has never acknowledged that he was involved and that he had a duty to recuse, he has merely smelled enough coffee now that he knows not to try it with CF-related matters again. What, exactly, is wrong with expecting an agreement about recusal, in general, rather than just about Cold fusion? "Honest, judge, I promise not to steal iPods ever again." "What about anything else," he's asked, and he says "I've got to go to the bathroom," and then is mysteriously missing. Does the judge say, "Well, he promised not to do what got him arrested, that's just fine, I order probation"? It took three months of work, much disruption, still not resolved, two MfDs, an RfC, an RfAr, and a specific (unfortunately misdirected) question from an arbitrator before the inadequate agreement was allegedly made. Does anyone else notice the elephant sitting here? I've probably said enough, or more than enough, there are some very, very smart arbitrators, and this will be in their hands. --Abd (talk) 20:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

You say, dismissively, that Guy has "smelled enough coffee not to try it again". I might rephrase that as: "Guy received critical feedback and modified his approach in response." I still don't get it. Have there actually been any recusal issues since Guy stepped away from cold fusion 4 months ago? I mean, besides the one block of an obvious IP troll that you continually fall back on? If there are such issues, then present them in your evidence. If there aren't, then Guy's failure to say "Uncle" as loudly as you would like is hardly grounds for a federal case. MastCell ^Talk 04:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I had to read Abd's comments several times to see if he might accidentally have missed out a comma between "desysopping" and "MastCell". ADHD is not an excuse for this kind of snide innuendo, which could be seen as an attempt to silence criticism (also observable in the last RfC for JzG). The second and third instructions at the top of this page seem fairly clear: no personal attacks; no rambling responses. Mathsci (talk) 07:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't view it as a personal attack; I brought it up, Abd responded to my comment about being desysopped. No big deal. Rambling responses, well... :) MastCell ^Talk 21:58, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

"Not uninvolved"? :( Stifle (talk) 14:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Questioning of administrative actions

3) Administrators are accountable to their actions involving administrative tools. As such, they are expected to respond appropriately to queries about their administrative actions and to justify them where needed. Criticism of the merits of administrative actions are acceptable within the bounds of avoiding personal attacks and civility.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Standard. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. --Abd (talk) 17:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Essential foundation for the type of community where people feel free to express their opinions and therefore consensus can be found. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Spam blacklist is for spam

4) The Wikimedia spam blacklist provides a technical method for combating link spam. The blacklist is "intended as a last resort for spam which spreads across multiple projects, and which is pursued by multiple individuals or IP addresses" (m:spam blacklist/About, see also Wikipedia:Spam blacklist). To a lesser extent it is also used to combat malware links. Each Wikimedia project has their own local blacklist, for use against link spam affecting only that project.

As blacklisting is a method of last resort, methods including blocking, page protection, or the use of bots such as XLinkBot, are to be used in preference to blacklisting.

Blacklisting is not to be used to enforce content decisions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Re Jehochman, this is drawn from the policy/guideline pages here (Wikipedia:Spam blacklist) and at Meta (m:spam blacklist/About). If some current practice deviates from the existing policies or guidelines, then that practice ought to be changed. --bainer (talk) 23:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

One might equally say that administrators have no right to rewrite policy to suit their own tastes. You're presuming that the community actually has agreed to do something different. Where are the discussions underpinning such agreement? If the policy documentation departed so radically from what everyone had agreed to do, you would expect at least some efforts to change it, but they have remained essentially static for their whole history. --bainer (talk) 03:25, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Deviates from actual practice and policy. Please read lengthy discussion at my proposed principal. Again, you have no power to rewrite policy to suit your tastes. Jehochman ^Talk 14:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, policy is descriptive, not normative. How the editorial community agrees to do things is the policy. The written policy page is documentation. If the two disagree, then the written policy page needs to be updated. Jehochman ^Talk 05:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. Jehochman is half-right. Current practice has extended the usage of the blacklists, beyond what is written in policy, to prevent the addition of links upon content arguments, without a showing of a danger of linkspam sufficient to justify blacklisting according to policy. This extension is questionable. For example, copyvio. Small-scale copyvio is easily handled by individual editors (not just administrators), and, where necessary, bots. It's only a matter for the blacklist if there is copyvio linkspam. I.e., linkspam. --Abd (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

As an example, I added a link to the recently delisted newenergytimes.com to Cold fusion. It was reverted on the copyvio argument, and I had never investigated the copyvio charges with respect to NET. So I looked and found, indeed, there is a reasonable claim of copyvio; NET hosts certain important published papers on a claim of fair use, but does host the entire papers, making a copyvio claim at least reasonable (even if legally not established, for it is conceivable that NET would prevail in an actual challenge, but more likely, my guess, is that they would simply take down the paper); hence, I'm now avoiding linking to NET as a convenience link for such papers, which is unfortunate, but necessary. The situation was quite different with lenr-canr.org, which does claim, plausibly, permission from authors and publishers (and which doesn't have a copy of the paper I was adding a convenience link for! -- and certainly would, if permission could be obtained.) My point: there is no need to blacklist for occasional copyvio; edits can be reverted and editors warned or blocked if that doesn't suffice. --Abd (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman is invited to cite the policy he thinks is being "rewritten." I couldn't find any reference to it. --Abd (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Jehochman in the Arbitrator section above, sure, he's, again, half-right. when policy and practice deviate, policy should be reviewed and possibly changed. But maybe the thinking behind the policy was deeper than the thinking of a handful of administrators who are looking at only one side of the issue. And that is exactly what has happened. What is being suggested here is that those working with the blacklist have gone outside of policy in a way that enhances their own power to make content decisions, that places certain of these decisions in the hands of a small circle of closely-cooperating administrators who rarely reverse each other's decisions, even when blatant error has been made (sometimes) (and there is no independent Blacklist Review process). I'm willing to write more on this if asked, I've seen a great deal that I'm not yet approaching, including solutions; remember, I thought this wasn't ripe for ArbComm. I'm happy with a statement that separates content issues from blacklisting, though; and "content" should be generally construed: absent linkspam, even copyvio is a poor reason for blacklisting, as the policy would suggest. And with linkspam, content is moot! Hence the proper use of the blacklist is for preventing linkspam, which simply needs a bit better definition and some better procedures. Lack of clarity on this is doing ongoing damage, I see it every time I look at the discussions on the blacklist and whitelist pages, not just with matters I'm involved with. Sometimes I've seen something clearly enough, and had the time, that I've intervened, generally successfully, but I see quite a bit more than I take on personally. No claim is being made that the blacklist volunteers are bad editors or abusive, they work hard to protect the project and deserve our appreciation, only that matters have gotten, in some ways, a bit out of hand, and content damage that they don't see is taking place. --Abd (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Am I the only one seeing in m:spam blacklist/About this: "Domains hosting copyright violations, or other legally problematic may be blacklisted on a case-by-case basis, provided there is strong justification and consensus to do so exists."? That was one of the justifications for not delisting lenr-canr.org.

Also, it has been already pointed out several times by User:Beetstra that enwiki's policy is out of sync with the current practice in the blacklist (for example, in the evidence page he explains how the blacklist was used for abuse control measures). --Enric Naval (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, Enric, this is because meta is independent of en.wikipedia. Statements on meta pages have no authority over en.wikipedia unless we accept them. Meta can blacklist; we could set the software here to ignore the meta blacklist, I believe, but that would be foolish; however, we can whitelist any site to effectively undo the meta blacklisting. However, consider the meta guideline cited. Sure. I agree with it, in fact. However, note "case by case basis," and "strong justification" and "consensus." Then look at the discussion at the delisting request and see if that was followed. In fact, there is no known example of copyright violation at lenr-canr.org, even though it would be fairly easy to find -- and prove -- one if the charges made were true. There was substantial and knowledgeable dissent at the meta discussion to the copyright charge, as there has been here, even though Stifle, who apparently missed the previous discussions, is still making the claim. Beetstra's position is, and has long been, odd. He has acknowledged quite a few times that there wasn't sufficient evidence to block newenergytimes.com, yet claims of copyright violation are quite reasonable for some pages on that site (it claims fair use, not permission). He knows that there wasn't significant linkspamming for lenr-canr.org, if any. (He charges "linkspamming" or "possible linkspamming" from the normal usage of an SPA focused on the topic of cold fusion.) We need to stick, for the most part, with what happens on en.wikipedia. We have authority over that, with ArbComm being the "court of last resort" for normal issues here. Suppose there was linkspamming for lenr-canr.org, cross-wiki. Meta will blacklist. But if there was no linkspamming here, and there is legitimate usage here, we can -- and should -- whitelist, and what they decide at meta is only of interest as Stifle asserted with another case yesterday: have the issues addressed at meta been resolved? So, sure, we might look at a meta decision, but it has no authority here. --Abd (talk) 01:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The local guideline (not policy!) Wikipedia:Spam_blacklist indeed speaks of 'This should be used as a last resort against spammers.'. The content of that guideline is indeed not in line with its current use. Moreover, it is a guideline, hence 'It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception.' (though 'occasional exception' is more frequent now, as links are very often not spam anymore, and is on a regular basis used to combat other types of abuse and possible abuse). As I presented here Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Evidence#Use_and_abuse_of_newenergytimes.com, multiple editors, 3 (nondisruptive) 'socks' of the site owner (see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Evidence#Site_owner_of_newenergytimes.com and WP:COI) and some IPs, and there have been several articles involved (I do not present that in the proof (I may expand on that), the 'cross-wiki aspect' not being of local concern here)' this would follow the requirements where page protection and blocking may not solve the problem (or give more/other problems as I suggested Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Evidence#Blacklisting.2C_blocking_and_page_protection_as_abuse_control_measures).

The question is 'is it possible that (an) admin(s) found the abuse of a kind that this should be used as a last resort?'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it's possible. In an emergency. What was the emergency? Some possible ones in hypothetical circumstances have been listed: Malware. Linking to copyvio on a level such that Wikipedia is at legal risk under the theory of constructive violation (which has no relevance to lenr-canr at all). It isn't necessary to define these because they would all be allowable under WP:IAR. What was the "last resort" involved with JzG's actions? It was that the damn editors of the article didn't seem to get it that this was a fringe web site, run by a "kook," (JzG's choice of language) and kept allowing links to be added that would stay there for long periods of time, so JzG used his tools as a "last resort" to get them out and keep them out. And this was clearly abuse of tools. There was no emergency, no linkspam. Just normal addition of links by editors showing where they found a reference. Sure, the links might be improper in some way; that, in fact, has sometimes been correct; but it doesn't take admin tools to deal with it. --Abd (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose the last sentence. Blacklisting is a valid tool against the use of links to copyvios, malware, and extremely unreliable (or partisan) sources. Stifle (talk) 14:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Stifle's views show why ArbComm should probably make some statement on the use of the blacklist. --Abd (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Abd: Emergency Abd? You say it is only allowed to add links outside of normal process in an emergency? Sure, following the 'normal process' (if there is any) is preferred, but there is nowhere in the guidelines defined 'spam can be added at all time, but other links only in an emergency' (or something along those words). Here we try to define what the spam blacklist is for, in line with guidelines/policies and common practice. If JzG followed that is not a part of this proposed principle, the outcome of the principle may indeed influence further discussions on JzG. Please stay on the topic of the principle, Abd. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I really don't get why this is so hard to understand. Not "outside of normal process," we are talking about normal process here. I'm on the topic of the principle, the present instance was mentioned as an example. (very good idea to have examples when discussing principles.) The principle is that the blacklist is for controlling linkspam. Are there exceptions to this? "Emergency" means that you can do anything, just about, to protect the project. If the blacklist is for controlling linkspam, but you discover that some major web site has been hacked, and is hosting malware, you can blacklist it in a flash, even if you have a conflict over that site, hate the owner (or love him or are employed by him or are employed by a competitor), and no matter what the rules say. But, then, you would normally be expected to consult and, if appropriate, recuse. Now, the problem here is that the blacklist is actually being used to control content, i.e., to prevent the addition of content deemed "abuse" by some. Does "actual practice" mean that ArbComm should ignore this? It's circular: it's not in the guidelines, but we are actually doing it, so it should be in the guidelines. No, that's one possible outcome, but the other obvious one is that the community looks at the practice, which has been going on in an obscure corner of the project, chews on it a bit, tastes it, and spits it out. It seems that you have been saying that ArbComm can't touch the practice; but it involves the use of admin tools, and it thus gives an advantage to administrators over other editors, and this is something ArbComm has been very much concerned with.

It seems that you want, Beetstra, to continue the not uncommon, routine, non-emergency practice of considering content value when blacklisting, such that content deemed valueless is blacklisted even when there is no linkspam (the term requires some kind of large-scale addition). Some editors here have expressed the opinion that lenr-canr.org or newenergytimes.com are worthless junk, not reliable source, etc.; yet this is a content judgment and should not be made and enforced by a handful of administrators, and, in fact, you know that it's not true. You whitelisted a link to lenr-canr.org, and, by the principles involved with that one, there are quite a few more to follow. I have a request in for one, a seminal paper by Fleischmann. (For others not familiar with the history, lenr-canr.org hosts papers published elsewhere, it's a "library," claiming permission. Besides the old usage of the site for its bibliography, probably the best on the net, lenr-canr.org is not normally a "source," rather, the published papers are the source, and are cited as such. However, lenr-canr.org, as a site which goes to some considerable trouble to get permission from authors and publishers, is quite useful for convenience links, and that's the bulk of the usage; one might notice that JzG, in removing links, was mostly removing convenience links. That doesn't change technical compliance with WP:V, but it makes verification of accuracy to source far more difficult, and text cited to source that doesn't support it is a common problem in controversial areas like this, where editors often don't understand the sources. And beware, a farrago of false and misleading arguments have been raised over this in the past, and it's easy to jump to conclusions that aren't correct.) --Abd (talk) 19:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Now that is an argument I agree with: "Now, the problem here is that the blacklist is actually being used to control content, i.e., to prevent the addition of content deemed "abuse" by some.". But that 'what is deemed abuse' is a difficult thing to define, and we are getting in a very grey area there. What if JzG deemed this 'wide scale abuse'? That needs a proper discussion on both sides and on the relative scale and on the relative damage. And I do not believe that there are completely no link additions here which were not 'abuse' of the link, and I can't judge what JzG thought about this.

But, "It seems that you want, Beetstra, to continue the not uncommon, routine, non-emergency practice of considering content value when blacklisting, such that content deemed valueless is blacklisted even when there is no linkspam (the term requires some kind of large-scale addition)." is again not what I want, and is not a 'not uncommon, routine, non-emergency practice', though exceptions exist. I try to make my judgements better than that, and you know that I have, repeatedly, STRONGLY opposed this way of expressing my actions or thoughts, and of the actions of many people who regularly add regexes to the spam blacklists. This is not general practice. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No claim is made or necessary that there were no "abusive" additions of links, but only that additions were on a scale where they could be, and were, handled by ordinary editorial process. JzG, however, clearly believed that any usage of lenr-canr.org, in particular, was "abusive," and he fought long and hard for this over an extended period, until he finally used tools in an attempt to seal it, since ordinary consensus process wasn't working for him. There were a handful of links at the time he blacklisted, which he removed (as is normal when blacklisting). Why didn't he just remove them and not blacklist? There was no flood of links being added. The answer is obvious: he'd done it before, and other editors put them back. He had this idea that this was all Pcarbonn, with whom he had obvious dispute, so he did at one point justify this as "cleaning up after Pcarbonn." But one of the links he removed was placed, not by Pcarbonn, but by LeadSongDog, who might be considered in the "skeptical" camp, and I haven't researched the others. What is clear is that the links were generally accepted, which can be, by the way, part of a kind of negotiated agreement. In one edit by Pcarbonn, a number of individual links were removed to lenr-canr.org, and one external link was added, apparently as a compromise. (I actually find it appalling that we don't have an external link to lenr-canr.org. It would be like not having links to Green Party web sites in Green Party, or worse, since lenr-canr.org, as a resource is more neutral than pure advocacy -- but less neutral than purely unbiased, which is rather obvious: why does one put in the incredible effort involved in compiling and maintaining a site like this, without advertising, if not because one has an opinion that it's worthwhile.) Certainly Pcarbonn was "pushing a POV," but within guidelines and, as far as I've seen, reasonably with respect for editorial process. Pcarbonn wasn't banned for specific behavioral violations but for pursuing an agenda under WP:BATTLE, a can of worms I am not ready to open, it's not an emergency. JzG's removal of links with blacklisting was controversial, and not enforcing some local consensus; claims about this have been advanced speculatively, as in "what if he was...?"

Beetstra frequently objects, sometimes vigorously, at my summarizations of what he's said, and sometimes it's quite difficult, like now, for me to figure out the difference between what he then asserts as his true position and my summarization.

What if JzG deemed this 'wide scale abuse'? Beetstra continues to miss the point. JzG did think it abusive, and, since an editor from it.wikipedia had asked for his assistance with these problem links there, he had a basis for going to meta. However, there was no evidence that the links at it.wikipedia were actually abusive, nor that they were widespread and being added such as to trigger normal linkspamming action. Rather, there was an editor at it with a POV, apparently aligned with that of JzG, and JzG intervened to support that POV. He did not use tools at meta, but he violated a more subtle -- and more difficult to enforce -- aspect of recusal, often neglected, which is to disclose any special interest in requesting admin assistance. (I don't always do this, and I probably should.) JzG is a linkspam admin, heavily trusted there, he's an admin at meta, so his "wish" is likely to be "their command." I know admins who would certainly have disclosed involvement when making a request -- and I'd fault the meta admin who acted for not recognizing that there was likely bias, because otherwise why didn't JzG simply blacklist directly, as he did at en.wikipedia? In other words, they should have suspected that there was a reason why he didn't do it directly, as Beetstra is arguing he could properly have done. But they didn't, apparently.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that blacklist admins should not be able to directly blacklist without discussion, but they should avoid doing this wherever there is a reasonable possibility of dissent from editors as distinct from site promoters. In that case, the role of investigator and reporter should be kept distinct from the role of judge. Because of the nature of blacklisting, though, there is little harm in overblacklisting, as long as it doesn't become permanent without the possibility of neutral review. And this is all stuff than can be addressed through normal consensus process to improve the guidelines; what's needed is to solicit and obtain participation in that process from editors who are concerned with content as distinct from linkspam prevention. What ArbComm can do now is to provide better guidance on how the blacklist is to be and not to be used, not to nail everything down with NO EXCEPTIONS!, but to establish the basic framework according to the vision of the developers, the founders, and experienced editors who know the range of possibilities and situations to be faced.

The goal of good blacklisting process should be efficiency, ease of use in identifying linkspam (including the better development of 'bots to assist this -- Beetstra has been working on this and has, as suggested in the guidelines, set up at least one bot that could make it unnecessary to blacklist a site, and it's easy to conceive of better 'bots) and ease of request and appeal regarding delisting and whitelisting, blacklisting normally through pure, easy-to-apply behavioral standards, the development of procedures where editors accused of linkspamming can easily and efficiently establish, if it's the case, the legitimacy of their edits. The present process has only been developed, it seems, by those interested for the most part in preventing linkspam; but when I set up a spam filter for my email, and I get about 600 spam mails per day, I'd rather err on the side of missing a few spams and having to delete them manually, than make the filter most efficient and risk missing a good mail. One good edit is worth more than a few pieces of linkspam that will mostly be caught eventually. And bots can detect those and flag them for quick action, even automated removal; then the bot could let autoconfirmed editors replace them, which, if those were patient spammers, would quickly identify them and they'd be blocked. And if the usages were reasonable, no problem! We need to use distributed resources, better, much of this doesn't actually require administrative tools. --Abd (talk) 15:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

This is more the core where I indeed was trying to get. I may have worded this wrong in the past, and indeed my examination in the decline in the case of newenergytimes.com may not have been thorough enough (though I also assume good faith on the acting admins there (in this case the examination of the blacklister(s)), provided opposing evidence, etc.). The core is 'substantial abuse' (which I know is not an objective number!). If the abuse is widescale (multiple accounts, huge numbers of uncontrolled additions to many, many pages), then it does not matter how reliable the source is that is linked to, blacklisting may be the only (temporary?) measure to stop it (a situation that happened recently!). If the abuse is not huge, but significant, but there is anyway 'no' significant use of the link (which generally means, less than 2-3 necessery links, even a typical porn spam site may gain notability and a hence result in a wikiarticle, where the external link is a wanted addition), and/or the risk of continuation is large, then blacklisting may be a solution as well. If the abuse is minimal, then other (softer) methods may be a solution (maybe a block to poke the editors, and XLinkBot? Or (now) the abusefilter?). We are with newenergytimes.com and lenr-canr.org in a grey area. It is shown that site owners are involved here, over longer times, in 'pushing' their sites and their sources (in clear violation of WP:COI, though the editors may not have been properly notified of that guideline), and there is some 'questionable' use by other users (of which I did not fully determine the scale, and JzG may have been the only one who did this). Question for now still remains if it is dark-grey, or light-grey (I would like to see an independent review of edits in terms of link use here). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Beetstra. As to involvement, Jed Rothwell stopped editing article pages in 2006, as far as I can tell. The edits which resulted in his ban/block were Talk page edits, and while they can certainly be seen as "POV pushing," many can also be seen as helpful. He did not normally provide a link to his site in them, but did sign the edits "Jed Rothwell, librarian, lenr-canr.org," which, of course, doesn't trigger the blacklist. When I first looked at this situation I noticed that the edit cited as "promoting his site" had no link but the signature, which isn't a link, it's a title. His site is highly visible on the topic, he doesn't need to promote it, in fact, he and NET are typically in the first page of Google hits on many searches in the field. Krivit, likewise, was not recently editing articles, except, when NET was blacklisted, and when he realized that my intervention of Durova (totally independent from me, originally) and my intervention weren't going to result in delisting (it ended up taking about four months), he yanked some rather nice photos that he'd provided. Other than that, I haven't seen an article edit from him since way back.

The judgment re actual link propriety is a content judgment, which should be (exceptions noted) irrelevant to blacklisting. Policies and guidelines cover the general case, and it is not necessary to document every exception, that's indeed, why we have WP:IAR. --Abd (talk) 11:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your "Jed Rothwell stopped editing article pages in 2006", you are right, the account Special:Contributions/JedRothwell stopped in 2006, but this edit here, which certainly is after 2006, shows that Jed Rothwell did not stop editing.

Regarding your edit summary, no, I do expect librarians/organisations/companies/archives/musea NOT to push a POV. I expect them to use the information in their library in a neutral way. What, I even expect them to know the field, know about information which they actually don't have themselves, and to (maybe occasionally) cite thát information, as it may still be part of the picture. I have been handling quite some editors with a conflict of interest, and as I have said before, some get it (and we have some very productive editors with a disclosed conflict of interest who, albeit mainly using information from their 'own' server, use their material in a neutral and non-POV way), some don't (and are here only to promote their site (themselves!), or to push their POV). Disclosing your conflict of interest does not allow you to push a POV, or to 'spam' your site, or to promote your organisation or yourself, or ignore fundamental mediawiki principles. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:44, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Weird. Beetstra, the edit you cite from Rothwell is a Talk page edit. Here is what I can say for sure: I haven't seen any edits to Cold fusion from Rothwell since 2006. Have you?

Your attitude, Beetstra, manifests the problem with have with experts. Experts frequently have a POV, even a very strong one. Experts are also frequently COI. So how do we, like traditional encyclopedias, take advantage of expert opinion for assistance in understanding the sources? They can point out balancing sources, and ideally, we have experts from various POVs, so the sum of it, as our consensus judges, should be NPOV. But if we prevent experts from editing Talk, as we did with Rothwell, we restrict ourselves greatly, for no good purpose. To say one thing again: we restrict COI editors to Talk because we expect them to have a POV and to prefer it. Rothwell didn't "spam" the site, and usually didn't even link to it. However, if he wanted to make a point from a published paper, or even from a conference proceeding, what, exactly, is wrong with him linking, in Talk, to a copy of it on his site? --Abd (talk) 13:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, my mistake, I think you are right, no mainspace articles as far as I can see. I am sorry, I read your comment wrong.

Yes, that is true. Experts have a POV, but what I mean, is that I expect them not to push their POV, but neutrally balance the literature. I did not talk about talk-space. (Practically all) our guidelines do say, go to the talkpage to discuss (in case of spam and coi, for that reason, and I do send them there as well, or to WikiProjects), and that is indeed much better, and restricting that should be avoided (I am not saying that it should never be disallowed, it depends on the way, e.g. blatant advertising in talkspace is less visible, but it is still inappropriate, as it is not what the talkpage is for). For Jed Rothwell, it depends on how the topic ban is worded. If it is a total ban from the topic, then that might include talkpages as well, even if the person is a specialist. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra, you have a naive view of experts. Some are able to do what you suggest you expect, but probably not the majority. Most imagine themselves more qualified to make an overall judgment on the evidence than non-experts, or even than other experts. Rothwell's topic ban was issued unilaterally by JzG. He cited a brief discussion on AN or AN/I where there was no close and no balanced discussion. Previously, JzG had blocked Rothwell, then he declared the ban and blocked Rothwell IP again. I have seen no example that represented inappropriate "promotion" of the site. Remember, this is the number one library of documents on the topic of the article on the web, without parallel. Yes, you got it. Restricting "POV-pushing" expressed on Talk pages is to be avoided, for it amounts to POV suppression, which ArbComm has found isn't to be done with fringe topics. The article should be balanced. Requiring editors to be balanced is little short of crazy. Obviously, we should be balanced, and we should be lots of things that we aren't. Instead, we can learn to be civil, to seek consensus, to compromise in order to find what's truly important, etc. And, indeed, to be patient. --Abd (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Loci of dispute

1) There are two main issues in this dispute:

1. the presence of "lenr-canr.org" and "newenergytimes.com" on the spam blacklist, and
2. allegations that JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) took certain administrative actions while not uninvolved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

There are other issues. I would prefer a more inclusive statement. "Issues in dispute include:". Don't eliminate or minimize the possible existence of other disputes. Jehochman ^Talk 14:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

This isn't accurate as stated, it could be greatly improved. Jehochman is correct that there are other issues. Further, the presence or absence of a site from a blacklist is dangerously close to a content issue, I certainly would not have brought this to ArbComm at this point, and probably never. Rather, what ArbComm is tasked with resolving is, here, and as usual, behavioral issues. Neither site is, at this point, on the local blacklist, NET has been removed locally and was never globally blacklisted. Lenr-canr.org was locally blacklisted by JzG, that was challenged, and the discussion was closed with delisting, but on the conclusion, by Beetstra, that global blacklisting had trumped it. Local whitelisting of lenr-canr.org has not been pursued, except for individual links (one granted and two pending.). My plan has been to, if a few whitelistings show usability, to return to meta to request delisting. ArbComm does not have authority over meta, though my guess is that ArbComm requests would be favorably considered.

