Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 14

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Jytdog

Original Discussion

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

Motion

The request for arbitration was accepted, but the case will not be opened at this time in light of Jytdog's statement that he is retiring from Wikipedia and he disabled his access to his account. Jytdog may not resume editing, under any account name or IP, without notifying and obtaining permission from the Arbitration Committee.

Enacted --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Support
  1. Proposed. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
  2. Noting while I support this motion, that I oppose any block and would rather allow him to leave with dignity. WormTT(talk) 21:24, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
  3. I don't particularly care about a block one way or the other. Katietalk 22:46, 3 December 2018 (UTC) Based on some information received by email, I now support an indef block. Katietalk 15:36, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  4. I support WITH a block. RickinBaltimore (talk) 00:36, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  5. support motion, block is academic if account password scrambled. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:23, 4 December 2018 (UTC) Add: On the basis of material more recently received, now also support an indefinite block on the account. -- Euryalus (talk) 19:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  6. Supporting with a block. At this point, given the amount of dissembling from Jytdog during this case, I believe it's unfortunately necessary. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:08, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
    Wording change proposed by Rob is fine by me. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
  7. Support the motion provided a block is enacted. Inappropriate private communication is a serious issue and it is clear to me, and many in the community, Jytdog crossed the line. We have received both on and off-wiki statements and evidence throughout this process. Considerable time has been spent on one of the most heavily participated case requests that I can recount and has resulted in the community evaluating our harassment policy. Through all of this, it has become clear that Jytdog has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to exercise good judgement with respect to this incident and in the past. We have no way to verify if Jytdog has access to their account or the ability to regain access. As such, I believe we have a responsibility to act with the community's interests in mind first and foremost. An indefinite block is not only warranted, but also preventative. A block technically enforces the motion which provides one additional layer to deter temptation; the account is presumably no longer in control of the individual; a block serves a cross-wiki purpose should these problems arise on other Wikimedia projects; and finally it holds our community accountable to our most important policies that protect editors. Mkdw talk 09:17, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  8. Well, opinions may vary on exactly how to get there, but it seems like we all agree on where to go from here - no returning to editing unless you stop and face the music. This path suits me just fine. I've been vacillating all day about whether to actually block, even if we have reason to believe it's unnecessary; nobody likes seeing a colleague they valued depart that way. But in the end I think it's for the best, for the reasons Mkdw articulates. Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:42, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  9. I don't like how the motion is worded, as it looks like it prohibits a future case of sorts. Either way, support with block. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 23:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  10. Can we add "at this time" after "will not be opened" per Amanda's concern above? ~ Rob13Talk 23:54, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  11. Support but would like to see Amanda's suggested change. Doug Weller talk 04:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
#Like Worm That Turned, I oppose a block as unnecessary and inappropriate. But saying "without notifying and obtaining permission from the Arbitration Committee." is in fact a block--an indefinite block. It should just be "notifying" DGG ( talk ) 00:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. This may just be a case of how to word what amounts to a block, so I'm going to abstain, not oppose. DGG ( talk ) 03:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Arbitrator comments
  • The account should be indefinitely ArbCom blocked. Jytdog may no longer have access to the account and a block will ensure the motion is fully enacted. The situation warrants it and the case has involved both on and off-wiki evidence, statements, and past incidents that require more than a normal block. Mkdw talk 21:09, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not especially concerned one way or the other about blocking the account. If we pass this motion, and assuming Jytdog scrambled the password as he stated, the effect of blocking would be mostly symbolic. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:11, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
  • as it may not be clear from my on-wiki comments, I consider the breech of privacy relatively nominal at best, as the user asked to be contacted, and no private information was used. But it is an example of his general over-active approach to possible COI, for there was no real purpose to be served. It's the sort of contact that I, as an editor dealing with COI editors, would have avoided--and so would I think almost anyone else here; it was therefore inappropriate, as judged by the practical consensus interpretation of how to conduct oneself in such matters. If jytdog didn't realize that, he should have paid more attention to what other were doing. In dealing with the public it is necessary to be conservative and careful. DGG ( talk ) 00:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I am aware that my view is a minority on the committee and on this page generally; I do not know whether it is among the community as a whole. those who support the apparent majority should be contnet in getting what htey wanted, and I see no thing to be gaining by further argument--which is one of the reasons I did not support a case. DGG ( talk ) 02:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
An idea was suggested above by KingofAces43 , that we might say " Jytdog is indefinitely topic-banned from any material relating to an editor's real-life identity, broadly interpreted." I've tried to find many similar solutions in terms of topic limitations, and so have others, but they are very tricky to word. (My own idea was to limit him to article space and to talk pages when people asked him about his edits. Another possibility was forbidding him to attempt contact with anyone off-wiki about a WP matter . Yet another was forbidding him from dealing with matters involving COI. (there are lots of articles in fields he is knowledgable about that he could write or expand without getting involved in that ) All of these have problems. The specific problem with the suggest idea is that many people do use their real name or some versions of it, including coi editors, and including even people writing autobiographies. It is possible to discuss these things without makign dwefiite accusations, but actual identies are usually implied to some degree whenever there is coi.
There is a broader problem. It seems clear that jytdog has too great a degree of confidence in his own judgment and his own abilities. This can be seen also in matters not involving coi. He will sometimes therefore push too hard about whatever he is working on. And though it's improved over the last year or two, it hasn't improved enough.
There are none of us here--and I refer to all of us, arbs or not-- who is capable of making a judgment about what might or might not happen in any personal matter. It's presumptuous of us to pretend otherwise. I did not join arb com to make judgments, but to solve problems. I don't really have a solution for this one, and I I suggest that those who are sure that they do may need to think further. (There's of course the obvious solution that we remove him altogether, which I consider in this and in almost all cases here a solution of despair, which ignores the possibility of any positive contribution. The problems of dealing with coi and alt med editors will not go away once he is removed. As usual, when we have a problem we cannot solve: we pick someone to blame.
I need to say something personal. Jytdog remind me somewhat of myself in some of my pre-WP days. For many people, -the game-playing nature of WP and the opportunity to be impersonal increases their aggressiveness, On WP I feel the opposite--these very characteristics enable me to walk away from quarrels and over-involvement. And my own years of additional maturity may be the real key to it.
I really do not think I have anything more to contribute to this, and, as always, even if I could stand in the way of what others decide to do, I would not want to do so. DGG ( talk ) 06:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with your statement that the editor agreed to be contacted off-wiki and no private information was used based upon the private statement Beall4 submitted to the committee. Permission required is the core action and intent of the motion; removing it defeats the whole purpose because the case is being suspended. Without it, the case should move ahead without Jytdog if necessary. Mkdw talk 16:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
I see I need to respond further. The specifics of the event that started this are in my opinion relatively trivial ,and the sort of thing a that could be disputes endlessly. Fortunately, they are not important. The important thing is that it was certainly inappropriate, and part of a pattern of inappropriateness, so much so as to make it clear the person is not sufficiently in control for the role he has been engaging in. DGG ( talk ) 03:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
  • The motion is enacted and will be closed by the clerks shortly. The requirement for confidentiality is quite high on this one and includes several submissions from Jytdog and others. We no longer have a means to communicate with Jytdog and he has confidentially provided us with his final statement. meta:Trust and Safety has been provided these emails and apprised of the situation. It is now in their hands if there is anything further. Mkdw talk 07:50, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Additional CheckUser permissions for election scrutineers

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

Temporary local Checkuser rights are granted to Linedwell (talk · contribs) for the purpose of acting as a scrutineer in the 2018 Arbitration Committee election. Any additional reserve stewards appointed to scrutineer the 2018 election may also be granted temporary local CheckUser permissions without a further motion of the Arbitration Committee. This motion may be enacted as soon as it reaches the required majority.

Enacted --Cameron11598 (Talk) 17:49, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Support
  1. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  2. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:23, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  3. IIRC, the reserve had not come forward when we posted the last motion, next time we should wait for a reserve too. WormTT(talk) 07:40, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
    Or just not name the scrutineers in the motion. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
    In which case, why not just have a standing motion that stewards may have temporary local CU rights if acting as scrutineers in an ArbCom Election? WormTT(talk) 09:39, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
    I was thinking the same thing. Might wait for more comments on this first before proposing it for the future. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:52, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  4. Katietalk 12:48, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  5. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:10, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  6. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  7. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
Abstain/Recuse
  1. Mkdw talk 15:14, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion and comments (CU for election scrutineers)

  • @Callanecc and Worm That Turned: alternatively, the Checkuser policy could be modified to allow stewards to give themselves CU on en.wp when acting as scrutineers for an en.wp election. That way arbcom doesn't have to get involved and it would apply if we ever have a non-arbcom election that uses secure poll. Thryduulf (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
    I did think that, but was concerned about leaving an open ended route for instant local CU rights. That said, I can't imagine a situation where it would be an issue, since we do implicitly trust the stewards... or rather, they could do a lot more damage with or without the policy change! WormTT(talk) 09:54, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Seems like a good idea to save time; one can imagine a scenario where the minimum number of scrutineers and arbitrators both become unavailable, so policy-wise (i.e., ignoring IAR) we'd be stuck. Should something like this be put it place, it's worth noting that it technically gives the election coordinators the ability to select who gets checkuser. The coordinators have to be elected and they can only choose from stewards who, as WTT points, have immense implicit trust, so it's probably not a huge concern, but worth considering and wording appropriately (per usual). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:40, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment to the standard provision for appeals and modifications (December 2018)

Original discussion

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

The following text is added to the "Modifications by administrators" section of the standard provision on appeals and modifications:

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

For clarity, this change applies to all current uses of standard provision, including in closed cases.

Enacted - Bradv🍁 01:57, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. Common sense really. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
  2. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  3. Needed. A good idea to add Lord Roem's suggestion. Note that I don't consider the "enforcing administrator" to have sole responsibility for sanctioning editors, their responsibility is any changes to the sanction itself. Doug Weller talk 16:23, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  4. a rational change DGG ( talk ) 17:52, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  5. Katietalk 19:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  6. WormTT(talk) 22:32, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  7. (minor tweak to address Future Perfect at Sunrise's point, feel free to revert) Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:51, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  8. As an obvious improvement. ~ Rob13Talk 03:16, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  9. Now that editors have had a chance to comment, I'll add my obvious support since I proposed it. Noting that Lord Roem makes a good point that the 'new' enforcing admin should log it per WP:AC/P#Logging. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:06, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  10. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:09, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  11. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 18:10, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  12. Mkdw talk 19:25, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
Abstain/Recuse
Arbitrator comments/discussion
  • This motion will provide a mechanism for other administrators to effectively "take over" the sanctions placed by administrators who no longer have the tools available rather than needing to go through AN or AE. This was really already envisioned in the current language by noting that former admins can't act in enforcement. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 21:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Thryduulf, with this motion we're choosing not to address the question of inactive admins. It's harder to define exactly what constitutes a reasonable threshold of inactivity for this purpose, so we wanted to start with former admins, which is much more black and white. I'll send you an email about DF24. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:31, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion and comments

  • Makes sense. For clarity, the new 'enforcing admin' should make a note of this circumstance in the log when modifying the sanction. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:13, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • This is sensible for page restrictions. Does it make as much sense for topic bans or blocks imposed under DS, though? I don't think it is too much of a burden for them to be appealed through AE/AN - they usually are appealed there anyways, not directly to the enforcing administrator - and IMO it doesn't make sense to suddenly technically allow unblocking/unTBANing by any admin if the original admin leaves. One could scope this change to policy to only apply to page restrictions, which is the impetus of it anyways; I don't believe there have been too many problems with retired administrators and their TBANs/blocks, only with page restrictions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:01, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
    I don't see any problem with letting this apply to TBANs and blocks, especially the blocks. It's much easier for a blocked user to appeal a block through the standard process on their userpage than trying to get it done at an AE thread where they can't contribute directly. This is how most normal blocks are handled, and I don't expect individual admins to act any less responsibly with an AE block/ban than they do with a normal block. ~Awilley (talk) 19:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Is it only me, or is the language in the clause "... that administrator becomes..." structurally ambiguous? I mean, I get it that it must obviously refer to the new admin taking over, but grammatically it could refer to either of the two admins mentioned in the preceding clause, and to my mind it would even refer more naturally to the immediately preceding mention, i.e. the former admin. I admit I had to read the sentence twice to parse it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:08, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Is it worth adding something to say that an enforcing administrator can be changed when the original admin is long-term inactive (even if they are still an admin) or abdicates that responsibility (I attempted to do this regarding Darkfrog24 as my patience was completely exhausted but I was still pinged when it came to AE.)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
    • @Thryduulf: This is an issue we discussed on the list before this was proposed and posted. The issue here is ambiguity. How do we define long-term inactive? We elected to make the one change we could all agree upon first. I think your question is a very good one and one that we should investigate more thoroughly. It's not something I'd want to do without formal community consultation. ~ Rob13Talk 03:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Keep in mind that admins who are inactive for over a year are procedurally desysopped, so that kind of puts an upper limit on how long a stale DS sanction can go before other admins can modify it. ~Awilley (talk) 03:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
And one of my concerns with making anything more strict than that is ArbCom providing a competing definition of "inactivity" for our purposes. That could be seen as pressuring the community to consider activity more strictly, and while I would personally like to see that happen, I would like to be very careful we're not inadvertently pressuring the community by adopting competing procedures. ~ Rob13Talk 04:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Those are good and fair responses to my comments regarding inactivity, but completely ignore the question about abdicating as enforcing admin. Thryduulf (talk) 09:18, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
An enforcing admin can (mostly) already abdicate responsibility for a sanction by noting that any admin is able to change it (effectively granting standing approval) or by stating that a specific admin is able to change it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
  • This motion is a good idea, but can someone clarify: "the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement action"? It must apply to the situation where an admin is desysopped (or perhaps gives up the bit) for a period of time and then returns. Do they still 'own' their previous sanctions? EdJohnston (talk) 02:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
    • @EdJohnston: "This section" refers to the procedure that prohibits admins from modifying other admins' sanctions. In other words, after the admin returns, they re-"own" their sanctions (but not any that have been modified by other admins in the meantime). Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Instead of "regains the tools", I suggest something less colloquial (and a shift to plural to match the neutral "their"): "Should former administrators regain administrative permissions,..." The phrase "without regard to the requirements of this section" sounds a bit awkward to me, but I can't think of anything better at the moment ("notwithstanding" would fit, but I suspect it might be confusing to some). isaacl (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Separate pages

Can we please have separate pages for each request (like, for example, at AfD)? Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case gets far to busy to watchlist, when one is interested in just one of the two or more active topics. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Seconded - from looking at my watchlist, I don't know which case has been updated :/ - TNT 💖 21:01, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Are any of the clerks reading this page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:12, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll float this to clerks-l, however for clerk attention our notice board is always the best way to go. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 05:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
I suggested this back when I first started - IIRC there were two main arguments against. One is that you'd have to watchlist each case request individually, and if a new case was only announced to the broader community by a single edit at RFAR, people might miss new cases they have an interest in. The other is that the (possibly biased) original case name will be more prominent than it is now even if it's changed after acceptance. Personally I think keeping the history of edits to the request in an easily identifiable place is such an advantage that it outweighs these problems, but I also feel less strongly about it now than I did then, because we've stopped being so fussy about word limits. Previously, people would remove stuff from their statements in an effort to meet the limits, and then after acceptance only the trimmed-down text would make it to the case pages, even if the removed content had been significant to the conversation. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
A separate "..announcements" page can be set up exists, and can be used for people to watchlist for new (and resolved) cases. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Update: of course, Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard is already available. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:28, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Count me as supporting one page per request.--S Philbrick(Talk) 02:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
Agree with making it a seperate page. A new RFAR case would be more obvious in many respects, since the watchlist would not be flooded by contributions. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 17:57, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Any news? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:09, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

This kind of thing is, at this point, going to be up to the 2019 batch. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:20, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Question: Assuming this goes ahead (and I support the idea, for the record), what would the process look like for declined or follow-up requests? Dax Bane 06:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

IIRC my original half-baked idea had them blanked, to keep as much of the current status quo as possible - i.e. accepted requests are live and (internally) searchable outside of special circumstances, but declined ones are not. If I ruled the wiki, follow-ups (i.e. ARCAs) would also be subpages transcluded onto ARCA while active and then onto a case page (or somewhere in arbspace, for anything not about a specific case) once archived. Subpages everywhere all the time, death to copy and paste. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:55, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for the prompt response there Opabinia (by the by, how the heck do you pronounce that?!) - for clarity, by followup cases I'm referring to cases such as the ARBPIA and AE series (or, the "hey, arbcom, your last batch of sanctions didn't work - can we trade those in for some fresh ones?" cases) Dax Bane 07:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Like it's spelled - does that help? :) Those followups are, in bureaucratese, clarifications and amendments and live on a separate page, which has all of the same problems the case requests page does with messy histories, watchlist clutter, copy-paste archiving, etc. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:23, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Current threshold vote count to accept a case

If I'm reading all the procedures correctly, there are ten active members of the committee and four net votes will be met when seven of them decide to accept a case, but an absolute majority will be met when six decide to accept. So in effect six is the threshold to accept a case. Is this right? Bri.public (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I did a little more math and it looks like a successful 4-0 vote to accept is possible with the current committee configuration, in addition to the absolute majority of six yeas. But it's not clear why voting would stop here, or even when the clerks would call it complete. Am I on the right path here? BTW this might become part of a Signpost arbitration report, but probably not. Bri.public (talk) 21:44, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Net four means one side is four votes ahead of the other. Someone with a longer memory probably knows the history of that clause - I'd guess it dates back to when there were a lot more cases at a time. I don't think there's been any cases recently that were 4-0 for 24 hours and considered "finished". The clerks currently wait till someone confirms the details (timeline, drafters, etc) before opening anyway - this may not have always been the case. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I'll start getting a report ready for Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman, that's the one this really was about ... it was 7/0/0 yesterday but not opened as a case yet. Bri.public (talk) 16:55, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Ah, that'd be the "clerks wait till details are confirmed" thing - especially at this time of year, people are busy/traveling/etc and it's tricky to get drafters and timing sorted out. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:34, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
This may be helpful. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 07:23, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it would be useful for it to be noted on a request that a case will be opened but is just pending getting the details sorted - a simple note along the lines of "This case will be opened shortly when we've finished sorting out the details." in the clerk comment section would probably work. Thryduulf (talk) 02:00, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Good idea. Doug Weller talk 11:46, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

RFAR not doing what is advertised #2

Follow-up to original thread. Since that thread, the guide to arbitration now says three things are required before the committee accepts a request: 1) evidence that a dispute exists, 2) evidence that previous dispute resolution has been tried, and 3) preliminary evidence of wrongdoing.

