Case clerks: Lord Roem ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Carcharoth ( Talk) & GorillaWarfare ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Track related changes |
Case opened on 03:26, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Case Suspended by motion on 23:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
Case closed on 00:16, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Do not edit this page unless you are an arbitrator or clerk, or you are adding yourself as a party to this case. Statements on this page are copies of the statements submitted in the original request to arbitrate this dispute, and serve as verbatim copies; therefore, they may not be edited or removed. (However, lengthy statements may be truncated – in which case the full statement will be copied to the talk page. Statements by uninvolved editors during the Requests phase will also be copied to the talk page.) Evidence which you wish to submit to the committee should be given at the /Evidence subpage, although permission must be sought by e-mail before you submit private, confidential, or sensitive evidence.
Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. The Workshop may also be used for you to submit general comments on the evidence, and for arbitrators to pose questions to the parties. Eventually, arbitrators will vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision; only arbitrators may offer proposals as the Proposed Decision.
Once the case is closed, editors should edit the #Enforcement log as needed, but the other content of this page may not be edited except by clerks or arbitrators. Please raise any questions about this decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of the remedies passed in the decision to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
When submitting evidence, please bear in mind that the locus of the dispute is the Media Viewer request for comments (RfC), and the actions that followed the RfC. If your evidence is outside this scope, please include supporting statements or background context to explain the relevance to the case. If an extension of evidence lengths is needed, please ask one of the drafting arbitrators.
Last month, User:Pine started an RfC over whether the new MediaViewer feature should be enabled or disabled by default on Wikipedia. Yesterday, it was closed by User:Armbrust, with the result that the feature would be disabled by default for both logged-in and not-logged-in users.
Following the closure, User:Fabrice Florin (WMF) commented on the talk page of the RfC with a "recommendation" that the MediaViewer continue to be enabled, despite the results of the RfC. Later in the thread, users discussed how to implement the results of the RfC, and administrator User:Peteforsyth made a change to MediaWiki:Common.js that disabled the feature.
Administrator and staff member User:Eloquence reverted the change, and threatened to temporarily desysop Peteforsyth or any other admin who reinstated the change. Eloquence characterized the revert and the threat of desysop as a "WMF action", but it is unclear to me by what authority WMF staffers can overrule the legitimate consensus of a local community, outside of WP:Office actions, which clearly do not apply in this case:
Office actions are official changes made on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, by members of its office. These are removals of questionable or illegal Wikimedia content following complaints. Office actions are performed so that the end result is a legally compliant article on the subject.
Now, the WMF does, of course, have "the keys to the server", which means that they have the power to do whatever they like, including desysoping and/or banning anyone for any reason, good or bad; we essentially have no recourse, other than, as is sometimes said, our "right to fork" and our "right to leave."
So my questions for the committee do not include "do they have the power to do this" (yes, they do), but rather:
This is the second time in recent memory that a WMF staffer has threatened to desysop (temporarily or otherwise) a Wikipedia administrator for implementing community consensus against WMF wishes, but in that case, WP:Office was relevant. As the WMF rolls out more and more features (many of which are great, but some of which the community may decide they don't want) this is likely to continue to be an issue. Administrators need to know where we stand when community consensus conflicts with WMF preferences outside of the bright line of "office actions". 28bytes ( talk) 14:38, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for inviting me to participate in this discussion. I am following this case, and monitoring comments made on this thread. I believe that Eloquence has described factually the circumstances and rationale behind his action, as well as adequately presented the Wikimedia Foundation's position on this matter. He has also cited me accurately in his own statement, linking to a number of comments I have made relating to this case. And I find Risker's observations to be factual and well-reasoned, matching my own perspective on this topic. So I don't have anything else to add at this point, but am happy to answer any specific questions relevant to this case. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help resolve this request for arbitration. Respectfully, Fabrice Florin (WMF) ( talk) 19:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Please consider the Wikimedia Foundation's understanding of the values and processes that drive Wikipedia, and WMF's ability to engage respectfully and effectively with those processes; to promote harmony over drama; and to promote mutual understanding and shared purpose among stakeholder groups. My position: WMF has lost touch with the values and processes that have driven Wikipedia's growth. WMF has tended toward divisive actions. This damages our shared strategic goals: it drives down productive participation, damages our ability to improve quality, damages our ability to convert readers (reach) into contributors.