Johochman's request is reasonable, to list "issues in dispute," though it is also reasonable, perhaps as a separate finding, to separate mature issues (ready for ArbComm resolution or at least advice) from other issues that could, quite possibly, be resolved short of ArbComm. From my point of view, only one issue was truly ripe for ArbComm resolution: use of admin tools while involved. Most of the rest could be handled more efficiently at a lower level. It seems that the issue of the blacklist is now sufficiently mature to see some statement here, but that certainly isn't about the two blacklistings, it is about general blacklist practice and possible misuse of the blacklist to control content. Let's not confuse examples with principles. --Abd (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As long as Meta admins and editors don't feel en.wikipedia is playing Big Brother trying to strong-arm the other Wikimedia projects, they're pretty flexible and would be receptive to an en.wikipedia ArbComm request to de-list these domains if accompanied by an ArbComm finding there's not a copyright issue. If there is a copyright issue, then the domains are most appropriately blacklisted at Meta, not locally. That's because the American laws that underly our local rules (Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works) apply to all 700+ Wikimedia projects, given the Foundation's base in the USA. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think so, on both points. The copyright issue is one of alleged contributory infringement, which has been interpreted with such ferocity by some that, if we were to follow the argument, we would never link to anything without utter certainty that the hosting site owns the copyright or has the owner, and, as to permission, it's not clear what standard of proof would be required. Notarized letter from the copyright owner? It would be a huge can of worms. Instead, I aver, we should rely upon reasonable claims of use by permission, and as long as this isn't blatantly unreasonable, we are safe from contributory infringement, the case that is cited (I forget where) was of deliberate linking to blatant copyright infringement. The two sites blacklisted by JzG that occasioned this whole affair are actually different as to copyright status. Both sites host some material that they own, we can link to that, if editors decide they are usable, without any copyright question. However, both sites also host material that has been published elsewhere. Lenr-canr.org has a bibliography of over 3000 documents, I think. But only about 1000 have copies hosted there. The site owner has stated that he has copies of many papers that he'd love to put up, but he can't get permission. An example would be the recent paper by Mosier-Boss of the SPAWAR group (Yes, A.B., U.S. Navy), published in Naturwissenschaften. But that paper is hosted on newenergytimes.com. NET claims "Fair Use," but hosts the whole paper. (I did not know this when I requested delisting; I still would have requested it, because of other material there which may be usable, where they own the copyright or have permission, and because we should link to the on-line publication (fringe or not) because it's widely cited as a place to find information on the topic (it is accepted at this point as a See Also at Cold fusion, linking to an article I recently created); I've found NET invaluable for understanding news on the topic, and, yes, it has a POV. So do many web sites we link to, when they are devoted to the topic of an article and are prominent for that.) Hence I don't add convenience links to copies of papers on NET, because the likelihood of copyvio there has become too high. That doesn't mean that NET is breaking the law, for the exact boundaries are not crystal clear, only that NET has entered an area where, if they were charged with copyright violation, and they resisted, they could easily lose. What that would mean is also unclear; since they've been doing it for years, there may be considerations unknown to us. (The bulk of the material on NET is not copyvio, so NET doesn't fail WP:LINKVIO, just probably the particular pages that are hosted under a fair use claim but are entire.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 03:10, 6 May 2009

One of the problems with the website www.lenr-canr.org is that it makes some papers available for download without apparently having had permission from the publishers. For example in Jed Rothwell's library, a paper from Physics Letters A by Celani et al. from 1996 bears a clear copyright notice by the Publisher Elsevier. On the web I can access the preprint be going here and then downloading freely from the server at CERN here. But this is the preprint and not the published paper with the copyright marks of Elsevier which can be found at this link - www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CelaniFdeuteriumo.pdf (which cannot be displayed). The published article is available for purchase here on sciencedirect. These published papers can normally be accessed free through accounts linked to institutions with a subscription to the journal. In that sense there could be some problem with copyright issues, if, as seemed to be the case here, some of the pdf files on the lenr-canr.org site are not the preprints, and have therefore apparently been made publicly available without permission of the publisher. This to me could be a far more serious RL problem for wikipedia than any perceived virtual blacklisting by JzG, although I personally have no idea at all about this kind of legal issue. Jed Rothwell seems to have made the mistake of linking the published paper rather than the publicly available preprint. The self-published papers and editorial commentaries provide a different set of problems. (I have no idea for example about the quality of my colleague Biberian's contributions there; I have read in Le Monde about his activities as president of Elan Vital, when it was declared a cult by the French government.) Mathsci (talk) 04:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci is asserting JzG's position on lenr-canr.org with respect to copyright. This has all been discussed at length and in detail. I'm willing to request permission information from Rothwell regarding a specific paper, but not to do it for every one! (I'm not sure that he will lift a finger to help Wikipedia, Wikipedia has been pretty insulting to him, and, yes, he, like many other experts, blames the whole project for what it allows individual editors and administrators to do, fair or not. But if anyone here could request that he do that, it might be me, as our email correspondence has been reasonably cordial and he's been helpful.) What Mathsci is doing is presuming violation unless specific and detailed permission is shown. The usability of some material that is original on lenr-canr.org is speculative; I won't go into details, but there are circumstances where such a "publication" can be usable, and this is a decision to be made by editorial consensus at the article involved, not in general by editors who do not know the specific application being asserted. As to permissions and the general case, Rothwell has clearly asserted, on the web site and in email, that he does not host papers unless he has permission from authors and publishers, and knowledgeable administrators here have commented that this is the assumption we can operate on. Certainly it's possible that Rothwell has made mistakes, just about everyone does on occasion. If this particular paper is the best shot at finding an error, Mathsci, tell me and I'll request information on it. Isaac Newton and Linus Pauling had some pretty weird ideas, too, and so have many other scientists who were nevertheless authorities in their fields. This attempt to discredit authors in a field is typical of strong POV-pushing, unfortunately. It's reasonable to consider that Biberian might be biased and that what he states should be attributed, but that has no effect on whether or not what he's published (some in peer-reviewed journals) is RS. Attribution is often the solution to sourcing problems of the kind Mathsci is asserting. --Abd (talk) 15:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Please could Abd read what NYB has written on the talk page. I can't see anything on this page which has addressed the specific point I raised, which was not obvious. Much of my professional life has been spent reading academic articles in mathematics and physics. I don't understand the point of the above screed, except perhaps to bury what I wrote. Writing responses as above is unhelpful. It seems designed to create a bad atmosphere on this page and frighten away Abd's perceived critics. Abd did exactly the same in the last RfC for JgZ, by piling on the paragraphs. I used the phrase "pound of flesh" in my evidence and I am now somewhat reminded of the trial scene in the Merchant of Venice. Perhaps therefore I will say to Abd, "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. It is twice bless't, it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." I prefer these lines to, "Oh righteous judge, oh worthy judge". [Embarrassing disclosure: I played Portia when I was 12. :-)] Mathsci (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice. One of my favorite pieces of text of all time. As to the "bad atmosphere" and alleged design, I'm confident that arbitrators are able to discriminate well enough to tell the difference between thorough discussion and bad-faith obfuscation. --Abd (talk) 11:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Spam blacklist dispute resolved

2) Since the commencement of this case, the underlying dispute with respect to the presence on the spam blacklist of the "newenergytimes.com" site has been resolved ("lenr-canr.org" had already been removed from the blacklist on 10 January 2009).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Noting that the first issue in the dispute has been resolved by the community, as it should be. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

The removal of lenr-canr.org from the local blacklist was technically a resolution; however, because it was removed on the basis of a global blacklisting, the effect has been that the issue remained open here (with JzG frequently asserting that his actions had been "confirmed by the community," the very opposite of what the proposed finding suggests.); I would have argued that the closing admin should have ruled on the substance, and, if the decision was that local blacklisting wasn't proper, should have whitelisted locally, which would have saved us all a lot of trouble; instead, a new whitelisting request might involve repetition of a prior lengthy discussion. There has been much attention paid in the blacklisting process to efficiency from the POV of stopping linkspam, but little attention to facilitating legitimate edits, which blacklisting clearly makes much more complicated, particularly for a web site which is prominent in its field. What can be said is that the community is in process in resolving the blacklisting issues, and will presumably resolve them without a ruling from ArbComm. This leaves, with respect to the blacklistings, only the administrative behavioral issue. If an administrator has blocked someone improperly, based on a personal dispute, that the individual is unblocked does not resolve the issue of action while involved. Routinely, it's resolved as soon as the administrator acknowledges the error, and it is de-facto resolved if everyone simply drops it. Neither have happened with respect to action while involved (blocks, blacklisting, article protection and deletion), which is why this is before ArbComm. --Abd (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a new development. I requested whitelisting of a paper of utmost historical importance for Cold fusion hosted by lenr-canr.org under a claim of permission (for a convenience copy, it's already cited, of course). I also requested, alternatively, whitelisting the whole site, there being no reason for blacklisting in the first place. (We can't delist here, as was done with newenergytimes.com, because the blacklisting is now at meta.) Stifle declined, citing WP:LINKVIO. There is no credible claim of copyright violation at lenr-canr.org, this has been extensively discussed.at Talk:Martin Fleischmann and Review of history re lenr-canr.org, prepared at request of John Vandenburg. The question is, will we need a lengthy discussion about copyright for each new link proposed? Main point here, though, the blacklisting of lenr-canr.org is not resolved, we are still dealing with the fallout of JzG's action. --Abd (talk) 01:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

To update, Stifle clarified that he was rejecting the overall whitelisting of lenr-canr.org, and was recusing on the question of the specific link, thus allowing normal process to proceed. This is quite satisfactory for the moment. --Abd (talk) 13:45, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Additional update: the two links to lenr-canr.org recently requested for whitelisting have now been approved by Beetstra.[4][5] --Abd (talk) 02:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

lenr-canr.org was not removed because the dispute was settled, but because it had been added to the meta blacklist[6], so it was no longer necessary to have it here. The issue was deferred to the whitelist with the blacklisting at meta being specifically cited [7] and clarified that it was a meta issue [8] whole discussion --Enric Naval (talk) 18:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I wish to clarify that I did not "[recuse] on the question of the specific link"; rather, I could not reach a decision on it. Recusal, to me, indicates that one feels one could make a decision but for involvement or conflict of interest, which I don't. Stifle (talk) 14:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

No, one can voluntarily recuse for any reason, including insufficient knowledge on which to base a decision. --Abd (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG's use of the spam blacklist

3) On 18 December 2008, JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) added "lenr-canr.org" ([9]) and "newenergytimes.com" ([10]), websites related to cold fusion, to the English Wikipedia spam blacklist. In both cases he used the edit summary "+1". In neither case did he comply with the requirement to log the additions at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/log.

JzG started a discussion on the spam blacklist talk page with respect to "lenr-canr.org", saying "Adding now, and listing here for transparency", though he added the site to the blacklist less than a minute later. JzG did not attempt any other discussion with respect to the two additions.

On 8 January 2009, JzG initiated a discussion with respect to "lenr-canr.org" at the Meta spam blacklist talk page, as a result of which the site was added to the Meta spam blacklist on 10 January 2009.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Since there are two different spam blacklists involved, each reference to a blacklist needs to be specific to which one, and the names must be consistent. (Meta spam blacklist? Is that the MediaWiki one?) Risker (talk) 15:36, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. The Meta blacklist is the "global blacklist," and our blacklist is the "local blacklist." Our local blacklist, as a file used by MediaWiki, is in MediaWiki space. JzG cannot be faulted, of course, for requesting global blacklisting, though he probably should have disclosed both his involvement and the existence of his local blacklisting and dispute over that, which was pending locally. Because he did not, we may suspect that the decision to globally blacklist was a shallow one. Then, as I have often seen, later conclusions on blacklistings seem to be heavily weighted toward confirming earlier conclusions, with a strong showing of necessity to use links being required. The suggestion will be (not unreasonably, in fact) to whitelist needed links, which is what I've been doing. --Abd (talk) 16:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It's a huge hassle for one damn link, especially if I'm required to write the web site, get a copy of the permission if the site owner is willing to provide it, which I'm not sure I would do as a site owner, when I don't give a fig about Wikipedia, as is the case with lenr-canr.org, due to the history, and then write the author and publisher and verify; however, when this has been discussed in detail, it hasn't been considered necessary. I'm doing it because, with a few whitelistings, it is then much more credible to ask for whitelisting the whole thing, unless you want to see a new request every week! (lenr-canr.org hosts a good chunk of the papers that are cited at Cold fusion, everything he's been able to wangle permission for, and, as a reader, I can say that I very much appreciate those convenience links.) --Abd (talk) 01:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I agree with the interpretation of the facts (JzG did add the links to the blacklist, he started discussions afterward, he did start the request on meta), but disagree with certain parts of the other wording which, IMHO, confuse rules, policy and normal practice:

1. The edit summary '+1' is used more and is certainly not uncommon, though often some of the links or a short description is added (see april additions to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, three other admins, me included, use the same notation without further explanation), and I am not aware of policy stating that we have to use the edit summary in an informative way (I agree, it helps).
2. Logging is deemed a 'MUST' (per [[MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist, as (per 'if you do not log any entry you make on the blacklist, it may well be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found.', MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist) not logging may result in delisting if no valid reasons can be found. That is, however, not a failure to 'comply with requirement', merely 'not following normal procedure, which may have had as a result that the link was removed if no reasons could be found (reasons could here include other reasons than the ones that JzG meant as reasons, that is also not diclosed in the guidelines).
3. Not mentioning his involvement in the underlying Cold fusion dispute would not be a requirement for considering a request (I am admin both here and on meta, involved in blacklisting requests), here or on meta.wikimedia.org, it may have influenced the situation if declared and/or if found. Requests are evaluated on the abuse of a link or other problems with the link, as that is the main reason for which requests are granted. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
4. This is mainly how I read the sentence, and I can read it in a way which is incriminating. 'JzG started a discussion on the spam blacklist talk page with respect to "lenr-canr.org", saying "Adding now, and listing here for transparency", though he added the site to the blacklist less than a minute later. JzG did not attempt any other discussion with respect to the two additions.'. My problem here is with the 'any other discussion with respect to the two additions', which may suggest that JzG did something uncommon, or even against established policies. I guess I will have to expand my evidence, but 'discussion' is not a requirement, nor a common practice for addition. Links which are deemed to be abused can be added to the spam blacklist without discussion. Seeing the April logs to MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/log shows that, though the majority seems to link to a request or discussion, many of the links are added without discussion (and I have not looked if the 'discussions' that are there are merely for transparency, or real discussions). It is common to provide proof or concerns in the log, as, as I stated above, items which do not link to any form of concern or proof may be removed without discussion if no proof or problem can be found when delisting is requested.

In other words, parts of this finding of fact seem to be based on what normal practice should be, or is deemed to be, not on what it actually is. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG not an uninvolved administrator with respect to cold fusion

4) From time to time, since July 2006, JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has made a number of substantive content edits to the cold fusion article (list), and has participated in a substantive way in a number of discussions on the article's talk page (list).

These substantive content edits include a number of edits, over the course of more than a year, removing links to "lenr-canr.org" ([11], [12], [13], [14], [15]) or "newenergytimes.com" ([16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22]).

Comment by Arbitrators:

No judgment is made as to the substance of JzG's editing of the article, the simple fact of being substantively involved with the editing of the article is what is significant. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Jehochman, the list of edits presented in the request for comment shows substantive content participation. I've copied it to the evidence page for easy reference. The examples in the second paragraph indicate specific involvement in the question of use of the external links, beyond general involvement with the article as a whole. --bainer (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to put diffs into the proposal, as the complete list gives a clearer impression of JzG's full involvement than a selection of diffs would. There is certainly a mixture of edits in there. However, for some examples of substantive content edits, see (in no particular order) here, here, here or here. --bainer (talk) 08:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Beetstra, in terms of substantive content edits, see the list of edits linked to, and see my reply to Jehochman above. The diffs relating to the external links show that JzG was not only involved in a general sense, but was involved specifically in relation to the external link issue. Note the edit summaries; JzG indeed raises copyright issues some of the time, but also made arguments about whether the sites were reliable or "proper" sources, or whether they were "polemical". JzG is, of course, entitled as an editor to have or to edit based on such opinions; he's just precluded from using administrative tools on the issue also. --bainer (talk) 08:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Removing spam or reverting vandalism is not a substantive content edit. JzG claims that they were merely reverting spam. I think you need to employ finer judgment to show that they were not merely reverting spam if you want this to carry. Jehochman ^Talk 14:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Then put a few of the smoking diffs into the finding. At the moment you have a collection that includes some that appear to be innocuous removals of spam. I don't want to set a bad precedent here. Jehochman ^Talk 15:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The links removed (at least the bulk of them, maybe all) were not "spam" or "vandalism" by any stretch of the imagination, rather, they were variously alleged to be fringe, copyvio, subject to fraudulent alteration, and whatever argument (misleading or not) could be found, and this was all repeated in miniature, though JzG edit warring, when a single link to lenr-canr.org was whitelisted and placed in Martin Fleischmann. The removals were content actions, of the kind that ordinary editors can and do perform. My Evidence does supply other diffs showing involvement, how many are needed? Note that "involvement" can include a strong POV expressed on Talk pages. In this case, though, both kinds of evidence are available, plus ample expression of such a POV expressed in many fora. --Abd (talk) 16:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm sorry, but I support the assertion the URLs added to the blacklist are utter crap that have no place in a reliable, accurate project, something Wikipedia aspires to. If you get an uninvolved administrator to look at blacklisting, with a subject like this, they're almost certainly going to be clueless - we need involved administrators who know exactly what can and cannot be permitted on the project, I'm sorry if that goes against all our policies, but they were certainly never written with this sort of fringe science, POV pushing nonsense in mind, and whilst it's not the job of Arbcom to write new policy, there is an urgent need for clarification and direction on how to deal with these sites and those who persist in adding citing these websites and this sort of material in scientific and fringe science articles. The reliability and credibility of the project is on the line here, and it's being put at risk because of vexatious litigation, the inability of Arbcom to deal with the issue once and for all, and the screams and howls from editors when someone who has half an idea there's trouble at foot, but might, just might be involved, actually tries to protect the project. Nick (talk) 22:41, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry too, but the above comment evinces an attitude that seems just as bad as the "truther" fringe / conspiracy theory elements you're against, and just as much on a "holy crusade" to make sure that only that which is "right" (by your POV) can make it into this site. You're arguing for a self-selected elitist clique to be empowered to make content decisions for everybody, unbound even by policy and procedure. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Dan - the solution for appropriate handling of fringe issues isn't for admins to crusade as a self-selected elite. I am generally sympathetic to JzG's goals - as a scientist, I recognise the specious drivel claimed in some fringe areas - but that doesn't justify JzG doing whatever he wants. Bainer is correct that the evidence shows JzG cannot credibly be claimed to be uninvoled. Administrators can choose to be involved editors or they can act as uninvolved administrators - but once they are are involved in editing, they forfeit the right to use their tools as if they are uninvolved. Scientifically educated administrators are not prevented from tool use nor from using their knowledge of science, they merely need to ensure that they are not an involved editor nor in the middle of a content dispute. EdChem (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There's always going to be a self-selected elitist clique when it comes to scientific articles dealing with fringe theories - in cases like this, you're going to be restricted to admins who are physicists, chemists and laymen with a genuine interest in the topic; they're perhaps not involved with the dispute on Wikipedia but they can hardly be described as uninvolved administrators - they have the ability to analyse a source and determine if it's reliable and verifiable or not - you can either have administration taken by those with absolutely no idea of the subject, and you're going to get administrative decisions which are nice and follow policy, but which result in the articles being completely crap, in terms of their validity and people getting upset, or you can have administration taken by those with a good knowledge of the subject at hand and who can make educated decisions on the inclusion or exclusion of certain content. Then you'll get people on both sides of the argument getting upset, but the article will be more accurate as a result. You're never going to be able to alleviate these sort of content issues, there are always good educated people on either side of these arguments who strongly believe in their position, but at least if they're discussing the issue with someone who understands the science, then there's a chance of some more fruitful discussion, there will be a reluctance by the involved parties to try and pull the wool over the eyes of administrators and some of the more nonsensical drivel will be caught before it gets into the article and those editors who are only interested in pushing in fringe content (on both sides) are likely to be caught early on. Nick (talk) 11:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I generally agree with Nick in this latest comment. Basically, articles are best edited by knowledgeable editors who have no conflict of interest, as advised mutually and by experts who often have a conflict of interest. All of these are likely to have POVs. Then, behavior is regulated by uninvolved administrators, and when an admin has a strong POV on an article, the admin should probably edit it (or stay away from it -- that's what Durova does), not administer it. Administrators, then, don't have to know the article topic, they need to know about edit warring and incivility and other behavioral issues. The problem comes when administrators regulate behavior colored by their POV on the topic, such as "this editor is pushing fringe," or "this edit is taking a ScienceApologist stand." "Fringe" and "anti-fringe" are POV judgments that depend on content judgments. Thus one of the most dangerous concepts recently invented is that of the "civil POV-pusher" as if there were something wrong with this. We need "POV-pushers," as long as they stay within behavioral norms, and attacking them for their "POV-pushing" just trolls for uncivil response. I haven't pursued DR on it, but the block of Jed Rothwell, who is without reasonable doubt an expert on the topic of Cold fusion, is one that, examined in detail, will fall apart. He is COI, and hasn't edited articles since 2006. He was clearly blocked for his POV expressed on Talk pages, and, in fact, the same admin blocked another editor for the same POV, with no other evidence. Rothwell, like many experts, is very opinionated, but, I believe, this could be contained if he were treated with the respect due his expertise (as we should treat all experts, such as Kirk shanahan, a peer-reviewed published author and critic of Cold fusion, with a strong POV). His advice is likely to be biased. That's why we ask COI editors to only edit Talk! Essentially, what is needed is better process for resolving disputes among good-faith editors with opposing POVs. WP:DR is quite good, but too often isn't used. It takes time, it takes patience, and sometimes it takes mediation with warnings and even blocks, but not blocks aimed at getting rid of an editor, but simply of preventing behavioral violations, and that's why such blocks must be done by neutral administrators, with the greatest of civility and careful and helpful invitation to participate properly in consensus process, not with accusations of "kook" or other provocations. --Abd (talk) 13:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

To be clear in the other direction: I disagree with Nick that the solution to the problem is administrators who are scientists. If one is employed as a scientist, it can create a subtle COI. If one is a scientist, and has knowledge of the topic of the article, it's better if the administrator participate as an editor; an experienced administrator will also know how to facilitate dispute resolution, not as a supervisor waving the tools about, but as a participant who is truly seeking consensus and understands consensus process. And, again, too few administrators actually do. We've not really selected for it. --Abd (talk) 13:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

• The edits shown by Bainer here show that JzG here removes links to lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com, and is reverting a known (and later banned) POV pusher. However, the finding of fact says "From time to time, since July 2006, JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has made a number of substantive content edits to the cold fusion article...". 'Substantive content edits' would, imho, be, changes to text, introducing new information, or rewriting old information, and (though I think that is more difficult to assert as content edit, it is dependent on how and what is actually removed) removal of content which is (deemed) superfluous, (deemed) false or (deemed) improperly referenced and hence unproven. Bainer here has not presented such diffs, and since there is just a list of all edits of JzG's edits in the evidence (which by the way may rip the whole context from why a certain edit was made, and may hence lead to false incriminations! Also, it hides the possibility that JzG was not the only editor (or even admin) on the article performing such edits). I still would like to see significant diffs (and not just one or two, we need substantive proof of content edits, where the content/meaning of the text is significantly altered, or the value of a reference is made nihil) where is shown that JzG is really involved in Cold fusion, not just cleaning up references or reverting a POV pusher. These edits show that JzG cleaned up (what he deemed) superfluous links, and reverted edits introducing such links he deemed superfluous, and reverting edits by a known (and later banned) POV pusher, which later resulted in blocks, page protections and blacklisting.

