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Evidence presented by WaltCip

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ blocked as sock

Possibly stating the obvious, but ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was CU-blocked indefinitely as a sock of an LTA account. Only CUs are aware of the details why and which LTA it was. It raises questions as to whether this contributor was "driven off the project" as a result of ScottyWong's actions, as some of the statements on WP:ANI were asserting. This does not necessarily mean the comments were not uncivil, but it does have a bearing on the impact of those comments beyond their standalone being uncivil, demeaning and/or xenophobic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by WaltCip ( talk • contribs) 19:52, 7 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by GhostOfDanGurney

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was trolling Scottywong

Scottywong added a {nobots} tag to his talk page archives on April 12, 2022 [1]. It is inexplicable that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ, the operator of the bot which prompted Scottywong to add the tag in the first place, would then manually perform the bot's task almost exactly a full year later [2] and in an edit session which only consisted of these edits to Scottywong's talk page archive (and only 1 other edit with the account that day) ( contribution log for April 21, 2023).

Given the CU-BLOCK as a sock of an LTA, it can now only be assumed that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was not acting in good faith, was WP:TROLLING Scottywong, and the claim from the Oxford IP who started the ANI that Scottywong "bullied" them off the project [3] turned out to be laughably off-base.

Scottywong crossed a bright line with his comments

While expressing his displeasure at the manual linting was to be expected, addressing ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (while he could not possibly have known that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was indeed a bad actor) as "Mr. Squiggles" in the context of such a heated comment [4] is nonetheless an egregious violation of WP:CIVIL/ WP:NPA with potential to harm far more than the intended recipient (in this case, the entire userbase of users with non-Latin usernames. Admins (and other toolholders) especially should be held to a higher standard of civility; these are the editors which should be setting behaviour standards and leading by example. ―  "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  01:06, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Jonesey95

Scottywong misinterprets policy and does not listen

Unfortunately, you'll need to read through the whole of this Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 17 thread to see how badly Scottywong listens to editors, accuses editors of incompetence where it is not warranted, and misinterprets or misunderstands bot policy, especially WP:COSMETICBOT and how BRFAs work. The editor repeatedly and falsely asserts, despite counterevidence provided by others, that operating a bot to remove all Linter errors from pages is not more complicated than it looks, in fact, it's not complicated at all, it's simple regex find and replace. There is no technical reason why a properly coded bot cannot fix all of these lint issues in a page with a single edit, without human intervention or supervision. ( diff)

When presented with an example page loaded with Linter errors and encouraged to create a set of regexes that could fix all of them in a single pass, the editor suddenly and conspicuously stopped pursuing this line of argument. Here's the request from me: Scottywong: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 70 is a sample page with approximately 180 Linter errors, nearly all of them font-tag-related. I encourage you to try to create a set of false-positive-free regular expressions that can fix every Linter font tag error on that page, and other VPT archive pages, with a single edit of each page. If you can do so, or even if you can reduce the count by 90% with a single edit, you will be a hero, and you may be able to help Wikipedia get out from under the burden of millions of Linter errors much more quickly. ( diff) This admin made a claim, accused other editors of being incompetent, offered to run a delinting bot themself (If this bot operator claims that he is not capable of fixing all the errors on a page in a single edit, or that his code is so inefficient that it produces "false positives" and requires him to manually supervise every edit, then I think we should find a different bot operator. I'll volunteer to take over the tasks if no one else wants to. ( diff)), and then when challenged, did not respond. This is a big pile of bad faith and bad behavior.

I don't remember having written an Arbcom evidence statement before, and I try to stay away from Wikidrama, but this editor's bad faith, badgering, false claims, and insulting attitude really got on my nerves, so I have stuck my head up out of my gnome-hole to make this statement. If I did anything incorrectly here, I apologize in advance. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 04:26, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Lightoil

Scottywong's responds after ANI report

After being reported by Oxford IP in WP:ANI, he did respond to concerns about his conduct and apologized [5] [6] [7] [8]. Scottywong did respond to concerns about his behavior in a timely manner which is expected of administrators per WP:ADMINACCT. Lightoil ( talk) 10:38, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Martinp

Moved [9] to workshop as requested by clerk. Martinp ( talk) 10:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Ritchie333

Scottywong has a history of conflict with Eric Corbett

Scottywong has had several conflicts with Eric Corbett. For example:

I appreciate this evidence is old and may not be worth much. However, I do note that the latter two ANI threads both closed with no consensus to do anything, following a long discussion, and the most recent ANI thread occurred just before Eric Corbett was indefinitely blocked, forestalling any possibility of further problems. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:04, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Catfish Jim and the soapdish

I'm unconvinced this has anything to do with ethnicity

I've not really followed this too closely, but I will admit to repeatedly experiencing extreme irritation at the now blocked editor that Scottywong took to task. Seeing my watchlist repeatedly full of bot generated "lint error" edits in long closed discussions was infuriating, particularly when the errors being corrected were html tags that will never, ever cause any issue to the board software. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by SmallJarsWithGreenLabels

From at least as early as his February VPP proposals, Scottywong took the matter of MalnadachBot’s edits somewhat personally

What Scottywong’s two proposals in February directly addressed were the technicalities of deprecated html tags and the WP:COSMETICBOT policy but especial weight was placed on the problems of signatures and watchlists. He described the complaints of people whose watchlists had been clogged due to their signature containing <font> tags and that he is one of these. He had every right to emphasise his own grievances in the discussion but this does provide vital context for his later actions.

Xenophobia is not a theme in Scottywong’s comments at Malnadach's talk page

The context behind Scottywong’s comments ( [10] [11]) was Malnadach’s provocative editing of Scottywong’s signature on Scottywong’s talk page in defiance of {{nobots}}. Some key points that Scottywong attacked ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ over:

  1. again, their lint work
  2. their username (also their signature)
  3. their talk page border
  4. their userpage font

The theme is not xenophobia but, as with the whole dispute, technical issues: non-ascii characters in 2, and personalised formatting and HTML in 3, 4, and 1. Since he has also long regarded this situation personally, it seems that Socttywong saw Malnadach’s edits on Scottywong’s talk page as an attack on his use of deprecated HTML in his own signature and wanted to get back at Malnadach in an immature tit-for-tat. As he has not been known for it previously, this suggests that Scottywong had no particular intent to promote xenophobia on Wikipedia.