WMF makes bad predictions. There's no easy fix for this; better hiring and training might have an impact. A better understanding of values and processes cannot be legislated into existence by ArbCom. But formal recognition of the problem is a vital ingredient for a solution.
Erik's threat toward me was insignificant as an isolated incident, and doesn't demand strong reaction. But over the years, senior WMF personnel have shown poor understanding of our values and processes, sometimes acting with hostility. This has stoked unneeded drama. This pattern invites reflection on how Wikipedians should engage with WMF staff. Two general points (not about the present case):
- Pete 14 July 2014/edited 15 July
Hi folks,
A couple of notes:
1) As Risker pointed out, this RFC forms an insufficient basis for a decision affecting all logged-in users due to its small participation by logged-in users (much smaller by a factor of >100 than the number of people who'd previously enabled Media Viewer!), and certainly forms an insufficient basis for a decision affecting all readers. Generally, WMF treats such RFCs on a case-by-case basis; see also Limits to configuration changes for historical examples.
Fabrice Florin, the Product Manager for Media Viewer, has started a conversation here about a process that we could use to get better, more representative information from readers and editors alike. I trust him to continue this conversation, and would encourage others to participate in it.
2) Regarding site stylesheets and JavaScript, we regard them as subject to the same development policy that governs code that is executed server-side; i.e., WMF makes the final call regarding software deployed to sites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
English Wikipedia articulates this in the WP:CONEXCEPT policy, but we’ve stated this independently in other forums as well, e.g. here.
In this instance, a core site feature was disabled on grounds we consider insufficient to do so. The reasons for our decision not to implement the RFC were previously communicated in Fabrice’s response.
I apologize for the unduly stern warning to Pete, who performed an action that he felt was acceptable and warranted, and who did so in good faith. However, the decision to reinstate the feature is one we maintain. Generally, we would ask users to request such configuration changes through Bugzilla in the future, where WMF will always seek to provide a response in a timely manner.
To be clear, we understand that we need to work together in these matters. As noted above, we’re prepared to discuss constructive paths forward. Fabrice will continue to take the lead on that from WMF. Above all, we look forward to further improving the experience for uploading media, viewing them, and curating file metadata, all of which is part of the multimedia team's roadmap.
For the complete avoidance of doubt, this response is in an official capacity.
Sincerely,
Erik Moeller
Vice President of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
I'm deeply concerned to read a statement by "Eloquence / Erik Moeller / WMF" above. I understand that Erik's user name is Eloquence, and that he is an WMF staffer. But what is not clear to me at all is if his statement is the considered and deliberate statement by the whole WMF, wether the WMF has delegated the task of developing an argument to him, wether it's a statement he makes based on his normal role in the WMF, or wether it's his personal argument and the "WMF" just serves to remind us of his connection with the WMF. We've previously had similar problems when one Arb made statements "on behalf of the committee", without clarifying what level of backing (s)he had. I'd had hoped that we had learned from that experience.
I'm also concerned that Erik is repeating his (or WMF's) argument for trying to force a change on the community, instead of handling the underlying problem of amicably resolving conflicts between WMF and community. He is welcome to start a new RfC and to try to convince the community of his (or WMF's) position - this is not the proper forum for that discussion. What is important here is if admins can enforce (or try to enforce) community decisions, and, even more, if the WMF really wants to impose technical and content top-down decisions using their technical control of the software. If the later is the case, this would be a reason to seriously reconsider my continued participation in the project. Enciclopedia Libre Universal should be a warning. -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 00:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
Carcharoth ( talk) 00:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)"When submitting evidence, please bear in mind that the locus of the dispute is the Media Viewer request for comments (RfC), and the actions that followed the RfC. If your evidence is outside this scope, please include supporting statements or background context to explain the relevance to the case. If an extension of evidence lengths is needed, please ask one of the drafting arbitrators."