As of time of writing, there's a request that looks like it'll be declined. The problem is, although I've not looked at it in detail, this request looks like it ticks all three boxes. In fact all of the four arbitrators who have responded seem to agree that all three pieces are there. The only difference is that if there is wrongdoing, it looks like it's the filer that's in the wrong. This shouldn't mean Arbcom cannot accept the case - it just means Arbcom will find against the filer.

I wonder what others think about this. It seems like Arbcom is ruling itself out of applying WP:BOOMERANG, but if so, who is going to apply BOOMERANG? Further, this makes it seem like the moment a case goes past the case request, sanctions are going to come against the accused parties (as opposed to just sanctions in general). Banedon (talk) 23:01, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

I think we can assume that those three criteria are necessary rather than sufficient conditions. Either that or we are going to need a bigger committee. CIreland (talk) 23:28, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Amendment request: Crouch, Swale clarification request (February 2019)

Original discussion

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

Initiated by Nyttend at 01:05, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
Modified unban conditions
Clauses to which an amendment is requested

The restriction on new article creations imposed on Crouch, Swale (talk · contribs) as part of their unban conditions in January 2018 is modified as follows:

  • Crouch, Swale is permitted to create new articles only by creating them in his userspace or in the draft namespace and then submitting them to the Articles for Creation process for review. He is permitted to submit no more than one article every seven days. This restriction includes the creation of new content at a title that is a redirect or disambiguation page.
  • The one-account restriction and prohibition on moving or renaming pages outside of userspace remain in force.
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • There's only one clause
  • Please specify namespaces where page creation is or is not appropriate.


Statement by Nyttend

The original unban conditions were clear: C, S can create pages in userspace and any talk namespace, but nowhere else. Now, the conditions are confusing: he can create pages in userspace, any talk namespace, draftspace, and no articles. But what about other namespaces? Is it necessarily a ban violation to nominate an article for deletion, since that requires the creation of a page in project space, or is it all right as long as it's unrelated to geographic naming? What about creating categories and templates if they're unrelated to geographic naming? Please specify the namespaces where page creation is appropriate, or where it's inappropriate, or give us admins other guidance; I've looked through the discussion at [1] without finding any reference to the issue. I don't have an opinion on what namespaces are good places for him to create pages, and I'm not asking for any particular result: I just want this restriction to be clear. Any user who's come back from a siteban will necessarily have a good deal of scrutiny, and if he creates pages in these namespaces, we're likely to see disputes over whether or not they're ban violations; either he ought to be able to create pages in such namespaces without controversy, or he should know that he's definitely prohibited from such creations. Arbcom can prevent confusion/disputes/etc. by clarifying or outright amending their statement in this area.

Per his statement below, it would help if you also clarified whether he's allowed to move a page between draftspace and userspace. Nyttend (talk) 13:12, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Crouch, Swale

  • @Nyttend: I don't have a problem with the restrictions including other pages (since that isn't something I really do much anyway), however it would be quite silly to say that I had violated my restrictions for creating an AFD discussion, since they were mainly aimed at page creation, starting an AFD is essentially initiating the opposite. Note that the discussions on geographical NC was lifted in July 2018 and the suspended restriction expired 2 days ago (I removed it). The page creation restriction was originally intended to be just an article creation restriction but it was pointed out that I has previously created quite a few redirects, categories and templates that were up for deletion. I don't think creating pages that are administrative such as POTD, SPI, AFD etc violate the spirit or the restrictions but do violate the letter. However since as noted its not something I'm interested in, I don't have a problem with having the restrictions include all other pages.
  • Do the restrictions also cover me moving pages to and from the draft space from my user space (and moves within the draft space of drafts that I have created) since I might realize that a page I created in the draft space is incorrectly named or might need moving back to my userspace. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:14, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @GorillaWarfare: The request in the previous discussion was "page creation" which does essentially mean all pages, though until I have got the missing articles created, I have little reason to think much about other pages. While I don't have a problem with not being able to move within user and draft (since I just add {{subst:submit}} to the user subpage, it does seem a bit silly since I can just create it at the target location anyway. However I'm not pressed on asking for that exception since that would unnecessarily complicate things. Its also highly unlikely that I would need to move an article that I had created since I will have had plenty of time to think about where to create it and most have obvious titles anyway. As pointed out move discussions don't require creating new pages (other than if the article doesn't have a talk page) and my editing doesn't usually require creating project subpages since I'm not active generally in that area. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @Thryduulf: "Other pages in his userspace that are not:" "(drafts of) content intended for the main namespace." "(drafts of) templates intended for use in the main namespace." What was meant by that? were you saying that I can't create drafts for articles and templates in my userspace anymore? You'r first bullet was "Draft articles in his userspace or in the draft namespace" being exempt. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:37, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Also with changing redirects to DAB pages, shouldn't that be allowed since as pointed out at User talk:Crouch, Swale#Broxtowe its just providing arrows when more than 1 title would be at that title (or redirect there). Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:14, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @SilkTork: Per restriction 4 "except within their own userspace and talk pages of existing pages in any namespace". The subsequent reviews wouldn't have revoked the "any namespace" part. However I'm not really pressed on being allowed to create project pages so I don't have a problem with the restriction continuing to include all pages (obviously I'd like to have the page creation restrictions removed as a whole but I presumably have to wait until July). However do we allow converting redirects into DAB pages, since that doesn't really fall under article creation. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:24, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @SilkTork: Yes I would assume that I shouldn't convert redirects to DAB pages which is why I was asking here, not that I have converted many DAB pages into redirects though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @Mkdw: So does that mean that I can create pages in any other namespace other than main? and what about DAB pages and redirects? Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:57, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
  • @SilkTork: Yes I would mainly be interested in if DAB pages and redirects could be an exception (but I am not going to push for that so feel free to decline that if its a problem) if people think pages like AFD/SPI/POTD sub pages would be OK, then they could be lifted but I'm not that interested in that since that area isn't my main focus but it may occasionally be useful. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • @SilkTork: To clarify does this mean that I can create any other kinds of pages (such as categories and templates) or is it only talk pages and "maintanance subpages". Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
They are both liable to get you into difficulties if you misuse them; however, if we are to see if you can conduct yourself appropriately and within reason, I think it is acceptable that you be allowed to create them as well. It would be sensible to notify me in advance of any such that you intend to create so we can discuss it. SilkTork (talk) 22:39, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf (re Crouch, Swale)

It seems that few (if any) people will have any problem with C, S creating the following types of page, so they could be explicitly whitelisted.

  • Draft articles in his userspace or in the draft namespace
  • Project space pages required by processes such as AfD or MfD.
  • Other pages in his userspace that are not:
    • (drafts of) content intended for the main namespace.
    • (drafts of) templates intended for use in the main namespace.
  • Redirects automatically created when moving pages as permitted by other restrictions.
  • Talk pages, including talk page archives.

The second last bullet should be included, even if he is not permitted to move any pages currently, such that no amendment to this section is required should his restrictions be loosened before being completely removed. Thryduulf (talk) 00:17, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

  • @Crouch, Swale: The bullets re draft articles and your userspace are complementary: In draftspace you can create drafts of articles. In userspace you can create (a) drafts of articles and (b) pages that are not content / templates intended for the mainspace. Sorry for confusion. Thryduulf (talk) 21:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Crouch, Swale clarification request: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • I've updated the case request so that it includes the wording of the restriction and I have modified the link so that it is now a diff. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 14:11, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Crouch, Swale clarification request: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • The wording of the motion applies only to articles. In the discussion we decided to look at only lifting one restriction, which was article creation. The discussion then focused on that aspect. Given that our focus, discussion, and wording was on article creation it wouldn't be appropriate to feel it included other forms of page creation. We may have been remiss in not considering that aspect and clarifying it; but for now for the benefit of that clarity, no other page creation is allowed unless and until the rest of the Committee decide to discuss the matter further and specifically lift restrictions on other page creation. As far as I'm concerned I'm quite comfortable in just allowing article creation until the next review in six months, but will look into the matter further if the other Committee members indicate they are willing to do so SilkTork (talk) 17:36, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
As regards page moving in space other than userspace. No, that's not allowed. I would suggest keeping articles within userspace until they are moved into mainspace as part of the AfC procedure. If the article name once in mainspace is seen to be incorrect, follow the move request procedure. SilkTork (talk) 17:56, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
User:Crouch, Swale, I assumed the intention behind "This restriction includes the creation of new content at a title that is a redirect or disambiguation page" was meant to prevent you from turning a redirect or dab into an article or something else, such as a redirect into a dab; though there may be another interpretation. Unless there is further clarity on the issue, I would say that you would be safest in assuming that the only changes in your unban conditions are that you can submit a maximum of one article a week to AfC. If in doubt about something, don't do it or come here for clarification. SilkTork (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I think I would be ok with moves from userspace to draftspace. Typical preference for AfC is for AfC submissions to be in draftspace rather than userspace, so I don't see a reason to prevent Crouch, Swale from making the AfC reviewers' lives a little easier. I don't see a reason to prohibit the creation of administrative sub-pages such as AfD/MfD noms, since those aren't really pages created for the sake of making pages, they're pages that get made as a byproduct of our other processes. I would not be ok with the creation of things intended to go into mainspace - navbox templates, geographic categories and so forth. I think that's a reasonable distinction. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:25, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Joe Roe, G13 also applies to userspace drafts that have been submitted to AfC, so moving submitted drafts back to userspace from draft would be pointless, especially since one can just make an edit to a draft to bump G13 for another 6 months. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 10:05, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Joe Roe, yeah, you're right. (I still think bapping it with one edit every six months is a far easier method though, especially if you're planning to keep working on it. But it's no big deal either way.) In any case, I'm still fine with CS moving stuff back and forth between draft/userspace. His issue was aggressively retitling stuff in mainspace that was the issue, not moving between namespaces, so I don't imagine it will be a cause of disruption. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 10:29, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Agreed with SilkTork that this only modifies the article creation portion of the previous remedy, which continues to prohibit Crouch, Swale from page creation more broadly. While I don't have a strong objection to C,S being allowed to create AfD pages and such, it's not something we discussed in the amendment request (nor do I believe C,S requested it) so we would have to explicitly amend the motion. I also would rather he not be allowed to move pages as PMC has suggested—as far as I'm aware, it's no more difficult for AfC reviewers to review drafts in the userspace than in the draftspace, so it shouldn't be an issue (and if it is, he should request another user move the page). GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:03, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Back so soon? Did you miss us? ;) I really don't care one way or the other about moving between userspace and draftspace; that's mainly a question of whether it's easier for AfC reviewers to deal with drafts than userspace pages. (Is it? I didn't think it mattered.) I also don't have strong feelings about AfD etc., but that isn't a topic that's been raised in past ARCAs. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
  • As worded, the restriction doesn't seem to prohibit creating XFDs or other process pages. Doing so falls outside the restriction scope ("to create new articles") and is therefore not subject to the constraints ("by creating them in [etc…]") put on CS' actions within that scope. If there was any other ambiguity, I simply am not seeing it. AGK ■ 17:34, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
User:AGK, Nyttend's clarification request is because Crouch, Swale's unban wording is: "prohibition on creating new pages, including creating articles on pages where one didn't previously exist (except within their own userspace and talk pages of existing pages in any namespace)." Which says "pages". Our motion says "articles". The clarification is on that point. Now, if we are to say our motion includes all pages, then we create a situation where Crouch, Swale is only allowed to create one XFD page a week after it has gone through AfC. Which is not part of the AfC process. So, as far as the clarification goes, I feel we are safe ground in saying that our motion does not include the creation of any pages other than articles. Now, do we want to adjust that? Unless Crouch, Swale specifically requests us to amend the motion to include creating certain other pages such as XFDs, or enough Committee members spontaneously indicate that they wish to amend the motion, then I feel we can leave that until the next review. User:Crouch, Swale, do you wish the Committee to look into lifting the restriction on creating certain pages? If so, which ones would you like us to consider? You are allowed to create talkpages of articles in mainspace. SilkTork (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth at this point, I took

Crouch, Swale is permitted to create new articles only by creating them in his userspace or in the draft namespace and then submitting them to the Articles for Creation process for review.

To mean, a prohibition on creating articles in the main space without first using the userspace or draft space and AFC process, and not that any new pages created would be restricted and would need to undergo the same process. Mkdw talk 19:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
  • AfC reviewers usually move userspace submissions to draftspace before reviewing them, so I think the only way that restriction is consequential is if CS wants to move declined drafts back to userspace to protect them from G13.
To try and move this towards a consensus, perhaps we should think about whether we want CS to be restricted from creating pages in other namespaces, rather than if he currently is. Personally I don't see any problem with it. – Joe (talk) 07:44, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
@Premeditated Chaos: Only if it has an AfC submission template on it. In the past I've recommended that if users want to keep rejected drafts long term, they move them to userspace and remove all the templates. – Joe (talk) 10:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I think that's a positive way of looking at it Joe, however it would require a new motion to amend the wording, and from my reading of Crouch, Swale's responses to my queries, he's not bothered. If User:Crouch, Swale wants to explicitly ask us to amend the motion to allow him to create certain pages which he identifies, then I would be open to looking into that. SilkTork (talk) 18:46, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Crouch, Swale: motion

The restriction on page creation imposed on Crouch, Swale (talk · contribs) as part of their unban conditions in January 2018 is modified as follows:

  • Crouch, Swale is permitted to create new pages outside of mainspace such as talkpages and AfD pages.
  • Crouch, Swale is permitted to create new articles only by creating them in his userspace or in the draft namespace and then submitting them to the Articles for Creation process for review. He is permitted to submit no more than one article every seven days. This restriction includes the creation of new content at a title that is a redirect or disambiguation page.
  • The one-account restriction and prohibition on moving or renaming pages outside of userspace remain in force.


Enacted - Bradv🍁 22:16, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
For this motion there are 9 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 5 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. I think this clears things up, and allows us to move forward. I see no useful purpose in continuing to disallow Crouch, Swale from creating other pages, as it was his article creation that was the concern. SilkTork (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  2. – Joe (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  3. Mkdw talk 20:48, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
  4. Katietalk 02:52, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
  5. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
  6. AGK ■ 10:40, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
  7. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
  8. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:13, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
Oppose
Abstain
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Procedure for in-camera cases and the status of evidence

Though my experience of in-camera evidence is under the still running Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Fæ, the question this raises is a generic one. In my own case I appear to have been expected to respond to a case against both allegations made to Arbcom and evidence emailed to Arbcom that I have not seen. Though I have been promised by an Arbcom member in the case that @Fæ: As part of any private case procedure, you definitely will receive an opportunity to respond to private evidence. The big worry is that linking to Twitter accounts other than your own on-wiki could lead to outing other editors. It is their privacy I'm trying to protect. I take due process very seriously, and you will receive it. I've already queried the Committee about whether we should ask Sitush to make the entirety of their evidence public, since I no longer believe any portion of it to be private based on your self-disclosure of your Twitter account., not only has none of the evidence been supplied to date, but Arbcom have already published their majority vote, along with consistent opinions that there is no privacy issue for the evidence. Effectively this means that even if the case evidence and allegations of wrongdoing are emailed to me or published on-wiki (as the instigator has already stated they are happy to see done), it is clearly too late for me to raise an objection to the evidence, or to own up to doing something wrong and attempt to put that right during the case, or to logically rebut the allegations with new evidence that Arbcom has not seen. Note that I have separately asked for the evidence from the initiating party, and they have refused to supply it (see my talk page).

So, there seems to be a wheel off. Thinking analytically, it would not be especially complex to deliberately misuse Arbcom's policy for handing in-camera evidence, where apparently the rule is to not share any of that evidence with the accused parties, by providing Arbcom partial evidence. This would be especially worrying if the evidence is transient, as one might see in a harassment case where someone produces evidence such as screen shots for an online conversation, or as in the example case of Twitter posts which have been made private or been deleted and the context such as replies or repost have been lost. Without the accused parties ever seeing the screenshots, Arbcom may well be deprived of further evidence that may change their views of the incident, such as the order of events, who instigated what, or the missing context of evidence they already have.

One improvement would be that Arbcom members may choose to refrain from voting until either they publish a decision that the evidence must stay in camera, possibly sharing redacted versions by email to parties, or if as in this current case Arbcom believes there are no privacy issues, that all parties to a case are given sufficient time to review and respond to the same evidence that Arbcom has seen, before any Arbcom member vote is cast.