As such, I disagree (with the evidence presented) with 'JzG not an uninvolved administrator', no evidence of being involved is shown (unless we want to establish here, that if an admin is first reverting a vandal and then blocks the vandal, is first editing an article removing links (or reverting a spammer) and then blacklisting the link, or reverting ongoing long-term POV-pushing or vandalism to an article and then protecting said article should in all cases recuse from the admin action after the edit, and that the failure to recuse should result in removal of the admin bit). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra displays a disturbing inability to see the forest for the trees. Nobody has independently examined the evidence and concludes that JzG was not involved, that's why we see comments from his friends that "maybe, sorta, I suppose, he wasn't the best person to take these actions." 140 Talk page edits? Enforcing what? Removing convenience links, with no credible evidence that they were altered copies or illegal linkvio (strong standard!)? Beetstra (and other blacklist admins) have displayed a quite strong opinion that convenience links are fluff, not necessary, not even "content." JzG/RfC 3 should be reviewed, it is not necessary to repeat everything here. The removals of weblinks weren't administrative actions (except that, had the blacklistings been proper, it would also be necessary to remove the links, but Jzg knew that the link removals would be controversial, he just imagined that editors concerned would have to "stuff it," because they couldn't do anything about it. He thought), they were content actions, and they are a fraction of his edits to Cold fusion. I also urge reading the original discussions on Jehochman talk and JzG talk, and consider if JzG's response was civil. Not obscene? Yes, he improved. JzG's edits, if anyone cares, show not only strong POV involvement (which suggests recusal even if an admin hasn't edited the article), but it shows the origin of this, with his friend. The bulk of the edits had nothing to do with enforcing behavioral guidelines, but with asserting a content position. And we know that Beetstra doesn't understand this, his "evidence" for "abuse" of links shows nothing but content POV judgment, the very kind of judgment that admins should keep away from (just as ArbComm will keep away from), and this, indeed, is why the statements of principle should avoid "abuse" but stick to behavioral evidence for blacklisting linkspam. Beetstra knows, he's stated it many times as if it wasn't understood, that linkspam has nothing to do with content, that excessive addition of links ("linkspam") leads to blacklisting -- and properly so -- even if every addition is good content, not abusive in itself. And there was no linkspam, so defined, only a pattern of links, over a long time, under heavy scrutiny, and thus utterly inappropriate for the blacklist. --Abd (talk) 12:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

True, Abd, there are quite some trees there, but I am only interested in solid oak. The question here is, is JzG involved. If diffs are presented which can be explained as '... i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like...', then, per WP:INVOLVED, the proof of involvement is not very strong. For the rest, Abd, as usually, you assertions are not mine (I have not said "convenience links are fluff, not necessary, not even "content"). Also 'which suggests recusal even if an admin hasn't edited the article': recusal is about involvement, indeed, there are subjects where admins should recuse even when they haven't edited, but here we want proof about being involved. And I don't think that admins should stay away from content issues, we are just editors, Abd. And we have been discussing 'linkspam' over and over, and I have already explained over and over that on a regular basis links are added which are NOT linkspam, but nonetheless abused. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we get it, Beetstra. Actual practice is precisely what is being considered here. Is this actual practice harmful to the project? There is no doubt that linkspam is subject to blacklisting, but what about "abuse" other than linkspam? There, the question becomes, as is clear from the guidelines, whether or not the blacklist is the best way to deal with this "abuse." The issue is really one of degree of hazard. Sources are used improperly, what you'll call "abusively," all the time, it's routine. And it is routinely fixed without admin tools. "Abuse" is being used, routinely, in this case, to refer to links to "fringe" sources, or sites that are allegedly unusable as reliable source. However, actual interpretation of the requirements of WP:V (policy) and WP:RS (strong guideline) is up to editorial consensus, and using admin tools, like the blacklist, takes the decision away from the involved editors, the ones who know the issues, and puts it into the hands of administrators who make decisions based on some overall concept of source usability, frequently based on an impoverished view of what sources can be used for. The claim being made here is that this is abuse (possibly subtle) of admin privileges (though not reprehensible unless it continues after ArbComm clarifies this). If there is linkspam, yes, usability becomes an ameliorating factor, this is where consideration of it may be relevant, but, as you know, my long-term proposal on this is that delisting and whitelisting decisions be separated from blacklisting decisions, with more input from the community solicited for the removal discussion, and decisions by admins that don't do routine blacklisting, because the blacklist admins tend to develop a too-firm negative opinion of sites, and to justify, long after necessity, continued blacklisting to avoid any risk of linkspam, in some cases long after any apparent risk has passed. This is not the time or place to address this; right now, the most important point is to establish that usage of content arguments for blacklisting should be prohibited. Not necessarily all content arguments, but ones of the nature we have been examining, where editors might reasonably disagree. You may want to use the blacklist to control content "abuse," but the community, where this has been considered, has come down pretty strongly against it. --Abd (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Nick raises a good point about clueless admins with his comment above (at 22:41, 3 May 2009 UTC). I've studiously stayed away from discussion of these cold fusion links' value because I don't have the background on this topic to evaluate their credibility. I am aware that after the collapse of the whole cold fusion movement, some thoughtful, smart civilian physicists working for the American Navy thought there was indeed something odd going on and worth studying but I haven't kept up with their work. So while I am skeptical, I hardly have a closed mind. I'm no physicist, but I have some physics training and I'm confident with enough effort (10 to 30 hours) I could get up to speed on cold fusion controversy at the level of educated layman. Then with many more hours of pouring over the extensive record of the cold fusion/fringe science/cold fusion links history here on Wikipedia, I could do a credible job as an admin on this one. But I don't have the time or the interest. There aren't many topics I'm unwilling to work as an admin but this is one of them. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd, admins use their tools all the time in content disputes -- AfDs. In fact, a prospective admin's competence to correctly handle AfDs is probably the most significant aspect of most RfA discussions. Properly done, the admin that deletes or keeps an article is just neutrally executing the consensus of the participants in the discussion (unless it clearly violates our policies). So while the blacklist is rarely used for content issues, I see no reason in principle why it can't be used that way based on clear community consensus as to a domain's suitability.

"Spam blacklist" is a poor name (it's pejorative for starters) and everyone from Jimbo Wales on down has talked about changing it; I gather there are some technical issues that have deterred doing this. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, A.B. Closing an AfD is actually problematic, an area that probably needs more attention. To get it out of the way, discussion closures are a special case where there is prior community process. The theory is that an uninvolved editor reviews the arguments and !votes and evidence and comes to a conclusion himself or herself, then expresses that in the close and implements it. Because non-admins can't delete articles, delete closes are considered limited to admins. That is actually, in my view, a defect. It's an example where content issues are considered by admins, but only after a discussion. Note that I disagree -- strongly -- with your view that a closing admin is simply "neutrally executing the consensus of the participants," and that actually contradicts the first thing you said, that the admin is "using tools ... in content disputes." The admin would be using tools to implement community consensus, but that's actually not what admins should do, they should only make closes which they personally support, and I won't explain why here. Further, when an admin closes an AfD, the admin is then automatically recused for review, because making the decision, on content, then creates involvement. In my view, the implications of administrative decision after discussion have been inadequately considered, and this is part of the reason why there is so much conflict over AfD and other closures (and there are other reasons).

Sure, if there is clear community consensus for it, which requires discussion, A.B., the blacklist could be used for about anything. But that is, then, the community making an editorial decision regarding content, not an administrator as such. I would have delisting and whitelisting decisions be made by editors or administrators who are uninvolved with the original blacklisting, and, in fact, with blacklisting in general, because it has become clear that there is inertia, hysteresis, in the blacklisting process that makes it, too often, quite difficult to get blacklisting lifted even when there is no longer reasonable fear of linkspam. There is, for example, no reasonable fear of linkspam for Lyrikline.org, but it is still meta blacklisted, in spite of multiple delisting requests. The reason is basically, if you look at the arguments, "the original decision was proper." Which is true, and which has no bearing on the continuation of blacklisting. When editors and administrators become involved deeply with antispam efforts, I've been told by one admin who was, and I see it, they tend to develop a battlefield mentality, see the image on Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam of a battleship. "Spammers" come to be seen as "enemies" of the project. And the best way to "get" the spammer is to punish the web site (it is actually threatened in some of the templates that pagerank will be harmed by blacklisting.) But, as we know, the addition of good content, if done by adding many links to a site, is considered linkspam, so we end up (in such cases, by no means is this the bulk of linkspam) defining good-faith editors as "spammers" and as creating damage. And that's what happened with lyrikline. (Beetstra has hinted that IP evidence shows that the editor doing this had a COI, but that doesn't change the fact, it's actually irrelevant to the content.) So I would allow antispam volunteers to blacklist in haste, and then the community can delist at leisure, there is little harm if a site is improperly blacklisted for a few days, or even longer, and the common practice of removing all links upon blacklisting could be replaced with removal only of apparent spam (irrelevant) links, leaving possibly legitimate links in place, with those specific page links being whitelisted. (or there are other options). (You cannot just leave links in place when a site is blacklisted, unless the links are whitelisted, because the blacklisted links then prevent saving any edit that contains them, and with some long articles, and a whole-article edit, it could be quite difficult to find what link was involved, the message doesn't say.) Whatever is done should be easy and efficient and respect the right of editors to determine content while at the same time allowing administrators to efficiently prevent linkspam, which is a huge behavioral problem, with SEOs and IP editors from Uganda, etc., placing links all around the project. --Abd (talk) 02:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Quoting Abd Note that I disagree -- strongly -- with your view that a closing admin is simply "neutrally executing the consensus of the participants," and that actually contradicts the first thing you said, that the admin is "using tools ... in content disputes." The admin would be using tools to implement community consensus, but that's actually not what admins should do, they should only make closes which they personally support, and I won't explain why here. Further, when an admin closes an AfD, the admin is then automatically recused for review, because making the decision, on content, then creates involvement. This argument is seriously flawed. Evaluating consensus in closing a discussion, including considerations of policy issues, is not a content decision that represents the administrators view. If an administrator believes that the present consensus is wrong, they can join the discussion, point out policy considerations that have been missed, etc... but they should not be substituting their own opinion. Claiming content involvement based solely of an AfD closure is just another opportunity to wikilawyering and disputation and forcing recusal in unreasonable circumstances. It is exactly this kind of reasoning that leads some administrators to not take recusal as seriously as they should. Additionally, the fact that administrators can and do close discussions where the consensus goes against their personal view is evidence that are remaining uninvolved. Abd, whatever you may think common practice should be, the issue is what present practice actually is - and present practice does not automatically create an involvement conflict of interest from a discussion closure. EdChem (talk) 03:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Actual practice varies. I said I wouldn't go into the particular point about "personal support" now, and I'll stick to it, it's insufficiently relevant here. I agree with some points above. As to what I called "automatic recusal" by closing, EdChem, I've seen a close of an MfD for a WP space proposal, as "Keep as Rejected", and then the DRV protesting this close, was closed by the same editor. What do you think happened? Do you think an admin who closes an AfD can then close a review? Or is this admin considered recused from that? Suppose an admin closes an AfD as Keep. There is then another AfD. Can the same admin close the next AfD as Keep? Sure, if there is clear consensus, it might happen and nobody might care enough to say Boo! However, if there were controversy.... not a great idea. Ed, you seem to claim that my description is just how I think it should be, and you might be right, but then you describe how you think it should be, and your description is no more accurate than mine. I.e., opinion and interpretation varies. 'nuff said, maybe too much. --Abd (talk) 03:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Steven Bain: The original diffs you present are removal of the links to newenergytimes and lenr-canr.org, where some (diff, "remove redundant ref to unreliable source") remove the original research links leaving the reliable sources, or are reverts (diff, "Reverted to revision 259027206 by Pvkeller; This reads as more in line with WP:UNDUE and WP:V. We know the issues with the fringe advocates, and restoring balance is absolutely where we shoudl be, not prote") citing WP:UNDUE, WP:V. The four diffs you now present are also in that same line: restoring a neutral point of view (diff), or actually implementing what references say (diff), and again reverts (diff). Also these four are still explainable under "...in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) ... is usually not prevented from acting on the article, user, or dispute." (WP:INVOLVED). Steven, if I see your long, long list of edits, then quite some, seen separated from the rest, look indeed like substantial edits (diff is indeed quite a substantial edit), but it is also a revert of diff, which is a revert of diff, which is a revert of diff, which is a revert of diff, is this an administrative action to return to a state which could be discussed on talkpage before the edit was performed, or is it a 'substantial edit'? Of the 4 edits that you now present, only diff could be explained as a real content edit, and even there I would say that this is an enforcement of WP:V. Are there really no edits out there where User:JzG has added parts of content to the article which are not referenced to WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, or are reverts or the like (i.e. nothing that could possibly be explained as an administrative action). Performing so many edits on an article certainly looks as involved, but I think that some clear diffs would certainly help, in stead of a huge list of edits without context. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Two clarifications:

1. The warning of a potential loss of pagerank as a result of blacklisting can be seen as part of a "gotcha" mentality, as Abd seems to imply. Alternately, that warning can be taken at face value -- "you need to be aware that we're about to take this action and it may have consequences beyond Wikipedia". I won't say the second interpretation is meant to be a kindly reminder but I think it is something many spammers are unaware of and probably should know. We should also understand that we don't know for sure that blacklisting will result in search engine penalties -- just that it has that potential. I understand that it triggers a review at Google; Jehochman better understands the nuances. Certainly if I was a site-owner, I'd want to know this. Google's interests do not precisely match ours and I know there will be domains we blacklist for good reasons that Google, for other reasons, will not penalize.

2. As of the last year or so, blacklisting no longer locks up a page until a blacklisted link is removed. Our Media-Wiki software is now supposed to "grandfather" links that pre-existed any blacklisting.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)}

Wow! That's great, it vastly simplifies the problem. Blacklisting, then, would simply interrupt new additions, making the kind of removals that JzG did unnecessary (this was Dec. 18, 2008). Those removals were, from a content perspective, one of the most problematic aspects of blacklisting, because they were often done with no regard whatever for content appropriateness. That doesn't mean that removal of clear "spammy" linkspam shouldn't be done, but that whenever it seems that links might reasonably be appropriate, they can be handled differently from pure spam. Now, I've been saying what I said for months, now, and I've seen admins comment in ways that showed they didn't understand this (i.e., justifying JzG's removals because "he had to." Why wasn't I informed about this before??? --Abd (talk) 15:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Small problem with this, the links are still better removed. If e.g. a vandal comes by, and blanks a page with a blacklisted external link in there, there is no way to revert, as that would re-include the link, and archiving of talkpages is also hampered by this problem. It takes away the necessity to first remove the links, then blacklist, but it still needs to be cleared. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:10, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. JzG made substantial edits to the page, and the disagreements were generally over reasonable material inserted in good faith and of a type likely supported by multiple editors. Generally JzG wished to delete material from the page. In disputes between inclusionists and deletionists, I see no particular reason to give special advantages to the deletionist side: editing to remove material (other than vandalism etc.) is as much an involvement in the article as inserting material. Decisions about how much material is to be kept on a particular page, or on the project at all, are to be made by consensus among editors. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Prior admonition

5) In September 2008, in the C68-FM-SV case, JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), along with all other administrators involved in the case, was generically admonished and instructed to "avoid... use of administrator privileges in disputes as to which the administrator is, or may reasonably be perceived as being, involved in the underlying dispute". However, that admonition was not directed specifically at JzG (see relevant finding of fact).

Comment by Arbitrators:

Indeed, that element of the admonition was primarily directed at a different administrator, but it is relevant to note briefly here. --bainer (talk) 13:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support.While the admonition was not specific, JzG, as the subject of a finding in that arbitration on his incivility, may be presumed to have seen it. Further, ample attention was called, in early January, as well as at other times, to his use of tools while involved in matters related to Cold fusion, and he has yet to acknowledge that he was involved. Fundamental to recusal policy is the ability of an admin to recognize his or her own involvement; if an admin cannot do this, then possession of the tools by such a one is an ongoing hazard, and the admin should be desysopped upon a showing of unapologetic use of tools while involved, unless mitigating circumstances exist (such as an emergency followed by immediate prominent notice, typically at AN/I). It's important that this not be limited to actions with respect to one article or dispute, or the problem will simply appear elsewhere and require disruptive process to fix. I've come to the conclusion that if JzG cannot acknowledge the error, for whatever reason, even after all that has come down, he can't continue as an administrator, but this is entirely up to ArbComm and I will accept the committee's decision in any case. Desysopping JzG has never been my goal. Clarifying recusal policy and applying it was, from the beginning, my purpose, and the record shows that. --Abd (talk) 16:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Calling attention to prior remedy re significant violations in prior ArbComm case below. EdChem found something I'd missed, there was already warning of possible desysopping "without further warnings." --Abd (talk) 15:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Remedy 3 from C68-FM-SV states that [t]he Committee will impose substantial additional sanctions, which may include desysopping in the case of parties who are administrators, without further warnings in the event of significant violations. Consequently, JzG is already under threat of further sanction. If the prior admonition is to be noted, should not also the prior remedy? In fact, it might have been possible to keep this case much smaller had Abd (who I recognise did not initiate the case) made a motion under the omnibus case for a further sanction of JzG. EdChem (talk) 16:56, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

That's right. I was not aware of the prior case until the RfC was being drafted. Indeed, had I known, I could have proceeded with summary process for a motion, way back. Now, we might wonder, why didn't all those people who told me to stop what I was doing, and to avoid all this disruption, at least one of them, tell me about those rulings? Some of them were aware of the case, they commented in it. Could it be that they would not want to see the remedies enforced? Brilliant, EdChem, I had only reviewed that case with respect to specific rulings re JzG and missed the rest. Had I realized this, I'd have gone, early on, to RfAr for a motion, and a huge fuss would have been avoided (possibly one big fuss, at most, instead of many small ones and two big ones), I'd have gotten a rapid response, I expect. --Abd (talk) 15:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

To clarify - my comment above related to drafting of Bainer's Finding of Fact. The extra (unwise) comment about this case proceeding by motion was not intended to suggest that would have been a better approach. The longer this case has gone on, the more I am forced to recognise that issues surrounding Abd are yet to be examined sufficiently. EdChem (talk) 18:15, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

JzG admonished

1) JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is specifically admonished not to use his administrative tools in a situation in which he is not uninvolved, nor to use them to further his position in a content dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support- miminally If JzG acknowledges the error before ArbComm begins voting on proposals, this is, indeed, my preferred remedy. I think, however, that if desysopping isn't on the table, JzG is unlikely to do this. I'd love to be wrong on that! I do wonder about the double negative. Why not just in a situation where he is involved, and why not add what recusal policy requires or should require, or where involvement is reasonably likely to be perceived, or is reasonably alleged, absent emergency. It's important that emergency use be allowed, followed by immediate notice and recusal, or all the familiar objections will be raised. Note that "emergency" was not a reasonable excuse in all the alleged instances of recusal failure. It's not absolutely necessary, because WP:IAR isn't dismissed by any ruling or finding. So JzG could still protect an article to prevent a BLP violation, as an example, even if he has high involvement, as long as he immediately and openly recuses from further non-emergency action, allowing any admin to reverse without conflict, and he notifies the proper noticeboard. Note, as well, that a "reasonable allegation of involvement" does not require the admin to reverse the decision, by, as in the example, unprotecting the article, but simply requires the admin to step aside to allow decisions to be made unhindered by other administrators. --Abd (talk) 14:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll's version below is better.--Abd (talk) 02:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I would like to see something stronger, but remaining short of desysopping. It is important that the measure is loud and clear to JzG that recusal is a serious matter, and one where desysopping is possible. Perhaps a note that evidence that tool use in a non-emergency situation where recusal was appropriate can be grounds for desysopping as a motion pursuant to this case? In other words, making it clear that failure to recuse in the future can be actioned without a full case being required, and without proceeding through a series of WP:DR steps. I am thinking of the possibility of another action being taken, a challenge being taken to ANI, and being endorsed as an appropriate action by consensus (3:1 support, say) without the conflict / recusal issue being considered. EdChem (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I am certainly not feeling anything stronger than this. Compared to others of the "abusive admin cabal", JzG has learned from the changing norms and concerns of the community when they are presented in a clear and unabiguous fashion from people who belong to the community, not the single purpose trolling nutters who rant for blood at every percieved slight. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Like who? Is there an "abusive admin cabal?" I think there are some abusive administrators. They cooperate with each other, sometimes. Sometimes not. Is this a "cabal?" And who is "trolling," who is a "nutter," who is "ranting for blood," and what is an example of a "perceived slight" that isn't an actual one? --Abd (talk) 17:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Fritzpoll

Proposed principles

Use of administrative tools in a dispute

1) Administrators may not use their administrative tools to further their own position in a content dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Correct. WP:UNINVOLVED specifically exempts things like cleaning up vandalism, spam and BLP violations. There might be other situations too where the community would not view use of tools as an abuse, even when the administrator is editing the article under dispute. You might add the words bona fide before content dispute. Jehochman ^Talk 13:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Administrators not to act if involved

2) Administrators should not use their administrative tools if they are involved. Involvement means substantial edits to an article in the case of article-related tools, and prior disputes with users in the case of tools such as blocking. Involvement specifically precludes interactions that are solely in an administrative capacity, including but not limited to the resolution of disputes or the enforcement of policy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed - may be partially redundant with 1). Fritzpoll (talk) 17:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The text linked by WP:INVOLVED uses wording like 'may', 'not required to', 'there is doubt', 'personal motive may be alleged' (as part of policy). I do see that JzG has performed quite a number of edits to Cold fusion and related articles, but I have not seen hard proof of 'personal motive may be alleged', or a large number of edits outside of '... (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias,...'. But as this principle also uses should, I agree, maybe with a bit more stress on the first 'should'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Dispute resolution is about compromise

3) Dispute resolution is a two-way process. At all stages, all parties should attempt to reach a compromise and be willing to acknowledge errors and mistakes made in the area under dispute or in the pursuit of a resolution itself.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support. But caution: "compromise" can sometimes be inappropriate, where principles are clear and important. Dispute resolution provides for ample notice to a party that their position is untenable if taken to the extreme. For example, if I disagree with an admin's AfD closure, I can ask the admin to reverse the decision. If the admin refuses, I can go to DRV, but there is a sometimes less disruptive path open through DR: seek informal mediation (because of the easy availability of DRV formal mediation would make no sense.). Now, if I can't find one editor to support my position and to intervene or attempt to mediate, that's my answer. I might then compromise and ask the admin to userfy the article for me, if I don't think DRV worth the disruption (and if I can't find one editor to help, how likely is it that a DRV nomination would be successful? Most admins would agree to userfy.

In order to bring this case to ArbComm, I had to first attempt to negotiate a resolution on the recusal issue directly. That failed. It's not clear what compromise proposal would have sufficed, JzG wasn't willing to budge except on one matter, the deletion of Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science -- where he knew, I presume, that this would have been a pushover at DRV, so he recused and allowed Sarcasticidealist, as I recall, to undelete. So I started laying the groundwork for further process. JzG got lots of notice what was coming, and that was deliberate; I was truly reluctant to file an RfC. In order to file that, I needed certification from another editor. Again, if my position wasn't tenable, that would have been difficult to find (or I'd have had to be content with a certifying editor with an axe to grind, a different problem. Was the matter important? It appears that ArbComm is going to rule that it was, in fact. (But most arbitrators have not shown any opinion yet.) Two-thirds of those !voting at the RfC were raking me over the coals, and many of them showed up here to try the same. Should I have compromised? I don't think so. The whole point of dispute resolution process is to provide for minimally disruptive process for resolving disputes without requiring editors who aren't satisfied to simply shut up and go away. If my position had been untenable, I'd have found out: instead of seeing two-thirds of editors ignore the evidence and the actual RfC filing and focus on the messenger (me), I'd have seen the substance addressed, my support would have evaporated, and I've have been shown quite thoroughly how mistaken I was. Instead, I just saw many editors willing to make themselves look biased and foolish, some of whom have continued that right here. A few editors took intermediate positions, such as Jehochman and Fritzpoll, and I have great respect for that. --Abd (talk) 02:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed, but possibly needs copy-editing. This is intended to address both parties of this dispute; both sides need to be open to criticisms - of both the substance of the dispute and conduct during it - and respond accordingly Fritzpoll (talk) 18:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Support if "reach a compromise" is replaced with "find a mutually acceptable solution" or "find a solution acceptable to both parties" (or "...to all parties"). Well done, Fritzpoll: this principle calls on us to remember our deep commonality even in the presence of what seem on the surface to be major differences. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety

4) In addition to strictly avoiding administrative abuse, administrators are advised to avoid the appearance of impropriety that may damage morale or harm Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I'm proposing these here so Fritzpoll will have a complete set. I think he agrees with me, but feel free to strike if not. Jehochman ^Talk 13:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Utterly agree - I've said this repeatedly in relation to a variety of circumstances. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a good idea in principle but unworkable in practice because it is too subjective. We have enough trouble deciding where the line is to be drawn for actual abuse; deciding what constitutes the appearance of abuse would be next to impossible. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It is because it is a good idea in principle that it is proposed as a principle :) The subjectivity seems fine to me in this context. It is something administrators ought to be doing, but it is up to the community at large whether something in particular appears to be improper. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your principled stand that this principle is good in principle. But in practice it amounts to the Wikilawyers Full Employment Act of 2009. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I commend you on that entertaining sentence - truly made me smile. I think it would be problematic as a remedy, but I can't see it as a problem in principle (sorry!) because these are necessary broad. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

One could think to say that if a party (admin) is told/warned by uninvolved (and of course, unsollicited) parties that their edits (may) give the impression of impropriety, that then one should consider strongly to recuse. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Right. Further, a sophisticated administrator will typically be able to anticipate such appearance and "should" avoid it. However, failure to avoid appearance of impropriety is a common error, and not a serious one, if the admin immediately recuses when attention is called to it. Because recusal does not necessarily involve reversing an action, the "warning" can even come from an involved party; we sometimes forget that protecting involved parties is part of what we are about here. If I'm blocked by an admin, and I think it was an action while involved, I should be able to request recusal, and there need not be a strong basis for it. Recusal does not get me unblocked, it merely opens the way for another admin to unblock me without fuss. As I've noted, with blocking this is routine, in fact, I wouldn't even have to request it. So when an editor screams bloody murder on his Talk page that he's been unfairly blocked, the blocking admin can pop a note: "I'm sorry you feel that way, I'm recusing myself, so that you can be satisfied by the decision of a neutral administrator, and I consent to unblock. I suggest that you carefully consider the reasons given when you were blocked and any others which appear here, and focus on satisfying the new administrator that unblocking you will not cause harm to the project, ongoing, so if you did make some mistakes, admitting them will be helpful. Good luck." Image left after the smoke cleared: "Damn! the admin was actually polite to me after I raked him over the coals. Maybe I don't need to make more enemies and I can let this go." Or maybe not, but the situation won't be worse. The new admin then gets to see how the editor responds to civil and helpful comment, and has more basis for making a decision. Recusal is a very important tool that can defuse disputes.