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)
Realpolitik-wise, I suppose we have to recognize that (a) this is not a symmetrical relationship, since WMF owns the servers, but (b) en.wiki volunteers can vote with their feet if they are continually treated with what they consider disrespect. It's kind of like mutually assured destruction, which is kind of stupid since we're theoretically on the same side. One goal I have is to try to convince each side not to push their button. I would have thought that it would be in WMF's best interests to avoid throwing their weight around unnecessarily (i.e. in cases like this where WP:OFFICE doesn't apply), and I was under the impression they were making an attempt to not do that as much recently... -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 15:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Ultimately, the en.wp community should have an expectation that our "reasonable" requests to remove features or make them opt-in will be respected by the WMF; the WMF should have an expectation that their "reasonable" opposition to requests to modify what it considers core features will be respected by en.wp. When people disagree about what is reasonable and what isn't, when there is a long history of dysfunction on our end, and arrogance on their end, it's an intractable problem. I suppose ArbCom would be in a decent position to try to "negotiate" this kind of thing, but I doubt that's really in our remit. If we had a GovCom (which I wish we had), this would be a great job for them.
I'm still undecided, but leaning decline, because really all we have that we can actually do something about are ticky-tack things like "not using an account with (WMF) at the end of the name", and "should have used some different terminology because there's not really anything officially called a WMF action" and "try not to be so rude". Ruling on those type of things is a pretty small potential payoff. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 00:34, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
On the matter of desysopping, as I affirmed earlier this year, during another case involving a WMF employee, [...] it's always a good idea to restate that, barring cases of emergency, the power to restrict and sanction administrators rests squarely with the Arbitration Committee, even in the event of a WP:OFFICE violation. To understand why that's a good idea, one just has to take a look at [the employee in question]'s impulsive and precipitate reaction (for which, it's true, he has duly apologised).
That said, even assuming we accepted this case, I don't know what our powers would be, considering, that the Foundation do indeed have the de facto power to do as they please (Wikipedia is run on their servers, after all). So, in short, I'm still on the fence and will welcome all input to help me make up my mind. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:10, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
@ Eloquence: I just had a look at your user rights, and so far as I can see you do not actually have the technical ability to desysop a admin. It is part of the 'crat toolset. I am left wondering how, if you had been reverted again and had felt obligated to live up to your assertion that you would desysop, you would have actually gone about doing so? Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
This motion was proposed on 12 July 2014 but did not receive the required level of support.
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MotionThe Wikimedia Foundation is requested to do away with "grandfather rights" regarding personal and official accounts of staff members, and to instead require all staff members to use accounts with a personally identifiable name with "WMF" appended when acting on-wiki in their capacity as staff. We ask them to extend this courtesy in order to reduce confusion regarding when our users are dealing with a fellow member of the community or a representative of the Foundation. Staff accounts, their actions, and their user rights or permissions shall be under the sole jurisdiction of the Foundation. Personal accounts of staff members shall be considered members of the community and shall be treated as such, including access to user rights or advanced permissions. While the English Wikipedia cannot make a binding decision on this matter we believe it is evident that making this change will ease communication and improve general relations between our project and the Foundation and we further believe the Foundation can institute this minor change with little to no disruption of their activities, and we further ask that they consider making this a requirement not just here but at all WMF projects. For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority. Support
Oppose
Abstain Comments
Community comments
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Passed on 00:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
This case was accepted to consider longstanding issues affecting the English Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which came to a head during the implementation of the Media Viewer extension.
Since then, the following has occurred:
1. The WMF has introduced a new staff user account policy, prohibiting the use of the same account for both work and non-work purposes. With effect from 15 September 2014, staff are required to segregate their work and non-work activities into separate work and non-work accounts, with the work accounts containing the identifier '(WMF)' in the account name.
2. Eloquence ( talk · contribs) has resigned as an administrator on the English Wikipedia. While this does not prevent him holding staff administrative rights on a designated work account, it does mean that as he resigned the tools while an arbitration case was pending, he may only regain administrative rights on his personal non-work account via a successful request for adminship.
3. The WMF has announced a number of initiatives aimed at improving working practices. This includes a new software implementation protocol which provides for incremental roll-outs of upgrades and new features.
In the light of the foregoing, proceedings in this case are suspended for sixty days and then closed; in the intervening period, the case may be re-activated either by volition of the committee or if fresh issues arise following a successful request at ARCA.
All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
All remedies that refer to a period of time (for example, a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months) are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.
0) Appeals and modifications
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee.
Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:
No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:
Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped. Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied. 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. Important notes:
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.