I am aware that a "decline" may mean that as the example is a request rather than a case, that the "full" procedure has not kicked in and happy to be advised on how those later stages should work. However a decline is still a vote and given further evidence at the request stage, Arbcom members may cast a different vote. Consequently even at the request stage, it seems fair that all parties should be free to make statements and rebuttals based on all the evidence that is not to remain strictly in camera for privacy concerns. --Fæ (talk) 11:18, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The accusation is that you were canvassing inappropriately, and the evidence was your Twitter post. The evidence was sent by email because the initiator felt that your Twitter post would be considered private. Our discussion and decline of the case is because we feel that there are no privacy issues here, and the community can handle it. That part of the process seems OK. The part of this case request that perhaps needs addressing, is the initiator's opening statement which does not make clear why the request has been made. Those of us commenting knew what it was about; but that opening statement, in an attempt not to step foul of our arcane privacy rules, is not saying anything. We should have flagged that the opening statement was too vague, especially as you had commented that you were responding before you were officially aware of what you had been accused. It would be worth bringing the Clerks in on this to see if we have existing procedures for asking initiators to make clear their accusations, or if that needs to be added to the procedures. But privacy issues are a tricky thing, and it perhaps wouldn't be prudent in a privacy case to be pushing someone to say more than they are comfortable with. Perhaps when a case has been opened with privacy issues, the accused should approach ArbCom for clarification before responding. I think that might be the best option. SilkTork (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
First, I think the committees ruling sounds like “let them eat cake.” Our privacy rules are a horrible mess of conflicts with other rules. Editors should have certainty of not being sanctioned for outing when they try to address a problem in good faith. The only safe process I see is in camera review by ArbCom. Your standard for receiving a request should be that it could involve private evidence, not that it definitely does. The exception for “things already public” is stupid. There is no simple way to be sure something has been intentionally publicized versus an accidental slip or a dat breach. A safe rule is that any case using off wiki evidence about editors is handled by ArbCom to protect the privacy of the accused and unrelated third parties who might be mentioned. Fae’s tweets identify at least one other editor and I have no idea if she consented to having her Twitter handle linked to her Wikipedia identity. Absent explicit consent the assumption should be “no”. Jehochman Talk 13:10, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Second, all who voted made the horrible mistake of not listening to the accused. You needed to provide Fae a summary of the accusations and let them respond. Maybe they felt there were privacy issues and maybe they would much prefer ArbCom review this rationally than to be thrown to the wolves at ANI. Maybe Fae would offer up defenses, or counter accusations of stalking, relying on private evidence. You all jumped to assumptions without thinking enough. Jehochman Talk 13:15, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Third, those who say the alleged canvassing is minor and not worthy of a case: that is a fair opinion. Your feedback seems to have helped the disputants understand that this is much ado about nothing. It seems like they are willing to let go of their complaints, which is a good result. Jehochman Talk 14:39, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Hold on a minute. So, the only reason that Arbcom allowed this request to be opened and published with the allegations not being shared with me, and the purported evidence not being shared with me, is because my twitter post* that I actually wrote was considered "private". Not only is that illogical, it is positively daft. Wrapping up this example case in privacy flim flam should never have been allowed by Arbcom, least of all choosing to not share exactly what the allegations were nor the "evidence" with the accused party. * - Presumably mine, because I still have not seen it to confirm it is an accurate copy.
Whatever procedure is being followed here is broken, and needs to be fixed before someone gets damaged by entirely avoidable outcomes.
Reminder, Arbcom assured me publicly that "you definitely will receive an opportunity to respond to private evidence". That word "definitely" should carry weight. To this extent, Arbcom appears is confused about the procedure it has established for itself. --Fæ (talk) 13:31, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: A couple of clarifications. This case was not opened. A request for a case was made and that request was declined. If the case request had been accepted, then a case would have been opened and the following phases are evidence, workshop, proposed decision and final decision. The committee accepting a case (if that had been what they elected to do) is not a ruling on the merits but only that there exists a dispute that needs to be resolved and that the community has been unable to resolve. The committee have not, at this stage, made any sort of ruling on the merits of the proposed case, only that it is premature because the community are generally given the opportunity to solve a problem before the committee try to solve it.
In this case, as far as I can tell, Sitush submitted a private case request by email because of perceived privacy issues. In the normal course of things, if this case had been accepted by the committee, the whole thing would have been heard off-wiki. You would have been provided the evidence and allegations by email and given a chance to respond during the evidence phase. This was all complicated because for some reason - possibly due to miscommunication with an arbitrator - Sitush chose to file a public case request that essentially said, "See my private case request." In the normal course of things, this case request would have been proceduraly declined because it duplicates a private case request, but these waters were further muddied because the committee decided there were no privacy issues in play and so both case requests were premature. They have therefore, in effect, dealt with both in public and the result is, "Try to resolve this with the community." GoldenRing (talk) 13:35, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the "definitely" point, had a case been opened you would definitely have had a chance to respond to private evidence. Whether you do or not now, depends on what Sitush decides to do next. He may take this to the community (probably at AN or ANI) or he may decide to drop it. In the former case, you will have a public opportunity to respond at ANI (or wherever). In the latter case, I think you would be well advised to leave well alone. GoldenRing (talk) 13:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
On a slight tangent to this thread, with regard to the example case, this has already been turned into a good faith and civil policy improvement discussion. I doubt that anyone will see any benefit in having a bun fight on ANI, when it is still not clear to anyone whether I have truly broken any policies or failed to meet the guidelines as published. Sitush is free to publish their evidence, I have not seen it despite asking for it several times, and I'm not sure it matters to me or anyone else at this point. --Fæ (talk) 13:47, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: We can't share Sitush's statement with you because it was sent to us by email and all emails sent to ArbCom are treated as confidential. On the other hand, since we won't be doing anything with that statement, and nobody else will see it, you have no obligation to respond to it. Of course you can probably infer the gist of it, e.g. which tweet(s) it referred to, and there is nothing stopping you commenting on those issues elsewhere. All we have decided here is that this is matter is not ready for arbitration (at this time). – Joe (talk) 13:45, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
On the other hand, rather than making all possible actions my problem, and being part of making it feel like I have to respond to mysterious unverifiable GenderGap conspiracy and canvassing secret allegations, you could email me the screenshot of my own tweet, which from Arbcom member statements here, is the only evidence of this case and there are absolutely zero privacy consequences of me being able to look at it. It would be a step in the right direction of being "open and helpful".
By the way, if you examine the case, Sitush stated yesterday "I'm perfectly ok with ArbCom posting my original email here." So you appear to have a free pass to send the whole thing to me, or publish it on Wikipedia, even if you want to redact some elements that name other parties.
For the literalists, just to be 100% clear, I am requesting to see all the evidence for this case, that Arbcom has already stated in the case, has no privacy issues. Not sending me the evidence is to be taken as an active denial of me, as the accused party, to examine or respond to that evidence and associated allegations. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:07, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
It's your Twitter post. You linked to this discussion which contains the evidence in your statement, and you responded to that evidence yourself in the AfD so you know where it find it, and are free to look at it yourself. My feeling matches yours as expressed in the AfD that this isn't stealth canvassing because it's public, though as an experienced Wikipedian and former admin, you should have considered leaving a note at the AfD that you had drawn people's attention to the AfD, per WP:APPNOTE. That keeps everything open and above board, and is the appropriate thing to do. We are in agreement there. Where I think we differ is in the tone of the tweet, which is not neutral. On reflection, I think it's not as bad as I originally thought. I still think it's biased, and that it was an unwise thing to do, but it's not actually directing people to go to the AfD, so I don't think it's worth all this drama. If this had been a viable request for a case, I would have voted not to accept, and I suspect my colleagues would have done the same thing, as based on that one tweet, there isn't enough for a formal warning. I think the most that can be said is that you were careless. SilkTork (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
In which case, there remains no valid reason to refuse me a copy of the allegations and evidence rather than describing it second hand through your unofficial perceptions no matter how cogent they are. My request to see that evidence stands, and is being actively denied, even though the instigator formally waived any expectation of confidentiality. I am sure that no Arbcom member wishes Arbcom to be pointlessly secretive, and have a illogical process where Arbcom can be played, if someone ever wished to game the system by selecting partial evidence. Thinking of past cases, this is not merely a hypothetical prospect.
If you wish to see some further analysis of my tweet history, see my talk page. Over 8 years and 4,000 tweets, I linked to just 3 AfDs and have included the text of them there. You specifically wanted me to be more "open", and I have been so. I expect nothing less of Arbcom. With regard to Twitter, my plan is to leave that account locked, never link to Wikipedia in any fashion from that account, and I shall advise any LGBT+ Wikipedian to never mention their personal social media accounts on Wikipedia as they risk everything they have ever written, retweeted or photographed off-wiki being used against them on-wiki during opposition research. --Fæ (talk) 20:06, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi again Fae. Sorry, I thought I had been clear, but perhaps I haven't. The evidence is your own Twitter post, which you are already aware of from links and comments I detailed above. If you have deleted the Twitter post yourself, you can still find it on the pages I have linked above, as the links are to archive versions of the post. Again, in case this is not yet clear to you, the Committee have voted not to look into the matter. We will not be opening a case, so there is no need for us to be looking at you or your Twitter account. It is up to the community to decide if they wish to take this further, not me nor the rest of the Committee; though my personal view, which I'll repeat, is that after looking again at the Twitter post, I don't think it's worth the community taking this any further. I responded here to your procedural inquiry which has been answered above by the ArbClerk GoldenRing. I will not be responding any further as I don't see it as helpful to be repeating the same answers to the same questions. SilkTork (talk) 21:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I'll point out that denying a request to see data relating to one's name and communications, held by whoever handles case-related data, could be construed as a violation of GDPR. Let's not give bad examples. Nemo 21:32, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2019

This requests relates to the following page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Creation_Research. It has been edited by users whose own user page purports a biased belief against the very page they are editing (e.g. someone openly biased against the fundamentals of ICR page has made and reverted edits). The edits are entirely contradictory to the principles which Wikipedia sets forth (non-biased, etc) and clearly present the ICR page in a negative and biased manner.

Please change following items in the paragraph at the bottom:

1. "specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event." --> change to: "specializes in scientific research aimed towards proving the Biblical narrative of creation." -->because: The previous description was overtly biased and negative and does not uphold the requirements of editing and page creation set forth by Wikipedia. See here (pillar 2 specifically). As to the point of Pseudo-science, the methods that ICR uses are indeed scientific as proven many times and are not to be mistaken with the use of their indented outcome.

2. "It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief." --> Remove entirely. This sentence, aside from biased towards evolutionary narrative, is a filler sentence which bears no significance in understanding what ICR is. Because, by their very name, they reject the evolution narrative. Violates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars.

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical event.[3][4] The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist worldview.[5] It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief.[6]

D1ma sw3ll (talk) 03:12, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

RTG's statement should be removed or refactored

  • Given the number of false, misleading, or uncited defamatory statements in RTG's statement on the case here, and elsewhere (most recently Jimbo's talk page under "Announce: For the first time ever, there is a proposal to delete an article published in The Signpost.", I'd like to request that the clerks act appropriately to remove their statement from the case request pursuant to the statement that Arbitrators or clerks may refactor or delete statements, eg off-topic or unproductive remarks, without warning. For the record:
  • see the text on the picture, the piped link trans cited to this diff (Fixed a format error at 07:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)). Does not show what the author says it shows. This is the only diff supporting any of RTG's claims anywhere in their statement. The rest are entirely uncited.
  • I picked up the story when User:Guy Macon canvassed it. <- Accusation without evidence, but referring to this I believe.
  • User:McCandlish has gamed through the whole debacle, bitterly provoking User:Fae on a personal level from their motivations on using WP, to diagnosing User:Fae with psychological disorders. <- That very last clause, if true, would be grounds for an indef block. If untrue, or indemonstrable, would be grounds for a boomerang.
  • The Signpost is relying on slapstick and abuse, and extending, in this case anyway, that abuse to complainers. <- I don't think the author knows what slapstick is, words are not physical actions. But the problem is the accusation that the Signpost have been abusing anyone. I'm not aware of their involvement, let alone abuse of anyone.
  • Users:Macon and McCandlish are being horrible to defend this suicide abuse <- Abusive, and false, claim.
  • In this circumstance, a recent current event about suicidal children, it is appalling. <- in reference to the above statement.
  • None of these statement are demonstrated in any fashion using diffs, but beyond that, they are in sum well outside any acceptable standard of civility. I think these should be refactored or deleted, and so request input. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Oh the suicide abuse is cited and linked (not the link given above) on my ARB statement, the "humour" publication itself, and refers to the image, at the top right hand side, of a cut away stellar body/planet diagram-->>[2] (not the same diff as above by User:Rnddude).
Mere mention of canvassing(diff of said canvassing) is an accusation? And what was it, in dictionary terms, then to post the MfD on a prominent page?
"this does not actually surprise me; something of the Dunning–Kruger effect is at work here," (if I recall it was repeated but if you want me to trawl that massive haul of crapola you'll have to take the case)
When I sampled the humour archives to attempt to understand the situation I found slapsticky humour like mud wrestling. (search terms, no quotes, "mud wrestling humour signpost wikipedia" top hit, WPSPHumour, "ANI and wrestling")
Diagnosing a colleague with a psychological disorder as a form of response to an intellectual challenge is horrible. If you want more diffs to that effect, take the case. This case is not about me. It's not about Fae. It's about the signpost, and the response to criticism of a politically charged article. @Mr rnddude: ~ R.T.G 04:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
I haven't looked at ARBCOM for years, so I don't know what the modus oprandus is at this moment, but I am sure they will agree with me whole heartedly on this last sentiment. This should be a swift case. It's not a pertinent topic for long insensitive public discussion. It's not simply about the individual contributors here, while the predisposition that it is mainly about individuals, targeting each other, is one of the things making this a whole big mess. ~ R.T.G 05:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
RTG - I'll respond to your points in order.
1. Regarding the diff, a formatting error caused that, my bad. Otherwise it is the same diff, and would have to be the same diff as I copy-pasted it directly from your post. I've fixed the formatting error so that the diff displays correctly. It still doesn't show what you said it shows. [[Suicide|Trans]] is your claim; [[Quantum suicide and immortality|Trans-biological explicate manifestation]] is what's actually there. The relevance of this distinction is found in the sentence: [SMcCandlish] has come out as a trans-biological explicate manifestation of the Multiverse's implicate reality, made of the stuff of stars. It's a joke about SMcCandlish being an immortal being (immortal god?).
2. Mere mention of canvassing is an accusation? - You didn't "mere[ly] mention" it, you accused Guy Macon of canvassing without providing any diff or other evidence. Canvassing is generally considered disruptive behaviour, and can be met with sanctions. So yes, when you accuse someone of it you need to give evidence in support of that claim. Refer WP:ASPERSIONS.
3. The Dunning-Kruger effect is not a "psychological disorder". Wtf? How does this relate to to diagnosing User:Fae with psychological disorders?
4. Slapstick involves exaggerated physical activity. Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges are examples of slapstick comedy.
That's all I can say in response. You still haven't even attempted to explain how the Signpost is abusing anyone, or how Guy Macon or SMcCandlish are defending the abuse of suicide. Mr rnddude (talk) 07:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Enough already. This is not the place for psychology education. GoldenRing (talk) 12:15, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
RTG's subsequent comments on the case page are less than optimal also. ——SerialNumber54129 07:36, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
And that doesn't even say much, huh. ~ R.T.G 08:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Serial Number 54129 - Accordingly, I have noted RTG's additional comments at ARC. Appreciate the notification. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:55, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Reply to 07:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC) questions:-
  1. I am sorry that you don't understand. In the skit, McCandlish suggests themselves as a person with pronoun problems (transgender).
  2. I have also referred User:Guy Macon to the dictionary on the word "canvass" (with 2 "s"). I did not accuse anyone of anything. I simply stated how I came across the debate. Imagine that I should be careful about how I use the word canvass, but the Signpost should not be careful about anything at all?
  3. From Dunning-Kruger effect, "In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect" (emphasis added)
  4. So "exaggerated physical activity" doesn't include wrestling?
  5. Joking about suicidal and otherwise debilitating problems is abusive. Denying that is answerable, is defensive. ~ R.T.G 07:27, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
"[F]ield of psychology" is not congruent to "psychological disorder". Please, read the full article before you try commenting on the topic again. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the name given to an observation that two psychologists made about the behaviour of people when they talk about subjects that they are clueless about. The observation was, I paraphrase, "the less clue you have on the topic you're talking about, the less clue you will have about the clue you have on that topic", or in the terms used within the article, [i]n short, those who are incompetent ... should have little insight into their incompetence. It's an ancient observation that applies to everyone. Clear? Klär? Jasno? Mr rnddude (talk) 10:55, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Personality disorder, please, read this full article and note, the only thing I know about the D-K effect is that it smells an awful lot like ambition to me and that Dunning used it to diagnose Trump. So it must be popular. Clear. What. What. ~ R.T.G 17:16, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Let me guess: you searched the Dunning-Kruger effect article for "disorder" and came up with one hit to Narcissistic personality disorder? Yeah, narcissists tend to be poor judges of their own competence. This is due to their inflated sense of superiority, not to mention an inability to accept criticism or the possibility that they might be wrong. I still don't see how this plays into your claim that SMcCandlish was diagnosing User:Fae with psychological disorders, which you backed here by citing SMcCandlish referring to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
I have to agree with Guy Macon. Given that RTG's strange and unprovable accusations, mis-quoting, mis-diffing, and obviously intentional twisting of statements and other material for aspersion-casting purposes have continued after already receiving a {{Ds/alert|ggtf}}, and serve nothing but disruptive aims (or least disruptive results) these antics can actually be dealt with through discretionary sanctions on the spot.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:29, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Could a clerk/arb remove the "Open arbcom cases" category from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort?