The blocking admin in the imaginary case I describe would make sure that the evidence on which the block was based is clear, and not presented in a polemic way, without conclusions, if the admin wants to make sure that an unblocking admin knows what happened, but, after recusal and that initial presentation, typically on the user's talk page, should drop the matter, let it go, and trust the community. If the blocking admin argues tenaciously for the block, it amplifies and intensifies the appearance of involvement, and probably the reality of it, causing disputes and resentments to grow. --Abd (talk) 16:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

SBHB, avoiding the appearance of impropriety results in less conflict, not more, and thus a few wikilawyers, at least, will be out of a job. Just imagine what would have happened if, with each of the actions of JzG involved in this case, he'd recused and requested assistance. Some of the actions would not have happened, all the disruption over them would have been avoided, some would have happened with practically no disruption, as with many AN/I reports: a fast action and a close. Then, when there is a neutral close, that is truly neutral, if an error was made, someone offended has someone neutral to go to, who presumably isn't going to blow the editor off with incivility, and may very well reverse the action without further fuss. This only breaks down when the close was actually a close by someone who is just rubberstamping a request from a trusted administrator, instead of making an informed and independent judgment. MastCell blocked User:JedRothwell and offered, pretty much, in the RfAr/Clarification to do the same generally, i.e., you need a block, just ask me. Sure. I worry about the implication of "I'll do it no matter what," but I can also take this with AGF, and I also note that MastCell frequently stops short of insisting on something offensive after making some noises in that direction. Offering to help a friend isn't offensive, but I'd suggest to MastCell that he should clarify that his friendship will cause him to speedily investigate, but that he'll be careful to tell his friend when the action wasn't appropriate." I still worry about this action by friends, but it's a problem where I don't see a ready solution. Even if they are friends, two heads are better than one. --Abd (talk) 16:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Since I'm not usually in the habit of "rubberstamping" things, I looked back at what I actually said. This was an action widely supported as correct - hardly a unilateral, peremptory, or controversial decision - but for some unaccountable reason Guy thought that he might encounter pettifogging and wikilawyering if he undertook it. I suppose I naively assumed that my record here was sufficient guarantee that I would independently and critically evaluate any suggested administrative action before attaching my name to it, but apparently that is not the case. Thank you for allowing that while I often "make noises" about doing something offensive, I rarely follow through - that's quite kind of you. :) MastCell ^Talk 20:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The action did receive support as correct (prematurely, without review and discussion of evidence), and also received criticism as that of an involved admin, and at least one arbitrator made it very clear, in rejecting the RfAr that MastCell made the comment in, that no decision was being made on the block/ban. My intention is to challenge the ban, through normal DR process, but it's necessary to prepare the ground, and this RfAr is part of that process (and much more important in itself, the tail is not wagging the dog). Complicating this, as well, is that Rothwell doesn't care at all that he's blocked (why should he?), and had no ready means of putting up an unblock template. So all this went way on the back burner. Once it is shown that the blocks and ban were actions of an involved administrator, assuming it is, then the actions taken in good faith that were dependent upon an assumption that JzG had acted properly can come up for review. Starting with, perhaps, a request to MastCell on his Talk page that the block of User:JedRothwell be reconsidered. My guess is that with civil and thoughtful discussion, we may be able to resolve the problem with no further fuss, or little fuss, the same is possibly true of every issue raised in this RfAr except the matter of admin action while involved, which required ArbComm resolution and was ripe for it. --Abd (talk) 13:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. The appearance of impropriety can be damaging in itself, even if the action in itself was correct. If someone is blocked by an involved administrator and never edits Wikipedia again, what are they going to be telling all their friends about Wikipedia? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

JzG was involved

1) JzG (talk · contribs) was involved on the Cold fusion article. Withdrawn for now

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

By the definition in my proposed principle 2), I can't see how the evidence avoids this conclusion. Fritzpoll (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see significant proof of edits outside of '...(i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) or whose actions on an article are minor, obvious, and do not speak to bias,...' (WP:INVOLVED). Was JzG really involved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you add some diffs. This is essentially the same request as I posed to Stephen Bain above. The three most substantial edits would be sufficient for me. Jehochman ^Talk 21:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

When I wrote this, it seemed obvious based on the evidence. Now I look at Abd's diffs and I'm not actually that sure that this is met by the definition of my proposed principle, since they all seem to involve policy enforcement. I'm going to raise this on the evidence talkpage. For the moment, consider this FoF proposal...disputed. Fritzpoll (talk) 07:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Withdrawn for now - see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Workshop#Analysis_of_evidence_presented_by_Abd for why. Fritzpoll (talk) 07:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG actions at Cold fusion 1

1) JzG (talk · contribs) used his administrative tools and standard editing tools in the Cold fusion article to enforce the neutral point of view policy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This seems to follow from the evidence offered by the parties. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Administrators are not supposed to use their tools directly to enforce the NPOV policy. Whether something is NPOV or not is a subjective matter to be determined by consensus. Administrators can use their tools to support that consensus, indirectly supporting content policies. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG actions at Cold fusion 2

2) JzG (talk · contribs) used his administrative tools in an appropriate manner, but his additional use of his editing tools produced a perception of inappropriate involvement.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This seems to follow from the evidence offered by the parties. Perception is very important in these matters - we may not be a process-filled community but that makes it even more important that the appearance of a fair system is maintained. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This would give administrators free reign to ignore the policy about admin recusal. It also seems to imply that the editing happened after the use of admin tools. This statement is not NPOV: if there is a perception of inappropriate involvement, then there cannot possibly also be a consensus that his use of tools was appropriate. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG has made acknowledgements

3) JzG (talk · contribs) has agreed not to use his administrative tools in the Cold fusion article.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Per Jehochman. Fritzpoll (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose: to my knowledge, no such statement has been made. Also, "in" seems narrower: would that apply only to direct use of buttons on that specific article? What about blocking users, blacklisting and other actions related to that article? More broadly, what about actions related to other articles on the topic of cold fusion? Not to mention the even broader issue of admin recusal on the project in general. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd has confrontational style

4) Abd has received feedback from individuals and the community at large that his approach to dispute resolution has been excessively confrontational

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Recuse. However, yes, I have received such feedback. And I have also received feedback that what I was doing was necessary, and some on the level, mostly off-wiki, of "At last! Somebody has had the guts to stand up to JzG!" I listen to all of it, and do not assume that any of it is conclusive. --Abd (talk) 15:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed. We cannot ignore the feedback of the RfC on JzG where a lot of feedback related to this. This fact is also apparent from the evidence presented. Note that this explicitly says nothing about the goodness (or otherwise) of Abd's intentions - I hold that since we assume good faith, we cannot prove it either way and don't need to. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Glad to hear there is an intent to add diffs to support such a statement. I am concerned that "confrontational" may be too loaded and harsh a term. Perhaps "... has been overly legalistic"? Obviously, Fritzpoll, you need to choose a term that captures what you mean, but my observations of Abd would not lead me to describe him as confontational. EdChem (talk) 15:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Choosing the correct words for the proposals with respect to Abd has been difficult. I quite admire the motivation behind some of his work, but I think the vehemence of the reaction to his involvement in disputes not just here but in other instances is indicative that he needs to take at least some commentary on board and to adapt to it. For example, the need (like it or not) to be concise enough in the early stages of DR to not appear intimidating, to stay on topic, to not mention Arbcom from the get-go, to not appear to threaten all and sundry with Arbcom when they appear to disagree - all things that I have seen people comment on (diffs forthoming). I think Abd could be very effective in this arena, but the way he conducts some of this actually hinders the resolution of the dispute he is involved in. I will adjust these accordingly, as in my pursuit of concision, I appear to have rendered some harsh proposals. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, let me help. "Assertive." It could be said that I cut my social teeth at CalTech, where frank and direct expression of disagreement was the norm. When I'm exploring a topic in writing -- any topic -- I tend to express what I think as if it were a fact, and people can mistake this for arrogance. What's more accurate is that I'm a dialectical thinker, I think by asserting A, then not-A, then holding both ideas at the same time. Many people can't follow this, they expect someone to have a point and to, well, push it. Instead, I assert points, to see how they look, to see what response comes, and then to compare with the opposite or with other points of view, the goal is an integrated view, that considers all sides. If you were to watch my writing on a narrow topic over time, you'd find that the dross falls away and I become clearer and clearer. When I saw the blacklistings, I saw, very quickly, that JzG was involved, it took very little looking. I saw, immediately, the incivility, I commented on it at Jehochman Talk. Put those together, he was an involved administrator, pursuing his own agenda. So I said so! I was civil, I didn't accuse him of bad faith, just of the fact. I had no axe to grind; at that point, if you had asked me, I'd have probably said that cold fusion was found to be bogus twenty years ago (and I knew more about the original research than most); further, I'd had positive interaction with JzG, he'd been helpful. Someone else, perhaps, would have had the skill to approach him in such a way as to not raise his hackles. On the other hand, dammit! Where was this other person? I tried to find him or her for months, that's why this whole thing got so "stale." I've had occasion to stand up for some point when all my friends were yelling at me. And years later, they'd say, "You were right, we couldn't see it then." I didn't blame them, it was true: they couldn't see it, and I knew that. This does not mean that I'm right! It just means that sometimes I am, and I'm willing to find out. (It cuts both ways, I certainly have stuck my foot in my mouth plenty of times, but .... that is absolutely the fastest way to learn: be wrong. --Abd (talk) 22:54, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The evidence presented by Mastcell is the best available accumulation of the available feedback. I'm still hung up on the word "confrontational", but "assertive" isn't what I'm after. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The word I'd use would be "unproductive" or "unconstructive". MastCell ^Talk 21:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My vote is for "arrogant." His persistent refusal to express his points in a concise and focused way because he says he doesn't have the time sends a clear message: "My time is valuable and yours is not." Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. While perhaps true, enshrining this as an arbitration decision would seem to add weight to that feedback. This statement fails to mention anything specific Abd is being asked to do differently, which would be an essential element of an effective statement of the sort. Abd's decision to wait before starting an RfC and to wait before going to arbitration seems relatively non-confrontational to me. Users need to feel free to start processes even if there is some opposition. Users must not be expected to predict in advance the arbitration committee's response before deciding whether to open a request, provided there is a certain degree of reasonableness to the request. The feedback on the RfC and on this workshop page indicates clearly that there is some support, at least, for Abd's position. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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2) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

JzG strongly admonished

1) JzG (talk · contribs) is strongly admonished not to use his administrative tools in areas where he is involved. He is also advised that further incidents such as this may be referred to the Arbitration Committee for a further case or for a desysop by motion of the Committee.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Support conditionally. This is better than the weaker version proposed by Bainer. I would still want to see an acknowledgment of error as a condition; I just don't see how ArbComm can issue a pass on a failure to recuse without an acknowledgment of error, without seriously damaging the importance of recusal and the seriousness with which administrators should take it. From one incident. No matter when it was. (Obviously, we wouldn't go back and dig up old stuff, but most admins would say about old stuff if it did come up, "I sure wouldn't do that now." Which totally covers the problem!) (And remember, this is one incident which caused -- if it could result in desysopping -- such disruption that it made its way to ArbComm and was accepted.) It's an error to require a pattern of behavior in such a case. Pattern would be required to desysop even if the admin acknowledged the error, if the admin had previously acknowledged similar error. Basically, admit it, and even with a "first-offense pattern," you get one free pass, maybe with an ankle monitor. You also get to make occasional mistakes even after that. But not a pattern of mistakes. --Abd (talk) 02:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Fritzpoll: Two considerations: first, Fritzpoll's proposed remedy is second-best, in my opinion, i.e., better than mere admonition. Secondly, however, the expectation that we can't expect better from JzG should be, if examined, grounds for desysopping all by itself. EdChem correctly pointed out that grovelling is not required. All that is required, I'd suggest, is that JzG show that he understands the problem and undertakes not to repeat behavior that is now, more clearly, defined as seriously improper. Further, there is another possibility: desysopping with the understanding that JzG can recover his tools if he assures the Committee (at any time) that he gets it. Standard desysopping seems to always include the possibility that the tools can be recovered by application to the Committee, which is relatively nondisruptive and can even be done privately. This, however, would clearly establish that use of tools while involved is a serious matter, not trivial, and not justified by being "right," absent emergency followed by appropriate notice and recusal. --Abd (talk) 15:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Bit sloppy in wording - may try to tighten up. I think this is the best compromise available - we are not at the stage of desyssopping, but admins acting while involved is not a good thing. Fritzpoll (talk) 18:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Abd: I think the nature of the admonishment and the essence that this is a "final warning" type of admonishment will satisfy the requirement to remind administrators of the importance of recusal in such situations. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think an "acknowledgment of error", even if forthcoming, as being helpful. Were you ever told to say sorry to someone at school, and did you do so meaningfully? Stifle (talk) 14:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed - the whole reason we're here is for Arbcom to decide what to do. For them to take the role of the teacher in the playground forcing what amounts to an apology seems relatively pointless. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Stifle and Fritzpoll, as I understand it, ArbCom does not force apologies for several reasons including the one you suggest. However, what I think Abd is getting at is an indication that JzG recognises and understands why recusal was appropriate - because if he doesn't, then how can he reasonably be expected to judge when to recuse in the future. Whilst a mea culpa might be gratifying for some, more important (IMO) is recognition akin to "I see why recusal would have been appropriate and undertake to recuse if a similar circumstance arises in the future". EdChem (talk) 14:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that, but I think all we can hope for is the what JzG has already said about Cold fusion. I think expecting an explicit acknowledgement is unnecessary if this proposed sanction were adopted, provided it were definitely to be enforced as a "last chance saloon". The problem is that, absent this, we're looking at desyssopping as a sanction. I just can't propose that based on the evidence available Fritzpoll (talk) 14:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that desysopping isn't shouldn't be warranted. My issue with the undertaking to stay away from cold fusion is that it side steps whether or not recusal was warranted. My personal view is that JzG tends to act even if there is a conflict, and expect that there won't be an issue so long as the action is justifiable. Unfortunately, that's not good enough in a collaborative activity because it irritates those who disagree. I have some sympathy with the response 'so what' when it comes to POV-pushers (especially the ones pushing fringe nonsense), but what about productive editors who simply disagree in a particular instance. Ultimately, administrators acting with a conflict means loss of confidence in administrators, it favours development of cliques, and it means loss of editors. Recusal is not just a minor issue of process; it is fundamental to responsible use of administrative tools. If JzG declines to formally acknowledge the importance of recusal (which would take a one sentence statement) then he risks ArbCom members being forced into a disproportionate response. EdChem (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Right on, Ed. Except for the first sentence. With that, I'd agree that it shouldn't be warranted, but then turn to your last sentence, which is clearer. One of the benefits which is likely to come out of this arbitration is a better understanding of recusal. I've been saying this stuff for a while, and, of course, I don't know how much ArbComm will agree with me, but it's very important that the issue of recusal be faced squarely, and I consider it likely that whatever ArbComm decides, it will be an improvement.

If an admin thinks that recusal is some minor detail, that objecting to an action on the basis of involved bias is "wikilawyering," then we have a problem. Failure to recuse is damaging even when the action, in itself, is "right." Sometimes it doesn't matter, but we don't necessarily see the damage when it does matter. Mostly, editors just go away, and it seems that peace was established. Until the next editor shows up and does the same thing. (And then a few editors don't go away, they make a huge fuss, and we can feel satisfied by blocking them and then spending our time identifying socks instead of improving content.) If the first editor had, instead, been treated with civility and consideration and integrated into the consensus, which does not mean compromising our policies, that first editor would then welcome the second, explain why things are the way they are, and help expand the community and the consensus, so that it's a living thing. One of the signs that an article "community" is mature is that bad behavior by some member of a POV "faction" is regulated by other members of that POV, not by those who might be expected to disagree. Wny would they do this? Because the article has become a matter of consensus, and disruption will damage the balance of that, and if it seems that the change favors one's POV, there will be a backlash, edit warring, and pushing the boulder up the hill over and over. If one holds a minority POV, it's especially important not to allow loose cannons to damage the compromises that have been worked out, that create text accepted by broad consensus as showing what's available in reliable sources, that include what is useful to readers, that increase the overall informativeness of the article by reflecting all notable points of view, etc. --Abd (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

In preparing to consider Abd's response, I re-read my post and thought to myself that I should have used "shouldn't be" rather than "isn't" in the first sentence. In light of Abd's starting comment - which reflects this exact same thought - I have made the change. It fits with my position much better. Plus, copy editing allows me to fix an awful typo. :D EdChem (talk) 23:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my proposed finding of fact that supports this remedy. Comments at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Workshop#Analysis_of_evidence_presented_by_Abd show why I think we need more evidence Fritzpoll (talk) 07:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG warned

1) JzG (talk · contribs) is warned to avoid any possible perception of bias and involvement when performing administrative tasks related to articles.

1.1) JzG (talk · contribs) is warned to avoid any possible perception of involvement when performing administrative tasks related to articles.

1.2) JzG (talk · contribs) is warned to avoid the reasonable perception of using administrative access to gain advantage in a content dispute.

1.3) JzG (talk · contribs) is urged to act with caution in situations where there may be a perception of using administrative access to gain advantage in a content dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is good advice. I think "advised" would serve just as well as "warned". Brains are an administrator's strongest tool. By figuring out the nature of a problem and reporting it concisely and clearly at WP:AE or WP:ANI, the matter can be resolved without creating an appearance of impropriety. Jehochman ^Talk 13:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added 1.2 as a pithier version. Feel free to strike or adopt it, Fritzpoll. Jehochman ^Talk 13:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

None of the diffs can be definitively assigned as actionable under WP:INVOLVED per my analysis at the bottom of this page. Nonetheless, the perception was reasonable, and I'll add an FoF to this effect shortly Fritzpoll (talk) 12:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at here, but I'm concerned that the "any possible perception of bias" is going to open us to trouble from the ruleslawyers. If JzG has at any point expressed the opinion that the Earth is round, he would obviously have to be barred from any admin action at Flat Earth Society. (Hmm....) That prohibition would likely also have to extend to Christopher Columbus, geodesy, and Eratosthenes. I stronly suspect that's not really the intent of this proposed remedy, but I fear it would be the effect. JzG would be unable to admit to having an opinion on any topic, on pain of being hauled back to ArbCom. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

How about 1.1)? Involvement is meant to be defined as in Principle #2 Fritzpoll (talk) 13:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Favour 1.2 - succinct and gets to the point I was trying to make. Thanks, Jehochman. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Added 1.3 (delete it if you wish, Fritzpoll). How about this one? Per Jehochman, 'warned' seemed a bit too harsh for this situation. I may out on a bit of a limb, but I think what we're trying to say is

You probably didn't do anything wrong, but (with – we freely admit – the benefit of hindsight) there might have been ways to accomplish the same tasks with less brouhaha. Even if you don't have a conflict of interest or a genuine involvement per policy, it's sometimes a good idea to call in the cavalry sooner rather than later. We recognize that there exists a pool of JzG-watchers who haunt the noticeboards and who will make every effort to throw a spanner in the works, and we're sorry about that. Your judgement is generally quite good; the intent of this remedy is to nudge your calibration towards a bit more consultation, not to give you a backhand slap.

Is that about right? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think so, and those who are throwing spanners should get an admonishment right now. We know who they are. Jehochman ^Talk 14:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

(e/c)The sentiment you express in the paragraph broadly accords with my own. I'll leave 1.3 in as a proposal since the use of "warned" is disputed slightly. I think the outcome of both is the same so I am largely indifferent to the choice of wording - it depends how much we think JzG needs to be told that this is the way he should be handling things Fritzpoll (talk) 14:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think 1.3 words it quite nicely, agree with that one. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd admonished

2) Abd (talk · contribs) is admonished for failing to respond to feedback in regards to handling disputes. He is instructed to alter his approach in the future in light of the comments received.

2.1) Abd (talk · contribs) is counseled to heed good faith feedback when handling disputes. He is asked to alter his approach in the future in light of the comments received.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Recuse. The problem here is that "failing to respond to feedback" is based on feedback that this whole thing was silly and overblown and a waste of time, and it looks like ArbComm will show that it wasn't. As to instruction to alter my approach, sure. I'm all ears. Was there a better way? I tried the initial direct approach. I tried an indirect approach, attempting to solicit friends of JzG to give him some good advice. Then I escalated per WP:DR, and attempted, mostly successfully, to keep the RfC from becoming a laundry list of complaints about JzG. Then, I would have brought this here if Jehochman hadn't beaten me to it. So, if I did something wrong, please, establish this as a proposed finding before proposing an admonition! --Abd (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The verb counseled would be better, I think, than admonished. See 2.1, my version. (Strike if you dislike.) Jehochman ^Talk 13:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

How could I possibly object to good counsel? However, there is a problem here. "Good faith feedback" can be gloriously wrong, and heeding it damaging to self, others, or the project. What is good counsel, unconditionally, is to consider feedback and to accept whatever can be accepted of it without damage, and to respond to it, assuming good faith as far as possible. I'm human and thus my assumption of good faith can break down, and we could debate about how much that indicates about the other editor. I assume good faith for JzG, and I've seen no reason at all to doubt it, his intention is to improve the project; my issue with him would be over competence to understand and to follow recusal policy, and thus to avoid serious damage. Competence issues are not resolvable by assumptions of good faith. --Abd (talk) 16:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Abd means well, but there is no ignoring the fact that he rubs people up the wrong way in his approach to this kind of dispute, as has been pointed out to him in disputes beyond this specific instance. There is no doubt that he follows the letter of WP:DR, but his approach is often not conducive to resolving the dispute itself. If he wants success in this area of work on Wikipedia, he needs to respond to the criticisms he has received. The ends of getting a good result do not justify the means used to get there. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Without a Finding of Fact supported by convincing diffs, this is unfair. The fact that Abd's style (coupled with his ADHD) may irritate some people is nowhere near sufficient justification for an ArbCom admonishment. I agree that Abd's communication style could be improved, and he could certainly let points drop that aren't that important. Unfortunately, some of that feedback to which you refer is part of the problem. For example, WP:DEADHORSE has been referenced in the numerous prior stages of WP:DR which Abd has pursued, providing feedback that there was no issue here. Yet, until ArbCom became involved, concerns Abd has been raising all along (the appropriateness of the blacklisting and the recusal issue, for example) have been disregarded. Consequently, it can reasonably be suggested that disregarding that deadhorse feedback was reasonable. Further, the proposed admonishment could easily be misused. Suppose Abd questions an action an a reviewing admin affirms that action - could Abd taking it to the next step be a failure to respond to the feedback of the affirming admin? In the present case, had such an admonishment have already existed, could Jzg have responded to the RfC by posting a request for a block against Abd, either at WP:AE or WP:RfAr? I also shudder at the idea of Abd being more zealous in responding to feedback in a literal sense - I think we would all agree that he conscientiously provides a response to comments. :) EdChem (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Admonishment may be slightly too strong, I agree, so I may redraft. I'll also add diffs to my FoF #3 to support this. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Favour 2.1 - how do we feel about this? Fritzpoll (talk) 13:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

2.1 sounds good. The 'other party' may not always be right, but there is often some truth in what they say. And it is not always black or white. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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2) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Proposals by Newyorkbrad

I appreciate the work of Stephen Bain (the designated drafting arbitrator) as well as the other editors who have commented above. I had started the other day to provide comments on Bainer's proposals, but found that in a few instances I was going to be providing alternatives instead, so it is probably easier for me to post here reflecting my own view of the case. No disparagement of or disrespect for anyone else's draft is intended. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed principles

Administrators

1) Administrators are trusted members of the community. They are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship, as administrators are not expected to be perfect, but consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators are expected to learn from experience and from justified criticisms of their actions, and should address, rather than dismiss, reasonable concerns raised by other users. At the same time, editors should recognize that administrators, like other editors, are volunteers who freely give of their time to serve the encyclopedia and the community. The work of administrators who deal with complex situations and troublesome problems should be particularly appreciated.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Standard wording that has evolved in recent months, most recently from Aitias; except for the second-last sentence, which is new, and the last sentence, which is drawn from C68-FM-SV. I have considered adding a sentence or a separate principle addressing whether this Committee has jurisdiction to advise or sanction an En-WP administrator for conduct affecting English Wikipedia but technically occurring on another wiki such as Meta or Commons, but concluded that we should best leave that issue for another day. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support --Abd (talk) 04:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Minor suggestion - perhaps a link on "expected" in the second sentence to the specific section dealing with administrator conduct? EdChem (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Support, particularly the second-last sentence. I appreciate JzG's contributions to the project. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Use of administrator tools in disputes

2) Administrator tools may not be used to further the administrator's own position in a content dispute or, except in emergency circumstances or cases of blatant bad-faith harassment, in other disputes. Except for administrators' ability to use their tools to enforce policies on matters such as BLP or copyright violations, administrator status accords no special privileges in determining the content of articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Similar to Bainer's proposals above, but I personally prefer this formulation, drawn from C68-FM-SV. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support --Abd (talk) 04:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support, particularly the last clause. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - particularly the last part. This is better than bainer's formulation Fritzpoll (talk) 21:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety

3) All editors, and especially administrators, should avoid engaging in conduct that creates a reasonable appearance that significant site policies are being violated. This may include, for example, an administrator's repeatedly taking administrator actions that can reasonably be perceived as being taken to further the administrator's position in a content dispute, even if the administrator actually has no such intention. In such circumstances, administrators should bear in mind that at this stage in the evolution of Wikipedia, they have hundreds of colleagues, and thus, an administrator who has regularly edited an article should often raise problems calling for administrator attention to a noticeboard rather than address them himself or herself, unless no reasonable editor should disagree with the action taken or an emergency situation exists.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Drawn from two paragraphs of C68-FM-SV. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. --Abd (talk) 04:23, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

4) Wikipedia exists only because of the community that creates and maintains it. Disagreements between editors on a wide variety of issues frequently occur. The airing of disagreements in a respectful and sincere manner for the purpose of resolving them is normal and indeed desirable in any such collaborative project. Where disputes cannot be resolved amicably through the ordinary course of editing and discussion, the system of noticeboards and/or the project's dispute resolution mechanisms may be used. The primary purpose of all such noticeboards and dispute resolution methods, including arbitration, is to resolve ongoing disputes that are affecting the integrity of the encyclopedia and the well-being of the community, rather than to address moot or merely historical concerns.