Case clerks: Lord Roem ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Carcharoth ( Talk) & GorillaWarfare ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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![]() |
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Track related changes |
Case opened on 03:26, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Case Suspended by motion on 23:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
Case closed on 00:16, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Do not edit this page unless you are an arbitrator or clerk, or you are adding yourself as a party to this case. Statements on this page are copies of the statements submitted in the original request to arbitrate this dispute, and serve as verbatim copies; therefore, they may not be edited or removed. (However, lengthy statements may be truncated – in which case the full statement will be copied to the talk page. Statements by uninvolved editors during the Requests phase will also be copied to the talk page.) Evidence which you wish to submit to the committee should be given at the /Evidence subpage, although permission must be sought by e-mail before you submit private, confidential, or sensitive evidence.
Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. The Workshop may also be used for you to submit general comments on the evidence, and for arbitrators to pose questions to the parties. Eventually, arbitrators will vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision; only arbitrators may offer proposals as the Proposed Decision.
Once the case is closed, editors should edit the #Enforcement log as needed, but the other content of this page may not be edited except by clerks or arbitrators. Please raise any questions about this decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of the remedies passed in the decision to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
When submitting evidence, please bear in mind that the locus of the dispute is the Media Viewer request for comments (RfC), and the actions that followed the RfC. If your evidence is outside this scope, please include supporting statements or background context to explain the relevance to the case. If an extension of evidence lengths is needed, please ask one of the drafting arbitrators.
Last month, User:Pine started an RfC over whether the new MediaViewer feature should be enabled or disabled by default on Wikipedia. Yesterday, it was closed by User:Armbrust, with the result that the feature would be disabled by default for both logged-in and not-logged-in users.
Following the closure, User:Fabrice Florin (WMF) commented on the talk page of the RfC with a "recommendation" that the MediaViewer continue to be enabled, despite the results of the RfC. Later in the thread, users discussed how to implement the results of the RfC, and administrator User:Peteforsyth made a change to MediaWiki:Common.js that disabled the feature.
Administrator and staff member User:Eloquence reverted the change, and threatened to temporarily desysop Peteforsyth or any other admin who reinstated the change. Eloquence characterized the revert and the threat of desysop as a "WMF action", but it is unclear to me by what authority WMF staffers can overrule the legitimate consensus of a local community, outside of WP:Office actions, which clearly do not apply in this case:
Office actions are official changes made on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, by members of its office. These are removals of questionable or illegal Wikimedia content following complaints. Office actions are performed so that the end result is a legally compliant article on the subject.
Now, the WMF does, of course, have "the keys to the server", which means that they have the power to do whatever they like, including desysoping and/or banning anyone for any reason, good or bad; we essentially have no recourse, other than, as is sometimes said, our "right to fork" and our "right to leave."
So my questions for the committee do not include "do they have the power to do this" (yes, they do), but rather:
This is the second time in recent memory that a WMF staffer has threatened to desysop (temporarily or otherwise) a Wikipedia administrator for implementing community consensus against WMF wishes, but in that case, WP:Office was relevant. As the WMF rolls out more and more features (many of which are great, but some of which the community may decide they don't want) this is likely to continue to be an issue. Administrators need to know where we stand when community consensus conflicts with WMF preferences outside of the bright line of "office actions". 28bytes ( talk) 14:38, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for inviting me to participate in this discussion. I am following this case, and monitoring comments made on this thread. I believe that Eloquence has described factually the circumstances and rationale behind his action, as well as adequately presented the Wikimedia Foundation's position on this matter. He has also cited me accurately in his own statement, linking to a number of comments I have made relating to this case. And I find Risker's observations to be factual and well-reasoned, matching my own perspective on this topic. So I don't have anything else to add at this point, but am happy to answer any specific questions relevant to this case. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help resolve this request for arbitration. Respectfully, Fabrice Florin (WMF) ( talk) 19:28, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
Please consider the Wikimedia Foundation's understanding of the values and processes that drive Wikipedia, and WMF's ability to engage respectfully and effectively with those processes; to promote harmony over drama; and to promote mutual understanding and shared purpose among stakeholder groups. My position: WMF has lost touch with the values and processes that have driven Wikipedia's growth. WMF has tended toward divisive actions. This damages our shared strategic goals: it drives down productive participation, damages our ability to improve quality, damages our ability to convert readers (reach) into contributors.