Scottywong should know better and the non-xenophobic intent behind his comments is immaterial

Scottywong is close to a person with a non–English alphabet native language. [12] We can then assume he had some idea of the possible xenophobic effect of his comments regardless of intent, and either disregarded this problem, or could not help himself. Scottywong used comments he knew might effect Malnadach personally to puta a stop to “annoying useless edits”. Regardless of intent, this is a matter of inhibition, and Scottywong has demonstrated that he lacks inhibitions becoming of an admin. We need higher standards of inclusivity on one of the internet’s least diverse sites. small jars t c 19:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was not a username chosen for the sake of trolling

Scottywong seems to have insinuated that Malnadach chose to use Kannada in their username and kept it in their signature for the sake of trolling. It is clear that this is not the case. Malnadach was a productive editor as well as an LTA. Though they only began regular editing on enwiki in 2020, they registered ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ as the username of their main account in 2014 to make two edits about their home state of Karnataka, long before any of their abusive sock activity, which as far as we know only began in 2022. That they live in Karnataka is further shown not to be a fabrication from their attendance of a meetup in Udupi in January, and the alignment of their timecard with Indian Standard Time. We should remember that editors who turn to sockpuppeting usually do so for a reason and may have started out in good faith. It is unlikely that Malnadach had been quietly scheming to use their username for disruption eight years early. Intentionally or not, by attempting to blame Malnadach rather than focussing on his own conduct, Scottywong continues to create a subtle atmosphere of suspicion towards ESL users with non-Latin usernames, which is the issue that brought him here in the first place. small jars t c 14:40, 11 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Scottywong

Malnadach was a highly sophisticated long-term abuser

Given what we now know about their LTA status and sockpuppet accounts, ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (Malnadach) appears to have been a highly skilled sockmaster/troll, and especially adept at subtly irritating other editors while being careful not to violate policies.

Malnadach's bot has the highest edit count of any account in the history of Wikipedia (11.6 million edits) despite being active for only two years. Malnadach's main account made nearly 95,000 edits over a span of roughly 2.5 years, garnering advanced user rights and bot approvals. To achieve this feat as a long-term abuser and active sockmaster speaks to the level of effort that they put into their trolling, and the level of sophistication with which they operated to avoid detection for so long.

Malnadach was aware of the difficulties posed by their username

Malnadach created multiple sockpuppet accounts that complained about their username, giving the appearance that Malnadach was being hounded for their non-Latin username, generating sympathy from unknowing and well-meaning editors. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] This shows that Malnadach was aware that their username made it difficult for most en-wiki editors to interact with them (despite it not violating policy), and that Malnadach was aware of heightened sensitivities surrounding xenophobia. Malnadach conspired with their sockpuppets to use this to their advantage.

Based on what we know now, we can presume that Malnadach's choice to use a username composed entirely of non-Latin characters (without a transliteration in their signature, or a redirect from a transliterated username like User:Malnadach or User:Malnadach Konkno) could have been a conscious decision designed to subtly irritate other editors without violating policy. It is also possible to presume that the cursive font and rainbow border on their user page may have also been designed for the same purpose, although there is less hard evidence to support this presumption.

Malnadach was aware of the {{nobots}} template

Malnadach was aware of the {{ nobots}} template and its function, since they encouraged other users to use it to prevent MalnadachBot from editing those pages. Despite clear knowledge of the purpose of this template, Malnadach still decided to edit pages in my userspace that had the {{ nobots}} template applied. Since AWB wouldn't allow their bot to make these edits, Malnadach made these edits from their main account. [20] [21] Therefore, we can conclude that the purpose of making these specific edits was to intentionally irritate me. While it's not ok to respond to this behavior in an unseemly way, it's also not ok to intentionally irritate other editors to provoke a response that can be exploited.

MalnadachBot's behavior was the source of complaints from many users

Frustration about MalnadachBot's behavior was certainly not exclusive to me. Indeed, many other editors complained about their bot tasks. Despite all of these complaints, millions of edits continued to be made without any changes to its irritating behavior, with many editors and BAG members often speaking up in defense of the bot's behavior, enabling it to continue unchanged for more than a year before being its most glaring problems were addressed. Some complaint threads that were started by users other than me:

My comments about Malnadach's username were inappropriate and over the line, but not xenophobic

My comments to Malnadach about their username were only intended to communicate how a username that uses an unfamiliar character set impedes communication and relationship-building. Referring to Malnadach's username as "Mr. Squiggles" was a perverse way to demonstrate how unintelligible their username appears to the vast majority of en-wiki users who are unfamiliar with that character set. It was not intended to mock their language or culture in any way. In hindsight, I can see that my words were chosen very poorly due to my frustrated and irritated state, they had a belittling and insulting effect, and were easily misinterpreted as xenophobic. I had no intention to make any judgment or discriminatory statement about Malnadach's ethnicity, culture, race, or nationality. Regardless of what we learned later about Malnadach's status as an LTA sockmaster, my comments were unambiguously inappropriate.

I have apologized no less than four times for my comments that were understandably misinterpreted as xenophobic. [22] [23] [24] [25] My initial apologies were admittedly tepid, owing to the fact that it took some time for me to understand how and why my comments were being misinterpreted, because I never had any intention to make a xenophobic statement. As I gradually came to fully understand why my comments were being interpreted the way they were, I gave a more wholehearted apology.

While I've occasionally said the wrong things during my 16 years here, I've always owned up to my mistakes and learned from them, and I'm confident that no evidence will be presented here that demonstrates a pattern of racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, bigoted, or otherwise discriminatory behavior on my part. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:57, 9 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Lourdes

Scottywong's repeated assertions that his actions were non-xenophobic make his apology redundant

What Scottywong believes is that his outburst against ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was because of a bot issue; and everything else was heightened irritation and not xenophobic attack, especially his outburst against the editor's username. I would suggest to Scottywong to read up on this LSE opinion blog (title: "What’s in a name: identity, acceptance and racism in multicultural Britain") or this op-ed from The Independent (title: "Mispronouncing or changing people’s names is just another form of racism"). It is one thing to encourage a user to have latin characters to a foreign user's name -- it is absolutely another to make them feel alienated and telling them that their username is the reason they will not associate with the identify of "English Wikipedia".