Self explanatory. I was afraid to remove it myself since I'm neither.💵Money💵emoji💵💸 12:19, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I've done this for GWE, thanks. The other case is still open but suspended. GoldenRing (talk) 12:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

So the Alex shih case is just gonna indefinitely be suspended until he comes back?💵Money💵emoji💵💸 12:36, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I can't comment as a clerk since I am a party to the case, but this is spelled out in the motion to suspend - it is suspended for up to a year. GoldenRing (talk) 12:46, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Technical, word count tool

The word count tool in the top notice links to https://www.kennistranslations.com/home/drop#menu1 which is consistently giving a runtime error. Someone may wish to find an alternative. --Fæ (talk) 20:14, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

https://www.countofwords.com/ @Fæ: I'm sorry Fae if I am in any way magnifying the pressure with you. ~ R.T.G 20:49, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: Or you can add User:GoldenRing/wordcount.js to your common.js. It adds an entry to the 'More' menu on each page that will add a wordcount to each section on the page. GoldenRing (talk) 11:45, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Does anyone intend to fix the template on the page with a working link? --Fæ (talk) 12:10, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
@Fæ: that sort of thing is a job for the clerks - if none spots it here soon then the best place to raise it is at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks. Thryduulf (talk) 12:54, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
This is on my list of things to do. GoldenRing (talk) 12:28, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done: I've replaced the broken link, and also added one to the gadget. AGK ■ 18:49, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Adding parties

One of the clerks has claimed that is is not permissible for parties to add parties to an RfArb request; that only the Arbs can do it. This was certainly not true previously (one of the only RfArb cases to which I have been a named party was one in which I was added in exactly such a manner by another party during the request phase). I would like a citation of the rule and a pointer to the ArbCom motion or other decision by which it was added. I have a strong suspicion this is not a rule at all but a clerk's recent assumption. For one thing, it would appear to make it impossible to name any parties at all when opening the request to begin with. I think the clerk is thinking of the post-request phase (in which case one proposes the addition of a party, and the Arbs consider it; I used this method myself in last year's WP:ARBINFOBOX2, during the evidence phase).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: At any rate, the edit-warring over the list of parties needs to stop. Thanks for self-reverting. The committee are considering whether to accept a case and are aware that you would like RTG to be a party to the case if it is accepted. The final list of parties will be decided by the committee, not by edit-warring over the case request. GoldenRing (talk) 12:35, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Repeat: I would like a citation of the [alleged] rule and a pointer to the ArbCom motion or other decision by which it was added. Also, "the edit-warring over the list of parties needs to stop. Thanks for self-reverting", is self-contradictory. One revert on my part did not constitute editwarring, and self-reverting it in the first place makes that doubly true. Please stop avoiding the question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:05, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I'll spell it out then: No, I know of nowhere this rule is written down. Other clerks may correct me—my action is based on advice from far more experienced clerks than I on the clerks mailing list—but I know of nowhere that this is formalised. Yes, if you continue making this edit I will consider it edit-warring on an arbitration page. Yes, the committee are aware (I've pointed it out in an email to them, just in case any had missed it) that you would like RTG to be included as a party to any case that is opened out of this. GoldenRing (talk) 14:44, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Why would I continue making it when I already self-reverted it? Anyway, thank you for answering the question. I no longer feel constrained against adding a party in a future case should I feel the need to do so before the case is actually open, since we have a tradition of permitting this, and no rules against it, even if someone clerking right now likes to revert such additions for some reason. A clerk has refactoring authority (except against Arbs) on a particular ArbCom page, and I'll respect that. But it's not gag-order authority in perpetuity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish: GoldenRing is correct that users may not add one another to an arbitration request. Once initially framed, the request or case cannot have its parties list amended except (i) by the committee or (ii) at the requests phase only, by the party themselves. You are right that the rule is nowhere set out explicitly, as indeed many other prohibited actions are not. I am not sure why you were not reverted in Civility in infobox discussions; it presumably went unnoticed or unremarked. Nevertheless – the committee does not want party rosters to become open to entries in that manner. I will speak with the clerks about updating the Arbitration Guide. AGK ■ 18:43, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Well, this is the request phase, and I am one of the parties themselves. (I think you've misread what I said above about ARBINFOBOX2; I did not just add a party; it was past the request phase and I asked that a party be added, and they were, based on evidence provided. I made no statement at all in the request phase.) If ArbCom wants there to be a rule that no one but the request filer, and ArbCom, can add a party directly even during the request phase, then this should be written. However, I have to suggest that this is counterproductive, in interfering with the ability of the case to frame openly and completely. Among other reasons, outlined here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:11, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

On restraints

Levivich: Re, "I cannot imagine such self-restraint would produce any chilling effect on contributors" – Many respondents at both MfDs, and Bri on the case-framing page page, can imagine it, as can I. Subjective views are subjective. The idea that prior restraint, which is not "self"-restraint, on the basis of subjective predictions about even more subjective potential interpretations, couldn't have a chilling effect just doesn't track. It's not possible for effectively being required to have second thoughts about something to not have the effect of giving someone second thoughts about it. The very restraint you want to see is the restraint others have concerns about. I would submit that it's more sensible to allow people to take the heat for writing or publishing something bone-headed (or even not bone-headed but easy to misinterpret). I'm feeling plenty of that heat, but it doesn't make me feel censored. Trying to tell me no one should be permitted to attempt to use humor to address something you feel very, very sensitive about makes me feel quite censored. Especially when your view about the specific thing (that invented pronoun replacements "are not" (in the "to be of identity" sense) grammar or style matters but only matters of personal identity politics), is a hotly disputed idea both on- and off-site; it's not even a majority viewpoint internally to WP. Otherwise MOS:IDENTITY would say to use zirm if the subject prefers zirm, and MoS is never going to say that. I would bet my life on it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:31, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: Restraint is a situational continuum. We can be reasonably unrestrained in allowing editors to submit contributions so as to promote open and honest exchange of ideas while at the same time being reasonably restrained in seeking out and selecting pieces for publication so as to avoid offense. "Wikipedia's race problem: all pages are white" and "Decreasing Wikipedia's gender gap by promoting WikiProjects Cooking and Sewing" might be funny essays to some, but it would not be a good idea to proactively pluck for publication such this-is-obviously-going-to-offend-people submissions. By analogy: "What's up, motherfuckers?" would be a typical way for Snoop Dogg to start a speech, but not for Jimmy Wales. If Jimbo refrains from talking like that in public, it won't chill anyone else's speech (Snoop would be fine). Also, The Signpost ≠ Wikipedia. We can be liberal with submissions, circumspect with selections, and still be liberal again on talk pages when discussing content. The Signpost is something of an official newspaper and thus mouthpiece; that's what I mean when I say that self-restraint by The Signpost (i.e., by its volunteer editors in making selections) would not have a chilling effect on submissions. I forget who said it, but there is no need for edgy humor in The Signpost. We can allow its submission without seeking it out. I noticed in the link you posted that your initial reaction upon learning about the selection seemed to be, "Oh, you want to go with that one?" My initial reaction upon reading it was, "Oh, that's what they went with?" Everyone kind of agrees on the fundamental "wow, maybe not a great idea" of it all. Leviv ich 17:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I think this all presupposes some kind of formalized submissions process, which doesn't seem to exist. And this may all be moot; there's a suggestion (including from within its editorial pool) that the Signpost may simply stop. But of course increased selectivity about which submissions are accepted or sought would have a chilling effect on over-the-transom submissions. That may not be a terrible thing; we're very selective about DYK and ITN on the front page, and consequently people are increasingly careful what they submit to them (aside from some gadfly or noob exceptions). I've recently (within the month) seen someone rather strenuously criticized for submitting a DYK that would likely be controversial (at least in anything like the wording submitted), and for the same editor having done so before. It was rather personalized, this criticism. I didn't like that (though I agreed that the wording would be controversial if accepted, and thus probably should not be accepted without revision; that didn't necessitate leaning ad hominem about it). In short, just be clear about it having the effect it would have, even if it's an effect you think the community would want; let's not suppose or pretend that it wouldn't have the effect that it automatically, necessarily would have.

I think that, if done just right, a humor essay called "Wikipedia's race problem: all pages are white" could actually be hilarious and have a real point (in part because of the exaggeration – all humor requires one). While real anti-Caucasian ranting isn't wanted here, the false equivalence and balance fallacy stuff I mentioned briefly on the case-framing page shows how this could be done. Your "cooking and sewing" example could even more easily be done right (probably by a woman editor drawing attention to over-focus on coverage of women in certain topic areas, while it remains sorely lacking in others, and how increasing the former without rectifying the latter does nothing to fix the gender-gap issue and may just make it worse). That is, the very examples of "too sensitive" that you bring up are not in fact too sensitive, and it's why I've reacted this strongly to where you're coming from. This is all very, very subjective, and it involves a sharp split between an ideology of muzzling people for how they say things versus a philosophy of paying attention to the meaning, not the wrapper that delivers it. This just does not suit itself to rule-making. It's not just political, it's real-world political.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:03, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Use of hidden text in requests or cases

Yesterday I raised this edit on an open request made by AGK within a statement made by FeydHuxtable. It is a trivial example, but it appears to set a precedent for contributors to a request or case to use hidden text within individual statements to ask questions, rather than asking questions in their own section, or in the Arbcom comments. I am unaware of an existing precedent, and I raised this example with AGK yesterday, and the reply was [3] "I do not think you need the rules clarified" with a link of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide_to_arbitration#Responding_to_requests. However the guide appears to contradict or not cover the edit made.

If the question AGK made was officially as an Arb, then "if an arbitrator or clerk removes or amends your statement or comments, you may not revert this action, because it will have been made in order to properly manage the request" might apply. However AGK asked an open question in hidden text rather than a necessary amendment to FeydHuxtable's statement, it would seem unreasonable if FeydHuxtable were forbidden by the guidelines to remove hidden text from their own statement once they addressed the question. If it is the norm that Arbs can and do ask questions in hidden text in other people's statements, then the guidelines would benefit from explaining this practice of the Arbcom, and presumably clerks, and clarifying if it is acceptable for participants to remove the hidden text.

If the question AGK made was a general one, then it remains unclear if this sets a precedent that allows general use of hidden text for all participants in a case, both in their own statements and elsewhere.

Asking this question as a clarification for the guidelines, not as any criticism of AGK in a trivial example for which no corrective action seems relevant. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

It was a hidden comment asking about a spelling error, meant to draw as little attention as possible. Feyd has not removed it, but they are free to do so. I agree with AGK that there is no clarification necessary. Bradv🍁 13:35, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
"they are free to do so" at least has been documented here, though it would be jolly nice if the guidelines were explicit about how hidden text is managed. --Fæ (talk) 14:06, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I would add that no, you should not go editing another editor's section and yes, you are likely to be reverted by the clerks if you do. GoldenRing (talk) 13:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Note on the 'mainstream science' request

Yesterday I emailed clerks-l to request a word extension. If they grant it, I'll try to address the various good points folk have made. If they don't, maybe that's for the best, I'm struggling to see how Id convincingly substantiate the "systemic bias" thing even with 500 words just for that aspect. For now, I'm not going to game the system by addressing key points, but I'll risk two minor comments. I don't blame Hijiri88 for having a negative view of me (they asked me to help with two matters, from their PoV they might think I made things worse in both cases, even from my PoV I was unhelpful in one of them.) But the possible suggestion my civility towards them might have been false does rather sting.

On the suggested 1 way iban, I agree this might be an exception where that is relatively unproblematic. I have strong feelings about insect decline due to its high impact, and the fact that citizen involvement is an important part of the response, so NPOV coverage seems much more important here than with most science topics. One thing I can say for King is he's mostly been admirably unpersonal in the dispute, so there seems little risk of him abusing the iban to launch attacks. With that said, I'd oppose any attempt to immediately oppose an iban on ANI, should this request be declined with no action. Like Id say for any other editor in this situation, sanctions should be avoided where possible, it's quite possible that I'd get the message and disengage of my own accord. FeydHuxtable (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Umm... Feyd? Nothing's been stopping you from voluntarily disengaging since before this started. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:14, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
A most reasonable observation. I'd love to respond more verbosely, but the committee has declined my request for a word count extension, so I'd better not get into any lengthy discussion here. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:05, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Minor link fix on WP:A/I/PIA

The second motion link at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles#General Prohibition is to a non-existent section header, I imagine from a mistaken copy-paste. I believe the correct link (taken from here) should be Special:PermanentLink/756684880#Motion:_Palestine-Israel_articles_3_.28v0.3.29. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:13, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done –Bradv🍁 13:31, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Restoration of sysop privileges to Necrothesp (April 2019)

Original discussion

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

Version 1 (Necrothesp)

On March 14, 2019, the administrator permissions of Necrothesp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) were temporarily removed as a suspected compromised account under the Level 1 desysopping procedures.

Following discussion concerning account security, and pursuant to the procedures for return of revoked permissions, the Arbitration Committee resolves the following:

The administrator permissions of Necrothesp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) are restored, provided he enables two-factor authentication on his account.

Enacted – bradv🍁 02:50, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. As proposer. Assuming he makes the request to the Stewards and we receive confirmation of the 2FA being activated before the bit is flipped back on. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:22, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  2. Second choice. Katietalk 21:45, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  3. I can support this while pondering the wording of procedures moving forward. And perhaps it would be more appropriate to have a separate motion on procedures rather than tangle up the voting of a resysop with the voting of procedures because if some Arbs are not happy with the wording of the procedures motion, that could hold up Necrothesp's resysopping further. Provided Necrothesp enables 2FA, he can have the tools back while we jiggle with the procedures motion. SilkTork (talk) 22:42, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  4. Sympathetic to the view espoused by Joe, but I think enabling 2FA mitigates the risk well enough for me. AGK ■ 14:08, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  5. It gets lost sometimes in the rhetoric around account security, but admin accounts do not actually have access to the nuclear codes. We do not now have evidence that Necrothesp's account is any less secure than any other active admin's, and indeed just-breached accounts are probably the safest :) Even though everyone who plausibly can use 2FA really should, I'm very hesitant about this as a general practice - "if you get compromised, you'll be required to enable 2FA after" - because of the possibility that it will end up excluding people whose circumstances don't fit with MediaWiki's somewhat clunky implementation. But for this case I think it's reasonable. (In general, we'll get more bang for the security buck yelling from the rooftops at every opportunity that Thou Shalt Not Reuse Passwords, not even once, not even if you used password123Reddit and password123Wikipedia and now think it's unique, not even if the recycled password is "correct horse battery staple", just no. Are you reading this post and unsure if you might have used your Wikipedia password on dodgy-downl0adz.com? Go change it, right now before you forget, I'll give you a cookie after.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  6. Necrothesp has enabled 2FA and therefore has, in my opinion based upon the available information regarding the situation, adequately secured their account from being compromised again and should have the tools returned to them. Mkdw talk 21:36, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. In favor of version 2, which also addresses how we should handle these situations going forward. ~ Rob13Talk 21:41, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
    I will switch to support if 3 passes. ~ Rob13Talk 15:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  2. In favor of version 2. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  3. I am not convinced that Necrothesp adequately secures his account. By community policy, this is admin misconduct. In this instance, his negligence allowed a focused attacker to seriously vandalise the main page and a template used on almost every other Wikipedia page. Enabling 2FA is not going to solve the underlying lack of attention to basic security (it would also be impossible for us to monitor in the long term), so unfortunately I must come to the conclusion that Necrothesp can no longer be trusted with the tools. – Joe (talk) 05:27, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Abstain/Recuse
Arbitrator comments/discussion
  • @BU Rob13: How would it be Necrothesp's fault if motion 2 or 3 did not pass? It would not, so more importantly, why should Necrothesp's fate be tied to these two motions if you have reasonable confidence that their account will be secure (with 2FA enabled)? We are discussing and voting on increasing our security standards below, but I think it is unethical to hold someone hostage for effectively a political and policy position. They should be assessed fairly against our current enacted policies and protections, even if the ultimate decision is to deny their request to return their tools. Mkdw talk 16:03, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • I absolutely agree. I want to reiterate that I think it is incredibly underhanded to suggest this kind of package motion where the handling of issues related to one person are combined with, and therefore made hostage to, a broader policy discussion. I sincerely hope that I don't see this kind of thing becoming a common practice. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:26, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • +1 to PMC. This is a shabby way to treat a volunteer who made a mistake. We have plenty of other places to argue about internal wikipolitics. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
      • Our current policy on administrators states that administrators must secure their account. Necrothesp fell short of that standard in a way that puts me squarely on the fence when it comes to restoring permissions. The problem is that we haven't enforced our current policy for quite some time, which may have created an expectation we would not enforce it going forward. While certain administrators have lagged behind in their security standards and their understanding of relevant policies, so too has the Arbitration Committee when it came to enforcing those standards and policies. I believe opposing this motion is justified by our current policy, and the motions proposed below merely state that we will be enforcing existing community policy going forward. If, as a Committee, we decide that it's worthwhile to clarify that we will begin enforcing the current policy going forward, I am willing to support this resysop due to the expectations our shoddy enforcement caused. If we decide such a clarification is unnecessary, then there is no reason not to enforce the current policy now, which leads me to oppose resysopping. ~ Rob13Talk 17:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
        • You are opposing Necrothesp to make a point. Your vote is completely contingent on whether the committee will vote in alignment with your own agenda to amend the policy. Such strategic voting with ulterior motives should not be a practice on the Arbitration Committee. Your view that the committee is not appropriately enforcing the policy is a valid argument, but conditionally voting with the express purpose of trying to influence votes is immoral. Oppose if in your fair assessment you believe Necrothesp does not meet the policy. Support if you do. But specifically voting because your policy amendment did not pass is an irresponsible tactic. We reach these decisions as a committee majority and ultimately to the frustration of some when the vote does not go their way. If you think conditional voting is the way to address or influence the process, that is in my opinion an error in judgement and a much more problematic issue than the one it is trying to solve. Mkdw talk 00:31, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
          • I both object to and take offense to quite a bit of what you said, but frankly, I don't have the energy or drive to respond to an arbitrator calling me immoral in response to an attempt to compromise. I will simply oppose. ~ Rob13Talk 03:25, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
  • @Opabinia regalis: It's also sometimes lost in the WP:NOBIGDEAL rhetoric that Wikipedia admins are, amongst other things, entrusted with sysop privileges on the world's fifth most visited website. That includes some very risky buttons. Can you imagine the front pages of YouTube or Amazon being replaced with "hacked by <some kid with tor>", even for a couple of minutes? That we are a volunteer project shouldn't stop us aspiring to the same level of professionalism. It's not the nuclear codes, but all we ask of admins is to adhere the most basic of security practices. Things that, for example, have been technically enforced in every workplace I've been at, despite me rarely being trusted with much more than the coffee machine. The evidence that Necrothesp's account is a continuing vulnerability is the fact that it has already been compromised once, and in his public and private responses to this incident. – Joe (talk) 18:10, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • I agree with Joe, but there's also just generally a myth that compromised admin accounts don't cause real world harm. For instance, imagine a compromised admin account edits the main page to include a violent or extremely sexual picture, which is not an uncommon type of vandalism. How many traumatized children whose parents rightfully expected a clean main page are acceptable to us? I'm not all too bothered by "hacked by <some kid with tor>". I'm very bothered with putting hundreds of children around the world into therapy. And don't even get me started on the possibility for compromised CU accounts. ~ Rob13Talk 20:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
      • I'm not saying it's optimal for that kind of thing to happen, but suggesting that a single instance of accidentally viewing an inappropriate image would put "hundreds of children around the world into therapy" is a bit of an overstatement. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
        • It depends what image. Someone who had been beheaded or something similarly gory? If viewed by a young enough child, that could certainly cause non-trivial issues for the parents to deal with, at the very least. ~ Rob13Talk 22:25, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • Well, yes, I can imagine perfectly respectable websites (and debatably respectable ones, and not-respectable ones) getting hacked, sometimes in hilarious ways. (While looking for examples I checked our own list of security hacking incidents, which I'm tickled to discover begins with a telegraph demo in 1903 :) We don't need to resort to hyperbolic "but won't someone think of the children?" what-iffery to not want crap on our front (or any other) page, and to expect people to take reasonable precautions to avoid it, but IMO a lot of hyperbole and drama around account security is actually a perverse incentive - it makes the whole thing sound Big and Scary and like exactly the kind of thing people mean to pay attention to when they have time, sometime next week, after work, after this TV show is over, maybe in the morning, etc. It's anxiety-inducing! If you get it wrong, you might send hundreds of children into therapy! Better to just not worry about it. (This is exactly the approach I take to my taxes every year, and every April 14 I regret it, but as of, say, April 9? Feels great, man.) In fact the best thing anyone can do for their own security is use a strong, unique password. You only have to take one single action, one time, to be absolutely sure there's no risk of having forgotten that you reused the same password when you signed up for that Warcraft forum that one time in 2011. Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Version 2 (Necrothesp)

On March 14, 2019, the administrator permissions of Necrothesp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) were temporarily removed as a suspected compromised account under the Level 1 desysopping procedures. The Arbitration Committee has verified that Necrothesp is back in control of their account via multiple methods. The administrator permissions of Necrothesp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) are restored, provided he enables two-factor authentication on his account for as long as he retains the sysop flag.