WMF makes bad predictions. There's no easy fix for this; better hiring and training might have an impact. A better understanding of values and processes cannot be legislated into existence by ArbCom. But formal recognition of the problem is a vital ingredient for a solution.
Erik's threat toward me was insignificant as an isolated incident, and doesn't demand strong reaction. But over the years, senior WMF personnel have shown poor understanding of our values and processes, sometimes acting with hostility. This has stoked unneeded drama. This pattern invites reflection on how Wikipedians should engage with WMF staff. Two general points (not about the present case):
- Pete 14 July 2014/edited 15 July
Hi folks,
A couple of notes:
1) As Risker pointed out, this RFC forms an insufficient basis for a decision affecting all logged-in users due to its small participation by logged-in users (much smaller by a factor of >100 than the number of people who'd previously enabled Media Viewer!), and certainly forms an insufficient basis for a decision affecting all readers. Generally, WMF treats such RFCs on a case-by-case basis; see also Limits to configuration changes for historical examples.
Fabrice Florin, the Product Manager for Media Viewer, has started a conversation here about a process that we could use to get better, more representative information from readers and editors alike. I trust him to continue this conversation, and would encourage others to participate in it.
2) Regarding site stylesheets and JavaScript, we regard them as subject to the same development policy that governs code that is executed server-side; i.e., WMF makes the final call regarding software deployed to sites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
English Wikipedia articulates this in the WP:CONEXCEPT policy, but we’ve stated this independently in other forums as well, e.g. here.
In this instance, a core site feature was disabled on grounds we consider insufficient to do so. The reasons for our decision not to implement the RFC were previously communicated in Fabrice’s response.
I apologize for the unduly stern warning to Pete, who performed an action that he felt was acceptable and warranted, and who did so in good faith. However, the decision to reinstate the feature is one we maintain. Generally, we would ask users to request such configuration changes through Bugzilla in the future, where WMF will always seek to provide a response in a timely manner.
To be clear, we understand that we need to work together in these matters. As noted above, we’re prepared to discuss constructive paths forward. Fabrice will continue to take the lead on that from WMF. Above all, we look forward to further improving the experience for uploading media, viewing them, and curating file metadata, all of which is part of the multimedia team's roadmap.
For the complete avoidance of doubt, this response is in an official capacity.
Sincerely,
Erik Moeller
Vice President of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
I'm deeply concerned to read a statement by "Eloquence / Erik Moeller / WMF" above. I understand that Erik's user name is Eloquence, and that he is an WMF staffer. But what is not clear to me at all is if his statement is the considered and deliberate statement by the whole WMF, wether the WMF has delegated the task of developing an argument to him, wether it's a statement he makes based on his normal role in the WMF, or wether it's his personal argument and the "WMF" just serves to remind us of his connection with the WMF. We've previously had similar problems when one Arb made statements "on behalf of the committee", without clarifying what level of backing (s)he had. I'd had hoped that we had learned from that experience.
I'm also concerned that Erik is repeating his (or WMF's) argument for trying to force a change on the community, instead of handling the underlying problem of amicably resolving conflicts between WMF and community. He is welcome to start a new RfC and to try to convince the community of his (or WMF's) position - this is not the proper forum for that discussion. What is important here is if admins can enforce (or try to enforce) community decisions, and, even more, if the WMF really wants to impose technical and content top-down decisions using their technical control of the software. If the later is the case, this would be a reason to seriously reconsider my continued participation in the project. Enciclopedia Libre Universal should be a warning. -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 00:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
Carcharoth ( talk) 00:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)"When submitting evidence, please bear in mind that the locus of the dispute is the Media Viewer request for comments (RfC), and the actions that followed the RfC. If your evidence is outside this scope, please include supporting statements or background context to explain the relevance to the case. If an extension of evidence lengths is needed, please ask one of the drafting arbitrators."