Comment by Arbitrators:

First three sentences drawn from C68-FM-SV; last sentence is new as drafted, though the concept is well-recognized. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. --Abd (talk) 04:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Support. Those preferring the status quo might consider an issue to be "moot" and raising it to be "disruptive"; however, when others consider the issue to be of current importance, it's worth reconsidering this position. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Role of the Arbitration Committee

5) It is not the Arbitration Committee's role to settle good-faith content and policy disputes among editors, such as disagreements concerning the proper role and use of the spam blacklist in curtailing disputed or questionable external links on English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Adapted from MZMcBride, with specific example relevant to this case added. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Nature of the dispute

1) This is a case about line-drawing. The questions presented are whether JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), an experienced administrator, was involved with content disputes as an editor of cold fusion so that he should have refrained from taking administrator actions concerning that article; and whether Abd (talk · contribs) has been overzealous in pursuing this issue through extensive noticeboard discussions and dispute resolution steps culminating in arbitration. Another issue raised, but one we find outside our purview to resolve, is whether and when the spam blacklist may be used to curtail external links that do not constitute "spam" per se but may be considered undesirable for other reasons such as unreliability or copyright violation.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I would not say that "extensive noticeboard discussions" existed on the topic of JzG failure to recuse, and I have seen no evidence presented on this. There were a few noticeboard discussions on other issues which may have, from time to time, mentioned the recusal problem. (I normally avoid the noticeboards as much as I can, except for routine noticeboards like RfPP.) As to the blacklist, the blacklist is a tool which can only be controlled by administrators, thus blacklisting is an administrative action. Setting aside the typical kinds of content judgments which are made by administrators, i.e., BLP, copyvio, we are left with what is really one issue: the use of the blacklist, and thus of administrative tools, based on content arguments such as "unreliability." It is my view that reliability of a particular source (web site) is not necessarily a characteristic of the site itself, but of the particular site content asserted as source in relation to the exact text supported, a content judgment that cannot be made as a general rule without infringing on the freedom of editorial consensus to decide content subject to the local needs of individual articles and specific text. What is a reliable source for one piece of text may not be for another, even within the same article. As an example, the single whitelisted page currently used as a source for Martin Fleischmann is a conference paper written by the subject of the article, giving his history of the thinking behind his work. Similarly to a self-published material by a notable expert in a field, it is a reliable source for what he asserts about his memory, and shouldn't be used without attribution, i.e., to present what it contains as a fact without attribution. The site which hosts it is not the source; for this is a paper that was published in China by Tsinghua University, but rather the site has obtained permission from the author and publisher to host a copy, and so this is a convenience link; without it, the paper would not be convenient to most readers, though they could still google it and find it (only there, nowhere else as far as I've seen). The point is that the usage of links cannot generally be determined abstractly from the nature of the site alone. It is a content judgment, and allowing the blacklist to determine it gives excess authority to administrators, without that authority being established by necessity or general community consensus.

Having said this, my opinion was that this issue was not ripe for arbitration. Nevertheless, for ArbComm to find that the use of the blacklist (here, not on meta, another issue) to prevent the addition of links based on content arguments (like "fringe" or "not reliable"), absent an exception which has been noted which involves the existence of linkspam, is improper, would be quite within its remit. --Abd (talk) 04:46, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Generally agree. Indeed, the question if unreliable sources might be blacklisted, on basis of their unreliability only, would be something that the community has to come to terms with by discussion. But in line with the line-drawing, sometimes reliable sources are abused, even plainly spammed, to an extend where blacklisting is an 'emergency' option to stop that. However, I am not aware of any cases where unreliable sources were blacklisted where the site has not been used, with as only reason that they were an unreliable source. Here the involved sites were, in my opinion, used both in an appropriate way, as well as, in an inappropriate way. One question in this case is, 'how much inappropriate use of unreliable documents on a site, in order to advance an undue weight, does the community allow' (which again is a community decision). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG and Cold fusion

2) During 2008, JzG made several dozen edits to Cold fusion, a contentious article about an ongoing scientific controversy. This article has been the subject of extensive content and conduct disputes, including one that resulted in a prior arbitration case. JzG's view was that his edits were essential to keeping the article in compliance with our content standards, including maintaining a neutral point of view, avoiding undue weight for minority views, and reducing references to unreliable sources. Therefore, he believed, these edits did not make him a party to a content dispute that should preclude him from taking administrator actions regarding the article. Other editors viewed JzG's role as that of a content editor taking one side in the ongoing debate as to whether "cold fusion" does or does not constitute a legitimate physical phenomenon as opposed to a discredited "fringe" view, and therefore as someone heavily "involved" in the content dispute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion is not really an ongoing scientific controversy. Presenting it as such seems misleading. Sometimes controversy on Wikipedia does not equate to real-world controversy. Which doesn't excuse editor and admins conduct on said articles. Carcharoth (talk) 07:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose. While JzG indeed appears to have believed that he was merely enforcing content standards, this is the same as all editors do. Enforcing content standards is involvement. Enforcing behavioral standards is the administrative task, generally. (There are crossover areas.) JzG's position in his 64 edits to Cold fusion, 140 edits to Talk:Cold fusion, and many other edits, plus his administrative actions detailed in the evidence, were consistently aligned with a strong anti-fringe position; as an example, ScienceApologist redirected Condensed matter nuclear science to Cold fusion, and edit warring began. JzG reverted the page to the redirect, then permanently protected it. He then deleted the Talk page giving a spurious CSD reason. This was the one action shown in the evidence where he did, after initial protest, recuse, and it was restored. He then archived it as "twaddle." I do not think it is reasonably possible to look at the full evidence and see him as uninvolved. Sure, he believed that he was removing unreliable sources, but so do I when I remove them, or I think the reverse when I add them. These are content decisions, and when made more than occasionally (as when doing RCP), show involvement with the article (or, sometimes, with a general class of articles, pursuing a general POV).

One more technical objection: my position is that there is a real physical phenomenon involved with what is called Cold fusion, that it may be fusion and it might not be fusion, and that cold fusion is a discredited field of research that was widely rejected. Any neutral article is going to show and balance what is present in reliable source on the topic. The particular difficulty with cold fusion is that there is a disconnect between what is in casual media sources ("junk science," "never replicated") and what is in peer-reviewed academic source (research reports, reviews, and 143 peer-reviewed reports of confirmations of the basic excess heat phenomenon). It's quite a complex problem, one not amenable to solution with the blunt instrument of bans and blocks. --Abd (talk) 05:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Carcharoth. I'm sure Carcharoth knows that content isn't the point here, and not an ongoing scientific controversy is a content judgment, but his opinion is important. That is exactly the ready judgment made by many, probably most "scientists," and thus is the default starting POV of most of our editors. However, that judgment, properly, would be heavily dependent on the knowledge of the scientists in the specific involved fields, and precisely because it is a rejected field, most scientists, in general, are unaware of the continuing research details, but are holding views formed twenty years ago. There have been steady developments since then, the 2004 DoE review was quite clear that this is an unresolved scientific controversy (as was also shown, in fact, in the 1989 review), but our article has generally emphasized a sentence from the conclusion of the 2004 report that, in the general context of media representation of the field, makes it appear otherwise.

So what I want to say as a "take-home message" is that the opinion of those informed on the subject, and I mean this neutrally, is weighted increasingly (beyond majority) toward the reality of the Pons-Fleischmann effect, and on the specific evidence of nuclear reactions (nuclear ash detected at 25 +/- 5 MeV /He-4, radiation signatures of fusion), I estimate, is now probably weighted toward it being nuclear in effect. We see a gap between media sources, generally, and peer-reviewed scientific sources. (If we could use conference papers, it's over. Cold fusion is real. But we can't.) For the most up-to-date media evidence that the field is shifting, see the CBS Sixty Minutes documentary and article on it as (re)-emerging science, but there was also, in March, 2009, a great deal of media source acknowledging the significance of recent U.S. Naval lab (SPAWAR) confirmation of energetic neutrons, and the ACS, the largest chemical society in the world, devoting four days to a low energy nuclear reactions seminar, compared to a grudging and controversial one-day seminar occasionally in the past, is another piece in the puzzle. There is a whole book by a sociologist, on cold fusion (Undead Science, Simon, 2002) as a science declared dead, with the signs of closure, that isn't dead, with signs of life, it's "undead," and this book has been cited by our resident skeptics to show it's dead, but when it's cited to show it's not dead, that's removed. My point is not that CF is real, I have no reliable source on that, I have only reviews in peer reviewed reliable source that treat it as such, and little recent criticism (this century) in sources of comparable quality or better. As to the article, I'm approaching it conservatively, seeking consensus. I made a relatively bold edit the other day with a section of the article that was truly awful, was reverted, and I don't edit war over anything, period. If it comes back, it will come back with consensus, and that will take a lot of discussion, probably. I'm running into a lot of flak, as is to be expected. It could happen within a year or two that we could treat CF as established, but I have no crystal ball. I'm just looking at the sources as they exist now, in terms of edits to the article, and following behavioral and content guidelines, with particular attention to the Fringe science arbitration. For Talk, I do show my opinion or POV based on "emerging sources," most notably conference papers with a track record of peer-reviewed publication, and to some degree other such material and my own analysis of what's been published, which I would never assert as authoritative. --Abd (talk) 14:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Carcharoth above. Cold fusion is not a controversy at this point in time. It is fairly described as a rejected scientific hypothesis by any reasonable reading of the reliable sources. The fact that a tiny minority of experimental scientists continue to study the phenomenon does not turn cold fusion into a minority view. It is deeply fringe stuff. Jehochman ^Talk 18:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman, your comment, and that of Carcharoth above, hits the nail right on the head. This is the problem: there is still a widespread perception, not actually supported by the strongest recent sources, of just what you have said. Now, this isn't the place to resolve this, it should be resolved at the article (generally). However, the collision between the widespread perception, what we can call the "majority opinion," and what is in peer-reviewed academic and other strong source (for example, media source based on neutral investigation, rather than, say, one media source just repeating what they or another said earlier) explains a great deal of the conflict at Cold fusion. Someone arrives, who actually knows the research in the field, what's being published in, say, Naturwissenschaften, which is about as reputable as a journal can get (that's where Einstein published), and tries to assert it, is quickly reverted even when it's reliably sourced, including attribution, because it allegedly violates WP:UNDUE. And the editor knows that the sourcing is solid, so they edit war. This will continue to happen, it's predictable, until we deal with the problem differently. If we follow RS guidelines and WP:DR, I'm confident that we will work it out; the problem is one of not following content and behavioral guidelines, but of imposing "majority POV," which is much more than simply avoiding undue weight, properly, it amounts to suppression of sourced fact or sourced notable opinion. Another aspect is bringing more editors who are scientists on board, because it takes some level of background to be able to understand the sources and especially to balance them. I'm somewhat peculiarly placed: I'm not a scientist, I'm a writer, but I studied physics with Richard P. Feynman and chemistry with Linus Pauling so I have background, so to speak, and, in addition, I'm firmly dedicated to NPOV in articles, as a product of genuine consensus. I'm quite confident that if we did an RfC on the question of whether or not cold fusion is "controversial," I could show that, indeed, it is. From reliable source. So where is the opinion coming from that it's settled? The sociologist Bart Simon, in Undead Science, (2002) addresses this in detail, and it's another aspect of the story we should be telling, there is massive RS on it. I'm not trying to fix world opinion with Wikipedia, I'm simply trying to facilitate having an article that reflects what's in the sources, now that I've spent over four months reading those sources and discussing what I've found. I can't do a thing without consensus, in any case. If I improperly assert some POV, it won't last, that would be a waste of time. But one thing is clear to me: finding NPOV with Cold fusion is not a simple, immediate, and obvious process, and it is going to take extensive and continued cooperation. --Abd (talk) 20:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree, I am still not convinced that JzG's actions were outside policy, although it strongly gives the impression with 64 edits to the article (but then, if we are talking counts, I wonder how often I have reverted spam on certain 'spam magnets', or reverted vandalism on certain 'vandalism magnets', and to follow Abd's reasoning, also those are 'content decisions': "this is 'spam'", or "this is 'vandalism'", and as such this content does not belong here). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. Cold fusion is an ongoing scientific controversy. The U.S. Department of Energy doesn't tend to recommend funding investigative research in totally discredited topics, nor does the American Chemical Society tend to mention such in press releases. Jehochman, please participate in the discussion at Talk:Cold fusion#NPOV - Undue; I would be interested to know which reliable sources you're consulting. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG's administrator actions on Cold fusion

3) In December 2008 and January 2009, JzG took a series of administrator actions on or directly relating to cold fusion, including protecting the talkpage and a related page, deleting a related page, blocking an editor who primarily edited the page, and adding two links that had been added to the page to the spam blacklist on meta. JzG's view was that these administrator actions were necessary to keep these pages in compliance with our core policies and that he was not an "involved" administrator who should abstain from taking administrator action on the article—in other words, that he properly acted using all methods at his disposal, including edits, administrator tools, and his status as an administrator on Metawiki, to keep cold fusion and related pages free from improper "fringe" content. Other editors, particularly those who disagreed with JzG's edits on the article, strongly disagreed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I gather I am mistaken about JzG having been the one who added the links to the meta blacklist. I'll go back and make the appropriate correction when I have a few more moments. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:58, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Oppose. This is not a neutral statement of what happened. Rather, it appears to be an attempt to present JzG's actions in the best possible light. I have never doubted that his actions were made in good faith, that he believed them to be serving the project. However, the idea that these actions were "necessary to keep these pages in compliance with our core policies" is preposterous. Jed Rothwell was a self-acknowledged COI editor who did not edit article pages, and who violated no core policies. He was, at most, uncivil, in an environment where he faced some fairly heavy incivility, including incivility from JzG. Sure, Rothwell can be seen as advocating a fringe POV, but ... don't we expect COI editors to be biased and to therefore confine themselves to making suggestions on Talk pages? Removing convenience links is supporting what "core policy"? What core policy was being enforced by deleting Talk:Condensed matter nuclear science or, for that matter, protecting the redirect?

Secondly, visible protest regarding JzG's actions came most notably, recently, from myself and Durova, and the initial concern wasn't related to any disagreement over the article edits; rather, speaking for myself, I saw the blacklisting action mentioned and some JzG incivility in response to an editor's protest over it on User talk:Jehochman. I looked at the article history and saw that JzG was blatantly involved. I looked at the blacklisting itself and the post-facto "notice for transparency" didn't make sense. So I raised the involvement issue. My involvement with the article itself came later, as I was placed by education to understand the issues, developed an interest in the state of the field, and started heavily researching it, buying major references, etc. Before that, I was with practically everyone else who was moderately informed on scientific matters: wasn't this shown to be baloney by 1990?

This was not and is not a content dispute, it is an administrative behavioral issue, that relates to the position of an administrator in an extended content dispute, which he enforced by use of admin tools. --Abd (talk) 05:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

To confirm Beetstra's comment below, only one site was globally blacklisted, lenr-canr.org. JzG added the two links to the local blacklist; the meta blacklisting came over two weeks later, upon request by JzG, after JzG's actions here had been challenged, and the closing admin, showing no sign of knowledge of any controversy, granted JzG's request. Meta process and actions are outside the remit of ArbComm; however, an expression by ArbComm of our local blacklisting policies would be, in my opinion, likely to have an influence at meta. We do not need meta permission to use a site, and they do not need our permission to blacklist. --Abd (talk) 14:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Partially incorrect, JzG added them to the blacklist here, and requested for one blacklisting on meta (but did not add the link himself, although he is a meta-admin and hence would be able to).

For the rest I generally agree here. It is indeed showing JzG 'in the best possible light', but as I have not seen any solid proof of edits by User:JzG to the article Cold fusion, which, in no way, can be explained as an administrative action, this does properly assume good faith by User:JzG. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Er, this finding isn't presenting JzG in any light. It's just a statement of the conflicting perspectives of the two "sides" in this matter, in their own terms. I don't see this finding either endorsing or rejecting Guy's justification; it's just describing it. MastCell ^Talk 14:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with MastCell and disagree with Abd about "light": it states JzG's view and "other editors'" view in a NPOV way. Re details of facts: JzG twice semiprotected Talk:Cold fusion ([23]). JzG deleted 2 related pages in userspace [24] [25] and 3 related pages in talk space. [26] [27] [28] JzG also redirected and indef-protected an article (effectively, but not literally, deleting it).[29] JzG added the two links to the spam blacklist here on English Wikipedia. [30] [31] ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Evolution of standards for "involved" administrators

4) The interpretation and enforcement of our guidelines precluding administrators who are involved in content editing on an article from taking administrator action has become stricter over time. As one example, in May 2007, when the question arose whether a "probation" remedy issued by this Committee could properly be enforced by an "involved" administrator, the Committee was sharply divided and could not reach a majority resolution of this issue (see, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000/Proposed decision#Principles). If that issue arose today, two years later, there is little doubt that a consensus would quickly emerge that only "uninvolved" administrators should enforce the remedy (except perhaps in instances of blatant bad-faith vandalism or harassment). Consensus has shifted a bit as to the trade-off between the gain in efficiency that may result from an administrator already familiar with the dispute handling the problem, versus the loss of confidence in the actual or perceived fairness of an administator decision made by someone who has already evinced a stake in the outcome.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. In evaluating current administrator conduct, we need not entirely overlook that our more experienced administrators got their start in an earlier era.

A close question in my mind is whether the findings should cite our decision in the C68-FM-SV case, to which JzG was a party, instructing all the parties who were administrators to avoid acting as administrators in disputes where they were involved, and urging that administrators avoid even the appearance of impropriety. That aspect of the decision (which I drafted) in that consolidated case, however, was not aimed primarily at JzG, but at some of the other parties. The issues in the case concerning JzG related primarily to incivility and personal attacks, and as Abd has acknowledged in this case, JzG has discontinued making the types of uncivil and offensive comments that warranted the substantial rebuke handed down in that case. I conclude, though by a narrow margin only, that the instruction in the earlier case need not be cited in the formal decision.

This is as good a place as any to remark that the term "administrator recusal," which Abd has employed throughout the case pages to refer to the rule that administrators should not utilize their tools to obtain an advantage in content or disputes they are involved in, is not generally used. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. As to the term, I believe I picked up "administrative recusal" from Durova. What would you suggest, NYB, as a brief way to refer to "the rule that administrators should not utilize their tools to obtain an advantage in content or disputes they are involved in."?

As to continued incivility, JzG was utterly beyond the pale before the prior rebuke. Definitely the gross incivility stopped. But it's not clear to me that he actually became more civil, in the sense of more broadly collegial. I've had occasion to look back at much of his old writing, and he was quite cogent much of the time. He became increasingly polemic and less cogent in the period that may have begun, roughly, with his incivility troutslapping. I'll refrain from speculating on the psychology of this, but I would not describe him as civil; unfortunately, incivility is rampant on Wikipedia, we can see a great deal in this RfAr, and it hardly raises eyebrows. Nevertheless, I would not have done anything about his incivility, my concern was failure to recuse when involved, and, then, failure to recuse when challenged. (Many admins will say, if accused of being involved, fine, I yield to the decision of another neutral administrator. Even if they aren't involved, it's important to avoid the appearance of involvement. There are exceptions, but they didn't apply here.) NYB, this is a serious issue, and it's not over. We saw an example during the RfC. Don't you think it obvious that he shouldn't be blocking someone who makes a negative comment in his RfC, an RfC over administrative recusal failure? This was a person with whom he was clearly involved in off-wiki dispute. --Abd (talk) 05:43, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Evaluation

5) We conclude that while JzG's explanation of his actions on cold fusion is defensible and is offered in good faith, his editing on cold fusion was sufficiently extensive that the better practice would have been for him to refrain from taking any non-emergency administrator actions in this content area.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed, although I can well understand both the contrary position (i.e., that JzG was primarily maintaining NPOV and downweighting FRINGE) and a strong position (i.e., Bainer's conclusion that JzG was clearly over the line). The positions taken in the statements of non-parties at the case acceptance stage reflect that there is a debatable issue here. As I suggest in finding 1, this is a case about line-drawing, and my own conclusion is essentially that JzG was close to one side or the other of a somewhat blurry line. (As I discuss below, that makes it all the more, frankly, difficult to understand why we are still talking about the issue, some four months after the fact.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Is recusal optional, merely a matter of whether or not it is "better"? Are admins obligated to recuse when involved, or is this merely advice? It should be realized that many of the non-parties have been involved on what might be called the anti-fringe side in content disputes. What is the "blurry line"? Is it "blurry" that JzG was involved? The fact is that this isn't blurry at all, to most of the community. Rather, the community seems to be roughly divided along certain lines, and remember, the sample is biased. I have not attempted to gather support, I've not canvassed participation here at all, on or off-wiki, trusting that what appears naturally would be enough, given the Committee's considerable knowledge and experience itself; JzG is a very popular administrator, especially in certain circles, and so participation here, as in the RfC, has been weighted by friends showing up and defending him and, some of them, attacking the messenger. From the RfC, about one-third of editors considered JzG clearly involved, and under an obligation to recuse, and this was serious. Something like another one-third to one-half of editors expressing opinions acknowledged something like "JzG wasn't the best person to take these actions, but the actions were sound and he shouldn't be 'punished.'" And then a minority, less than one third, expressed something like "He did nothing wrong at all, in fact he's a hero, standing up against those POV-pushers and fringe kooks." There is, from this, a very clear majority who have considered, readily or grudgingly, that JzG violated recusal policy. And I'll say that if he did not violate recusal policy, I haven't the foggiest idea what that policy is. --Abd (talk) 06:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

So, according to your own math, a 2/3 majority of editors opined at the RfC that Guy had not done anything sanctionable? But yet you carry on a relentless, escalating drive to see him sanctioned, in the name of "the community"? That sort of thing is why people might conclude that selective hearing on your part has been a large contributor to this unfortunate situation. MastCell ^Talk 03:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd estimate that percentage, yes, roughly. No, this is not a drive to see him sanctioned, this was, from the beginning, an attempt to apply, enforce, and call attention to recusal policy. I indeed recognized that 2/3 of those expressing opinions in the RfC were willing to set aside the policy for reasons not clearly explained there, there were really many different opinions. This does not bind or obligate me, and, indeed, the existence of so many editors willing to confirm the basis for the RfC encouraged me. Note that RfCs do not determine sanctions, so the discussion of "not-sanction" was moot there. If we look at the substance, most editors did agree that there was failure to recuse. Further, MastCell, I did not file this RfAr, it was filed by Jehochman. I do not insist on desysopping, I have merely presented reasons why I think failure to do something clearer and more effective than mere admonition would be naive, but there options without desysopping that ArbComm can quite reasonably choose, or, even if it desysops, it could clearly indicate a simple means for JzG to recover the bit upon providing evidence satisfactory to ArbComm that the risk of repeated offense was sufficiently low. Like an email to the AC list saying, "You're right, I should have recused, I see that now. I won't make this mistake again." And the AC then announces, if it so decides, that JzG's adminship is restored, as he has satisfied the conditions necessary. That outcome would fully satisfy me. JzG's admin bit was never the target for me. Note, however, other administrators who might be similarly inclined to use their tools when involved, and might like to be assured that they won't be risking their bits, since the AC will give them plenty of opportunity to turn around if someone notices (often not) or complains (and is then, themselves, at risk as "disruptive") or manages to get the matter to RfC (rare) and to ArbComm (even rarer). And the whole process, done carefully -- shouldn't we encourage that? -- takes lots of time, so, then, it can be argued that it's all moot, so much time has passed, and is there any continued pattern of abuse? I would say that if ArbComm does not desysop, or does not take some action showing seriousness, and effectively warn all administrators on the issue, it has weakened the policy and has not strengthened it. Hence my arguments here. --Abd (talk) 15:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. There is no shortage of administrators ready to act. The hard part is figuring out what's going on and explaining. The simple part is pushing the button. Note that if an administrator takes an action themselves, they still have to provide an adequate explanation. The same explanation can be proffered in advance to another administrator with a request that they push the button. Jehochman ^Talk 18:32, 8 May

Comment by others:

I agree with NYB's words of wisdom (at last!). Mathsci (talk) 20:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Stating that it's "defensible" is tantamount to repealing the policy. Downweighting "FRINGE" is a content decision; when one does that, one is taking a position in a content dispute. Material on fringe topics can be perfectly appropriate encyclopedic material; it is not to be treated as vandalism. Enforcing NPOV implies involvement in content disputes. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

By this rationale, no admin could ever enforce WP:NPOV or WP:WEIGHT, not even in clear-cut cases. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Sound statements of general policy are often opposed by the argument that we will apply them mindlessly and in an extreme way. Yes, in general, NPOV and weight are not to be "enforced" with administrative tools. Can you think, Enric, of a situation where that is necessary? I can't. Editor makes POV edit, say it's blatantly POV. Someone reverts. Editor asserts it again without discussion, etc. Admin blocks for edit warring (which can be done with as little as a single revert, in a blatant case.) No recusal necessary. Suppose the administrator reverts. Editor asserts the edit again. Editor is now edit warring with the administrator, who should recuse, but who can also report the action immediately to a noticeboard and can also request page protection. If an admin asks for page protection and states "I'm not protecting this page myself because I've edited it and might appear to be involved," how long do you think that it will take for that page to be protected? My guess is, a few minutes. As to a block, if the problem was, indeed, sufficiently clear (as implied by the problem Enric sets up), the block probably wouldn't take much time, either. Right now we have a question of due weight at Cold fusion. What administrative tools are necessary? I don't see any need yet, there is no edit warring going on. I could claim that there was a bit of edit warring by Hipocrite, but I don't generally make those claims unless the matter has become blatant and is continued in spite of consensus. Remember, I value and seek consensus. In this case, Hipocrite seems to have majority support, but the discussion has not proceeded through the process yet and the editors opining, so far, are mostly editors with relatively predictable opinions; eventually, if necessary, less involved editors will be solicited to comment. --Abd (talk) 03:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG's commitment to avoid further involvement

6) In January 2009, JzG stated on-wiki that he would take no further administrator actions regarding cold fusion, and in the ensuing months, he has taken no further such actions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Sure. But what does this mean? The issue, from the beginning was recusal, not specifically cold fusion, but he continued to act substantially beyond the point where he was warned about it (right up to the end of January). In the ensuing months, he's largely stopped editing. It seems that he previously, when under examination, disappeared, allowing his friends to claim that he wasn't doing anything problematic any more. I have no worry that he will abuse tools with respect to cold fusion, -- he'd be dead meat -- but substantial concern that next time he is involved, he may not even recognize that he's involved, and it can take months to clean up the mess, if ever, if nobody is watching. It is very difficult to reverse actions taken by a popular administrator, the assumptions that he can do no wrong are so strong. It can be done, but it takes a great deal of work, work that may not have been necessary if he had simply left decisions to a neutral administrator. What has been happening with the original blacklisting decisions is that the arguments supporting them, and he asserted a mountain of them, have gradually been disentangled, but they do still linger and are still being asserted. What it takes to overcome that inertia is wider attention, which must be done carefully in order to avoid disruption. That's what WP:DR is about. --Abd (talk) 06:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Could someone provide a diff, please? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd's zealous pursuit of dispute resolution

7) Since January 2009, Abd has raised the subject of JzG's allegedly improper administrator actions relating to cold fusion in multiple forums all across Wikipedia. This has included on talkpages, on noticeboards, in an admin conduct request for comment on JzG, and ultimately in this arbitration case. Abd has pursued this matter with skillful and detailed argumentation and with unusual zeal and persistence—as measured by the obvious time and effort he has expended, the number of venues utilized, the declared importance he attaches to the issue, and the degree to which his quest for an admission or determination that JzG erred has come to consume almost the entirety of his editing for a period of three months. Abd's position is that even though JzG no longer takes administrator actions on cold fusion, there is a likelihood that misconduct will recur because JzG has not acknowledged that he was wrong and because standards for "administrator recusal" are not always well-defined.