Some pointers:

This is inherently a racist remark as there could be, especially "I don't even know what to call you". This statement paints an image that this foreign user's name has to be easily spoken by all English speakers; and then and only then would there be acceptance. Clearly, if SW weren't xenophobic, SW could have give a non-racist remark, such as, "Hi, would you be okay to add Latin characters to your current username, as encouraged by WP:NONLATIN? Sometimes, having Latin characters can support other users in....". Compare this with what SW wrote.
SW links WP:CIR to threaten the user about his username with non-English characters. WP:CIR has no reference that foreign usernames should be labeled CIR. CIR is quoted widely by editors (and administrators) who are threatening an upcoming block. SW uses the same xenophobic bent to threaten the editor with a block because of his foreign username.
I am quoting WP:NONLATIN verbatim from the username policy, which mentions "Users with usernames in non-Latin script writing systems are welcome to edit Wikipedia. There is no requirement that usernames must be in English or that Latin script characters must be used ... As a courtesy to other contributors, and to avoid possible confusion or mis-identification, users with such usernames are encouraged to consider providing a Latin-character transliteration of their username on their userpage, and/or as their signature."
SW went against policy to convince the editor that his username will not allow him to create an identity here on the English Wikipedia, and that only having an English/Latin name will allow that. And the attempts to alienate went further ("If you were editing the Kannada Wikipedia, your username would make a lot more sense.")

Xenophobia, transphobia and similar phobias don't need evidence of repeated bad behaviour for a user to be taken out of Wikipedia. One instance is enough.

Alternatively, SW can apologise that he was racist and I am okay for him to continue as an administrator. Acceptance is everything. Thank you, Lourdes 06:20, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by jc37

During the time period when this case was in the preliminary phase, I noticed that User:Tamzin made an edit to Wikipedia:Username_policy. As I noted at the preliminary request, I updated that page and Wikipedia:Signatures, merging/unifying the text on both pages to hopefully prevent further confusion. Providing the links above to what the sections looked like prior to the Arbitration request. - jc37 21:33, 11 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Moneytrees

This is intended to be an objective summary of disputes Scottywong (SW) has been involved with, and my thoughts on them.

Older evidence (Early to late 2010s)

  • 2009 to ~early 2010s: Disputes over COI editing. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bose stereo speakers, early in SW's career, is the apparent beginning of this-- apparently there was some COI with the nomination given SW's job, and he had canvassed the nomination on a criticism site (this is discussed in the AfD). "Scottywong and COI", May 2012 seems to be the most relevant thread; SW has some involvement with Biamp Systems/ CobraNet and created both articles, getting one to GA. This was called out somewhere, and SW deleted the first article, protected his talk page, and went on a wikibreak in response. I believe most of the ire offsite forums have of SW over the years stems from grudges held over this. This is more context for that ire than anything-- COI rules weren't what they are today from my understanding, and there's nothing showing SW engaging in this since.
  • Early 2010s to 2019: Feud with Eric Corbett (aka Malleus Fatuorum). Corbett had several allies and critics over the years, and Sw often clashed with him... I think it stems from the below RfA, although SW could probably give you a better idea. Going over the related threads:
    • "Personal attack review" and "RfA disruption", May 2012. SW took objection to Corbett and Hipocrite's comments at Avicennasis' RfA, which led to a talk page argument and the first ANI thread. SW wanted Corbett to stop commenting at the RfA but would not take action as considered himself INVOLVED. The commenters see SW's report as petty and an example of unnecessary conflict with Corbett. In the second thread Interactions bans are proposed but do not get sufficient support and the thread is closed to be referred to AE, as Corbett had an arb restriction on commenting on WT:RFA pages at the time. Although the AE draws several comments, there is little appetite for sanctions outside of trouts and it's closed with no action. I find the entire episode a poor reflection on most involved and just kind of pointless.
    • "Unhelpful interactions", December 2012, Drmies reports interactions between Corbett and another editor and advocates for an IBAN. SW is critical of Drmies report, due in part because Drmies and Corbett are friendly. SW and Drmies exchange insults and curse each other out, leading Ironholds to block them both. They're both unblocked shortly afterwards. Even though this scenario led to a block, it feels like a less relevant one.
    • "Self-requested indefinite block", July 2013, Corbett is blocked for an unrelated issue and asks to be indefinitely blocked. SW carries this out without leaving a notice on Corbett's talk page. Two editors object to the block on SW's talk page, and Floquenbeam unblocks, also without leaving a note. I think the issue here is that SW was involved wrt Corbett and should've left the request alone, even if this isn't a major violation of INVOLVED.
    • "Conduct unbecoming of an administrator", July 2014: After SW made critical comments of Corbett and argued with his supporters at an edit warring report, Dennis Brown opens this ANI. The thread mostly becomes an argument between Brown and SW, with occasional interjections from others, before Corbett gets blocked over an unrelated matter, which the rest of thread is about. There's little substance to the commentary in the thread, it's almost entirely bickering. I find myself more wishing that Scotty had said his piece in the edit warring thread and not commented further, the problem is less with what he's saying and more with the continued engagement.
    • "Further attempts to bait Eric Corbett", August 2019 and the related case request. Corbett was blocked for an unrelated issue, and SW makes a snarky comment on his talk. The ensuring ANI also overlaps with the dispute that led to the block and gets a bit sidetracked. SW reverts related comments at his talkpage but eventually comes to the thread to make a comment. While I'm happy he engaged less with the thread, the comment that kicked it off didn't need to be made in the first place, and a comment earlier in the discussion would have been desirable. SW is named as a party at the Arb request, which focuses on general recent issues involving Corbett, but doesn't comment. Corbett quits and is blocked for socking shortly afterwards, ending the feud.
    • Really, these threads are annoying and I hope summarizing them here will prevent them from ever being relevant again. Focusing on SW, I find myself less caring about what he is saying, and more about his repeated engagement in the feud. There's a lot of comments that could've not been made.
  • 2013: Manning comments. SW made offensive comments during debates involving Chelsea Manning. During a related arbcase, these comments were referenced in a FoF and a topic ban for SW was voted against. When I asked about these comments at ACE2020, I thought SW's apology was very genuine. I don't think these comments should be held against him, they've been gone over enough-- feels like reopening an old wound.