Since November 2018, six accounts have been desysopped under the Level I desysopping procedures as compromised administrator accounts. The Arbitration Committee would like to remind administrators that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." The current policy on security of administrator accounts provides that "a compromised admin account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security" and "in certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent."

The Arbitration Committee resolves that the return of administrator privileges to a compromised account is not automatic, in line with this policy. The Arbitration Committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices." Factors the Arbitration Committee may use to make this determination include, but are not limited to, whether the administrator used a strong, unique password on both their Wikipedia account and associated email account, whether the administrator enabled two-factor authentication, and how the account was compromised. If the Committee determines the administrator failed to secure their account adequately, the administrator will not be resysopped automatically. Unless otherwise stated, they may regain their administrative permissions through a successful request for adminship.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. We need to start actually enforcing the community policy on the security of administrator accounts. The existing policy states admins must at least try to secure their accounts. Where we determine that they declined to do so and it resulted in damage to the encyclopedia, we should not be resysopping automatically. This alternate motion simply makes clear that we will be following existing community policy surrounding account security going forward. ~ Rob13Talk 21:41, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
    Second choice to Motion 3. ~ Rob13Talk 15:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  2. First choice. It is not exactly fair to Necrothesp to change the rules midstream, but I am heartily tired of dealing with these compromised admin accounts. Now everyone is on notice that resysop is no longer automatic in these situations. Katietalk 21:45, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  3. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Oppose on principle; restoring Necrothesp's privileges should not be contingent on altering our existing procedures. They're two separate discussions. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  2. I support the warning about enforcement from now on, but oppose resysopping Necrothesp, per above. If this doesn't pass, we should vote on a standalone motion with just the second two paragraphs. – Joe (talk) 05:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  3. Unhelpfully, this motion conflates two different issues (our procedures for the future – and what to do with Necrothesp). AGK ■ 13:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  4. On principle. Mkdw talk 16:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  5. Now we have separated the resysopping from the procedure, this motion is no longer appropriate. SilkTork (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  6. Per PMC and Mkdw. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Abstain/Recuse
Arbitrator comments/discussion
  • Has it been confirmed by us that Necrothesp is back in control of their account? The question was raised on the email list, and it was thought that the Foundation did the confirmation. I don't wish to change the wording as I don't actually know who did confirm it. SilkTork (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Per the Global log, T&S verified this and unblocked him. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:56, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
    • We've also verified it via the WMF. A WMF staff member assured me that the person who is currently in control of the account is definitively the original account holder. This matches the language of past motions on resysopping previously-compromised admin accounts. ~ Rob13Talk 23:14, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Motion 3: Return of permissions

Since November 2018, six accounts have been desysopped under the Level I desysopping procedures as compromised administrator accounts. The Arbitration Committee reminds administrators that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." The current policy on security of administrator accounts provides that "a compromised admin account will be blocked and its privileges removed on grounds of site security" and "in certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent."

The Arbitration Committee resolves that the return of administrator privileges to a compromised account is not automatic. The committee's procedure at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Removal of permissions, subsection Return of permissions, is replaced by the following:

Removal is protective, intended to prevent harm to the encyclopedia while investigations take place, and the advanced permissions will normally be reinstated once if a satisfactory explanation is provided or the issues are satisfactorily resolved. If the editor in question requests it, or if the Committee determines that a routine reinstatement of permissions is not appropriate, normal arbitration proceedings shall be opened to examine the removal of permissions and any surrounding circumstances.

In cases where an administrator account was compromised, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions. Factors used to make this determination include: whether the administrator used a strong password on both their Wikipedia account and associated email account; whether the administrator had reused passwords across Wikipedia or the associated email account and other systems; whether the administrator had enabled two-factor authentication; and how the account was compromised.

If the Committee determines the administrator failed to secure their account adequately, the administrator will not be resysopped automatically. Unless otherwise provided by the committee, the administrator may regain their administrative permissions through a successful request for adminship.

Enacted – bradv🍁 14:50, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. Proposed; splitting this from Motion 2 per our earlier discussions. In the wording for a new procedure, I have separated the requirement for a 'strong password' and for a 'unique password' to drive home the point: reusing passwords across systems is unsafe. AGK ■ 14:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  2. Support as 2nd choice. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:53, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  3. Fully happy with this. First choice, since it puts it into our procedures directly. ~ Rob13Talk 15:11, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  4. Explicitly adding it to our procedures is a good idea. – Joe (talk) 18:13, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  5. Katietalk 02:33, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
  6. Well, the path that got to this wasn't very good - let's not try this particular style of attempted compromise anymore. But I think the substance is reasonable. I agree with PMC that there's some fuzziness here, but normally I'd expect that to be a good thing that allows us to be clear with the community about expectations while also allowing room for case-by-case evaluations. It does also allow room for implausible speculation and motivated reasoning, but I think it's like a lot of things arbcom-related - everyone gets it wrong sometimes, but we don't all get it wrong the same way all at once very often. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:15, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
  7. I also support the suggestion for a mass-message to be sent out to administrators to inform them about this change to WP:RETURN once it has been implemented. The issue of compromised admin accounts should be taken more seriously by the committee and the community-at-large. I think these changes also leave the door open to future amendments and improvements to address a wider number of issues should they arise. Mkdw talk 16:00, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Oppose
Abstain/Recuse
  1. I'm going to abstain on this, although I support it in principle. I have to point out that although we can confirm some information about an editor's Wikipedia password and their use of 2FA, we have no way of actually confirming whether someone had a unique, strong password for their Wikipedia-associated email address, if they reused their password on other sites, and how the compromise occurred. At best all we have is the editor's word and (particularly with the last point) our best guess. I'm not sure it's fair for us to enshrine those points in policy as reasons not to return someone's permissions when we have no way of confirming the information. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:29, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Arbitrator comments/discussion
  • I'm in favour of making clear moving forward that compromised accounts will not automatically have the admin tools restored. Where I am unsure is if this is the procedure we wish to adopt, as it amounts to us asking (as we have done in this case): "Did you have a strong and unique password?" and the admin saying (as they have done in this case) "Yes". But in this case, despite assurances that the password was strong and unique, the admin account was still compromised, which is why we have taken a long time to even get as far as this on-Wiki discussion, why we are insisting on 2FA, and why Joe is opposing a resysopping. I'm not sure a simple assertion that "Yes of course my password was safe" is quite enough, because if someone's admin account became compromised there was a flaw somewhere in that user's security which they didn't know about, and are possibly still not aware of. I think the procedure should be that if an admin's account was compromised and they didn't have 2FA, then they need to enable 2FA to get the tools back. SilkTork (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • I have to strongly disagree with the premise that all we can do is ask the admin. Here, the WMF made a public statement in which they noted that the password was likely reused due to specific, credible information. We can ask the WMF for similar information in any future cases of a compromise and base our decision on that information as well as what the admin tells us. If an account is compromised on the first try and there is no indication of any type of attack perpetrated through Wikipedia itself (e.g. with site JS on smaller wikis), it's fairly clear it was from a reused password, phishing, or a keylogger. ~ Rob13Talk 17:56, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion and comments (Necrothesp)

I don't wish to beat up on this particualr admin (since that's already been done to the point where I'm sure the message has been received) but I would urge the committee to go with version 2, and to consider it a sort of final warning that admins are expected to secure their accounts and ignorance of the last 5-6 years (at least) of evolving policy on this matter is no excuse as we expect admins to be up to speed on important policies. And reports about this hae been in the monthly admin newsletter how many times now? I've lost count. Kinda a big part of the job, and if you can't be bothered to keep up you should be big enough to hand in the tools. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:18, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Should this pass, I hope that a MassMessage will be sent to all admins, active or not (and signed "On behalf of the Arbitration Committee" so they don't think it's just a newsletter that can be ignored). --Rschen7754 05:20, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
@Rschen7754: We can certainly do that. ~ Rob13Talk 05:42, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13 and Rschen7754: would you want this for all users that are currently admins, or also those that are not currently admins but may be eligible for re-sysoping? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:00, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Likewise, although I'm sympathetic to both the optics and voting implications of splitting version 2 into two separate motions. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Don't the current policy wordings leave discretion with the bureaucrats and not mention ArbCom? EdChem (talk) 13:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • We are dealing in this motion with scenarios where there is a removal due to a security breach. The policy wording you mention was added to deal with security concerns that arise in passing after an administrator requests restoration of rights removed due to inactivity. In the latter scenario, the bureaucrats are the first assessors of the security issues. In the former scenario, ArbCom deals with the security issues and votes to reinstate where it knows the issues are resolved. It would not make sense for the bureaucrats to duplicate ArbCom's work in cases of compromised accounts. This illustrates an issue with some language at WP:ADMIN: we keep adding sentences to deal with edge cases that then mislead readers, through the illusion of comprehensiveness, when a different edge case arises. AGK ■ 14:05, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • AGK, I am aware that ArbCom can and does desysop for security reasons, it is the reason that I was surprised by the wording. WP:SECUREADMIN states that "[d]iscretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to bureaucrats," which appears to me to empower bureaucrats to duplicate ArbCom work and even resysop after a Level 1 desysop unilaterally provided the 'crat is convinced security issues are addressed so long as a leel 1 desysop can be placed into the "temporary" camp. Wikipedia:User account security#Privileged editors states that Administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, stewards and oversighters discovered to have weak passwords, or to have had their accounts compromised by a malicious person, may have their accounts blocked and their privileges removed on grounds of site security. In certain circumstances, the revocation of privileges may be permanent. Discretion on resysopping temporarily desysopped administrators is left to the bureaucrats, provided they can determine that the administrator is back in control of the previously compromised account. This mentions nothing about ArbCom. It asserts desysopping or other rights revocations may be permanent under "certain circumstances," but gives no clue as to what those might be, nor does it define who makes the decision. For sysop permissions, the discretion could be argued to be held only by the 'crats.
  • I agree with you that duplication is unhelpful, and that in practice ArbCom has the decision-making role... but I am surprised to see nothing in policy that supports that this is the case. I know that ArbCom gets to design its own procedures but cannot make policy. Arguably, above attempts to codify the desysopping being permanent falls into the former case rather than the latter, but that argument becomes much weaker when the policy basis for security breaches leading to permanent action is vague, does not mention ArbCom, and (I suspect) may not have been subject to community endorsement as policy. It may come from WMF actions / directions, but then that should be explicitly stated. Before codifying procedures, the basis for ArbCom authority should be clearly found in policy that is WMF mandated and / or community endorsed. I get that there is something about this particular case and the mishandling of security that has ArbCom annoyed. Perhaps it is a particularly egregious case, or just the latest in a series of cases that should never have arisen. Privacy concerns mean that can't be disclosed in detail, but those motivations don't justify acting as if policy support for ArbCom's authority in this area is clear when the policy documentation does not bear that out. The language on removals becoming permanent goes back at least a decade, so perhaps merely codifying that the decision-maker is ArbCom is needed, along with clarifying when bureaucrats can exercise the discretion that they have under the policy? EdChem (talk) 14:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I think the functional part here though is that since the removal was authorized under WP:LEVEL1 the return is only authorized under WP:RETURN. That is, as ArbCom has explicitly removed the permission, only ArbCom may explicitly return it. If the user group is not returned by ArbCom, WP:RfA still exists. WP:SECUREADMIN seems to specifically refer to things such as password requirements; if WMF ever did one of the promised audits, they could presumably pass that on to bureaucrats for action. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:08, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Our authority to act here is solid. There are several ancillary policies and procedures we could cite (see above), but ultimately it comes down to the fact that WP:ARBPOL gives ArbCom the responsibility for removing the admin permissions. It necessarily follows that we can decide if/when to give back bits we remove, and impose conditions (analogous to topic bans imposed by individual admins as unblock conditions). It would be helpful to amend WP:SECUREADMIN to note that this eventuality exists. – Joe (talk) 18:29, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Please keep in mind that there is no mechanism available to stewards or bureaucrats to validate if a user has enabled 2FA, nor do they have a mechanism that can be used to determine if 2FA is deactivated at a future time. (WMF staff and certain developers can access this user-level data only). There is some consideration for building this functionality (see phab:T209749) however the last notes from the foundation suggest it is unlikely to be made available to project volunteers. To this end, I don't think ArbCom should be creating a user restriction ("account X requires 2FA") that has no mechanism to validate or audit, thus no means to enforce. — xaosflux Talk 14:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • @Xaosflux: This specific concern was discussed quite a bit internally. We can get this data from the WMF, and have in the past. ~ Rob13Talk 15:14, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
      • @BU Rob13: thanks for the note. From my reading of the first proposals above, once enacted this motion completes correct? That is, ArbCom is not creating a continuing requirement that this specific user must maintain 2FA as an ongoing condition of maintaining their administrator access correct? — xaosflux Talk 15:54, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
      • For the second proposal, it seems to be missing a few things: (1) Under what authority is ArbCom creating a new account restriction, (2) What are the mechanics for enforcement? — xaosflux Talk 15:56, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
        • I am not the best person to address the first question as a broad question, because I raised the same concern myself at one point and am not fully satisfied with the answer. Having said that, Necrothesp has noted privately to the Committee that he is willing to enable 2FA going forward. I would say our authority in this case is consent of the editor. In terms of enforcement, theoretically, the Arbitration Committee can request a list of editors with 2FA enabled from the Foundation. We've been provided with such information as it relates to the functionary team in the past. As a practical matter, I am more than happy to AGF that Necrothesp wouldn't blatantly lie to us about enabling 2FA and keeping it enabled. ~ Rob13Talk 18:02, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
        • We already have a password strength policy that is supposed to be binding on all admins, it has just never been enforced even one single time. And now there is also a global policy. We asked the WMF for password auditing in 2015 but as far as I kno wthat's never been done either, but I seem to recall seeing somewhere recently that that is close to being a reality as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
          • Discussed at phab:T121186, the "regular audits" and "password strength bar" have, obviously, not been implemented. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:50, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • In Version 3 by AGK et al. the unchanged text from the current policy at WP:RETURN appears to proscribe a case if ArbCom doesn't return the perms, is that a fair assessment? Would it be worth indicating that a case is not required in all cases (such as this), perhaps simply by changing shall be opened to may be opened? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:26, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • Given the typically private nature of discussions regarding an individual account's security, I would argue we're already opening "normal arbitration proceedings" when an account is compromised by seeking evidence regarding the account's security privately. The normal proceedings in such a situation would be a private case, not a public one. I would consider the new language on our procedures for compromised accounts as descriptive of "normal arbitration proceedings" in that situation. ~ Rob13Talk 18:06, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Please note that Necrothesp has enabled 2FA on his account. See here. Thank you for taking that step. ~ Rob13Talk 18:57, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
    • I've been informed that log is noting he got oauth-tester, which allows him to enable 2FA. Either way, thanks for taking a step toward 2FA. ~ Rob13Talk 19:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Statement by 92.8.219.133

(Posting by banned user removed.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:20, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

--DannyS712 (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Please don't move it there, this IP is banned Vote (X) for Change (talk · contribs), as so often. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:20, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
@Future Perfect at Sunrise: reverted --DannyS712 (talk) 17:22, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Some issues relating to the IP area

Looking at the wording of Template:ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice (that is, {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}}), it says (under "Template documentation"): "Note that a lack of this template is not an indication that the article is not subject to the restriction."
Alas, here, on 14 March 2019 ar.com added "This remedy may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice."
IE, you define it as one thing, then implement it to mean exactly the opposite. To me, this looks absurd.
Also, can non−admins still place {{ARBPIA}} on article talk pages? I was reverted on this, by an editor who said that this was now only to be done by admins. Is this correct? Huldra (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
Absolutely incorrect. Non-admins can do that. Also, absence of the edit notice means the restrictions can’t be enforced, but it doesn’t really mean they aren’t in effect. ~ Rob13Talk 00:22, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
Distinction without a difference. nableezy - 14:34, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
Not entirely. If an editor clearly aware of the restrictions knowingly was violating them on obvious pages that just didn't happen to have an edit notice yet, I would say file an ARCA. While admins at AE don't have the authority to sanction without the edit notice there, to prevent overzealous enforcement, the Committee theoretically could. I could see myself voting for a topic ban on an editor at ARCA if they were clearly violating the remedy but carefully avoiding situations in which it was enforceable at AE. The Committee generally frowns upon any form of "gaming" restrictions. ~ Rob13Talk 16:08, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
First, User:L235 just changed the Template:ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice, so that it now say the same as the latest motion. So that problem has been taken care of.
Also, thank you for making it absolutely clear that non−admins can still place {{ARBPIA}} on article talk pages. User:GoldenRing also made it clear here that I could also place a {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}}. (I have been reverted on both, by people saying that I, as a non−admin, had no right to do so.) The ARBPIA notice really need to make this clearer, though: at the moment it is simply not clear that any editor can put an {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} on a talk page.
Also, in effect this means at the present we virtually cannot report any 1RR violation to AE, as extremely few articles in the IP area actually have a edit notice. I reported a clear violation of 1RR to AE here, the reported editor walked off scot free due to the lack of edit notice on the page in question. It would be the same for, my guess: some 98% of the articles under ARBPIA sanction. The editor in question just came off a topic ban in February; to bring a thing like this to ARCA seems like a serious "upping" the level of bureaucracy. I don't see this as progress.
Finally, I would like to say that even if we "usual suspects" in the IP area rarely agree about a thing, except for what is under ARBPIA, or not. I cannot recall that there have been any serious disagreement between us about that issue. Roughly it is like this: when 2, 3 or more of "the usual suspects" appear on a talk–page, then it is under ARBPIA ;P Huldra (talk) 20:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