While we have found an arguable issue for discussion here concerning the propriety of JzG's administrator actions surrounding cold fusion, the persistence and vehemence with which Abd has pursued the issue have been disproportionate. This is especially so given that the issue he has pursued so energetically, and into to which he has drawn such a large amount of community resources, effectively became moot almost four months ago.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. I respect the value Abd gives to propriety and proper procedure (and share his enthusiasm for parliamentary law, for example—an area of editing I hope he might return to). I also welcome determination and tenacity in a good cause, on-wiki as in other parts of life. Nonetheless, there is also such a thing as a sense of proportion. In retrospect, the case here has been moot for months, and my initial disquiet at the acceptance stage about whether a useful result was sufficiently likely here to warrant the time we have all expended, turns out in my view to have been the correct reaction. There is a strong argument to be made that the appropriate resolution of this case would be a dismissal, and that Abd should not be "rewarded" for his excesses with an adverse finding against JzG, however caveated, arising from a dispute that has long been moot. My feeling that we might as well get something out of the work that has been put in here, primarily the emphasis that standards for "involved" administrators have tightened over time, counsels moderately against my moving for dismissal, as frankly does the fact that I do not believe a majority of my colleagues would vote for it at this stage. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I can see that this is NYB's opinion, consistent with his reluctance to accept the case. However, I'm concerned about something. One of the things that sometimes prolongs serious disputes is a reluctance to "reward" the other side (which made a fuss about something not being done right) by doing what's right. NYB hasn't addressed the argument that an incident of action while involved, by an administrator, is never moot until it is made moot, if it is challenged, by the administrator acknowledging the error, i.e., that it won't be repeated. This is or should be, in fact, an exception to the rule that we aren't concerned about old stuff. The admin has the ability to make it moot in a flash, and if the admin can't or won't do that, we then have a present reason for concern that the same will be done again, given the opportunity. It would be resolved simply by saying, "that was then, this is now, and I wouldn't do this now, I was involved then, but I didn't understand, then, the obligation." JzG could have made all this mess unnecessary, simply by acknowledging what is clearly going to be a ruling: he should not have used the tools as he did. We have, here, an incident of a block that was during the RfC, while it was still open. This is not old. The bulk of administrator actions, for many administrators, are never examined. I did not do an exhaustive search of JzG's actions in general, only his actions with respect to Cold fusion (and I only saw the recent block because it was in the middle of the RfC!). Were his actions with Cold fusion unusual? I don't actually need to know. All I know is that he was involved and should not have acted, and if he can't acknowledge that, even with all the advice he's been given and with ArbComm finding that he shouldn't have used the tools, he's unqualified to be an administrator, it's too dangerous.

(On the other hand, as an argument for not desysopping, if the remedy is clear enough, and if he does violate recusal policy again, and it's noticed, it would presumably go straight to ArbComm for enforcement, so I can't argue that desysopping in completely necessary, even if JzG continues to stonewall this, though I worry about the precedent.)

My point is that my actions were within reason, that there is substantial sentiment in the community that it was necessary to pursue this, and, in fact, I had support. Where, in this proposal, is it mentioned that it takes at least two to file an RfC? Sure, I dedicated significant time, and that the request was accepted by one of the strongest majorities I've seen shows that something was considered important. Maybe that something was this disruptive Abd fellow. However, my major goal was to make the standards for recusal clearer, because I've seen a great deal of damage being done, ongoing, by unclarity about this. JzG just happened to present a very clear case, bringing it to my attention in an immediate way, with very clear evidence, and it came to ArbComm because of his peculiar stubbornness about it. Most admins would have gotten it long ago. Most admins wouldn't have had this problem in the first place. --Abd (talk) 06:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

NYB has hit the nail on the head. Abd appears to have developed an obsession. His recent sudden switch to editing of cold fusion is worrying, despite his lack of scientific training (this is what I have gleaned as the subtext of his extensive commentaries). JzG's actions were clearly not best possible, but he has withdrawn completely from this topic for some time now in a way that only uncharitable observers would question. Abd's editing patterns have on the other hand altered radically recently: as far as I can tell, it is not unlikely that he might shortly qualify for a topic ban from cold fusion because of his POV-pushing, tendentious editing and off-wiki activities. Mathsci (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I initially misread your comment as "Newyorkbrad has been hit by a nail in the head," and was highly concerned for a split second. Then I realized how utterly improbable it would be for Newyorkbrad to get anywhere close to a nail gun or any other power tool. Well, I think we are just about done here. Everything that could be said has been said. Can we wrap up this case, pretty please. Jehochman ^Talk 23:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. "almost the entirety of his editing" is an exaggeration; for example, Abd has put a lot of work into editing the Cold fusion article, an activity which has the goal of improving the article; I don't see it as affecting the outcome of this dispute in any way. The issue did not effectively become moot almost four months ago: only one month ago, JzG carried out an action while involved (Blocking [32] an editor who had commented [33] on his RfC). ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The time that Abd has caused us to waste with his obsession for force-feeding poultry to JzG far outweighs any damage caused by JzG. But then, Abd places little or no value on other people's time compared to his own; he has repeatedly given the "I don't have time" argument as justification for his refusal to communicate clearly and concisely. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

My, my, AGF, SBHB. If it takes me an hour to write a comment, and it would take another hour to boil it down to make it more pointed, and if this would have no additional beneficial effect, because people inclined to reject the basic ideas will reject them anyway if they are so inclined, and it would take someone a minute or two to read, more if they find it interesting, and much less than that to skip it, what, exactly, is the problem? If I'm writing for an audience of hundreds or thousands, I take the time. If I'm writing for a handful of editors following a Talk page, I quite well may not. I've been an editor, professionally. I'm not paid to do it here, I'm a volunteer. I do it when editing articles, not necessarily when discussing them. Watch, if you are interested. When I know exactly what point I want to make, to actually "push," I do it succinctly, and some like that writing even less. --Abd (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

JzG reminded

1) JzG is reminded not to take administrator actions with respect to matters as to which it could reasonably be perceived that he is involved in an underlying content dispute. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Of course. But, in context, given that he was involved, isn't it a bit odd that it's worded so daintily? Sure, he shouldn't take actions when there is a reasonable possibility of that perception. But, then, how much more should he be obligated to not act when he's actually involved, when he's been making content decisions and clearly supporting one side of a dispute, to the point that he was the major force behind the ban of Pcarbonn, instigating that and pushing it for a long time? --Abd (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I think the history shows that JzG has been reminded of this several times, and at great length, by a good number of editors, to seemingly little avail. If you really feel that one more reminder will be sufficient, I hope that you are right. Cla68 (talk) 01:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd urged

2) Abd is urged to bear in mind that noticeboards and dispute resolution mechanisms are intended to address ongoing disputes affecting the encyclopedia and the community, and not as ends in themselves.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Based on Abd's response below, this very nicely worded proposal is not going to have the desired effect. I will try to come up with different wording today. Risker (talk) 15:10, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Eh? I rarely go to noticeboards unless I think them less disruptive than alternatives, and expect some easy resolution there, which usually I get. I use WP:DR constantly, to deal with content, mostly, almost always at the lowest levels. There is, in fact, only one case where I went into serious higher-level DR, this one, and I did everything I could do to avoid it, short of abandoning the policy. ArbComm depends on editors to enforce policy, this is how we do it, by pursuing DR. Content is the goal, but if the community that creates the content isn't functioning, there goes the content. What examples are there before us where I went to noticeboards just as "ends in themselves"? But, of course, I'll bear that in mind. I teach my kids that when someone says to you "Don't step on my toes," the answer is "Yes, I won't," and maybe, "I'm sorry, did I step on your toes?" and not "I didn't step on your toe." Hence I will cheerfully affirm: I promise to use noticeboards and DR mechanisms to address disputes affecting the project and the community, and not as ends in themselves. Except I try to stay away from noticeboards, especially AN/I, unless I don't know what else to do and a situation needs timely response. I don't consider the noticeboards part of WP:DR. --Abd (talk) 06:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Risker: And the desired effect is? And how was my response above worrisome, if I read your comment correctly? It's not stated. I don't use noticeboards and dispute resolution as ends in themselves. Can any example be asserted? If so, I'll surely look at it and respond. --Abd (talk) 17:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

What is the point of this? Either do something, or don't do anything. Empty gestures with nothing behind them only give the appearance of addressing an issue without the reality. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Please assume good faith. If you would like to ask Abd to do something differently, please specify what behaviour specifically. Abd does not go to noticeboards as ends in themselves, but to achieve purposes consistent with the purpose of the noticeboard, consensus and NPOV. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion recommended

3) The community is urged to continue to discuss on appropriate policy pages any unresolved issues surrounding use of the spam blacklist (and the associated En-WP whitelist), including the criteria for including links on these lists and the procedures for adding or removing them.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Support. Except that I haven't found a policy page on which it could be discussed. The actual blacklist and whitelist pages are protected, the Talk pages aren't policy or guideline pages. Probably a policy page should be created. Or is there one that I've missed? Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree, the guideline Wikipedia:Spam blacklist should certainly be updated towards current practice, the general exceptions and emergencies, and should describe how to handle cases where there are 'overlapping grey areas' (e.g. where a generally unreliable source is inappropriately used by some editors). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Beetstra. Note that what needs to be done is to (1) update the guideline to reflect current practice, or (2) update practice to reflect the guideline, or, more likely, (3) some of each. I think it's fairly clear to many that some current practice isn't appropriate, but also that there are possible uses of the blacklist that aren't covered there. That page is, examined carefully, self-contradictory. So, when we are done here, I hope to be able to help there. --Abd (talk) 00:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

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Proposed findings of fact

Inappropriate use of lenr-canr.org

1.1) There has been some minor inappropriate use of lenr-canr.org by site owners, IPs, and others.

1.2) There has been significant inappropriate use of lenr-canr.org by site owners, IPs, and others.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Moot. --Abd (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Propose 2 findings of fact, I for the moment mainly support 1.1, but, awaiting independent review of the use of this link over the last years, I already put 1.2 here as an alternative. This may have to be generalised for use in a final decision. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This would be a decision about a matter of content. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not. This does not dictate what the article should say. It is a statement about the violation of policies, such as WP:V and WP:EL. Jehochman ^Talk 13:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of newenergytimes.com

2.1) There has been some minor inappropriate use of newenergytimes.com by site owners, IPs, and others.

2.2) There has been significant inappropriate use of newenergytimes.com by site owners, IPs, and others.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Moot. --Abd (talk) 03:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Propose 2 findings of fact, I for the moment mainly support 2.1, but, awaiting independent review of the use of this link over the last years, I already put 2.2 here as an alternative. This may have to be generalised for use in a final decision. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This would be a decision about a matter of content. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't be silly. This is calling out conflict of interest editing. Jehochman ^Talk 13:56, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate sourcing using lenr-canr.org

3.1) There are some examples where lenr-canr.org was used in an inappropriate way to source articles.

3.2) There are a significant number of examples where lenr-canr.org was used in an inappropriate way to source articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Moot. --Abd (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Propose 2 findings of fact, I for the moment mainly support 3.1. I focus here on the use of this site for referencing, asking if editors used appropriate reliable data from the site (used copies of reliable sources, or editorialised information, or non peer-reviewed information published on the site, or maybe linked to copyrighted information). This links to earlier principles from related cases: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Citations, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Scientific focus, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Neutral point of view and sourcing, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Undue weight, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Prominence, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#No original research.

Awaiting independent review of the use of this link over the last years, I already put 3.2 here as an alternative. This may have to be generalised for use in a final decision. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This would be a decision about a matter of content. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Noo. This is making at statement about WP:V, and its application to an article. Again, content of the article is not being specified. Jehochman ^Talk 13:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate sourcing using newenergytimes.com

4.1 There are some examples where lenr-canr.org was used in an inappropriate way to source articles.

4.2 There are a significant number of examples where lenr-canr.org was used in an inappropriate way to source articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Moot. Hey, I even used a link inappropriately. It was quickly pointed out and resolved, blacklisting not needed, administrative action not needed, just the normal editorial process. --Abd (talk) 16:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Propose 2 findings of fact, I for the moment mainly support 4.1. I focus here on the use of this site for referencing, asking if editors used appropriate reliable data from the site (used copies of reliable sources, or editorialised information, or non peer-reviewed information published on the site, or maybe linked to copyrighted information). This links to earlier principles from related cases: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Citations, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Scientific focus, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Neutral point of view and sourcing, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Undue weight, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Prominence, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#No original research.

Awaiting independent review of the use of this link over the last years, I already put 4.2 here as an alternative. This may have to be generalised for use in a final decision. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. This would be a decision about a matter of content. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Also here, no Coppertwig, this is about WP:V, not about content, the question is: was newenergytimes.com inappropriately used (one could say, in violation of WP:V), on a minor or major scale, to source content? And Abd, also you, I am not asking you if blacklisting was needed, I am asking you to comment on the question if there was, minor or major, inappropriate use of newenergytimes.com. If we find that that it was used inappropriately on a large scale (in comparison to the total use), then we may talk about the question if blacklisting could have been appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, I don't have a clue how one would make a decision about "inappropriate use" without making a content decision. I don't know why you are flogging this one. There wasn't large-scale use, there was use almost entirely in one article, a controversial topic, watched by quite a few editors, no need for blacklisting to deal with alleged inappropriate usage at all. And at least some of what JzG yanked from two articles Cold fusion and Martin Fleischmann has been returned and more will follow, I assume. So these sources were inappropriately used in the past? What does this have to do with blacklisting? Other than for the article, New Energy Times, I haven't found an appropriate use for newenergytimes.com yet, except I'd have it be an external link. It effectively is now, as a see-also (as is Infinite Energy (magazine)). Krivit does investigative journalism for NET, but I'm certainly not prepared to assert it as source for anything at this time, I can't even get Storms (2007) used in the article at this point as a source for "proposed explanations" of cold fusion, where the argument that Storms is fringe would be moot. Hipocrite, who started out attacking me (here) seems to think that it will serve the project to attack my work on the article. I'm bailing, I'm not going to work on an article while that kind of disruption is going on, I don't edit war and I don't waste my time, and if it's up to me to deal with him, forget it. Ah! I love the sound of that parachute. --Abd (talk) 03:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

New Energy Times fails WP:V, WP:RS. This is not a content issue. It is not a notable journal: it is a highly questionable journal. One indication of that is that it is not on the list of electronic journals of the library of any major university, e.g.there is a gap here on the list of electronic journals available at the University of Cambridge [34]. Abd had no need to bring up World Scientific here; that is not covered by this point but by the fact that some of his recent edits have been blatant fringe POV-pushing, a WP:UNDUE use of a questionable reference (a book that has not so far received any academic reviews). [35] It takes me a lot of time and all my skills and knowledge as a professional pure mathematician to summarise mainstream work that was done mostly over 40 years for the article I'm preparing at the moment: why then should an apparently self-taught editor like Abd take it upon himself to evaluate and summarise claimed research that has not even yet been evaluated by the scientific community or entered any major text-book? To me it seems Abd is getting very close to the line on wikipedia policies. If he argues like this on the talk pages of cold fusion and is freely consulting with Krivit and Rothwell off-wiki, he might ultimately be heading for a topic ban. I have noted that Abd has abandoned editing cold fusion, judging by this statement on the talk page. [36] He states there: I will, therefore, begin to work on a fork of the article in my user space. Mathsci (talk) 05:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Easy, Abd. Citations should not be disproportionately to the prominence of the view they are citing or in a manner that conveys undue weight. So the question here: Were citations to newenergytimes.com used disproportionately to the prominence of the view they are citing or in manner that conveys undue weight? Was that done? Can you answer that question? And exceptional claims in Wikipedia (and I think that here we are talking about exceptional claims, there is quite some controversy about Cold fusion) require high quality sources. Newenergytimes.com does contain editorials, which are NOT high quality sources. Were those editorials on newenergytimes.com used to cite claims? Can you answer that question? That is not deciding if the content should be there! And where, again, do I speak about blacklisting (quoting you "what does this have to do with blacklisting")? I am NOT talking about blacklisting, if we reach the conclusion here that there has been some minor inappropriate use, then that helps your cause, blacklisting would have been wrong! Or if you say 'no, there has been no single example of inappropriate use', then we are also finished here. What we are trying to do here, is to determine a scale. Every single possible external site that one can find on the whole friggin' internet has appropriate use on Wikipedia, even the most dirty porn site, malware sites, redirect sites, name it. You can not give me an example of a site where you, I, or anyone can say, that there is absolutely no possible use of that site anywhere here on wikipedia. The criterium 'but I found an appropriate use of newenergytimes.com' is just an inverse of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, and according to your reasoning there then, the spam-blacklist extension should simply be turned off, as, as I just said, that is true for every single site! But that is also not the question, the question is, was it used inappropriately.

Parachute, Abd? Do you mean by that what I think you mean? Please, do not try to anticipate what I might answer when deciding what you answer to the initial question, you may be completely wrong on what I am getting at (hint: I am here not thinking about blacklisting here, I am (still) in favour of 4.1). The question here is, has there been, on a minor or major scale, misuse of newenergytimes.com as a reference? Simple question. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

"Parachute" means that, until something different happens, I'm not doing any major work on Cold fusion, it's impossible, and the only way I'd be able to do it would be to pursue dispute resolution with someone who has become (short-term) practically an anti-Abd SPA, and, guess what? I recuse. (Long term for this editor: dedicated to supporting anti-fringe, associated with ScienceApologist.) I'm mentioning it, and I will testify or support others if called upon, but my dog just dropped out of the race, and has other stuff to do. Has there been misuse? Of course there has.

Cold fusion is, contrary to the recent comment of at least one arbitrator (one whom I respect very much), a very controversial field both among the general public and among scientists. Robert Duncan, the reputable physicist consulted by CBS News for their recent Sixty Minutes documentary on Cold fusion, has reported being roundly attacked for daring to investigate the topic (beginning as a skeptic, as I was four months ago) and providing his conclusions. He gave a talk at a conference recently, I watched it as video, on cold fusion. That video has disappeared, and the topic of his talk edited out of the page it was linked from, without explanation. See [37] if interested. In any case, back to the question: I used a link to newenergytimes.com inappropriately, I acknowledge that above, without naming the link. Basically, I'd assumed that New Energy Times was like lenr-canr.org, and the latter claims and probably has actually obtained permission from all authors and publishers for hosted papers. When I added a link to NET for an important paper to Cold fusion as a convenience link, it was reverted immediately as copyvio. Since I (incorrectly) assumed that this was basically the same claim as the old claim made about lenr-canr.org, I was ready to rise in umbrage. But I investigated. I couldn't find the same generic claim of permission on NET and, instead, found a generic claim of Fair Use, and the application of Fair Use to a complete copy of a paper is, shall we say, shaky. NET may, in fact, be able to get away with it, but this put the page at NET over the edge, linking to such a page on NET violates our external link policy re copyright. I am sure that others have made similar mistakes in the past, and, given that lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com are the two most prominent web sites on the topic of cold fusion, and editors periodically find out about cold fusion and want to put what they've found into our article, and others may come here with an intention to "fix" our article to make it show the "truth" (TM), it would be astonishing if there were not inappropriate uses.

However, the only removals I saw recently where I investigated were reasonable as links, and had been standing, under review, for quite some time. As an example of something that had been removed in the past, NET was used as an External link before, and that does not violate EL policy, and linking to partisan sites for further research on controversial topics doesn't violate neutrality. It is effectively used now in this way, but through a See-also. Those were proper links, assuming that they were accepted by rough consensus. Generally, JzG blacklisted because he couldn't get the editors of the articles to sufficiently agree with him and support his position; had they done so, blacklisting would have been quite unnecessary. When one link to a lenr-canr.org page was whitelisted, and it was placed in Martin Fleischmann as a convenience link for a paper already cited, JzG edit warred to keep it out. Instead of edit warring "back," and when an ANI report on the edit warring was rejected as a "content dispute," which it was not, I went through an exhaustive consensus-finding process that resulted in clear consensus to use the link. JzG reverted it once more, was reverted, and it stands. That post-blacklisting process showed JzG's level of attachment to his opinion about lenr-canr.org, where he long asserted his position (over several years, I think), ignored contrary evidence, ignored evidence that his view wasn't supported except in narrow discussions with a few friends, and ultimately used his tools in support of it. --Abd (talk) 17:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I just looked at Martin Fleischmann and I see that Verbal, who has become very active recently with Cold fusion, [unverified reprint has removed] the link from that article, and what this shows is that if nobody is watching, you can do about anything. After weeks of discussion, going over every detail of the arguments for inclusion or exclusion, it was a settled consensus that the link stayed in, and because nobody had actually contacted Tsinghua University to verify permission, and nobody seemed to be left that thought the link inappropriate, but one editor wanted the lack of verification to be noted, the text was allowed with the link, as a compromise, "unverified reprint." Nobody objected to this, and it was not a protest against the link. It was the simple truth, and it's true about most of our links to copies. There really is no special reason to think lenr-canr.org is at all likely to host an altered copy other than inadvertently, or, as they did with one paper long ago, with a prepended comment (and that's not the case with this link). --Abd (talk) 17:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Abd, for this long and winding answer, where you are critical about one of your own link additions. Of course, your use of the link was in good faith, not intentionally trying to put a POV on the article, and not misinterpreting the data, or intentionally linking to something that was actually a copyright violation. I now see, indeed, that I should have worded a part of my explanation a bit different: '... published on the site, or maybe linked to copyrighted information)' should have been 'published on the site, or maybe intentionally linked to copyrighted information)'. But I think that you misunderstood my point here. It has been established, in the past, that content (yes, a content decision!) of these articles had a strong POV, and was strongly giving an undue weight to positive information. What I try to establish here, is if newenergytimes.com was, to a minor or major scale, used to reference Cold fusion and related articles to give undue weight, either by misinterpreting or giving undue weight to positive parts of references (either reliable or unreliable), or by including information cited to unreliable material on the site. It should also analyse to what scale copyrighted information was linked.

You say above "I'd assumed that New Energy Times was like lenr-canr.org, and the latter claims and probably has actually obtained permission from all authors and publishers for hosted papers. When I added a link to NET for an important paper to Cold fusion as a convenience link, it was reverted immediately as copyvio. Since I (incorrectly) assumed that this was basically the same claim as the old claim made about lenr-canr.org". Hence, you also assume that JzG did not investigate fully. But we are slipping away from the subject in this finding of fact, these are questions that are handled in other findings of fact, or may be suitable for future finding of facts. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Turning to the primary purpose in the RfAr: JzG did not investigate fully, that's clear. He never asserted what I disclosed above, the issue of a fair use claim. (It should be realized that most of NET is original material, which they hold copyright on, there are only a handful of papers they host under a fair use claim. The situation is very different with lenr-canr.org, where almost everything they host is material published elsewhere but often very difficult to obtain.) JzG asserted copyvio, and disregarded lenr-canr.org's claims of permission from authors and publishers. (He did not mention that they made such a claim, initially, but when it was pointed out, he then rejected the claim as impossible, based on his personal experience with Elsevier. Apparently, he assumed that if he couldn't get permission, nobody could. He also initially asserted that lenr-canr.org only had permission from authors, but needed it from publishers. What JzG was doing was making up arguments as he went. He starts with a belief in his own opinion, then finds reasons to prove it. In fact, for us, a claim of permission that is reasonable is sufficient, and claims that "verification" of permission is required have been rejected as extreme. They are practically fatal to convenience links, who is going to bother?

Some, here, are raising a fuss about the fact that I've communicated with the editor of NET, and with Rothwell, the published author and manager of lenr-canr.org. In the case of NET and the Mosier-Boss paper I wanted to cite, when the objection was raised about copyright, I wrote to Krivit of NET. His response was basically to blow off Wikipedia and me. He didn't answer the question. So I then looked more thoroughly at the site and found the fair use claim, which answered it for me. He didn't have permission, and I could speculate as to why he didn't want to tell me that. And I won't. I will say that he might have permission from the author, whom I believe he knows, and it's possible that there is some "don't talk, don't tell" arrangement in place. If find it rather strange that some would think communicating with experts in a field is some kind of misbehavior. Experts generally have a COI and are biased, when a field is controversial, and fringe science or not, cold fusion is definitely controversial, no matter what some of us say. (And I can prove this with reliable source, easily). But, surely, editors and writers of traditional encyclopedia articles would talk to them!

As to due weight in the article and in its history, the problem is complex. Right now, in my opinion, if someone is familiar with the field, knows the body of research, the article will appear, and will always have appeared, unfairly negative (and more so in the last few days with a very strong anti-fringe editor diving in, possibly as a result of this case; until then we were slowly finding consensus and improving the article, skeptical and supportive editors cooperating generally). But if someone believes that cold fusion was clearly shown to be proven false twenty years ago -- and this is a very common opinion among those who have not been following the issue -- then the article will appear to have been biased in favor of cold fusion, most of the time. This is a perfect setup for conflict!