Newer evidence (2020 to present)

  • 2019 to present: Dutchy85 unblock and CCI. In November 2019, I reverted a blatant copyvio from Dutchy85 and reported them to AN, requesting they be blocked given a previous block and warnings for copyright violations. SW blocked them as a result of the report, and Dutchy85 appealed. SW gave them a special "unblock deal", saying, In light of the fact that you've edited for an extended period of time since your last copyright violation, presumably with no other incidents, I'm going to change the block from indefinite, to expiring at the end of the year. This will give other editors a chance to dig through your last 9000 edits to see if there have been any other copyright violations. If there have been, I will likely reinstate the indefinite block. If not, it will expire at the end of the year and you can resume editing.... SW did not bring this up at another venue such as CCI (where there were only three active editors at the time) and only announced it on Dutchy's talk page. I belatedly learned that SW had given this as an unblock condition; I had little time to look through Dutchy's edits and was unable to assess them properly. I asked SW about this at ACE2020, and while I somewhat understand his rationale there, I believed unblocking was a serious error in judgement. I was later made aware of continued copyvios from Dutchy85 and blocked them indefinitely, with about 10,000 new edits since the unblock now needing review. SW was made aware of this, but as far as I know has never contributed at the massive CCI. If SW had admitted error and helped cleanup at the CCI, I wouldn't really have an issue. If any good is to come of this case-- that CCI needs help.
  • 2023: dispute with Malnadach, which has been summarized enough above.

Additional context

SW has been the target of provocations and trolling over the years. During the precipitating ANI discussion, several burner socks made mocking comments ( 1 2 3 4) plus a joe job attempt. There have otherwise been spurious attempts to get SW in trouble, such as this XRV thread. I think this has ultimately hurt the case against SW. An example from 2022 is when User:Adrianmn1110 warned SW over calling ip editors "second-class citizens". While there could be legitimate issue taken with SW's comments, a new account with a low edit count doing so was seen as suspicious due to past attempts, leading them to be blocked.

There's some other ANI threads and conflicts I noticed but I neglected to include as they were too old/not worth bringing up. Between 2015-18 there's a lack of conflict aside from an edit warring report involving the CobraNet article, as SW was on low activity.

Most of the routine stuff admin work SW does is uncontroversial. SW has a history of closing discussions and appears uncontroversial in this field. Over the years, I saw several editors praising him for closes, and SW usually responds with tact when questioned. When thinking about the above, I come to two conclusions. 1) It would've been more appropriate for this to go in front of the committee in the early 2010s. 2) I think this is more a judgement concern than a "SW says something offensive" concern. SW is too hasty and rash in some of his actions, and does not always respond best to criticism. When he has time to sit down and think about something, like when working on closes, results are more positive.

Evidence presented by Legoktm

Inability to drop the stick

At Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive_18#User:MalnadachBot_is_running_amok:

  • WP:BOTN discussion regarding MalnadachBot, describing it as "going crazy" and making "completely useless edits", it was closed by Primefac, writing Arguing back and forth about the necessity of fixing these issues is not what this board is for, nor is demanding that an approved bot task be stopped simply because of a personal grievance (and one which has been noted to be easily-solved).. Scottywong did not participate in the thread up till this point.
  • I create a new subsection discussing the creation of a "fixing lint errors" change tag. AFAIK, this was a novel idea that had not been previously discussed.
  • Scottywong replies, writing Or, we could just stop wasting electrons on fixing linter errors on sub-sub-subpages of AfD talk pages from 2005 that literally no human will ever visit again between now and the heat death of the universe.... This successfully hijacks the thread (no one addresses my suggestion about using edit tags), so when I ask for it to be re-closed as futile, Scottywong's response is to dismissively tell me to remove the noticeboard from my watchlist.

A "fixing lint errors" change tag was used by Legobot, with documentation with zero complaints. We can only guess what would've happened if the discussion wasn't hijacked and MalnadachBot instituted a change tag.

At Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#MalnadachBot_--_owner_indeffed,_what_now?:

  • Scottywong replies to ask for less pages to be de-linted, describing the current lint fixing process as damaging and irrational. Despite knowing that an ArbCom case is just about to be opened looking at their behavior, they chose to continue with veiled personal attacks.
  • They're immediately told that this has been discussed "ad nauseam" with no consensus supporting it.
  • Scottywong replies, writing Just expressing my opinion..., which is classic sealioning.

Legoktm ( talk) 20:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Bad-faith RfC

Regarding Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_179#RFC:_Clarifications_to_WP:COSMETICBOT_for_fixing_deprecated_HTML_tags:

  • There are multiple bots approved to fix lint errors ( example), but Scottywong's opening statement solely focuses on MalnadachBot.
  • I consider the RfC as bad-faith because of the attempt to confuse people by proposing a change, but drafting it backwards such that "Oppose" means implement the change, and "Support" means status quo. I've never seen an RfC where the proposer immediately casts an oppose !vote. Multiple people noted the framing was confusing, for example:
    • Support & Oppose (I don't really understand which is which): ... -- Terasail
    • Support the bot's interpretation of policy and also Object to the question wording. -- LokiTheLiar
  • When issues with the RfC's structure were pointed out to them, Scottywong claimed the RfC had been open for too long already that changes would be disruptive. I found that to be disingenuous, pointing out that it had been one day, and the way it was set up was actually making it harder to find common ground and compromise. Never got a reply, but sure enough, the community soundly rejected Scottywong's point of view, only setting back his "side".

Legoktm ( talk) 23:51, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Tamzin

Malnadach's sockpuppetry predates both the Gustin Kelly account and the dispute with Scottywong

Arbs already have access to this information, but good to get on the record publicly I think.

Malnadach's sockpuppetry did not begin in response to any maltreatment

The earliest abuse I'm aware occurred on sister wikis and did not involve someone who was in conflict with Malnadach. (Again, arbs already have this information.)

Malnadach's sockpuppetry only minimally intersected with their good-hand technical work

I am aware of a few cases where, in my behavioral assessment as an SPI clerk, Malnadach loutsocked in technical spaces, including here to justify a TfD and this AN/I thread. However, the serious abuse levied under various sock accounts and IPs was directed at editors most involved in anti-abuse work (particularly women and nonbinary editors). Other than the faux-harassment of the Malnadach account itself, I am not aware of any targeting of editors based on involvement in technical spaces.

It is unknowable whether Malnadach intended to disrupt in their good-hand edits

One could certainly make the case that some aspects of Malnadach's good-hand editing, such as making repeated edits to the same page, were intended as subtle disruption. One could also argue, though, that Malnadach genuinely intended their main account as purely good-hand. I tend toward the former hypothesis, but there is no conclusive evidence either way. At a minimum, one can say that if Malnadach's goal was to disrupt in their lint-fixing, they did not have that effect on most people (per Legoktm's evidence).