To editor BU Rob13: As I see it, the only real problem here is that ordinary editors don't have the technical ability to add editnotices to articles. It means that for practical purposes the 1RR rule has all but disappeared from ARBPIA. This is a bad thing because 1RR has long been the most effective dampener on edit warring there. Zerotalk 00:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

@Zero0000: You are welcome to take any page that needs an edit notice to my talk page and I'm happy to place one. Same goes for anyone else. ~ Rob13Talk 02:08, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
I've placed ~100 edit notices just now, including all of Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict. I'll keep going through subcategories and placing edit notices every once in a while. Feel free to ask for edit notices in specific places on my talk, still, if needed. ~ Rob13Talk 02:33, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Much appreciated. Zerotalk 03:09, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: I think there are still problems. We've agreed that anyone can place the ARBPIA talk page notice, right? (But see below because that's not exactly true) The core of the problem is that ARBPIA discretionary sanctions are different from others, perhaps unique. For American politics we say "standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.". All edits for the AP area, but not for IP. That's because you can only place the ARBPIA template on pages that are "reasonably construed", as opposed to "broadly construed". When I argued that if there was a section in a BLP that was relevant to the IP area non-ECP editors should not edit that section, it was pointed out that if the BLP wasn't centrally involved in the IP area then the article wasn't reasonably construed. The incident that led to this particular thread was placing the ARBPIA notice on Solomon's Pools, an article which does not appear to be reasonably construed, and thus the revert to User:Huldra's edit adding it was correct. Huldra has replaced it following the above discussion, and I can't blame her. This is confusing and in fact we have no definition of "reasonably construed" nor is the phrase used at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Placing sanctions and page restrictions which only mentions "broadly construed". That subsection says "When considering whether edits fall within the scope of discretionary sanctions, administrators should be guided by the principles outlined in the topic ban policy. And that policy says Wikipedia:Banning policy#Topic ban which says " (not only articles) broadly related to the topic, as well as the parts of other pages that are related to the topic, as encapsulated in the phrase "broadly construed". For example, if an editor is banned from the topic "weather"." Again this does not apply with regard to ARBPIA. In fact, only Admins can place ARBPIA talk page notices if they include any restrictions such as the ECP notice at Talk:Solomon's Pools even if the article is reasonably construed. User:Zero0000 what do you think of this? Doug Weller talk 12:27, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
I also think there are issues regarding pages with sub-parts that are very ARBPIA (while other parts are not). Regarding awareness - BU Rob13 -Would you consider a request to self-revert per ARBPIA 1RR, on a user talk page, as an alternative (to the edit notice) manner of fulfilling the awareness requirement for that user on a specific article? Many of the regulars request self-reverts in any case, and this will streamline affairs. If the user doesn't self-revert (and they replied and/or continued editing after the user-talk page post) - then AE could be filed. Icewhiz (talk) 13:06, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
No. The edit notice is needed, and is more desirable in any event, because it will get our adoption rate of the edit notice up to ensure enforcement can be done in future cases involving other editors. Doug: The discretionary sanctions in IP do cover the topic area broadly construed. The other sanctions only cover the topic area reasonably construed. Any non-admin can place the template, but of course, it has no effect if no admin agrees the page is reasonably construed to be within the topic area. If someone reverts because the editor was a non-admin, they should be trouted. If someone reverts because they think the page isn’t in the topic area, then it can go to AE to get a consensus on whether the page is reasonably construed to be within the topic area or not. ~ Rob13Talk 14:05, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: Maybe I wasn't sufficiently clear. Yes, the ARBPIA template with no specific restrictions can be added to pages that are broadly construed. But only Admins can add it with specific restrictions and those should be added only to pages "reasonably construed". Thus the one at Solomon's Pools should not have been added by a non-Admin and probably an Admin shouldn't add the restrictions either as it's not "reasonably construed", something maybe we need to further define. Is that correct? Doug Weller talk 16:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
This just isn't correct. Non-admins can add that template as well. It isn't an admin action to place it. They aren't placing any restrictions on the page. They're just noting restrictions are in effect; they've already been placed by ArbCom. If anyone (admin or non-admin) disagrees with whether a page is "reasonably construed" to be in a topic area, they can take that to AE or ARCA to reach consensus on the issue. ~ Rob13Talk 20:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: we seem to have two ARBPIA templates for talk pages. {{Ds/talk notice|topic=a-i}} simply reads "The Arbitration Committee has authorized uninvolved administrators to impose discretionary sanctions on users who edit pages related to the Arab–Israeli conflict, including this page. Provided the awareness criteria are met, discretionary sanctions may be used against editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process." {{ARBPIA}} however adds sanctions. Is this intentional or should the one at Template:Ds/talk notice be revised to match the one with ECP etc? Doug Weller talk 09:15, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: That template does not add sanctions. It notes they're in effect. These are not sanctions being added under discretionary sanctions. They are sanctions put into effect on all pages reasonably construed to be in this topic area by ArbCom itself. Just like non-admins can note that ArbCom has placed discretionary sanctions into effect on a page, so too can they note that ArbCom has placed other sanctions into effect on a page. ~ Rob13Talk 14:04, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: damn, I shouldn't have said "adds" as it was too ambiguous. I meant "adds a statement about the sanctions". Obviously they are part of ARBPIA, my concern now is that they aren't mentioned in the DS notice you find when you go to the list of talk page notices. Shouldn't someone change the template? Doug Weller talk 14:45, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Well, I think we who actually edit Solomon's Pools all think it is under ARBPIA (User:Icewhiz: correct me if I'm wrong). However, the way I understand it: even though it has a {{ARBPIA}} on Talk:Solomon's Pools, editors are at present free to ignore 1RR, as you get no edit notice when you try to edit the article? Sorry for being slow here, but am I correct in this assumption? Huldra (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
I would not consider that page "reasonably construed" to be in the topic area. I struggle to even consider it broadly construed. Unless I'm missing something, there hasn't been any conflict specifically over this area. It just happens to be in the West Bank. ~ Rob13Talk 20:15, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
The edit war has been about where to mention the connection to King Solomon: there is none, according to many archeologist, but it is "vital connection" to many Israeli religious settlers, etc. Also whether or not to mention the nearest Israeli settlement. These are issues at the heart of the IP conflict, Huldra (talk) 20:49, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Huldra stands in need of correction. Solomon's Pools have absolutely nothing to do with Israeli settlers, but is rather a place of historical importance to all Israelis. Until now, there has been no political fighting over the area. Only Huldra has raised the spectrum of dispute, when, in fact, there is none whatsoever.Davidbena (talk) 01:24, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Israel Finkelstein is one who has written a lot about this. To quote from a Haaretz article link: "The Bible tells us that this process began when the 12 Israelite tribes united under the kings Saul, David and Solomon to form a great kingdom, centered in Jerusalem, sometime in the 11th 10th century B.C.E. The so-called United Monarchy fractured after Solomon’s death, with the great king’s son, Rehoboam, retaining control only over Judah and Jerusalem while the rebellious northern tribes broke away to form the Kingdom of Israel under a ruler named Jeroboam. However, many scholars doubt that there was a United Monarchy to begin with. There is little hard evidence of this great kingdom, which was likely an ideology-driven description of the Jerusalemite scribes who compiled this part of the Bible, probably in the late 7th century B.C.E., hundreds of years after the days of David and Solomon."
The Israeli settlements on the West bank is often "justified" by the Israelis "ancient ties" to the land. Anything questioning the existence of Saul, David, Solomon or United Monarchy is therefor at the core of the IP problems, Huldra (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Then perhaps I could see "broadly construed". I cannot see "reasonably construed" when basically the entirety of the article text has nothing to do with the topic area. ~ Rob13Talk 23:52, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
But this is a problem again and again, I recall History of the Jews in Jordan, where only a tiny bit is related to the IP conflict, but that still got it a ARBPIA notice, Huldra (talk) 23:58, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Why create problems here when there is no problem? I see the problem not so much as with the place, but rather with the personal POV attitudes of some editors, who wish to push their own agenda (perhaps) and to "divorce" the Jews from their historical connections to the Land of Israel (Palestine). Huldra herself doubted the historicity of Solomon here, and yet she admits that Israel's ancient connection to the land is the source of contention here! Now tell me if this attitude is not the real problem? When editors begin taking a neutral stance and position none of this will happen. Davidbena (talk) 01:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
In my view this is reasonably construed - this is an important archaeological/recreational site that is right in between the Israeli and Palestinian zones of control - and is quite contested. The article perhaps doesn't reflect this - I can see how from reading the article one might not understand what the fuss is about. Icewhiz (talk) 05:00, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@Davidbena: This thread is not about other editors, it is about an issue to do with the ArbCom set of DS for the IP dispute. Doug Weller talk 09:04, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I will echo Rob's comment above; I read the article this morning and thought, "What on earth has this to do with the I-P conflict?" Somewhere this morning (I forget where) I've seen a comment to the effect that wherever two or three of the ARBPIA regulars turn up, that page is reasonably construed to be within the ARBPIA scope. It just ain't so. Frankly, if editors are so entrenched in the ARBPIA dispute that wherever they cross paths the ARBPIA rules are necessary, then I start to suspect it might be time for the whole lot of them to take an extended break from ARBPIA. GoldenRing (talk) 10:19, 23 April 2019 (UTC)


@GoldenRing: although I think that one of the editors should be (re)banned from the area, I disagree with you. What I see is confusion over the fact that ARBPIA sanctions are different from others and only apply to articles that are "reasonably construed", a term for which we have no definition and thus leave to someone's judgement. User:Icewhiz makes a point worth investigating about the site being part of the conflict but that not being in the article. If that's the case, then it probably is reasonably construed. It's even more confusing to the average editor when they see that an article such as History of the Jews in Jordan is under sanctions, although they were added by Brewercrewer in October 2015 which is just before the motion that added ECP - I'm assuming that the fact that the talk page warning has ECP etc is because the template itself was modified when ECP was passed, so it accidentally inherited them. Note that it says, correctly, "All Arab–Israeli conflict-related pages, broadly interpreted, are subject to discretionary sanctions: Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial notification."
I'm going to recap my understanding of the current situation:
"All Arab-Israeli conflict-related pages, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions." Thus {{Ds/talk notice|topic=a-i}} is the appropriate talk page notice for articles which are broadly construed but not reasonably construed. Note that this covers all pages, not just article space.
Within the set of pages that are broadly construed there is a set of pages (again not articles) that are deemed reasonably construed and where the General prohibition applies, although non-ECP editors are allowed, so long as they are not disruptive, to use article talk pages reasonably and to make edit requests. ECP applies everywhere else to any page reasonably construed, eg an AfD for a reasonably construed article.
Problems arise because of this distinction between broadly construed and reasonably construed articles. Many editors appear to be unaware of this distinction and there is no clear definition of what it means. It's not unreasonable therefore for editors to think all articles with related text are subject to the General Prohibition. It's also not unreasonable for editors to have differing views about what articles are reasonably construed, and of course to argue about it.
User:BU Rob13 has said that WP:AE is the venue for determining whether a page is reasonably construed when there is a debate about it. It's also the case that ECP can be requested even for pages that are not reasonably construed, although there's no guarantee it will be granted.
Have I missed anything or gotten anything wrong? Doug Weller talk 12:55, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: Yes, I think that's my understanding also. I think the distinction between reasonably/broadly construed was introduced for a good reason: Since 1RR and the general prohibition applied immediately to the whole topic area, restricting the scope of the topic area somewhat more narrowly than the usual "broadly construed" was a way of not catching out editors who had no interest in the conflict and came to an article such as Solomon's Pools and started editing. If the 1RR restriction was "broadly construed" then someone would have to explain to them that they'd been blocked for what would normally be allowable editing due to a set of rules which (on the face of it) have nothing to do with the article they edited. Now that the editnotice is required before enforcing 1RR, it might be worth asking the committee to expand the scope of 1RR out to the same as the DS, for the sake of simplicity. GoldenRing (talk) 13:23, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
So, in layman's terms, is the visibility of the ArbCom Arab-Israeli edit-notice template a prerequisite to sanctioning an editor for violation of the 1RR restriction? Or does it still apply to all articles without the template, but which are reasonably/broadly construed to being related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If it does not apply to the latter, where does the article Solomon's Pools stand in all of this legal quagmire?Davidbena (talk) 13:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
As far as I understand, 1RR applies to all articles which are reasonably construed to be related to the I-P conflict but is only enforceable if the editnotice is in place. I realise that sounds like horrible sophistry, but nonetheless it is where the sanctions currently stand. I guess, practically speaking, while it may not be allowed to sanction an editor for 1RR violations if the editnotice is not in place, it still might be taken into consideration in a wider discussion about an editor's behaviour and a proposed topic ban, say. GoldenRing (talk) 13:54, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Well then, I ask those genius admins who have put this in place to ASAP place edit notices on each and every article in Template:Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestinian exodus, each article on Template:Jenin_Governorate and all the other localities in the other Palestinian governances, listed here: Template:Governorates of the Palestinian Authority. Also on all localities listed in [[Category:Arab localities in Israel]]
At the moment it is pure anarchy in the IP area: rules are there, but people are not being censored when they are breaking the rules ...due to this new technicality, Huldra (talk) 20:41, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
@GoldenRing: I presume you've seen WP:ARCA#Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 3? [{{re|BURob 13]] I think [User:Huldra]] has a good point, most of those articles, maybe all, need to have the full restrictions and edit notices added. Doug Weller talk 05:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Umm - not all Arab-Israeli settlements in Israel are reasonably construed - many have very little to do with the conflict - nor every location in the West Bank. Why are we asking to template only Arab locales?Icewhiz (talk) 05:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
I seem to have messed up my pings, haven't I. I don't know why Arab localities, but I'd think depopulated villages would be reasonably construed? Doug Weller talk 12:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Most or even all of them - yes - coverage on many of the smaller ones is mainly 1948.Icewhiz (talk) 13:04, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
BURob 13 and Huldra, Doug Weller meant to ping you just above. Nyttend (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Pinging User:BU Rob13, Huldra (talk) 20:11, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I do not feel personally passionate about the subject - Rama

Moved to WP:A/R/C

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

  • This is an embarassment for Wikipedia - 07:41 29 April 2019 <- this was 1 minute prior to undeletion, before this became a dispute
  • Notability is ridiculously obvious - 07:42 29 April 2019
  • [T]he deletion of the article is a source of embarasment for Wikipedia, and an emergency restoration of the article seems quite appropriate to me to avoid making Wikipedia look indifferent, incapable of correcting its mistakes, or even militant in its invisibilisation of women and minorities - 08:51 29 April 2019
  • The article in question makes a convincing case that the article is victim of an unfortunately selective enforcement of notability criteria, and is an embarrasment to Wikipedia. - 09:25 29 April 2019
  • Wikipedia is known to have a problematic gender gap, insufficient coverage of minorities, and recently Katie Bouman's case has been indicative of deliberate attempts on the general Internet at minimising the contributions of women in science. - Previous diff (this one is here just to show "passion" on the topic, nothing more)
  • My undeletion of Clarice Phelps's biography is an emergency measure to answer criticism in the press and show Wikipedia to be responsive, responsible, and capable of correcting mistakes quickly. I understand that this disregards the previous Deletion Requests, but doing otherwise would amount to a dismissive and defiant "Wikipedia is not for Social Justice" attitude, which would be irresponsible and deeply suspicious. - Previous diff
  • there are many sources establishing notability, because there is a suspiciously selective enforcement of notability criteria on this case, and because media attention on this article - 09:34 29 April 2019
  • yes you are arguing for deletion, and you are also letting far-Right talking point slip - 12:14 29 April 2019 for my preceding comment striking at Rama's and the Jarvis' politicization of the deletion. Albeit Like you, the only reason the author thinks this article is necessary is because politics and social justice was my engaging in hyperbole. It's not the only reason, but it is the main one given.

Tell me again, Rama, how you are not personally passionate about the subject, in a dispute in which you've questioned everybody's good faith (calling the deletions "deeply suspicious"), repeatedly referred to the embarrassment to Wikipedia this has caused, and all the rest of the hyperbole? And if you really don't feel passionate about the subject, then what kind of a reaction should I expect on the day you do feel personally passionate about a subject?

  • The nature and intensity of the reactions to the restoration have also surprised me - If the above statements by you don't give you a hint as to why you received such a vicious backlash, then nothing will. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Mr rnddude: I think this properly belongs on the case request. Would you object to me moving it there? GoldenRing (talk) 08:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
  • GoldenRing: I'd already used around 150/500 available words on the case request and I knew this comment was going to be long, but wasn't sure how long. It's around 450 words. I'm fine with it being moved. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Based on past cases, I do not understand why linking to a diff, or a user subpage would not be sufficient. This sort of long analysis is more the stuff for cases rather than requests anyway. For a request a statement about the timeline, rather than a full exposition should be taken in good faith. Again based on past cases, anyone making a flawed summary would be quickly picked up on it anyway, we have plenty of boomerang spotters around. --Fæ (talk) 10:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Evidence page banner on scope

Instead of the sentence If the scope is overran, clerks will remove the content., I suggest something like Any content outside of the case's scope will be removed by clerks.. It feels somewhat unusual to speak of a scope being overrun. (In any case the current formation seems wrong; the past participle is "overrun", and the scope isn't doing the overrunning.) isaacl (talk) 07:07, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

User:Fram banned for a year by Office

By motion he should have the bit removed until this is explained and the community can decide whether he retains the trust of the community to have the bit restored when the ban expires. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:1300:A2E:0:0:0:1002 (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

The bit was already removed, by WMF. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Word limits

This issue has repeatedly come up at WP:AE as well and I've brought it up here, but basically, it takes A LOT more words to defend oneself against accusations than to make the accusations. Just like it takes a whole fact checking article to debunk a single tweet, the person who is defending themselves simply has to use a lot more space to properly explain the situation. The diff I provided above to User:El_C's talk page illustrates one instance of this: Icewhiz uses only 15 words to make a false accusation. To show why it's false, I have to write two paragraphs! That's just how language works.

Here is another example, at the case request Icewhiz writes: "Note VM loudly asserted restoring this was non-actionable." That's 8 words to make a dishonest accusation. He even has room to add a superfluous adjective "loudly" (like... how?) in there. To show that this is bunk I have to point out that:

1. Icewhiz claims he "discovered a HOAX". Nonsense. The actual question was whether a statement about a general geographic area (eastern pre-war Poland) can be used in an article on a specific locale in that area (a town) (Here is the source)

2. What I actually pointed out at WP:AE is that the editor in question initially (at 9:23 06/24/18) restored a long standing version of the article (and even asked for editors to assume good faith in the edit summary while they worked on the article) and then over the next three hours proceeded to make changes to this version [4], so that the version they left at 12:24 06/24/18 [5] did not even contain the text Icewhiz brought to WP:AE

3. Failure on Icewhiz's part to show the subsequent (literally, made minutes later) changes at WP:AE was a straight up misrepresentation of another editor's edits.