The case of Robert Duncan (physicist) is one where a reputable physicist was recommended to CBS News to investigate the state of the field; he reports, as shown on Sixty Minutes, being originally skeptical, wasn't this all shown to be bogus twenty years ago? But, now, he's paid, or at least expenses covered, to check it out. He walks away convinced, to his surprise, that there is good science involved.[38] He's still somewhat skeptical (as am I) as to the prospects of cheap energy coming out of this, but he now thinks that this might happen and is worth investigating. That's how science is supposed to work! This is a neutral review, published by a major news organization, as investigative reporting. Today, I wouldn't even attempt to put some of this in the article as a recent development. Currently, an academic reliable secondary source is being replaced with pop tertiary sources that, in a brief examination, as little as a page, conclude everything is bogus (as opinion without references) and use cold fusion as an example of bad science. I'll watch and help a little, but I've abandoned efforts to actually improve the article myself, given the determined edit warring to keep out anything coming from alleged "fringe" sources -- which doesn't reach 3RR levels because I and others aren't willing to push it to that. At least not so far!

My point is that we have a setup where those who know more about the field are reasonably likely to come up with different conclusions than those who know less, and most people will edit according to these conclusions. --Abd (talk) 16:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Nah. I am not turning the primary cause of this RfAr. I am asking here if editors in the past (site owners, Pcarbonn, others) have used material on newenergytimes.com in an inappropriate way, to give undue weight to statements on Cold fusion and related articles. We already know and have already established, that the editors on Cold fusion were giving undue weight to positive remarks, ignoring the mainstream. Did they use unreliable material from newenergytimes for that, did they deliberately use only the positive parts of information published on the site? Etc. etc. I am not talking about JzG's reasons, I am not talking about blacklisting or having enough evidence for blacklisting, I am not talking about the content of the site, I am not talking about content here.

And yes, you are right, those knowledgeable in the subject are likely to give different answers then those who do not have that knowledge, they will want to include different content. But that is not what I ask! I ask if newenergytimes was used appropriately. That is something completely different. We are not talking about content, we are talking about to what and how content was referenced. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it. We are talking about content or not. It is impossible to make "undue weight" judgments without making content judgments. Talking about content, at least one usage that I saw later removed of newenergytimes.com was appropriate. At least one (mine) was not. I'm sure there are many others that I would put in the inappropriate column, and there may be others where the content was appropriate or, at least, arguably appropriate. So what? Why are we examining this here? "Giving undue weight" is a content decision, and, in a case like Cold fusion, a quite complex one. My conclusion is that we report the science from peer-reviewed reliable source, preference given to the strongest sources, particularly peer-reviewed secondary source. We report the social history from academic sources, where available, from media sources, when not. As of a few months ago, I'd say that this means that we report that cold fusion is dead (media sources) and not-dead (peer-reviewed reviews of the field), and both dead and not-dead (Undead science is the name of Simon's sociological study). We do not choose between these. New Energy Times is an investigative journal. Is it usable? That depends on what it's used for! It contains interviews, for example, with notable people in the field. If Krivit spent his time doing that, his publisher was spending money on it. He's an employee, not a volunteer. I am not willing to make any general judgment on the usability of NET, but I would not put it on a level with pr reliable source. I could guess about most prior usages of NET, but pinning them on Pcarbonn, I'd have to look, and I have not looked. Pcarbonn was banned before I even knew about the problems with the article and JzG behavior. Right now, I'm having enough trouble getting RS text into the article, properly attributed, etc., so I'm hardly going to look at speculative usages of NET material. Maybe someday, there is no intrinsic reason why some facts can't be sourced there. And others, not. --Abd (talk) 20:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG's actions in blacklisting lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com

5) JzG's actions regarding the blacklisting of lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com were not blatant violations of the spam-blacklist guidelines or other applicable guidelines, nor of 'normal practice'. He did, however, not follow the regular procedure for logging, which might have resulted in de-listing if no sufficient reason for listing could be found. Except for forgetting to log the entry, no other actions on the blacklist were outside of normal practice.

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Oppose. They were violations of recusal policy, and of the guideline that the blacklist is to be used to control linkspam, and linkspam wasn't credibly involved. (Showing links added, even if "inappropriate," which is a content judgment, spread out, over years of activity, is not evidence of linkspam at all; additions must take place at a rate such that lesser remedies are not adequate. Unless the guideline is changed!) --Abd (talk) 16:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Propose this, as I have seen repeatedly people using arguments in this case like 'he did not log the entry, so it should be removed', (the remark about logging says 'it may well be removed if someone appeals and no valid reasons can be found', that does not have to mean that these reasons are the same as the one in the log, or if the log entry has to be a complete representation of the evidence), 'it has not been spammed, so it should not be here' (there are other reasons why links are commonly blacklisted), 'this could have been solved by other means' (if User:JzG perceived the inappropriate use of this link of a large scale, neither page protection nor blocking editors might have solved it, as multiple pages and multiple editors were involved, making blacklisting a suitable 3rd solution). I focus here hence on procedure of the blacklisting, not if JzG was the right person to add these links to the blacklist, and if he really had sufficient evidence that blacklisting was necessary for these two links (these are different questions, put into different Finding of Facts and Principles by others). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose per Abd. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, here we go again, interpretation of policy: "They were violations of recusal policy", could someone please show me where recusal is a must per policy, and where is shown that User:JzG is really involved in the editng, so he had to recuse? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, I here discuss the procedure of blacklisting, I have strictly, from this finding of fact, tried to exclude a) if JzG should have recused, or b) if there is enough evidence to make blacklisting necessery. JzG has been, over and over, accused that he did not follow the proper procedure, and that therefore the links should be removed. Per the request of Newyorkbrad, those are other findings of fact which are NOT duplicated in this finding of fact. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Neutralisation of Cold fusion

6) JzG has, consistently, tried to 'neutralise' the article Cold fusion, and related articles, not with an anti-fringe view showing 'we don't want this fringe subject here', but showing 'this is a fringe representation of this subject' (where the subject may be fringe or not), in line with fundamental principles like our neutral point of view policy and earlier ArbComm cases Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion.

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Oppose. This may represent JzG's intention, but much of his editing was, in fact, exclusion of reliably sourced material, not the proper contextualizing of it and the use of other reliable sources for balance. However, JzG's intention to "enforce" NPOV represented involvement; his editing of Cold fusion, while possibly problematic in some ways, was not subject of any complaint here, he can be presumed to have the right to edit the article, just not to edit the article to "neutralize" it and then use tools to enforce his alleged neutralization. Further, very much, he used tools to prevent "fringe" comment from being made on Talk:Cold fusion, both by blocking two editors and by semi-protecting the page. --Abd (talk) 03:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - We need to characterize the editing, whether it was helpful or harmful. Jehochman ^Talk 13:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

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Proposed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. JzG has acted in good faith, but passing this as an arbitration decision would seem to support one side of a content dispute. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Support. This is an accurate appraisal of JzG's editing of cold fusion, in line with wikipedia core policy. There does not appear to have been a content dispute. Some of the edits involved reversion of the highly problematic editor Pcarbonn, now topic-banned for one year. Mathsci (talk) 08:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

And this shows why a discussion if there is evidence of inappropriate use of references to lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com is certainly not moot. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, this also goes for how certain editors of Cold fusion have used other reliable sources. The sources are maybe reliable, but they were used in a way which clearly gave undue weight to the positive parts, ignoring core conclusions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Support That's the main problem at the article, people giving excessive weight to positive reports that have little or no weight at all, and trying to downplay the massive weight of certain negative sources. JzG was enforcing WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT, and the material he was removing was either very fringe or was being misused to push a POV. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate sourcing

7) Editors have used both reliable and unreliable sources in a selectively way to give an undue weight to Cold fusion and related articles.

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Proposed. This finding is following from the principles Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science#Citations/Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Neutral Point Of View/Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Neutral point of view and sourcing/Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion#Undue weight, though these cases have not evaluated the appropriateness or the inappropriateness of the use of the references. Just to be clear, this is not saying that the content should not be included, nor that all these links are up for blacklisting now. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Alecmconroy

Proposed Principles

Decorum and civility

1) Wikipedia editors are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, trolling, harassment, disruptive point-making, gaming the system, and using Wikipedia as a battleground, is prohibited. Administrators and other experienced editors should especially strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another.

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Support. --Abd (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Cribbed from C68-FM-SV. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No Personal Attacks

2) Some types of comments are never acceptable-- Racial, sexual, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, or other epithets (such as against people with disabilities) directed against another contributor. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual preference, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse.

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Support. By the way, I am not autistic, which isn't really important, but just for the record. I do have Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is controversial, many with it don't like the "disorder" part, but I recognize it as one, i.e., it has a negative impact on my communication with others, in ways that are common and typical. ADHD is, in fact, a mixed bag, it produces both benefits and harm, hence some consider it a functional genetic variation that benefits a society overall. I can say this: if everyone were like me, it would be a disaster. And if nobody were like me, it would be a different kind of disaster. Indeed, it takes all kinds. Societies which get rid of gadflies have low survival expectancy. Societies run by them (happens sometimes) have even lower survival expectancy. --Abd (talk) 16:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Taken from WP:NPA. Autism as namecalling isn't cool. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Findings of Fact

1) JzG is a longstanding and valued contributor to Wikipedia. He has been an administrator since January 2006. In addition to his other valuable contributions, for more than three years he has dedicated himself to some of Wikipedia's most important and sensitive administrator tasks. These have included, among other things, addressing OTRS complaints by persons affected by the content of Wikipedia articles; enforcing policies such as those governing copyright issues and biographies of living persons; and protecting the encyclopedia from would-be misusers of project resources.

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Support. One of the distressing aspects of this whole affair was that I was naive enough that, when I came across the blacklistings and was totally uninvolved, I thought that, surely, such an experienced and helpful administrator would immediately see the point and respond correctly. I was told, quickly, by an editor who had tangled with JzG, that I would need to learn to eat worms, and, indeed, I've said, I found not just a can of worms, but a whole aisle of cans of worms, only a few of which have been addressed sufficiently. Many of these, however, may be reflections, and opening and cleaning up one can might do a great deal of good. It's entirely possible that the outcome of this will be a new and improved JzG, at least I can hope! --Abd (talk) 16:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Cribbed from C68-FM-SV-- he deserved this praise then, he deserves it now too. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

2) Over a period of multiple years, JzG persistently directed uncivil comments and personal attacks at other editors. These comments frequently included obscene and vulgar language and abuse. Many of the incivil and offensive comments were contained in edit summaries so that they are permanently logged in page histories. Often, although not always, the inappropriate comments accompanied otherwise proper commentary, edits, or administrator actions, and the comments were often, although again by no means always or nearly always, directed at users exhibiting problematic behavior (but this generally is not a mitigating circumstance). JzG continued to make some of these types of comments even after Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG2, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/C68-FM-SV, and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG3 called his attention to substantial community concern about his style and other users characterized it as conduct unbecoming an administrator.

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Cribbed from C68-FM-SV. I think it's still true of him now. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Remedies

JzG admonished and instructed

1) JzG is again admonished and instructed to avoid the following:

(i) Uncivil comments to or regarding other editors, personal attacks, and unsupported allegations of bad faith;

(ii) use of administrator privileges in disputes as to which the administrator is, or may reasonably be perceived as being, involved in the underlying dispute; JzG, having previously been admonished by this Committee with respect to this issue, should be especially cautious in this area and should refer any potential use of administrator tools that may be controversial in this regard to a noticeboard or another administrator;

(iii) Unnecessary involvement in disputes or administrator actions as to which a he may be unable to remain civil and professional or to avoid excessive emotional involvement, provided that this does not preclude legitimate involvement in formal dispute resolution procedures where necessary;

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Support. --Abd (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No Alec, you have a longstanding feud with JzG. Why do you seek to involve yourself here? You weren't a party to the underlying matters at cold fusion, were you? Whether you realize it or not, you are disrupting this case. Please stop now. Jehochman ^Talk 18:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Cribbed from C68-FM-SV. It was good advice then, it's good advice now. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Replied on talk. --Alecmconroy (talk) 20:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I take the existence of a "comments by parties" section as an indication that people who are deeply involved in a matter are welcome to comment here. I therefore don't see the basis for Jehochman's request. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig, this page is for arbitration, not retaliation. Jehochman ^Talk 00:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree; and AlecMconroy seems to me to be participating in a totally normal fashion: providing input, similarly to you and me. It doesn't look like retaliation to me. It would be counterproductive to exclude from commenting anyone who had ever criticized the person or had a conflict with them, etc.

Wait a second – there's an irony here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

JzG briefly desysopped

2) JzG is to be desysopped for the period of one week, with administrator status to be automatically restored immediately thereafter.

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Support as adequate, perhaps, though not necessarily the optimum outcome. I'd rather see "to be restored by Committee order upon provision of evidence, which may be private, from JzG, adequate to assure the Committee that use of tools while involved will not recur." Note that the humiliation of JzG was also not a goal for me. --Abd (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. I will amend my own proposal to reflect the kind of language I suggested, but this proposal would be improper because it is clearly punitive. Let's walk through it: if JzG's behavior is not a risk to the project, he should not be desysopped, no matter what mistakes he made in the past; the only reason it appears that we desysop for making mistakes is that past behavior can be a predictor of future behavior. If he is a risk to the project, it's totally unclear what a one-week desysopping would do, particularly give that he's not even editing. The only purpose to a one-week desysopping would be a slap on the wrist. Oops! Punishment. Or "setting an example." Still punishment. So, no. Not this. I've asked Jehochman to strike his comments and proposal about Alec, I think it likely he will, so I'm refraining from additional commentary on them for today. --Abd (talk) 01:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

No - Arbitration is not for tossing darts at historical adversaries. Jehochman ^Talk 18:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

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Could be a way to make warnings be heeded. As is, I think we lose valuable admins because we escalate from "warning" to "more warnings" to "permanent desysop". If we could find a baby step in between, maybe it would help. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Pointless attempt at retribution having nothing to do with this ArbCom case, per Jehochman. Mathsci (talk) 20:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Support per Alecmconroy. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC) I think I might have put that in the wrong section by mistake. As far as I remember I wasn't going to comment directly on this one. (Or possibly I changed my mind.) I was going to say: I'm not commenting on whether or not this is warranted in this case, but I generally support the "baby steps" idea. Similarly, rather than giving an editor a number of warnings and then suddenly indef-blocking them, I think it's usually best if blocks begin with short blocks. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the intention was good, to find something short of pure desysopping, but the realization is defective, and, in fact, any desysopping can be reversed by ArbComm at its discretion. So why a week? Why not indef until a condition is satisfied, which ArbComm can set and review privately. --Abd (talk) 01:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

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Analysis of evidence

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Analysis of evidence presented by Abd

I made a proposal above that JzG was involved on the Cold fusion article based on my proposed principle #2, because there seemed to be evidence of significant content edits to the article. However, WP:INVOLVED indicates that recusal is not necessary in the case of purely administrative actions such as the enforcement of policy (which I encapsulated in my proposed principle). For me to reasonably conclude that JzG was involved on the article, there therefore has to be a significant alteration/addition of content outside of implementation of policy. Looking at the diffs supplied by Abd, this is a difficult conclusion to draw:

Abd's first diff - I looked at the subsequent reversal, but to be honest, reading the text that JzG altered, then if he was in error, it was because of poor English usage. To say in one sentence, the panel were evenly split, only to immediately say "Two thirds held opinion X" is not accurate, or at least not explicit enough in what is being said. This can therefore be attributed as a non-substantial edit to enforce NPOV.

Abd's second diff - this reads as attempting to restore a NPOV, per policy.

Abd's third diff - again, JzG even indicates in the edit summary that it is to enforce policy. and only moves the material - he does not remove it

Abd's fourth diff - less clear-cut. Removal of links is what got us here, in essence. But this is not a significant content edit - the reference to kook in the edit summary is just a brusque British way of saying "against WP:NPOV"

Abd goes on to say that JzG made 140 edits to Talk:Cold fusion. That's a good thing. If an administrator is trying to enforce policies, they are meant to communicate with other users - failure to communicate over potentially controversial enforcement of policy has been used to desysop administrators, and rightly so. The single diff presented as evidence is not indicative of JzG's point of view at all. In fact, it is explicitly the view of someone else and their conclusion - now, this is quite normal on a Wikipedia article isn't it?

The problem therefore with the evidence presented is that it paints the picture of an administrator enforcing our policies on NPOV and interacting with editors whose work he might be disrupting on the talkpage. Since this is obviously not what Abd intended, he may wish to go and rustle up some more relevant diffs. As it stands, the closest this evidence draws to admonishment of JzG is this line from WP:UNINVOLVED:

However, if there is doubt, or a personal motive may be alleged, it may still be better to pass it to others where possible.

Whether this highly conditional sentence is sufficient for Arbcom sanction, let alone the proposed desyssopping, seems questionable to me. I won't deal with analysing the blacklisting evidence since better minds than mine are looking at it, but are these diffs really it in terms of trying to show involvement on the article? Fritzpoll (talk) 07:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

This analysis fundamentally misunderstands the role of an administrator. Administrators are indeed empowered to enforce some policies, namely behavioural policies (sometimes called "conduct policies"), such as the vandalism policy, the edit warring policy or the no personal attacks policy. Their use of administrative tools in doing so is further governed by policies relating to those specific tools (for example, the blocking policy). Administrators are not empowered to enforce content policies, such as the neutral point of view policy or the verifiability policy. Whether some piece of content satisfies the neutral point of view or not, or is original research or not, is an editorial question, to be resolved by consensus among editors. --bainer (talk) 09:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Abd's first diff. Fritpoll is advancing a content argument. Here was the original text:

When asked "Is there compelling evidence for power that cannot be attributed to ordinary chemical or solid state sources", the panelists were evenly split. Two thirds of the panel did not feel that there was any conclusive evidence for low energy nuclear reactions, five found the evidence "somewhat convincing" and one was entirely convinced. The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments in this field.

Boiling down: "When asked Question A, the panelists were evenly split. On Question B, two-thirds gave Answer 1, five gave Answer 2, and one gave Answer 3." (Do the math, you can calculate how many panelists there were.) Why did I pick this particular one? Well, it was JzG's first edit, and it was accompanied with a snide edit comment, (Someone does not understand what "evenly split" means. A 2/3 majority against is not "evenly split".) Pcarbonn, reverting, dished it back: (rvt. Some one does not understand that the panel answered 2 different questions differently: excess heat, and nuclear reactions. The text is verbatim from the DOE report.)

Why did I pick this edit? Well, its a reasonable speculation that this was the origin of conflict between JzG and Pcarbonn, it was JzG's first edit to the article, and, bang!, he's possibly humiliated (I'd say that it's humiliating to assert ignorance and to be shown that one is, oneself, ignorant), and he gets no support from other editors. Did JzG learn from this? No. One of his most recent edits to the article was very similar, removing the same sourced information, based on his interpretation of the conclusion of the DOE (which isn't warranted, actually, it's heavily POV synthesis). He was [reverted] by Phil153, who is clearly in the "skeptical" camp.

This edit, by itself, wouldn't mean much at all. Everybody makes mistakes. But seen in the light of the entire sequence of edits, and especially the recent one, it shows an editor who had an opinion in 2006, shown clearly to be contrary to consensus and fact -- he'd removed a direct quote from the source, the POV is displayed in many edits, and which is still being asserted in 2009 with removal of the same text, but with a somewhat more sophisticated argument, and still contrary to settled consensus. When it came to removing the whitelisted link at Martin Fleischmann to lenr-canr.org, many of the removals had no discussion in Talk, and new reasons appeared in sequence for the same edit, leading to an obvious conclusion: the result was determined and the reasons were manufactured to justify it. (This was covered in the prior evidence page presented to RfAr/Clarification, since deleted by MfD). I've been criticized for being supposedly unwilling to admit error, to receive feedback? Let's say that I consider, when considering feedback, how these editors react to similar behavior by others, and I do tend to discount feedback that has an obvious POV motivation, because it's given to me and not to someone in the same milieu with much more blatant refusal to respond.

Abd's second diff is the recent edit cited above. And that Fritzpoll did not examine this in the light of the previous diff shows that he's not paying attention to the evidence he's trying to impeach. Fritzpoll also does not disclose the fact that both edits were reverted immediately and represented relatively stable text, reliably sourced. As an editor, fine, editors get to have a POV. The problem is when an admin uses tools to enforce that POV, and it's blatantly obvious that JzG both had a POV, edited the article according to it, and did use tools to enforce the POV, and why Fritzpoll is beating this dead horse is beyond me, he's normally pretty sensible.

Abd's third diff The edit summary: (Extreme WP:UNDUE in the lead; it is special pleading at its worst. So what if the CF advocates are still saying it exists? No new significant work since the 2004 review)

Fritzpoll argues: again, JzG even indicates in the edit summary that it is to enforce policy. and only moves the material - he does not remove it

The edit summary shows the POV and the involvement. It's not necessary to look much at the edit itself, Fritzpoll is correct that the edit only moved material from the lead to the body, but this is a content edit, involving content judgment. If this were the only edit, or if there were only a handful, the argument that JzG wasn't sufficiently "involved" would have more cogency, but there were *many* edits to the article and the Talk page showing consistent and extreme anti-fringe POV. Enforcing content policy is the job of ordinary editors, not of administrators using tools. Basic concept, and apparently some administrators have difficulty with it.

JzG holds a strong opinion, expressed in the summary, that isn't supported by peer-reviewed evidence. In March, 2009, after these edits, there was a big media flap over cold fusion based on an American Chemical Society four-day session on cold fusion, and, in particular, about a paper by Mosier-Boss in Naturwissenschaften that reported neutrons and that now has quite a bit reliable secondary source asserting significance, and that work was, I think available then, though not necessarily cited in the article, I haven't checked. Storms had been published in 2007, reporting much work, and Storms is RS. There was prior work by the same group, published in peer-reviewed journals, and, I believe, quite available and asserted in the article and cited in the material he moved. The point is not whether or not this work could be cited in the article, it is whether or not it is "significant." No new significant work since the 2004 review? That's JzG's opinion, which he's held for years, and it's impervious to evidence. Suppose he's right. Fine. Editors have the right to be wrong, it goes with the right to be right. But it's a POV, and it means he's involved, if he edits according to it and uses tools following it.

Abd's fourth diff: Fritzpoll glosses: - less clear-cut. Removal of links is what got us here, in essence. But this is not a significant content edit - the reference to kook in the edit summary is just a brusque British way of saying "against WP:NPOV"

And "Go f*** yourself!" is just a brusque American way of saying, "I disagree!"? The point here isn't the incivility, (though, remember, the "kook" would be an American, Jed Rothwell, later blocked, declared banned, and blocked again by JzG, it's the POV expressed). JzG here removed an external link to a site which is recommended often in reliable source as a place to find information on cold fusion. My impression is that he was destabilizing a compromise in place at the time. Cold fusion is (certainly considered as) a fringe topic, if you want to find out more about a fringe topic, you can go to different kinds of web sites, but among them should surely be at least one site which is relatively authoritative as to opinion within the field. Excluding that is actually warping the external links. There are two or three such sites. Right now, we don't link to them, but we have a See Also to articles on two of them, the only one missing right now is lenr-canr.org. Which is the more neutral of the two big ones, lenr-canr.org and New Energy Times, though the latter does try to provide objective reporting on the topic, though mixed with editorial comment. We should have both, at least. We could also link to Dieter Britz's bibliography for comparison (Britz is a skeptic), but lenr-canr.org and Britz already cooperate toward completeness of bibliography. Britz has summaries of many papers, written by him, very useful, so he can serve as a balance, if we get lenr-canr.org back (or even before). I find both Britz and lenr-canr.org quite useful for researching the topic; and sometimes we forget the readers in our zealous pursuit of some mirage of NPOV that isn't based on broad consensus. --Abd (talk) 19:43, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll argues, regarding the Talk page edits, The single diff presented as evidence is not indicative of JzG's point of view at all. In fact, it is explicitly the view of someone else and their conclusion - now, this is quite normal on a Wikipedia article isn't it?

Fritzpoll is correct, that edit alone, his first, again, in CF Talk, doesn't show POV. At all. It could even be read as supporting cold fusion. However, JzG comes back to this over and over. It was more clearly presented in the RfC, perhaps. In many places, JzG refers to the alleged opinion of his friend about cold fusion as the reason why he thinks it's junk, and in one place says that he trusts his friend more than Pcarbonn. I'd really like to see JzG come back to editing cold fusion and help by communicating with his friend about it, there are lots of questions I'd love to ask the professor, and JzG might be surprised by the answers. Basically, JzG formed an off-wiki impression about cold fusion, he talks at one point about showing his friend the article and getting impressions; he then tried to make the article conform to his opinion about his friend's opinion. In the meantime, we drove off one expert (Jed Rothwell, lenr-canr.org), badly burned another (Steve Krivit, newenergytimes.com), topic-banned an SPA who was or became knowledgeable in the field and knew how to negotiate consensus (Pcarbonn), JzG blocked another IP editor on the basis of similarity of POV with Rothwell (the editor is probably an expert, but surely not Rothwell), and an expert, Kirk shanahan, who is a published critic and who had contributed to the (now userfied) article Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments saw the article AfD'd as a POV fork, and thinks Wikipedia is biased in the opposite direction, perhaps because of the exclusion of his text (supposedly merged but not, in fact) and it's quite a mess; we have factions of editors who are heavily committed to some fixed POV; but most, with some work and patience, do seem to come around and don't, in the end, nail themselves to the cross of fixed opinion. The outside world is helping: more and more discussion of cold fusion is now appearing in secondary sources, it will get easier, I believe.