The Oxford IP is an editor in good standing

The anonymous user who edits on the University of Oxford range Special:Contributions/192.76.8.0/21, who started the AN/I thread regarding Scottywong, is a long-term constructive contributor who has made a number of helpful AN/I reports over the years. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she|they|xe) 08:21, 19 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

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Evidence presented by WaltCip

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ blocked as sock

Possibly stating the obvious, but ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was CU-blocked indefinitely as a sock of an LTA account. Only CUs are aware of the details why and which LTA it was. It raises questions as to whether this contributor was "driven off the project" as a result of ScottyWong's actions, as some of the statements on WP:ANI were asserting. This does not necessarily mean the comments were not uncivil, but it does have a bearing on the impact of those comments beyond their standalone being uncivil, demeaning and/or xenophobic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by WaltCip ( talk • contribs) 19:52, 7 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by GhostOfDanGurney

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was trolling Scottywong

Scottywong added a {nobots} tag to his talk page archives on April 12, 2022 [1]. It is inexplicable that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ, the operator of the bot which prompted Scottywong to add the tag in the first place, would then manually perform the bot's task almost exactly a full year later [2] and in an edit session which only consisted of these edits to Scottywong's talk page archive (and only 1 other edit with the account that day) ( contribution log for April 21, 2023).

Given the CU-BLOCK as a sock of an LTA, it can now only be assumed that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was not acting in good faith, was WP:TROLLING Scottywong, and the claim from the Oxford IP who started the ANI that Scottywong "bullied" them off the project [3] turned out to be laughably off-base.

Scottywong crossed a bright line with his comments

While expressing his displeasure at the manual linting was to be expected, addressing ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (while he could not possibly have known that ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was indeed a bad actor) as "Mr. Squiggles" in the context of such a heated comment [4] is nonetheless an egregious violation of WP:CIVIL/ WP:NPA with potential to harm far more than the intended recipient (in this case, the entire userbase of users with non-Latin usernames. Admins (and other toolholders) especially should be held to a higher standard of civility; these are the editors which should be setting behaviour standards and leading by example. ―  "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  01:06, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Jonesey95

Scottywong misinterprets policy and does not listen

Unfortunately, you'll need to read through the whole of this Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 17 thread to see how badly Scottywong listens to editors, accuses editors of incompetence where it is not warranted, and misinterprets or misunderstands bot policy, especially WP:COSMETICBOT and how BRFAs work. The editor repeatedly and falsely asserts, despite counterevidence provided by others, that operating a bot to remove all Linter errors from pages is not more complicated than it looks, in fact, it's not complicated at all, it's simple regex find and replace. There is no technical reason why a properly coded bot cannot fix all of these lint issues in a page with a single edit, without human intervention or supervision. ( diff)

When presented with an example page loaded with Linter errors and encouraged to create a set of regexes that could fix all of them in a single pass, the editor suddenly and conspicuously stopped pursuing this line of argument. Here's the request from me: Scottywong: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 70 is a sample page with approximately 180 Linter errors, nearly all of them font-tag-related. I encourage you to try to create a set of false-positive-free regular expressions that can fix every Linter font tag error on that page, and other VPT archive pages, with a single edit of each page. If you can do so, or even if you can reduce the count by 90% with a single edit, you will be a hero, and you may be able to help Wikipedia get out from under the burden of millions of Linter errors much more quickly. ( diff) This admin made a claim, accused other editors of being incompetent, offered to run a delinting bot themself (If this bot operator claims that he is not capable of fixing all the errors on a page in a single edit, or that his code is so inefficient that it produces "false positives" and requires him to manually supervise every edit, then I think we should find a different bot operator. I'll volunteer to take over the tasks if no one else wants to. ( diff)), and then when challenged, did not respond. This is a big pile of bad faith and bad behavior.

I don't remember having written an Arbcom evidence statement before, and I try to stay away from Wikidrama, but this editor's bad faith, badgering, false claims, and insulting attitude really got on my nerves, so I have stuck my head up out of my gnome-hole to make this statement. If I did anything incorrectly here, I apologize in advance. – Jonesey95 ( talk) 04:26, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Lightoil

Scottywong's responds after ANI report

After being reported by Oxford IP in WP:ANI, he did respond to concerns about his conduct and apologized [5] [6] [7] [8]. Scottywong did respond to concerns about his behavior in a timely manner which is expected of administrators per WP:ADMINACCT. Lightoil ( talk) 10:38, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Martinp

Moved [9] to workshop as requested by clerk. Martinp ( talk) 10:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Ritchie333

Scottywong has a history of conflict with Eric Corbett

Scottywong has had several conflicts with Eric Corbett. For example:

I appreciate this evidence is old and may not be worth much. However, I do note that the latter two ANI threads both closed with no consensus to do anything, following a long discussion, and the most recent ANI thread occurred just before Eric Corbett was indefinitely blocked, forestalling any possibility of further problems. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:04, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Catfish Jim and the soapdish

I'm unconvinced this has anything to do with ethnicity

I've not really followed this too closely, but I will admit to repeatedly experiencing extreme irritation at the now blocked editor that Scottywong took to task. Seeing my watchlist repeatedly full of bot generated "lint error" edits in long closed discussions was infuriating, particularly when the errors being corrected were html tags that will never, ever cause any issue to the board software. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 17:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by SmallJarsWithGreenLabels

From at least as early as his February VPP proposals, Scottywong took the matter of MalnadachBot’s edits somewhat personally

What Scottywong’s two proposals in February directly addressed were the technicalities of deprecated html tags and the WP:COSMETICBOT policy but especial weight was placed on the problems of signatures and watchlists. He described the complaints of people whose watchlists had been clogged due to their signature containing <font> tags and that he is one of these. He had every right to emphasise his own grievances in the discussion but this does provide vital context for his later actions.

Xenophobia is not a theme in Scottywong’s comments at Malnadach's talk page

The context behind Scottywong’s comments ( [10] [11]) was Malnadach’s provocative editing of Scottywong’s signature on Scottywong’s talk page in defiance of {{nobots}}. Some key points that Scottywong attacked ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ over:

  1. again, their lint work
  2. their username (also their signature)
  3. their talk page border
  4. their userpage font

The theme is not xenophobia but, as with the whole dispute, technical issues: non-ascii characters in 2, and personalised formatting and HTML in 3, 4, and 1. Since he has also long regarded this situation personally, it seems that Socttywong saw Malnadach’s edits on Scottywong’s talk page as an attack on his use of deprecated HTML in his own signature and wanted to get back at Malnadach in an immature tit-for-tat. As he has not been known for it previously, this suggests that Scottywong had no particular intent to promote xenophobia on Wikipedia.