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)
Realpolitik-wise, I suppose we have to recognize that (a) this is not a symmetrical relationship, since WMF owns the servers, but (b) en.wiki volunteers can vote with their feet if they are continually treated with what they consider disrespect. It's kind of like mutually assured destruction, which is kind of stupid since we're theoretically on the same side. One goal I have is to try to convince each side not to push their button. I would have thought that it would be in WMF's best interests to avoid throwing their weight around unnecessarily (i.e. in cases like this where WP:OFFICE doesn't apply), and I was under the impression they were making an attempt to not do that as much recently... -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 15:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Ultimately, the en.wp community should have an expectation that our "reasonable" requests to remove features or make them opt-in will be respected by the WMF; the WMF should have an expectation that their "reasonable" opposition to requests to modify what it considers core features will be respected by en.wp. When people disagree about what is reasonable and what isn't, when there is a long history of dysfunction on our end, and arrogance on their end, it's an intractable problem. I suppose ArbCom would be in a decent position to try to "negotiate" this kind of thing, but I doubt that's really in our remit. If we had a GovCom (which I wish we had), this would be a great job for them.
I'm still undecided, but leaning decline, because really all we have that we can actually do something about are ticky-tack things like "not using an account with (WMF) at the end of the name", and "should have used some different terminology because there's not really anything officially called a WMF action" and "try not to be so rude". Ruling on those type of things is a pretty small potential payoff. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 00:34, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
On the matter of desysopping, as I affirmed earlier this year, during another case involving a WMF employee, [...] it's always a good idea to restate that, barring cases of emergency, the power to restrict and sanction administrators rests squarely with the Arbitration Committee, even in the event of a WP:OFFICE violation. To understand why that's a good idea, one just has to take a look at [the employee in question]'s impulsive and precipitate reaction (for which, it's true, he has duly apologised).
That said, even assuming we accepted this case, I don't know what our powers would be, considering, that the Foundation do indeed have the de facto power to do as they please (Wikipedia is run on their servers, after all). So, in short, I'm still on the fence and will welcome all input to help me make up my mind. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:10, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
@ Eloquence: I just had a look at your user rights, and so far as I can see you do not actually have the technical ability to desysop a admin. It is part of the 'crat toolset. I am left wondering how, if you had been reverted again and had felt obligated to live up to your assertion that you would desysop, you would have actually gone about doing so? Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
This motion was proposed on 12 July 2014 but did not receive the required level of support.
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MotionThe Wikimedia Foundation is requested to do away with "grandfather rights" regarding personal and official accounts of staff members, and to instead require all staff members to use accounts with a personally identifiable name with "WMF" appended when acting on-wiki in their capacity as staff. We ask them to extend this courtesy in order to reduce confusion regarding when our users are dealing with a fellow member of the community or a representative of the Foundation. Staff accounts, their actions, and their user rights or permissions shall be under the sole jurisdiction of the Foundation. Personal accounts of staff members shall be considered members of the community and shall be treated as such, including access to user rights or advanced permissions. While the English Wikipedia cannot make a binding decision on this matter we believe it is evident that making this change will ease communication and improve general relations between our project and the Foundation and we further believe the Foundation can institute this minor change with little to no disruption of their activities, and we further ask that they consider making this a requirement not just here but at all WMF projects. For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority. Support
Oppose
Abstain Comments
Community comments
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Passed on 00:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
This case was accepted to consider longstanding issues affecting the English Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which came to a head during the implementation of the Media Viewer extension.
Since then, the following has occurred:
1. The WMF has introduced a new staff user account policy, prohibiting the use of the same account for both work and non-work purposes. With effect from 15 September 2014, staff are required to segregate their work and non-work activities into separate work and non-work accounts, with the work accounts containing the identifier '(WMF)' in the account name.
2. Eloquence ( talk · contribs) has resigned as an administrator on the English Wikipedia. While this does not prevent him holding staff administrative rights on a designated work account, it does mean that as he resigned the tools while an arbitration case was pending, he may only regain administrative rights on his personal non-work account via a successful request for adminship.
3. The WMF has announced a number of initiatives aimed at improving working practices. This includes a new software implementation protocol which provides for incremental roll-outs of upgrades and new features.
In the light of the foregoing, proceedings in this case are suspended for sixty days and then closed; in the intervening period, the case may be re-activated either by volition of the committee or if fresh issues arise following a successful request at ARCA.
All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
All remedies that refer to a period of time (for example, a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months) are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.
0) Appeals and modifications
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This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee.
Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:
No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:
Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped. Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied. 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. Important notes:
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Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.