One of the frustrations of dealing with the article is that some active editors seem to have difficulty understanding the sources, so the presence of editors who are scientists, especially scientists with physics and chemistry backgrounds, is greatly needed. We don't need more use of administrative tools; the big stick doesn't help find consensus and tends to hinder it, and those buttons should only be pushed in extreme situations, as a last resort. --Abd (talk) 20:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Summary: diffs indicate edits related to the enforcement of policy, which is acceptable per WP:UNINVOLVED. Would suggest more significant diffs are required Fritzpoll (talk) 07:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, I find it very difficult to attribute Abd's first diff to JzG addressing poorly written English. I suggest that anyone with enough familiarity with cold fusion would understand that the text refers to the DOE panel splitting roughly evenly on the question of evidence for anomolous heat, and dividing roughly 2:1 on on the sufficiency of evidence for low temperature nuclear fusion having occurred. Anomolous heat is one piece of evidence cited that something unusual is happening but alone it is insufficient to lead necessarily to a conclusion that a nuclear process is the source of that heat. I would be very surprised if JzG claimed not to understand the meaning of the text removed in that diff, and in any event a lack of clarity calls for copy-editing. EdChem (talk) 18:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC) Struck as I was thinking of the removal from 2009 in Abd's second diff, not the first diff. Reading this second diff as an attempting to restore a NPOV, per policy seems difficult to me. Looking at the article that is left behind following that removal, there is discussion of the original claims from 1989, then theory, then a 'Further Developments' section that makes no mention of the review by the DOE in 2004. How is removing that text making the article more neutral? EdChem (talk) 18:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the debate here can easily become a content debate. I agree, though, the second edit is clearly more POV than the first; with the first, at least the claim that this unbalanced the intro was reasonable (though actually incorrect, and that's complicated), but, briefly, one of the big problems with history of cold fusion is that neither DoE review treated cold fusion as pseudoscience or junk science or "rejected," both recommended further research, with modest funding but not a focused federal program, there was disagreement among the reviewers with both reviews as to the science, reaching in 2004 to even division on the crucial question of excess heat (and, by the way, the division wasn't between "excess heat" and "experimental error," but between "convincing" and "not conclusive," which is a far cry from "experimental error" or rejection.

Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so remaining cautious or skeptical isn't the same thing, properly, as rejecting, considering cold fusion as proven error. The overall conclusion of "similarity," given the widespread media reputation that these reviews rejected cold fusion, if featured without at least some brief contrary evidence, which is available in the report easily, creates an easy impression that nothing changed, which isn't true, there were changes, it was just the conclusion that was roughly the same -- a conclusion about funding more than anything else, and the likelihood of practical power generation (many cold fusion researchers, apparently, consider practical usage might be unattainable, the effect might be too fragile, like another and non-controversial form of cold fusion, muon-catalyzed fusion).

This is a problem to be worked out with the article editors, and what's important here is only that JzG was taking a polarized position, one not at all supported by consensus at the time. He was editing the article, not to enforce behavioral guidelines, but alleged content guidelines, which is what all editors are supposed to do, only perhaps not with quite such firmness and persistence of purpose, i.e., see the first edit to the article in 2006 and then the similar edit -- even more drastic, in fact, because this wasn't the lead -- just in January of this year. --Abd (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I also went through the complete list of diffs provided by Stephen Bain and agree with Fritzpoll's conclusions. Mathsci (talk) 06:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It certainly does seem possible for someone to misunderstand DOE 2004, in particular the evenly split comment, as Abd has demonstrated with claiming a majority in the other direction, albeit with qualifiers,(I posted a correction) then later in this talk edit he states that, "But I think a majority also considered that the F effect was real, i.e., that there was more heat than expected, and that further research was warranted."(error pointed out here) He proceeded to repeat this error in fact here, wherein he claims that "But a majority of chemists familiar with the research appear to consider that the excess heat is real, that it can't be accounted for by ordinary chemical process. See the 2004 DOE report, and look at the details." Thankfully, it would appear that he now understands the evenly split comment, at least in the context of finding an error in others. --Noren (talk) 15:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This may indeed turn into a content discussion, but the question here is, is this 'removing content, or removing a text which displays a undue weight on positive results. I had a look at the second diff, which, on its own seems quite strong. However, like the cherries mentioned in the second diff, this one goes together with the previous edit by JzG, making the total removal look like this. Either seeing these diffs separate or together, there is in these diffs much relatively 'positive' material, while the general references are often much more sceptical. Lets specifically look at the second diff, regarding the DOE report (the text removed in 'the second diff' by JzG). This text mentions (quotes) two parts (one from the body, one from the conclusion). The first

“ Two-thirds of the reviewers...did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced. Many reviewers noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented. ”

being 'hopefull/moderately negative', the second part

“ The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions. ”

is also hopefull, there is still room for possible experiments. However, the main conclusion of the 2004 DOE report is

“ While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review. ”

, in other words, no development. That is however not mentioned in this paragraph, it only picked, in JzG's words, the positive parts.

EdChem here notes "then a 'Further Developments' section that makes no mention of the review by the DOE in 200", and that is certainly true, the report should certainly be named in further developments. But a more NPOV way of citing this would be (and now I am certainly talking content): "The 2004 DOE investigation on Cold fusion concluded that, though much improvement in calorimetry has been achieved, the field has hardly progressed since 1989.(ref to DOE report) The commitee however identified areas which may help resolving the controversies in the field &c. &c.(could have a cross ref to the same ref)." (or something along these lines). This removed section is hence certainly not a neutral representation of the reference cited, omitting the main conclusion of the document. JzG so could here have chosen to improve and rewrite the text, which would make him more involved, or just remove the non neutral information, making it more an administrative action of enforcing a fundamental Wikimedia principle, leaving inclusion of neutral information to knowledgeable editors. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Ugh. Short of it: Beetstra is presenting the plausible arguments of someone not familiar with the article and issues, that doesn't represent the settled consensus of editors who are familiar. It shows the problem of "neutral" judgment overriding local consensus without there being a coherent discussion of the local consensus for the neutral editor to review, so that the neutral judgment is an informed one. Sticking to the narrowest of content issues, the DOE report was based on reviews of the field by 18 experts from various fields, responding to a document written for the purpose by McKubre, et al. The summary was then prepared by the DoE, and should be read in the light of the purpose of the review, which was not to make a finding on pure science, but on practical implications: should the DoE, given the importance of energy, recommend large-scale funding of cold fusion research? On that point, the purpose of the review, the finding was the same as in 1989 (further research, no big money, routine focused funding). There is no consensus among cold fusion researchers that cold fusion will be practical for power generation, So the overall conclusion was quite unsurprising. When we look closer at the actual reviewer comments, which are available, a fuller picture emerges. If it were true that the material JzG removed were "cherries" and, given the importance of the review as a development, proper response would not have been removal of RS and accurate material, but balancing it with the rest of the fruit available. One content point is important: Measurement of xcess heat is made by chemists, typically, not by nuclear physicists. It's been pointed out that when we look at the 50-50 opinion on excess heat, and then exclude the apparent nuclear physicists, the balance for excess heat evidence being "convincing" becomes 2:1. Not all of the non-physicists would be experts in calorimetry either, for sure. Rothwell, who talks to lots of scientists ("believers" and "skeptics"), says he never met an electrochemist who didn't accept excess heat from these experiments. I'll note that JzG's friend (an electrochemist) thought there was excess heat but that the origin probably wasn't nuclear (where he's not an expert!). My point has been that this is a very difficult topic, where quick and easy assumptions about what sources show, and what the implications are, can be very wrong, where we need careful and good consensus process to resolve conflicts. Not bans and blocks and blacklistings unless clearly necessary. --Abd (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

But this 2:1 thing is determined by performing WP:OR on the raw material that was used to elaborate the final report, using a criteria that you personally believe to be determinant... --Enric Naval (talk) 16:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but that is just the point. Only the positive parts were used, I could certainly extend my text with the positive parts of it (and maybe also some negative points), but here it was simply not mentioning the bad cherries, nor one of the key conclusions (is it not important in a 'future developments' section to mention that in 15 years no real new evidence was found, but only that there was still not proven that it was not necesseraly untrue what happened!). This edit shows in my humble opinion, that User:JzG did not involve himself in the article, it shows that he clears the non-neutral parts, enforcing our fundamental principles. Everyone would be free to discuss on talkpage on how to use the references in a more balanced way, or how to insert a more balanced version of it (or even writing a neutral paragraph and inserting it). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree mostly with Dirk Beestra here; in fact I wrote a similar comment yesterday and then lost it when the power went out. The first diff, I had to read the "before" text three times before I understood that it was referring to two different questions: heat and fusion. The sentence is written so poorly that it could easily be read as if the second part is a rephrase of the first part, and if read that way, it does look as if someone is saying that 2/3=evenly split. I'm not saying that's a mistake JzG made in a quick read of the sentence, only that I had to read it three times myself to convince myself that that's not what it was saying.

The second diff, I agree with both Ed and Dirk, is more problematic, if it's the only mention in the article of the 2004 review. But the paragraph itself is too long and gives inordinate weight to that panel whatever its findings; besides, a summary of a panel's findings should just summarize the findings, rather than meandering around through the report: "there was this, and then there was this, and there was this." Whether that's cherry picking the parts of the review that are appealing to cold fusion promoters or whether it's just really really bad writing, I'll leave to the discussion at the talk page (as long as there are some scientists there) but the paragraph as it stood gave undue prominence to what was essentially a political, not a scientific or scholarly, review.

To me it doesn't follow logically to say that the removal proves bias against material positive to one side of the debate, since the change he made in the first diff, three years earlier, leaves most of that same material intact. But that paragraph was more proportionate in its weight, which inclines me to suspect that it was the weight issue, not censorship per se, that prompted the removal. I'd need to know how much JzG discussed this in talk and what he said about it there to make any further judgment about it. Whether he should have or should not have done the editing himself to improve the paragraph, rather than removing it altogether, I don't know, because I guess I still don't really understand the whole involvement issue, whether any editing at all constitutes involvement (which I couldn't agree with) or whether only editing that's not obviously intended to enforce policy, including NPOV, is prohibited, as Fritzpoll's interpretation seems to suggest. That interpretation seems complicated and difficult to enforce, especially when there is a difference of opinion as to what constitutes NPOV. If the consensus of reliable sources constitutes neutrality (which is the way I read NPOV) and if trying to maintain neutrality in the article reflects an enforcement of policy rather than editorial involvement, then from these two diffs here, I couldn't say JzG was "involved." But there are those who have a different idea of what NPOV is, and as long as that difference has been allowed to exist unresolved, anyone attempting to make the article reflect the consensus of reliable sources is going to be perceived as biased because it violates this other interpretation of NPOV. Unless the encyclopedia itself, I suppose in the person of ArbCom, is prepared to rule which of these versions of NPOV is operational, this will go on and on and on, and as long as that situation persists, there should probably be a clear separation: editorial involvement, which necessitates recusal, means any editing of the article at all (which again, I can't agree with). Removing or admonishing JzG may well be a good thing in the interest of process, but isn't going to resolve the underlying issue, nor is it likely to improve the quality of the cold fusion article. Woonpton (talk) 16:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why Abd accuses Dirk Beetstra of being unfamiliar with the article. It is true that, unlike Abd, he has not contacted Krivit and Rothwell off-wiki. I myself had an on-wiki exchange with one of the en.wikipedia accounts of Steven B. Krivit during the Fringe Science ArbCom [39], where I explained that the assertions made about the physicist Robert Park in New Energy Times would violate BLP policies (Krivit wrote that he was "not a scientist"). I don't completely agree with part of Dirk Beetstra's proposed summary of the DOE report: they recognized advances in calorimetry and wrote that individual proposals for support could be considered in future on their own merits - the word "controversy" was not used as far as I am aware. JzG's edits to the article seem to have been normal ones enforcing WP policy. As I said in my latest evidence, that does not seem to be the case with Abd's POV edits to the article or its talk page. I find it unhelpful that he has contacted Krivit and Rothwell off-wiki and uses the label "anti-fringe editor". That seems to be one guaranteed way of turning wikipedia into a battleground. My own view (as non-editor of cold fusion) is that claimed scientific advances in the subject are highly speculative, have not been properly evaluated and are not ripe for inclusion in any kind of encyclopedia. Mathsci (talk) 05:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's my radical proposal: use peer-reviewed reliable sources to determine what's in the article as to science. Not our individual opinions about what is "speculative," "properly evaluated," or "ripe for inclusion." "Anti-fringe editor" isn't perjorative, in itself, but it identifies a POV, that's all. We need that POV, just as we need its opposite. And something wrong in talking to "fringe advocates" with respect to a topic that's an alleged "fringe science"? I have a question about sources for Cold fusion, I can ask Rothwell, he knows the sources (pro and con) better than nearly anyone. He's biased, I know it, and I factor for that. But he's also knowledgeable enough that when he says I'm wrong, I consider it carefully. Others here would push a block button if he says something like that to them, and it looks like one of us did. --Abd (talk) 07:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

These statements by Abd show some bias. He appears to wish to use en.wikipedia as a means to represent cold fusion unduly, similarly to advocates like Rothwell and Krivit, in a way that does not reflect how it is viewed by mainstream science. The current online version of Encyclopedia Britannica has no separate article on cold fusion. WP:RS isn't as easy as all that in this case. For example Ed Storms has had a tentative book published by World Scientific: from my own RL experience in mathematics and theoretical physics, their publication criteria in mathematics and theoretical physics can be patchy and in general the texts are most easily assessed via the reputation of the authors. In any event isolated books by advocates cannot be given WP:UNDUE emphasis. Certainly at this stage making definitive encyclopedic pronouncements, as Abd is attempting to do, is not helpful. I thought these problems had been addressed by the fringe science ArbCom. Rebranding cold fusion as "emerging science" might of course make it easier for its advocates to push their point of view on en.wikipedia. But again scientific speculation of this type seems completely unsuitable for an encyclopedia before it has solidified and been generally acknowledged as correct. What's the rush? Mathsci (talk) 08:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

No rush, and certainly bias is in the eye of the beholder. What is a "tentative book"? Storms meets RS requirements; what is missing is, in fact, recent RS on the other side. The existence of obvious remaining controversy requires that we present Storms with caution, but excluding Storms because he's ... what? tentative? ... is precisely the kind of exclusion that ArbComm has cautioned against. I would detest presenting cold fusion in any way not supported by reliable source, and the real issue here is a synthesized view on balance. How do we judge balance? We have guidance from WP:RS and other guidelines, but those guidelines are actually being neglected here; what happens is that text based on supposed pro-cold fusion RS is being removed as unbalanced, instead of the normal process of using attribution and text from contrary sources, all based on arguments and opinions not rooted in RS coverage of the field. My goal is balance, it always is, but a balance attained through consensus, not through determined assertion of one POV, skeptical or promotional. We have a section of the article on "Proposed explanations." I.e., explanations of cold fusion advocated or proposed to explain the phenomenon. The best single source we have on this is Storms (2007). Remember, the section is supposed, by the header, to cover proposed explanations, so these explanations don't have to be "accepted." How do theorists (typically physicists) fit cold fusion into known science, what extensions of known science are needed, etc? And the section didn't have anything in it of any weight, just comments, for example, that the theories were "ad hoc." What theories? Wouldn't the readers want to know? So I added a summarization of Storms, who covers the topic of theory in a clear and organized way. It was reverted, with no effort to balance, bald revert. And that is now under discussion at CF Talk. The additions I made were, in my opinion, unbalanced, but a great improvement over the existing text, which was more seriously unbalanced in the other direction. In the section reverted to, no theories were explained, but only criticism of .... what? The section was also redundant to some of what is in other sections, but ... removing the redundancy would destroy the organization, and my opinion was that we should consider moving the theory and theoretical objections to one section, to avoid redundancy, but we have to start somewhere. The article tends to present the field as a single static entity, as if any objection raised to cold fusion in 1989-1990 still stands, to be given equal weight, no matter how much has been published -- in reliable source -- making the specific objection no longer applicable.

Because of the obvious problems with overall acceptance by the general scientific community (which tends to be polarized, chemists vs. physicists), the article, at present, should cover these matters by showing chronology, and by not using a 1998 media source, for example, to criticize a 2008 paper. Rather, the earlier source would be covered, then the later research also covered, with explanation of whether or not the research is original, first-report, or confirmation. I was initially under the impression that there were few reviews of the field, but, in fact, there have been many recent ones. What is the status of a recent peer-reviewed review of the field vs. an editorial in Nature in 1990 or a negative paper published there shortly before the curtain dropped and Nature refused to publish critiques? How do we balance these? These are the questions that must be decided by editorial consensus at Cold fusion, and, obviously, I couldn't control that even if I wanted to. What I will affirm is that I arrived at the article as a skeptic, believing that it had all been shown to be bogus twenty years ago (when I did follow the research for a time). My POV has changed, because I spent the last four months reading the sources. My goal is for the article to fairly represent what reliable sources show, and I have no appetite for suppressing majority views! But I also have an understanding that our guidelines prefer peer-reviewed academic sources, and then other academic sources (like Simon, perhaps) over sources of lower quality. --Abd (talk) 14:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Why is the book by Storms a reliable source? Abd has not explained that at all. Has it been reviewed subsequent to its publication as would normally happen with a major contribution to the field? I don't think World Scientific is peer reviewed in the way that University of California Press is or more to the point Oxford University Press. Besides the arxiv preprint server at Los Alamos has rejected a 2001 paper by Ed Storms according to Brian Josephson [40]. There is a recent review by E. Sheldon in the journal "Contemporary Physics" where the pun "unclear physics" is used to summarise the current state of the subject; Sheldon remains sceptical. I don't think four months of editing cold fusion makes anybody expert in the area. The only evidence that can be looked at here are Abd's edits of the namespace article and its talk page which paint quite a different picture from the way in which he tries to portray himself. Many of the edits there seem outside wikipedia policy: they are pushing a POV (that cold fusion is an emerging science), trying to misrepresent the topic (that cold fusion is now mainstream) and seem to have involved consultation with a banned user JedRothwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Abd's activities on wikipedia seem disproportionate. Mathsci (talk) 05:47, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Nor do I intend to explain here why Storms is a reliable source. This is a decision to be made by editors at Cold fusion, and if I think a source sufficiently reliable to use, I'm free to use it. Other editors are free to revert it. And then the matter will be resolved through discussion and consensus. No, my experience is not limited to four months of editing, and, in fact, most of my understanding has nothing to do with editing. It is a background in nuclear physics from my childhood (I started studying it at about ten or eleven years old), study at CalTech with Feynmann, following the field for a while, intensely, in 1989, then, starting in January, 2009, reading everything I had time for on-line, and I purchased six books: Taubes (1993), Huizenga (revised 1993), Hoffman (1995), Mizuno (published in Japanese, 1997, translated by Jed Rothwell, 1998), Simon (2002) Storms (2007). Those who know the field will be aware that the first two are highly critical, Mizuno and Storms are cold fusion researchers notable within the field. Simon is a sociologist, his book states the situation as it was in 2002: Cold fusion was "dead," i.e., considered a resolved issue; however it was also "undead," because research was still being carried on, papers were being published, both in specialized journals and in mainstream ones, and, while some researchers were amateurs, others were respected scientists with other known work. Hoffman is a skeptic, a true one. He focuses on the nuclear evidence, which, then (1995), was pretty thin. But he also points out some quality work, and refuses to close the question, leaving it open.

This certainly does not make me an expert in any scientific field, nor in this particular field, except when compared to Mathsci or most other editors. The "POV" that this is emerging science seems to also be pushed recently by CBS News, by many media sources in March, and, in fact, by the 2004 review by the U.S. Department of Energy that is the closest thing we have to a relatively neutral review of the topic, if we think CBS News not neutral, and the physicist Robert Duncan (previously skeptical) whom they selected on advice from the American Physical Society to investigate for them, some kind of dupe or patsy. But I write this here not to establish the fact, but only to assert that it is a reasonable point of view to be considered when finding NPOV. And that I've done all this work to come up to speed on the topic gives me no special rights: with that and reliable source and cogent argument, I may be able to support an edit, and like anyone else, it's subject to editorial consensus. --Abd (talk) 02:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Re Steven Bain: If I read Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse of administrative tools, specifically Wikipedia:Administrators#UNINVOLVED, then I do not see certain policies being excluded. It gives some examples where not to use tools, and WP:INVOLVED is vague towards policy: "... in an administrative role (i.e., in order to address a dispute, problematic conduct, administrative assistance, outside advice/opinion, enforce a policy, and the like) ..." (emphasis added). I understand that this wording is necesseraly vague so it allows for exceptions, but, if you don't mind me asking, is a fundamental principle excluded here? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This was the problem - I have a reasonable understanding of the duties of an administrator and what we are and are not meant to do, but mostly in relation to the work I do. I have worked in a controversial area in the past, and admit freely that when I needed page protection, it would never have occurred to me to click the button myself (somewhere in my edit history, you'll see me post a request to WP:RFPP for it). I had completely rewritten the article to comply with NPOV and FRINGE, and the rewrite was so substantial that noone could conceivably argue that I was not deeply involved with it.

The question is: where is the line? Hypothetical: I am using WP:HUGGLE and spot a BLP violation in the text of an article and remove it. It is libellous, defamatory, etc. It is subsequently readded to several related articles and in an effort to stop it, I block the editor. Have I violated the rules because I edited the article beforehand? Should I have taken the time to wander off and find another admin whilst the editor inserted libel?

You can come up with a number of recusal problems like this. How many edits is too many? What is the nature of the edits? My analysis here is partly to prove this point: bainer may believe that I misunderstand the role of an administrator, but I can assure him that I understand the role, or at least the perceived role of the Arbitration Committee - the interpretation of policy as applied to specific disputes. When you interpret policy in this way, it affects, in practice, the day-to-day enforcement of policies. If the Committee are to make findings to the effect that someone is involved, they need to be very clear in drawing the line, or to tell the community that the line has to be found - by making less specific finding based on a very vaguely defined policy in order to effect a desired remedy, you risk undermining the enforcement of other policies that administrators are meant to enforce. So my plea is, if you are to interpret WP:INVOLVED, can you be specific on the policies that can be enforced without the appearance of involvement? I know the split is content vs. behavioural, but that's not the policy as it stands, and that is not a sufficient definition unless you want to weaken BLP enforcement. Fritzpoll (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Fritzpoll, no, you'd have no problem. Recusal policy never requires you to not act when quick action is necessary to protect the project. If in doubt, you should recuse, period, which doesn't necessarily mean no action. It does mean no action outside of an emergency. I don't see you describing a clear involvement; enforcing BLP policy is an exception to many normal rules. However, the case you give, you would block the editor, short-block, and, if you fear involvement or an appearance of involvement (it doesn't matter which), immediately go to AN (since there is no emergency now, an involved block is not normally an emergency) or AN/I, disclose your involvement or the reason you think your decision might be questioned, and let it go. You protected the project, informed the community, and then let go and got out of the way.

Rule Number One is WP:IAR, which literally would suggest that you block that editor immediately. So you do it. But, then, if the involvement guideline or recusal policy or just common sense suggests possible involvement, not to mention if you are seriously involved (a sign of serious involvement is a strong opinion on the topic, on one side of content disputes, over an extended period), you should immediately recuse and notify. A situation you should be familiar with: I was discussing your actions on AN, under a report you filed for confirmation of your position over a topic ban we had discussed. In the middle of this, Fredrick day popped in with an edit (from known Fredrick day IP) that could be read as being from you. I commented with amazement, and speculated a little, did not actually accuse you, but openly considered the possibility that you were a sock (for background, Fd almost certainly has long-term accounts, and he claims that one or more of them are well-known, reputable, and it's plausible. He could successfully evade checkuser, he knows how to to it, he's proven that, he's only been "caught" when he was ready for it. What I did not know was that Fritzpoll may be geolocated with Fd, which could have created quite a mess.) I was blocked by Iridescent for alleged harassment. Now, AFAIK, Iridescent was neutral, but she did something very interesting: she blocked indef, but specified something like "indef until no need, not indef as with infinite." She gave immediate permission for any other admin to unblock. By doing this, she completely defused any serious problem I had with her, because it became moot. Sure, she made a mistake: I had ceased the behavior, stating my intention, before she blocked. But so what? Recusal rules avoid much needless disruption.

Something else is just as important. Suppose you fail to recognize your own involvement, and you use tools. Should you be desysopped? The general answer is no, administrators get to make mistakes. Only if a pattern is shown does risk of sanction start to rise, and, regardless of a showing of pattern or other action while clearly involved, if you, after the fact, listen to community comment pointing out the involvement, and you acknowledge this, that you should not have blocked, and you then recuse, which does not involve admitting bad faith, simply error, and sometimes not even error, it should be over unless repeated over and over: as an example, suppose you made an edit to an article which could show a POV, content involvement, but, in fact, you know it, you are neutral. But an editor objects uncivilly to your edit, or to a similar edit by another. Do you block? Suppose you do. Later, it is pointed out that there could be an appearance of involvement. So, once you realize this, because you will avoid the appearance of action while involved, you would immediately, as a sensible and detached administrator, recuse and get out of the way for any admin wishing to reverse your decision. You could say, "I didn't realize that it might appear I was involved. Now that I know someone thinks that, I apologize for creating that appearance and permit reversal of my action by any admin." Now, if you were seriously involved, this wouldn't be enough, because you would be pleading ignorance when a competent administrator should have realized the reality of involvement. But none of this should be overspecified in policies; however, if ArbComm wishes to explain some of this, it wouldn't hurt.

To take it to the extreme: suppose an editor, when blocked, claims you are biased and involved. Generally, you should recuse from further block of this particular editor, unless IAR requires action (which then makes notification and recusal obligatory). Let me point out that, once you have recused, you remain free to do whatever any other editor could do: put up, for example, a notice requesting a block, and you can track an editor's contributions if you suspect there will be damage. Ideally, as an admin, you should explicitly state with a request why you are not, yourself, blocking, so that an admin considering the action might be on the lookout for possible bias on your part.

Recusal turns the situation around: instead of it being you vs. the editor, it becomes the editor vs. the community. If you have been civil, and your action not utterly unreasonable, you are quite safe. And it's also better for the editor who was blocked! It is more likely to result in self-examination and reform than when the dispute remains personal. --Abd (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd, indeed, 'If in doubt, you should recuse', JzG was not in doubt in the end of December, he did not feel he was involved (and should is not the same as must). And serious questions have been asked if JzG was actually involved, or 'just' enforcing policy. And that is where the problem lies. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

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