Scottywong should know better and the non-xenophobic intent behind his comments is immaterial

Scottywong is close to a person with a non–English alphabet native language. [12] We can then assume he had some idea of the possible xenophobic effect of his comments regardless of intent, and either disregarded this problem, or could not help himself. Scottywong used comments he knew might effect Malnadach personally to puta a stop to “annoying useless edits”. Regardless of intent, this is a matter of inhibition, and Scottywong has demonstrated that he lacks inhibitions becoming of an admin. We need higher standards of inclusivity on one of the internet’s least diverse sites. small jars t c 19:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was not a username chosen for the sake of trolling

Scottywong seems to have insinuated that Malnadach chose to use Kannada in their username and kept it in their signature for the sake of trolling. It is clear that this is not the case. Malnadach was a productive editor as well as an LTA. Though they only began regular editing on enwiki in 2020, they registered ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ as the username of their main account in 2014 to make two edits about their home state of Karnataka, long before any of their abusive sock activity, which as far as we know only began in 2022. That they live in Karnataka is further shown not to be a fabrication from their attendance of a meetup in Udupi in January, and the alignment of their timecard with Indian Standard Time. We should remember that editors who turn to sockpuppeting usually do so for a reason and may have started out in good faith. It is unlikely that Malnadach had been quietly scheming to use their username for disruption eight years early. Intentionally or not, by attempting to blame Malnadach rather than focussing on his own conduct, Scottywong continues to create a subtle atmosphere of suspicion towards ESL users with non-Latin usernames, which is the issue that brought him here in the first place. small jars t c 14:40, 11 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Scottywong

Malnadach was a highly sophisticated long-term abuser

Given what we now know about their LTA status and sockpuppet accounts, ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (Malnadach) appears to have been a highly skilled sockmaster/troll, and especially adept at subtly irritating other editors while being careful not to violate policies.

Malnadach's bot has the highest edit count of any account in the history of Wikipedia (11.6 million edits) despite being active for only two years. Malnadach's main account made nearly 95,000 edits over a span of roughly 2.5 years, garnering advanced user rights and bot approvals. To achieve this feat as a long-term abuser and active sockmaster speaks to the level of effort that they put into their trolling, and the level of sophistication with which they operated to avoid detection for so long.

Malnadach was aware of the difficulties posed by their username

Malnadach created multiple sockpuppet accounts that complained about their username, giving the appearance that Malnadach was being hounded for their non-Latin username, generating sympathy from unknowing and well-meaning editors. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] This shows that Malnadach was aware that their username made it difficult for most en-wiki editors to interact with them (despite it not violating policy), and that Malnadach was aware of heightened sensitivities surrounding xenophobia. Malnadach conspired with their sockpuppets to use this to their advantage.

Based on what we know now, we can presume that Malnadach's choice to use a username composed entirely of non-Latin characters (without a transliteration in their signature, or a redirect from a transliterated username like User:Malnadach or User:Malnadach Konkno) could have been a conscious decision designed to subtly irritate other editors without violating policy. It is also possible to presume that the cursive font and rainbow border on their user page may have also been designed for the same purpose, although there is less hard evidence to support this presumption.

Malnadach was aware of the {{nobots}} template

Malnadach was aware of the {{ nobots}} template and its function, since they encouraged other users to use it to prevent MalnadachBot from editing those pages. Despite clear knowledge of the purpose of this template, Malnadach still decided to edit pages in my userspace that had the {{ nobots}} template applied. Since AWB wouldn't allow their bot to make these edits, Malnadach made these edits from their main account. [20] [21] Therefore, we can conclude that the purpose of making these specific edits was to intentionally irritate me. While it's not ok to respond to this behavior in an unseemly way, it's also not ok to intentionally irritate other editors to provoke a response that can be exploited.

MalnadachBot's behavior was the source of complaints from many users

Frustration about MalnadachBot's behavior was certainly not exclusive to me. Indeed, many other editors complained about their bot tasks. Despite all of these complaints, millions of edits continued to be made without any changes to its irritating behavior, with many editors and BAG members often speaking up in defense of the bot's behavior, enabling it to continue unchanged for more than a year before being its most glaring problems were addressed. Some complaint threads that were started by users other than me:

My comments about Malnadach's username were inappropriate and over the line, but not xenophobic

My comments to Malnadach about their username were only intended to communicate how a username that uses an unfamiliar character set impedes communication and relationship-building. Referring to Malnadach's username as "Mr. Squiggles" was a perverse way to demonstrate how unintelligible their username appears to the vast majority of en-wiki users who are unfamiliar with that character set. It was not intended to mock their language or culture in any way. In hindsight, I can see that my words were chosen very poorly due to my frustrated and irritated state, they had a belittling and insulting effect, and were easily misinterpreted as xenophobic. I had no intention to make any judgment or discriminatory statement about Malnadach's ethnicity, culture, race, or nationality. Regardless of what we learned later about Malnadach's status as an LTA sockmaster, my comments were unambiguously inappropriate.

I have apologized no less than four times for my comments that were understandably misinterpreted as xenophobic. [22] [23] [24] [25] My initial apologies were admittedly tepid, owing to the fact that it took some time for me to understand how and why my comments were being misinterpreted, because I never had any intention to make a xenophobic statement. As I gradually came to fully understand why my comments were being interpreted the way they were, I gave a more wholehearted apology.

While I've occasionally said the wrong things during my 16 years here, I've always owned up to my mistakes and learned from them, and I'm confident that no evidence will be presented here that demonstrates a pattern of racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, bigoted, or otherwise discriminatory behavior on my part. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 14:57, 9 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Lourdes

Scottywong's repeated assertions that his actions were non-xenophobic make his apology redundant

What Scottywong believes is that his outburst against ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ was because of a bot issue; and everything else was heightened irritation and not xenophobic attack, especially his outburst against the editor's username. I would suggest to Scottywong to read up on this LSE opinion blog (title: "What’s in a name: identity, acceptance and racism in multicultural Britain") or this op-ed from The Independent (title: "Mispronouncing or changing people’s names is just another form of racism"). It is one thing to encourage a user to have latin characters to a foreign user's name -- it is absolutely another to make them feel alienated and telling them that their username is the reason they will not associate with the identify of "English Wikipedia".