So that's 140 words to just outline what really happened. The truth is always more complicated than the lie.

As a result, I think it's imperative that people who are responding to accusations be allowed a larger word limit then the people making the accusations. You can pack a whole lotta accusations into 750 word and just responding to a couple of them will burn up the limit.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:48, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I think this just goes to show how ARC doesn't work very well. If everyone gave all their arguments in the case request, what's the point of an evidence page? On the other hand, without giving all one's arguments in the ARC, we won't even get to an evidence page in the first place. Banedon (talk) 08:34, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

I also want to point out that there's a simple mechanical reasons for why responses to accusations will naturally be longer than the accusations - to refute an accusation you usually have to first quote or restate the original accusations which apparently also counts against your word limit (unless the accuser is nice enough to put each accusation into a separate diff, which, you know, they're not).Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Requesting a length exception

Already another party, uninvolved, has found my statement helpful and suggested I ask here for the length exception. So, asking here (if there's another place to ask, it's not like it easy to find in all the arcane rules and such). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:26, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

As a fully uninvolved editor either in this particular dispute or in the "Jews in Poland" topic area, I found the statement by Piotrus particularly informative, and I support his request for an extended word count. — JFG talk 09:02, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
I am an uninvolved editor, and I also found Piotrus' statement helpful. I support a length exception to allow for his complete statement. Paul August ☎ 18:31, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

closing banner

In Template:Casenav/closed, I suggest that This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched be modified to the following: This case is now closed and so there might not be any editors watching its related pages. isaacl (talk) 16:10, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

The current wording is fine. "May" here is not referring to permission, but merely the possibility that the pages are no longer watched. – bradv🍁 16:18, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I concur with Bradv. "May" does not necessarily means "permission," it is also used to express "possibility" which is the meaning used in this context. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:28, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I understand this. Nonetheless, I think an active wording rather than passive would be stronger, and incidentally help avoid potential confusion. isaacl (talk) 16:29, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Numeric case aliases using ArbCase template

Just a reminder for those who would like to use numeric case aliases to refer to cases instead of the case name: the {{ArbCase}} template supports an alias in the form of year-number (the alias can be specified without the dash). Cases going back to 2015 are supported; see the template documentation for a list. isaacl (talk) 15:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Everybody's two cents

We've heard a lot of talk about clerking RfA to remove off-topic comments or bad faith contributors. Is there any clerking at ARBCOM to remove comments from the peanut gallery? I know some of the more testy cases before ARBCOM get a flurry of accusations and counterclaims but those are usually just from the combatants involved in the scuffle before the court. Now that there's a case request impacting the community as a whole, it seems we have far too many opinions. I just don't want to see this case slowed by these distractions. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) Chris Troutman (talk) 02:11, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Chris troutman, arbitration pages are maintained by the clerks who may remove statements that are off-topic or unproductive. We don't generally use "peanut gallery" as a criterion though, as the term is rather loosely defined. – bradv🍁 02:22, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: To echo what BradV said we generally only filter out comments that aren't on-topic or are a violation of policy. Unless the committee directs otherwise this is likely to be the standard we will use for the current case. Golden Ring has already removed some of the off topic or non substantive statements. Regards --Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:18, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
fix ping @GoldenRing:--Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Request to restore my statement

My statement was removed by a clerk here: [6]. I would like it restored, please, as it details why I think a case should be opened, and what the scope should be (in my opinion, the entire saga of the Fram ban/desysop and aftermath). ArbCom has neither accepted the case yet nor yet determined the scope of the case. My post directly addresses those issues. Softlavender (talk) 22:29, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Inconsequential confused request; entirely my mistake. EllenCT (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I'm wondering whether the Committee intended the clerks to remove entire comments or just their mention of W.i.Red. Could I ask the clerks to try to clarify that, please? It seems contrary to the discussion-oriented case request for which half a dozen of the arbs said they hoped for in their opening comments. EllenCT (talk) 05:16, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom has made no public statement to remove those posts. The clerks did it without public discussion, even though those posts speak to the scope of the case and the need for a case. I have never before seen clerks determine on their own what information is or is not clearly related to a case request (in this case, the ban/desysop of Fram) and unilaterally delete information. I'm wondering whether someone from WiR emailed Clerks-l and made this request. Both Opabinia regalis and SilkTork have implied that the case if accepted will not be merely about WJBscribe's resysop of Floq. I would like my post restored, and if not, an explanation from ArbCom. Softlavender (talk) 05:26, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Am I missing something? Looks to me like your statement is still there (albeit struck), it's just the portion about the tweet that was removed. The edit summary indicates "per Clerk L", i.e. as requested by an arb on the clerks mailing list. Nothing to do with any requests from anyone else.
Side point, but - while it's true that my comment suggests that a case if accepted would not just be about the resysop - what I meant was that the case wouldn't be about anything, because it would be dismissed by motion. SilkTork and I agree, I think, on the desirability of some follow-up discussion, just not on the best venue/format. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:51, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@Softlavender: Just to echo what OR mentioned the direction came from members of the Arbitration Committee via the Clerks-L mailing list. We did not "determine on" our "own what information is or is not clearly related to the case request". Regards, --Cameron11598 (Talk) 07:27, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to all of you for clarifying. I wasn't wondering whether or where you were directed to remove the statements about W.i.Red, but whether you were asked to also remove the unrelated portions of the comments containing those statements? EllenCT (talk) 19:41, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@EllenCT: I don't see anything that was removed that was unrelated to the Women In Red could you provide a quote? I'm not trying to be obtuse or anything I'm just a bit confused. @SQL:--Cameron11598 (Talk) 20:32, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Cameron, I'm deeply sorry. The mistake here is all mine, stemming from confusion entirely in my own head. Please forgive this waste of time. How embarrassing. EllenCT (talk) 21:43, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Case title WJBscribe (probably trivial, but would be good to resolve this)

AGK retitled the case here from "Restoration of admin permissions to Floquenbeam by WJBscribe" to "WJBscribe". I noticed it when WJBscribe brought this re-titling up in their statement.

I have a short query – is the case title "WJBscribe" appropriate here? Is this purely about WJBscribe or can we retitle this to something that describes the scenario better? Thanks, Lourdes 02:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Would definitely support reverting this back to the original "Restoration ...", as Hammersoft (talk · contribs) has pointed out in the past about anchoring. Banedon (talk) 02:52, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I doubt this is going to be changed now. But it is worth noting that naming the case is one of the things the arbs agree on just before a case is actually opened; I'm sure they'll be aware of this discussion if and when it comes to that. GoldenRing (talk) 08:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
I would favour titling it "Office Actions" and making that the central core of the discussion. I would think most folks on Wikipedia accept that there are some actions by the Foundation that would be appropriate, but at this stage it is unclear what those actions are, how they should be communicated, and who should be responsible for sanctions for anyone reversing an office action. I'm not clear in my mind that it should be ArbCom who are responsible for upholding an office action that ArbCom have not been given any insight into. I'm not clear in my mind that ArbCom have the remit from the community to be the police dogs for the Foundation. Police officers, maybe, but not mindless police dogs. SilkTork (talk) 11:22, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Not that police dogs are mindless - they are actually quite intelligent. I was thinking more in terms of blind obedience. SilkTork (talk) 11:23, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
If an Arbcom member thinks their elected 'job' is to behave like Wikipedia Police, then they should make an explicit statement rather than hedge around it. That way, the community can decide if they are mentally suitable to continue to be a trusted member of Arbcom. --Fæ (talk) 11:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I support SilkTork's suggestion. Office or Office Actions would be a good title, given that it was actions by WP:OFFICE that led to this request. Mjroots (talk) 08:45, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Bradv, AGK, can you action this please now? I agree with SilkTork's suggestion. Thanks, Lourdes 07:51, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Statements

GoldenRing - do the statements from involved and uninvolved parties need separating? Did consider being bold and doing it myself but don't want to tread on any toes here. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@Mjroots: They are not normally so separated at this stage of proceedings. GoldenRing (talk) 20:48, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

That at least 4 arbcom members have accepted the case is a positive step to resolving this dispute. Thank you. Buffs (talk) 17:19, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I wonder where AGK is? ——SerialNumber54129 20:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Hi, SN. I am here. Our mailing list discussion is now at hundreds of entries long. Most of my time is going into that venue and specifically into trying to arrive at a consensus with colleagues. I will enter a vote once I feel sure about what I think the committee should do next. AGK ■ 21:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Ahoy, AGK! Could you help us get clarity? A whole bunch of us want to know if one or more ArbCom members sent this matter to WMF and if so why? Or was this a case of WMF invading your turf? It will really help to know. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 21:56, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
The Arbitration Committee is not going to identify the complainant in this case anymore than the WMF will. This is an inappropriate request. – bradv🍁 22:10, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Straw man argument. I didn’t ask for the complainant to be identified. I asked the arbitrators to confirm that none of them filed the request with WMF. I am entitled to know if my elected representatives have betrayed the trust placed in them. Jehochman Talk 03:33, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
That's not a straw man argument, it's a direct response to the question. The arbitrators are not going to confirm or deny any guesses about the identity of the complainant, and asking them to do so is inappropriate. – bradv🍁 03:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Stop bearing the straw man. If an Arbitrator filed the request with WMF we are entitled to know which of our elected representatives is betraying our interests. That’s all I want to know. If it was some other random editor who complained, I absolutely don’t care who they are and have not even an atom of resentment against them. They can remain anonymous. Jehochman Talk 03:50, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
I am reading very carefully what you write, and you are suggesting that if an arb filed the request that would be a betrayal of the interests of the community. First off, I'm not sure how that would constitute a betrayal, and secondly, you are not going to get an answer to this question. Even if the arbitrators knew who filed the request, releasing that information would be a betrayal of confidentiality. – bradv🍁 03:58, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I don’t want anybody to break confidences. If an Arbitrator asked WMF to do in Fram because ArbCom didn’t want to do what was needed themselves, I will be quite disappointed. My hope is that if such a thing happened, the individual(s) will come forward and admit what they did. Arbitrators are elected to do a job. We trust them because we chose them. I have no idea if Fram did something wrong. ArbCom should have a public or private case to determine that. Jehochman Talk 04:07, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

  • BU Rob13, any inputs from you would be helpful. Given your statement while resigning and given Bradv capitulating above to Jehochman's question (hilarious actually; Jehochman asked for whether ArbCom sent the complaint, and Brad seems to have basically replied "yes, but we won't say who" – I could be wrong in my reading...), I think at least the back chatter needs to stop. Lourdes 07:42, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
What? Brad is at most saying that, no information on complainants so that others will not harass them no matter who they are, will be given out. Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:46, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Okay. In other words, we would neither confirm nor deny that any ArbCom member(s) started this. If this is the route the ArbCom wishes to follow, it is acceptable to me, as the writing on the wall is becoming clearer now. Lourdes 09:19, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Lourdes, wouldn't sharing that information by someone else than whoever filed the report (be it an ArbCom member or someone else) violate the Access to nonpublic personal data policy? --MrClog (talk) 12:10, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
If somebody initiated the report with WMF, that person is free to say what they did. There are signs (but not proof) suggesting one or more arbitrators being involved in filing the complaint. I'd like them to refute that or confirm it. As I've said, if the complainant(s) was/were a non-arbitrator, just say so and I will not inquire further. If ArbCom has no idea who filed the complaint, just say so. Brad, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you were an arbitrator. Thank you for your service. It's a difficult job. Jehochman Talk 12:21, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Jehochman, I'm not an arbitrator, I'm a clerk. It's a much easier job. Lourdes, I'm not sure how you got that from what I said, but it's a misreading. – bradv🍁 12:31, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm chuckling. If you are a good and faithful clerk you will be rewarded with an arbitratorship. No good deeds go unpunished. Jehochman Talk 12:33, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
+1 Lourdes 01:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
MrClog, if Arbcom has clean hands (I still believe that's the case), then to ensure community trust is not lost in them, would you not have expected the following response by brad to Jehochman's question whether anyone from Arbcom had filed the complaint: "Thanks for asking the question. No, none of us present or recently resigned filed the complaint. As this involves ____ issues, we shall not be revealing any details of the complainant,"... instead of what brad said without probably thinking twice or checking with other Arbs. I am sure he is being advised appropriately now; but the harm is done and most of the community frequenting this desk are not spring chickens. Lourdes 01:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I’ve found evidence on wiki that justifies the ban. I’m perplexed why ArbCom didn’t handle this themselves. I think it’s because WMF wants to debut their super secret process when a complaint can be made anonymously and the victim’s identity will not be revealed. This has two huge problems:

  1. It’s blatantly unfair to the accused. He is assume guilty and unable to defend.
  2. WMF can’t guarantee privacy of the victim because the perpetrator knows who the victim is and will definitely leak that information to retaliate. They can leak it off wiki. They can leak it to to other trolls and abusers. This promise of privacy is false and should not be given.

Anybody who wants to talk with me about it, please email me. Jehochman Talk 01:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

"I’m perplexed why ArbCom didn’t handle this themselves."... Jehochman, I suspect they were contacted, had a choice but refused to act, failing which the aggrieved party approached higher authorities and took a value stand. But yea, all this is just a blind guess, so I would say you can disregard my assessment completely. Lourdes 05:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad: Re. this...what price now  ;) ——SerialNumber54129 08:16, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Jehochman, if you have evidence, you should send it privately to arbcom - after all, Fram is not currently banned under any community process, and if you're saying you have evidence that he should be after all, then we should fix that. Otherwise, let's not spread rumors and speculation and "I've got a secret!" stuff; we've already seen enough of that go wrong. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:56, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
(Adding: whoops, forgot to ping Jehochman.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:22, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
I will, but I'm yet to decide whether to post a public request or keep it private. I'm not doing anything hasty and will wait for feedback. Also, I think an ArbCom case may be useful because there are other editors involved who's conduct should be scrutinized. WMF has not been as thorough in their investigation as we would be. Jehochman Talk 12:32, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Belated reply; feel free to refactor @Jehochman: For my own part, I did not ask the WMF to open a file on Fram. The committee was made aware after the WMF did so; the origin(s) were not identified. We were later notified that a sanction was forthcoming. I am sure that telling you both these things is not a breach of confidence.
    At the time, Fram had already been sanctioned (with a warning) by the WMF for nastiness and so the development did seemed uncontentious. Matters assumed a new proportion when the severity of the sanction became clear; we learned about that at virtually the same time you did. AGK ■ 20:16, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Question

How many votes are required for the case to go ahead? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:21, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Hawkeye7, please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration#Deciding of requests. --MrClog (talk) 22:27, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Hmmm. There are ten active arbs, eight accepts and one recuse. Therefore... the case cannot proceed? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Fram's participation

Worm That Turned - If Fram is not to be a named party in this case, can ARBCOM at least give him permission to participate. I feel that it would be beneficial to have his input here. As I understand the situation, Fram is unblocked on en-Wiki, but OFFICE have stated that he will be blocked if he should edit. This amounts to a proxy BAN. For now, Fram should at least be allowd access to his own talk page and any pages directly connected with this case. Can this idea be put before ARBCOM and discussed by them please? Mjroots (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Fram is banned on the English Wikipedia, by the WMF Office, for the period of 1 year. They have been clear that if he were to violate that ban, he would be globally banned, indefinitely. The Arbitration Committee has no power to over-rule the WMF Office in this matter. Any such request should be directed to WMF. WormTT(talk) 20:28, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
OK, let's ask JEissfeldt (WMF). Can Fram be allowed to participate in this case, with the restrictions suggested above, and only for the duration of the case? No editing anywhere else on en-Wiki to be allowed. Mjroots (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Why would Fram's participation be productive or even relevant? The case is about WJB Scribe's restoring Floquenbeam admin privileges, and I don't see what Fram could say about that that might matter. Banedon (talk) 21:26, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
@Banedon: - No, the case, and the issue behind it, is much bigger than 'crat and admin actions in accordance with the IAR policy. I accept that OFFICE's action against Fram stands unless OFFICE decides to shorten the ban, and I'm not looking to get that overturned by ARBCOM, much as I and others may ideally want that, it's out of ARBCOM's jurisdiction. But one aspect is the way OFFICE have handled this, and their apparent lack of accountability and appealability. An issue I'd like to raise in the forthcoming case/RFC. It is for these reasons that Fram should be a named party and allowed to participate. Mjroots (talk) 12:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
No, the WMF is acting and providing information according to their policy. You might think things need not be private but that's not your decision, nor anyone else's. Or go work for the WMF and change their multi-level approval, etc. Or petition the board and the ED. But an Arbcom case is not the venue. By policy and common sense because the WMF has undeniable access to the system and determines the system's use, their action is beyond purview, although again you can petition their board and ED. One of the worst things we have seen in this is the heaping of abuse on a WMF employee just for stating the WMF policy, structure, process, and executive decision, shooting the messenger (worse, of course, was the abuse sustained by others where all there was, was speculation and a desire to trade in personal rumor). We should be ashamed for those, and realize how much they demonstrate our governance incapacity. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Alanscottwalker This post by Jehochman may indicate that Fram has a case to answer. Whether or not Fram is at fault, the accused should be allowed to plead their case. Something which does not seem to have happened here. OFFICE are a named party in the case request, and should be a named party when the case is opened. As I said in my statment at ARC, even if ARBCOM cannot sanction OFFICE, they can certainly make recommendations to OFFICE. Mjroots (talk) 17:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
When we ban someone, it's not because we believe we have perfect justice, nor perfect process, it is because despite having human frailties of imperfect knowledge and reason, we think it, on balance, best to separate for a time from the website. That is all. Perhaps, you believe the people in the office are monsters or one of the more colorful references to twentieth century Godwin like things, shall we say, but not only is it bad faith, it seems preposterous and not only that, out of all proportion to a website. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:15, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Regardless, the case isn't about Fram's conduct. Fram also doesn't have to answer to Arbcom for his conduct because a decision's already been made. I interpret unbanning Fram to take part in a case about his conduct as attempting to overturn the original ban - something you said you're not trying to do. Banedon (talk) 00:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
There is precedent for this. The very limited unban is similar in effect to when an editor is unblocked to be allowed to take part in a discussion at ANI. It was deliberately proposed with those limitations because I believe it would be useful to have input from Fram. Mjroots (talk) 04:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

RE: Statement by Promethean

Rather tangential Promethean but, WP:OFFICE explicitly does authorize others to enforce Office actions, it explicitly does not make such enforcement mandatory though, while it does make obstruction an issue (it's not the only policy to do so, in that regard). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:17, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Correct and incorrect: WP:OFFICE allows other people to assist with enforcing an action. For instance, a WP:OA may result in a user being banned and other Administrators may assist with banning sock accounts related to the WP:OA banned user. However, reading the policy, the only people empowered to determine whether or not a sanction is warranted for a reversal of a WP:OA, and what that may be, is the Foundation.   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 19:22, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Quote Wikimedia administrators and others who have the technical power to revert or edit office actions are strongly cautioned against doing so. Unauthorized modifications to office actions will not only be reverted, but may lead to sanctions by the Foundation, such as revocation of the rights of the individual involved. When in doubt, community members should consult the Foundation member of staff that performed the office action, or their line manager
That seems like an odd thing to quote. As I already said, Office does indeed go against obstruction but it does also authorize others to enforce (even given your quibbling about helping to enforce), and no Office is not the only policy to go against obstruction. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:34, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Well, I'm quoting the part of the page that specifically deals with Administrators reversing OA's - Which is what this case is about. The sections to which you refer aren't relevant to the case, because this case is not about 'voluntarily assisting WMFOffice with the enforcement of an action', such as the example I gave above. In other cases where we use phrases like "... by a Bureaucrat" or "... by the Arbitration Committee" on policy pages, we are essentially indicating that whatever is being referred to is the exclusive power or responsibility of the function or roles nominated. Hence, the reasonable interpretation of WP:OFFICE is that only the Foundation determines sanctions for reversal of WP:OA's, which makes perfect sense. Given that these WP:OA's can have legal ramifications, of course the Foundation wants to be the only party that decides whether or not an Administrator is desysop'ed or banned in light of an unauthorized reversal.   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 19:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Everyone here at Arbcom and Bureaucrats and Admins is always acting as a volunteer The part about others enforcing is relevant because contrary to policy, you denied that the policy does authorize others to volunteer to enforce. The policy in fact authorizes others and protects them in doing so. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:52, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Volunteer editor != Foundation; This is a pretty fundamental lesson when it comes to contributing to Wikipedia. But in any case, I'm not going to continue arguing with someone who can't interpret policy correctly. Even the examples given along side what you quoted specifically relate to things like, "Banning socks" etc. Furthermore, the guidance, when viewed in the context that you mean it, is incompatible with the following aspect of the policy "Post-action monitoring: The Foundation does not monitor the projects for breaches to the office actions it has enforced. It relies on the Wikimedia community’s help in keeping the communities safe and thriving by reporting such breaches to the Support & Safety team, who will review them on a case by case basis and take appropriate actions." - Oh look; See a breach, talk to the Trust and Safety team and THEY decide what to do. Finally, my statement is put there for the benefit of the Arbitration Committee, who will review all the policies and either agree with what has been said, or not. Your continued debating on the policy definition is an irrelevance, as is mine.   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
Look, all editors value the opportunity to put statements forward to the Arbitration Committee on matters that they care about. These statements will encompass their arguments for or against a case being accepted, based on their understanding of policy and the details and nuances of the case. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to not agree with someone’s interpretation; Everyone is welcome to participate if they have a meaningful contribution to make.. But the right way to express that disagreement isn’t by singling out people’s statements on the talk page, or in your own statement, and then arguing back and forth ad nauseum. Doing that is a perfect way to make us both look like arseholes. Instead, might I invite you to make your own statement, where you can put forward your stance and beliefs as to whether or not arbcom should take on this case? Thanks   «l|Promethean|l»  (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
If you read the case page, you would already know the answer to your question. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:37, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
This is why I asked two weeks ago if there would be clerking to chase off the flood of comments. Apparently no one took me seriously. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:06, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Statement by 2001:4898:80E8:F:3E68:8888:4A91:A1CB(Second Fram case)

CLOSED
This doesn't add to the case nor is this the appropriate venue. Closing this as a clerk action. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:00, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

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

Jehochman you found "evidence" we knew about weeks ago. Congratulations, you are several weeks behind everyone else. 2001:4898:80E8:F:3E68:8888:4A91:A1CB (talk) 18:00, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Show me where all the diffs were posted. You all had speculation. I chased down the diffs for everyone to see. Sometimes the answer is hiding in plain sight. I am also pretty confident there's not much else publicly visible, beyond what I found. Jehochman Talk 18:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
People didn't post diffs because it was tedious at best. And even then, you dangled them in front of everyone like you found the golden goose. Everyone already knew about what you said. You didn't "find the answer in plain sight", you wasted everyone's time and created drama for no reason. Again, congratulations, you are SEVERAL weeks behind EVERYONE else. 2001:4898:80E8:F:3E68:8888:4A91:A1CB (talk) 18:04, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Let me lay out the timeline for you. You post that you found irrefutable evidence of what the violation Fram did was, but refused to provide it to everyone. After days of needling and dropping hints, you finally provide it, and everyone rightfully says it's not it and even if it was we knew weeks ago. Your response to this was to then start a SECOND Arb case even when there was plainly the first one DIRECTLY above. And now you're flabbergasted that it's being declined. How many hints do you need that you're barking up the wrong tree? 2001:4898:80E8:F:3E68:8888:4A91:A1CB (talk) 18:08, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
MOAR. I want more hints. What do you think happened with this FramBan? What's your theory? Jehochman Talk 18:18, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't have one, and even if I did it would be irrelevant because people smarter than the both of us are already pursuing that angle. Again, you're missing the point, and at this point are just refusing to drop the stick. You playing Jr. Detective isn't helping. 2001:4898:80E8:F:3E68:8888:4A91:A1CB (talk) 18:31, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Injunction request

ok, there's a hell of a lot of +hat and -hat to and fro going on around this case request and the larger series of events that precipitated it - can ArbCom put out an injunction that all those with the ability to modify another's hats (admin tools, EFM, IAdmin, the lot) not undertake any such actions during the course of the current request if they have any association with the aforementioned events? Dax Bane 09:48, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  • ^^^Second a moratorium on all WP:FRAM-related admin /BC actions. To quote the fella, "will everyone please stop getting shot?!" No rash actions will equal no rash reactions. ——SerialNumber54129 10:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
    • I've sent this to the Clerks-L mailing list for the committee to review. Regards, --Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I suppose I should add a flagging, here, in case arbs have not seen my two suggestions for a Temporary Injunction on the main case page. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
  • At this point in time it appears as though the committee is declining an injunction. Regards --Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Not listed at WP:A/R?

RESOLVED
Included the case request in the template. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 17:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

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

The SP article case reuest. Odd! ——SerialNumber54129 13:36, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: looks like its been fixed. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cameron11598: H'mmm, I stll can't see it. In other news, Pine is one almost 1K words already :D ——SerialNumber54129 15:32, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Serial Number 54129: Weird, I was having issues seeing it this weekend but can now. Maybe clear your cash? (probably won't help but worth a try eh?). And thanks for the heads up about Pine's statement I'll handle that in a little bit (still need to drink my coffee, and its too early to do anything without it.) --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:34, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cameron11598: sorry, did I break something? --Pine (✉) 15:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cameron11598 and Serial Number 54129: sorry, I forgot about the 500 word limit. I will discuss my statement with clerks via the clerks-l mailing list. --Pine (✉) 15:41, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cameron11598: I think #54129 means Template:ArbComOpenTasks/CaseRequests. —Cryptic 15:38, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cryptic: that's the one! I was getting ready to do a screen shot to illustrate what I meant, but forgot about the translcusion. Cheers. @Cameron11598: Absolutely agree you should take a caffeinological approach! ——SerialNumber54129 15:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
See this is why I need my coffee! XD I'll list it shortly. Thanks @Cryptic:! @Pine: You've exceeded the word count limit on the case I'll follow up in the clerk's notes on the case request. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:46, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@Serial Number 54129: Should be fixed now. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 15:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Cameron11598: I sent an email to clerks-l to request an extension to the word limit. I received an automated reply saying that the message has been held for moderation. Please look for that email. We can discuss this further via email if you prefer. Thanks, --Pine (✉) 15:58, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: Sounds good, I'll let one of the list moderators know to pass it through. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 16:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Shortened statement

@Cameron11598 and Serial Number 54129: In the event that you are interested, I posted a new statement which is under the 500 word limit and which I think is a better statement than my original one anyway. Thank you for your prompt communications regarding the word limit. --Pine (✉) 19:39, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Please require the Foundation to abide by established processes for lesser sanctions

Dear Arbitrators, I ask further that you resolve to ask the Foundation whether if in the future they would like to propose sanctions limited to the English Wikipedia or in duration, the User:WMFOffice will agree to open an arbitration request like anyone else, providing that such cases may be disposed of by motion when secret evidence is sufficiently compelling. EllenCT (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Please move to unblock Fram

Dear Arbitrators, regarding Jimbo's announcement that you may unblock Fram, please do so. There is no good reason not to allow Fram to at least speak on their talk page and arbitration concerning them, but I am in favor of an unrestricted block, and ask that you decide on restrictions after their case(s) are heard. Thank you for your kind consideration of this request. EllenCT (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

First this is inappropriate canvassing. Katherine signed off on the original ban, which makes no sense for her to petition for Fram's unblock. Secondly the WMF has recused itself from decided Fram's fate on enwiki, which means she can't comment on this. And thirdly The Wikimedia Foundation has recently adopted processes which alter Wikipedia's dispute resolution rules to include secret behavioral standards applied by secret judges based on secret accusations, with no right of representation, defense, or appeal. You may be subject to such rules. Please join in asking the Wikipedia Arbitration committee to allow editors with advanced permissions the opportunity to participate in their own defense when accused of harassment is a pretty misleading and POV summary of where things stand as of July 5. As for "No good reason" that remains to be seen. ARBCOM can review the evidence and then decide what is appropriate. I'm for maintaining the block while they review the evidence, out of precaution. The material they receive may be sensitive/inflammatory enough that doing things via email is warranted. Or maybe not. Then they can decide if a full lift is warrant, a partial lift where Fram is only allowed to comment on the arbcom case, or that the block is so obviously warranted that there is no point in lifting the block. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:16, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@Headbomb: I have edited the notification that you consider inappropriate to indicate that I reserve the right to propose another RFC to, for example, petition the Board to allow Arbcom to see T&S's full evidence if they withhold it. How would you make the text more neutral? Assuming for the sake of argument that you considered such a neutral statement warranted, how long do you think it is reasonable to wait for Arbcom to unblock and say whether T&S has indicated that they have shared the entirety of their evidence before resuming the petitioning process? What kind of precaution(s) do you think are more important than the right to defend oneself against secret accusations in the open? EllenCT (talk) 18:39, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@EllenCT: I would not, because I would oppose any such petition as unproductive and pointlessly divisive. Let ARBCOM do it's thing. T&S is also under restrictions about what they can share to ARBCOM, as has now been explained multiple times, many may have agreed to share information to T&S, but they may not have agreed to share that information with ARBCOM, and T&S needs to honor that. If an unblock is warranted, they will unblock. If open proceedings are warranted, ARBCOM will mandate them. It's also very possible that closed proceedings are warranted, depending on the nature of the evidence they receive. Petitioning ARBCOM literally achieves nothing but waste time re-opening a fight we just got over. Also, no one has a 'right' (legal or moral) to a public trial. At best, legally, they have a right to a fair trial, which may be held in camera with a full disclosure of the evidence against them. And since this is not a legal trial, no such right even exists here. If Fram (purely hypothetically here) made death threats against someone, they can be summarily banned for life for all I care.
The issue with the WMF ban was that the WMF got to decide what was or was not acceptable behaviour according to ill-defined 'standards', got to decide what was the 'remedy' was, and that their decision was unappealable. Not that things were done in private. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:06, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
WMF has already indicated that they have things they can not share with ArbCom. The current situation is that ArbCom are allowed to reach a verdict and implement the sanctions they come or not up with, as though there is no relevant evidence that they might not have seen, however damning what they have not seen may be. Of course the best course of action under the circumstances, but also makes ArbCom a walking target for sensationalists. I don't believe WMF or the BoT would have given such a concession, no matter how bad it had gotten here, if there was truly damaging evidence that they couldn't disclose. So, it's probably best to assume that they are pretending to have additional evidence that they do not really have, just to save face, and move forward with the evidence that we have and can get instead of holding the community and Fram hostage to evidence that may/not exist. Under the presumption of innocence, Fram ought to be unbanned but maybe leave him desysoped as a precaution, while the evidence is being reviewed and the case ongoing. Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 19:37, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Would you please let me know whether the T&S team's refusal to share some secret evidence was made prior to the recent Board and CEO statements? I.e., diff please? EllenCT (talk) 20:47, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@Usedtobecool: it's probably best to assume that they are pretending to have additional evidence, no, it's probably best to assume that T&S is reasonable, and are being forthright, and that they are simply withholding information they are legally and ethically unable to release. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:52, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Note: T&S has shared redacted evidence with Arbcom. EllenCT (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@Headbomb: An additional issue is that T&S has been unable to say why the block was decided, claiming privacy when they already share secret evidence with Arbcom. What does that say about T&S's purported justification that they need the power to act when Arbcom can not? Given the multiple COIs of their initial use of the new powers they granted themselves, do you believe that there is sufficient reason to err on the side of allowing for a robust and full-throated defense? EllenCT (talk) 21:30, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Of course, it is "reasonable" for them to pretend to have additional materials even if they do not, under the present circumstances. If we assume that they do in fact have damning evidence that can never be shared with ArbCom, then that means ArbCom can not but come to one conclusion- to uphold the ban assuming guilt without evidence. In such a case, a lot of assurances/gestures they've made to the community turn out to be lies. Therefore, there is no reasonable course but to assume that they have no more hidden evidence even though they pretend that they do, since the alternative is assuming even more bad faith, with no practical resolution to the problem possible. To be clear (since I am probably failing in my attempt at argument), I am assuming good faith on the part of all parties but believe there have to be unacknowledged open secrets and pretensions and some such to reconcile the paradoxes of the situation and to move forward. I base my comments on two things: 1) Katherine Maher's statement after BoT and Jimbo's response which says: ...the Foundation has completed its preparation of the case materials it can release to the committee. Notice the word "can". 2) ArbCom's statement after getting said materials: ...however we have agreed that the report is sufficiently detailed and minimally redacted such that we can open a case on Fram. So, all parties need to pretend that there was always evidence that ArbCom was never in a position to be disclosed to, making the T&S actions the only reasonable course that they had under the circumstances. And simultaneously, we need to also pretend that these undisclosable materials aren't that important to the outcome of the case, in essence ArbCom can come to similar conclusions as T&S with the evidence they can be provided (completely ignoring the elephant that is: why, if ArbCom could make all the right decisions with the evidence that they could be disclosed to, T&S pretended they were privy to evidence only they could see and act on as they did?).Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 22:23, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Do you have actual evidence to support your WP:ABF claim that T&S has additional material that they can legally and ethically release, but are choosing to withhold for nefarious purposes / to 'save face'? Or are you just pulling things out of your ass? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
  • When allowing someone to respond to allegations, there should be no requirement that this is done publicly, it is sufficient, better, for it to be done privately. The allegations may involve confidentiality or private information, and publicly voicing either the allegations or defence may do even worse damage than the original problem. Natural justice requires that the persecuted alleged wrongdoer is informed, and has a chance to answer the allegations, it does not require that it be done on the public record. The process should be on the public record, not the details. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:13, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
No argument there. The accused need the right to say things such as, "The private evidence is impossible for me to respond to, because it alleges that I emailed threats to an unnamed person from an email account I am not allowed to see." While in this case, Fram could just say that on Meta, forbidding them from doing so can be done at the end of the case, unless the arbitrators are so compelled by the strength of the private evidence that they believe it would be worth it to require that. I prefer to give the presumption of innocence to the accused. It is common knowledge that the Foundation has been a frequent target of Fram's criticism, and in taking the case upon themselves while claiming that Arbcom could not because they were also a target of Fram's critiques, the Foundation has contradicted themselves. Moreover, the Chair of the Foundation Board of Trustees has recused to avoid what I hope is merely the appearance of impropriety, but there has been ample opportunity for direct denials of that particular alleged COI, and none have been forthcoming after weeks. Therefore, it would be exceedingly foolish to abandon the presumption of innocence. EllenCT (talk) 06:08, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Please would an Arb forward the following as a Motion to the Committee

With regard to the WMF statement of early July 2019, and specifically We do not consider any of the admin resignations related to the current events to be “under a cloud” (under suspicion) though we also realize that the final decision with respect to this lies with the community ... would a member of the Arbcom propose/move a Motion that ArbCom, for the WP:EN Community, note that all admin and functionary resignations arising from the Fram ban are to be considered as not "under a cloud", and those who did resign are encouraged to reclaim access to the tools? I ask because so far only WMF has promoted this consideration, and I do not feel that they have the jurisdiction to make such an opinion on WP:EN. Thank you. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:53, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, arbcom already passed a motion that didn't admonish, warn, reprimand, rebuke, frown upon, glare disapprovingly, or harrumph in their general direction. I think at this point, it's a matter for the community. (And the commmunity is now taking this up.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:56, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
The WMF has already declared that they do not consider those resignations as "being under a cloud" and charitably said that re-sysopping should be permitted upon request; which is fucking contemptuous because they do not have any fucking say in how the WP:EN community - enshrined by the deliberations of Arbcom - conducts itself in the approval and removal of admin rights. I would like our community to proclaim, by Arbcom via its sense of the general opinion of concerned editors, that not only may admins re-apply but also other functionaries who resigned under principles of self determination of the community to be allowed to resume their responsibilities. As a matter of principle, I very strongly believe that such determinations are the business of this community only. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:23, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
There was no malicious intent implied in this statement. The hope was simple to welcome back all those who resigned in protest, even though the act of handing back the tools themselves is not within the board remit. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:57, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, I think the board is simply saying that they will not interfere with natural community processes to decide whether they should get their tools back, quelling fears by some in the community that to do so may be overturning an office action. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:02, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
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