Some pointers:

This is inherently a racist remark as there could be, especially "I don't even know what to call you". This statement paints an image that this foreign user's name has to be easily spoken by all English speakers; and then and only then would there be acceptance. Clearly, if SW weren't xenophobic, SW could have give a non-racist remark, such as, "Hi, would you be okay to add Latin characters to your current username, as encouraged by WP:NONLATIN? Sometimes, having Latin characters can support other users in....". Compare this with what SW wrote.
SW links WP:CIR to threaten the user about his username with non-English characters. WP:CIR has no reference that foreign usernames should be labeled CIR. CIR is quoted widely by editors (and administrators) who are threatening an upcoming block. SW uses the same xenophobic bent to threaten the editor with a block because of his foreign username.
I am quoting WP:NONLATIN verbatim from the username policy, which mentions "Users with usernames in non-Latin script writing systems are welcome to edit Wikipedia. There is no requirement that usernames must be in English or that Latin script characters must be used ... As a courtesy to other contributors, and to avoid possible confusion or mis-identification, users with such usernames are encouraged to consider providing a Latin-character transliteration of their username on their userpage, and/or as their signature."
SW went against policy to convince the editor that his username will not allow him to create an identity here on the English Wikipedia, and that only having an English/Latin name will allow that. And the attempts to alienate went further ("If you were editing the Kannada Wikipedia, your username would make a lot more sense.")

Xenophobia, transphobia and similar phobias don't need evidence of repeated bad behaviour for a user to be taken out of Wikipedia. One instance is enough.

Alternatively, SW can apologise that he was racist and I am okay for him to continue as an administrator. Acceptance is everything. Thank you, Lourdes 06:20, 12 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by jc37

During the time period when this case was in the preliminary phase, I noticed that User:Tamzin made an edit to Wikipedia:Username_policy. As I noted at the preliminary request, I updated that page and Wikipedia:Signatures, merging/unifying the text on both pages to hopefully prevent further confusion. Providing the links above to what the sections looked like prior to the Arbitration request. - jc37 21:33, 11 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Moneytrees

This is intended to be an objective summary of disputes Scottywong (SW) has been involved with, and my thoughts on them.

Older evidence (Early to late 2010s)

  • 2009 to ~early 2010s: Disputes over COI editing. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bose stereo speakers, early in SW's career, is the apparent beginning of this-- apparently there was some COI with the nomination given SW's job, and he had canvassed the nomination on a criticism site (this is discussed in the AfD). "Scottywong and COI", May 2012 seems to be the most relevant thread; SW has some involvement with Biamp Systems/ CobraNet and created both articles, getting one to GA. This was called out somewhere, and SW deleted the first article, protected his talk page, and went on a wikibreak in response. I believe most of the ire offsite forums have of SW over the years stems from grudges held over this. This is more context for that ire than anything-- COI rules weren't what they are today from my understanding, and there's nothing showing SW engaging in this since.
  • Early 2010s to 2019: Feud with Eric Corbett (aka Malleus Fatuorum). Corbett had several allies and critics over the years, and Sw often clashed with him... I think it stems from the below RfA, although SW could probably give you a better idea. Going over the related threads:
    • "Personal attack review" and "RfA disruption", May 2012. SW took objection to Corbett and Hipocrite's comments at Avicennasis' RfA, which led to a talk page argument and the first ANI thread. SW wanted Corbett to stop commenting at the RfA but would not take action as considered himself INVOLVED. The commenters see SW's report as petty and an example of unnecessary conflict with Corbett. In the second thread Interactions bans are proposed but do not get sufficient support and the thread is closed to be referred to AE, as Corbett had an arb restriction on commenting on WT:RFA pages at the time. Although the AE draws several comments, there is little appetite for sanctions outside of trouts and it's closed with no action. I find the entire episode a poor reflection on most involved and just kind of pointless.
    • "Unhelpful interactions", December 2012, Drmies reports interactions between Corbett and another editor and advocates for an IBAN. SW is critical of Drmies report, due in part because Drmies and Corbett are friendly. SW and Drmies exchange insults and curse each other out, leading Ironholds to block them both. They're both unblocked shortly afterwards. Even though this scenario led to a block, it feels like a less relevant one.
    • "Self-requested indefinite block", July 2013, Corbett is blocked for an unrelated issue and asks to be indefinitely blocked. SW carries this out without leaving a notice on Corbett's talk page. Two editors object to the block on SW's talk page, and Floquenbeam unblocks, also without leaving a note. I think the issue here is that SW was involved wrt Corbett and should've left the request alone, even if this isn't a major violation of INVOLVED.
    • "Conduct unbecoming of an administrator", July 2014: After SW made critical comments of Corbett and argued with his supporters at an edit warring report, Dennis Brown opens this ANI. The thread mostly becomes an argument between Brown and SW, with occasional interjections from others, before Corbett gets blocked over an unrelated matter, which the rest of thread is about. There's little substance to the commentary in the thread, it's almost entirely bickering. I find myself more wishing that Scotty had said his piece in the edit warring thread and not commented further, the problem is less with what he's saying and more with the continued engagement.
    • "Further attempts to bait Eric Corbett", August 2019 and the related case request. Corbett was blocked for an unrelated issue, and SW makes a snarky comment on his talk. The ensuring ANI also overlaps with the dispute that led to the block and gets a bit sidetracked. SW reverts related comments at his talkpage but eventually comes to the thread to make a comment. While I'm happy he engaged less with the thread, the comment that kicked it off didn't need to be made in the first place, and a comment earlier in the discussion would have been desirable. SW is named as a party at the Arb request, which focuses on general recent issues involving Corbett, but doesn't comment. Corbett quits and is blocked for socking shortly afterwards, ending the feud.
    • Really, these threads are annoying and I hope summarizing them here will prevent them from ever being relevant again. Focusing on SW, I find myself less caring about what he is saying, and more about his repeated engagement in the feud. There's a lot of comments that could've not been made.
  • 2013: Manning comments. SW made offensive comments during debates involving Chelsea Manning. During a related arbcase, these comments were referenced in a FoF and a topic ban for SW was voted against. When I asked about these comments at ACE2020, I thought SW's apology was very genuine. I don't think these comments should be held against him, they've been gone over enough-- feels like reopening an old wound.

Newer evidence (2020 to present)

  • 2019 to present: Dutchy85 unblock and CCI. In November 2019, I reverted a blatant copyvio from Dutchy85 and reported them to AN, requesting they be blocked given a previous block and warnings for copyright violations. SW blocked them as a result of the report, and Dutchy85 appealed. SW gave them a special "unblock deal", saying, In light of the fact that you've edited for an extended period of time since your last copyright violation, presumably with no other incidents, I'm going to change the block from indefinite, to expiring at the end of the year. This will give other editors a chance to dig through your last 9000 edits to see if there have been any other copyright violations. If there have been, I will likely reinstate the indefinite block. If not, it will expire at the end of the year and you can resume editing.... SW did not bring this up at another venue such as CCI (where there were only three active editors at the time) and only announced it on Dutchy's talk page. I belatedly learned that SW had given this as an unblock condition; I had little time to look through Dutchy's edits and was unable to assess them properly. I asked SW about this at ACE2020, and while I somewhat understand his rationale there, I believed unblocking was a serious error in judgement. I was later made aware of continued copyvios from Dutchy85 and blocked them indefinitely, with about 10,000 new edits since the unblock now needing review. SW was made aware of this, but as far as I know has never contributed at the massive CCI. If SW had admitted error and helped cleanup at the CCI, I wouldn't really have an issue. If any good is to come of this case-- that CCI needs help.
  • 2023: dispute with Malnadach, which has been summarized enough above.

Additional context

SW has been the target of provocations and trolling over the years. During the precipitating ANI discussion, several burner socks made mocking comments ( 1 2 3 4) plus a joe job attempt. There have otherwise been spurious attempts to get SW in trouble, such as this XRV thread. I think this has ultimately hurt the case against SW. An example from 2022 is when User:Adrianmn1110 warned SW over calling ip editors "second-class citizens". While there could be legitimate issue taken with SW's comments, a new account with a low edit count doing so was seen as suspicious due to past attempts, leading them to be blocked.

There's some other ANI threads and conflicts I noticed but I neglected to include as they were too old/not worth bringing up. Between 2015-18 there's a lack of conflict aside from an edit warring report involving the CobraNet article, as SW was on low activity.

Most of the routine stuff admin work SW does is uncontroversial. SW has a history of closing discussions and appears uncontroversial in this field. Over the years, I saw several editors praising him for closes, and SW usually responds with tact when questioned. When thinking about the above, I come to two conclusions. 1) It would've been more appropriate for this to go in front of the committee in the early 2010s. 2) I think this is more a judgement concern than a "SW says something offensive" concern. SW is too hasty and rash in some of his actions, and does not always respond best to criticism. When he has time to sit down and think about something, like when working on closes, results are more positive.

Evidence presented by Legoktm

Inability to drop the stick

At Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive_18#User:MalnadachBot_is_running_amok:

  • WP:BOTN discussion regarding MalnadachBot, describing it as "going crazy" and making "completely useless edits", it was closed by Primefac, writing Arguing back and forth about the necessity of fixing these issues is not what this board is for, nor is demanding that an approved bot task be stopped simply because of a personal grievance (and one which has been noted to be easily-solved).. Scottywong did not participate in the thread up till this point.
  • I create a new subsection discussing the creation of a "fixing lint errors" change tag. AFAIK, this was a novel idea that had not been previously discussed.
  • Scottywong replies, writing Or, we could just stop wasting electrons on fixing linter errors on sub-sub-subpages of AfD talk pages from 2005 that literally no human will ever visit again between now and the heat death of the universe.... This successfully hijacks the thread (no one addresses my suggestion about using edit tags), so when I ask for it to be re-closed as futile, Scottywong's response is to dismissively tell me to remove the noticeboard from my watchlist.

A "fixing lint errors" change tag was used by Legobot, with documentation with zero complaints. We can only guess what would've happened if the discussion wasn't hijacked and MalnadachBot instituted a change tag.

At Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#MalnadachBot_--_owner_indeffed,_what_now?:

  • Scottywong replies to ask for less pages to be de-linted, describing the current lint fixing process as damaging and irrational. Despite knowing that an ArbCom case is just about to be opened looking at their behavior, they chose to continue with veiled personal attacks.
  • They're immediately told that this has been discussed "ad nauseam" with no consensus supporting it.
  • Scottywong replies, writing Just expressing my opinion..., which is classic sealioning.

Legoktm ( talk) 20:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Bad-faith RfC

Regarding Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_179#RFC:_Clarifications_to_WP:COSMETICBOT_for_fixing_deprecated_HTML_tags:

  • There are multiple bots approved to fix lint errors ( example), but Scottywong's opening statement solely focuses on MalnadachBot.
  • I consider the RfC as bad-faith because of the attempt to confuse people by proposing a change, but drafting it backwards such that "Oppose" means implement the change, and "Support" means status quo. I've never seen an RfC where the proposer immediately casts an oppose !vote. Multiple people noted the framing was confusing, for example:
    • Support & Oppose (I don't really understand which is which): ... -- Terasail
    • Support the bot's interpretation of policy and also Object to the question wording. -- LokiTheLiar
  • When issues with the RfC's structure were pointed out to them, Scottywong claimed the RfC had been open for too long already that changes would be disruptive. I found that to be disingenuous, pointing out that it had been one day, and the way it was set up was actually making it harder to find common ground and compromise. Never got a reply, but sure enough, the community soundly rejected Scottywong's point of view, only setting back his "side".

Legoktm ( talk) 23:51, 21 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by Tamzin

Malnadach's sockpuppetry predates both the Gustin Kelly account and the dispute with Scottywong

Arbs already have access to this information, but good to get on the record publicly I think.

Malnadach's sockpuppetry did not begin in response to any maltreatment

The earliest abuse I'm aware occurred on sister wikis and did not involve someone who was in conflict with Malnadach. (Again, arbs already have this information.)

Malnadach's sockpuppetry only minimally intersected with their good-hand technical work

I am aware of a few cases where, in my behavioral assessment as an SPI clerk, Malnadach loutsocked in technical spaces, including here to justify a TfD and this AN/I thread. However, the serious abuse levied under various sock accounts and IPs was directed at editors most involved in anti-abuse work (particularly women and nonbinary editors). Other than the faux-harassment of the Malnadach account itself, I am not aware of any targeting of editors based on involvement in technical spaces.

It is unknowable whether Malnadach intended to disrupt in their good-hand edits

One could certainly make the case that some aspects of Malnadach's good-hand editing, such as making repeated edits to the same page, were intended as subtle disruption. One could also argue, though, that Malnadach genuinely intended their main account as purely good-hand. I tend toward the former hypothesis, but there is no conclusive evidence either way. At a minimum, one can say that if Malnadach's goal was to disrupt in their lint-fixing, they did not have that effect on most people (per Legoktm's evidence).

The Oxford IP is an editor in good standing

The anonymous user who edits on the University of Oxford range Special:Contributions/192.76.8.0/21, who started the AN/I thread regarding Scottywong, is a long-term constructive contributor who has made a number of helpful AN/I reports over the years. -- Tamzin cetacean needed (she|they|xe) 08:21, 19 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Scottywong/Evidence&oldid=1164714222"

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