![]() | This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched
|
Case clerks: Hahc21 ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Worm That Turned ( Talk) & David Fuchs ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
---|
![]() |
|
Track related changes |
Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.
I guess I'll post here cause it's the only talk page without a scary red warning edit notice.
Everything relevant about this case is in Wales' statement Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning_Policy#Statement_by_Jimbo_Wales. He states "There is fairly universal agreement and understanding" which is concurrently very true and not true. There's understanding that it's somehow different, but know one actually knows how it's different. Vague and contradictory phrases like "openness to criticism and debate" and "ending useless conversations with people who have no interest in actually fixing anything " and the fact that he's not onwiki everyday mean it's inevitable there are going to be chronic issues on the page -- conflict between the iar crowd and "banned is banned" crowd. I empathize and understand both positions, and can't fault anyone for either viewpoint. The committee can't fix that, only Wales can, assuming he prioritizes fixing the problem rather than maintaining his wiki-guru founder status. Concretely, he ought to simply find some admins he thinks have reasonable judgement to clerk the page. NE Ent 19:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
"There's absolutely no question that the person behind the MyWikiBiz/The Kohser accounts is not welcome on Jimbo's talk page, period"is a falsehood, as I have amply demonstrated with facts presented in Workshop & Evidence. You're making a statement that there is "Zero Tolerance", when in fact there is "Some Tolerance". The two do not exist in a quantum state; if one is true, the other one is false. As Jimbo and others have engaged with this user on that talk page, the latter is the true position. Period. Smallbones actions in this situation have shown a particular rigidity of thinking that is wholly unsuitable for dealing with the nuance and complexity of the problem at hand. Tarc ( talk) 20:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Just to note that the PD will probably be posted a day or so late, to allow a bit more scrutiny. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs( talk) 02:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Propose adding a line "except on issues which he is directly involved in", as the current proposal is vague and misleading. Worm That Turned Seraphimblade KonveyorBelt 16:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I'll probably suggest some tweaking of the language when I vote on the case (tomorrow or Saturday). Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, this is at least the third time now that your approach has been to visit the site of a fire in progress and throw gasoline on it. What remedy do you think we could adopt that would prevent you from doing this again short of throwing you out on your ear? Newyorkbrad ( talk) 12:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
For my thoughts (just my own, and I'd like my colleagues to weigh in as well), I would see "administrative noticeboard" to mean just that: noticeboards primarily intended to bring matters to the attention of administrators or request administrative action, i.e., AN(I), ANEW, AE, etc. A board like BLPN is intended to bring matters to the attention of the community, not just administrators, so I would not see that being included under that restriction. AIV is intended to deal with blatant vandalism, and topic bans make an exception for dealing with obvious vandalism, so I would not see posting standard vandal reports there to violate the ban. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
The proposed principle says edits by banned editors should be restored "rarely and with extreme caution" but, while I agree that people should be cautious, I feel the first part is neither appropriate nor necessary. Each edit should be assessed on its own with no implicit limitation on how many edits or how often edits can be restored. If a banned editor makes numerous quality contributions that are reverted solely on the basis of the editor being banned, we should not suggest that only some of these edits can be restored. This does not really pertain to the case at hand, but ArbCom principles are regularly cited on policy pages and in discussions. Our only limitation should be on whether the contribution is constructive.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Given that these banned editors have got to the point of "ban", they need additional disincentives to help them move on from the encyclopedia. One of the main ones we have is removal of their edits, even if constructive. It should be extremely rare to restore one of their edits, and the person who does so should be cautious about doing so as many banned users have ulterior motives. Personally, I'd rather we weren't looking at whether the contribution is constructive, but if its very absence is destructive. WormTT( talk) 12:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Salvio has abstained in four votes, and most oddly, three of the four remedy votes. I don't see an obvious reason why (recusing?). It seems strange they would agree entirely with the facts, but be so out of step for the remedies. I ask that they elaborate on their position a little. Are you planning to put forth alternates? What would it take to move them to a definitive vote? Remember that arbcom made an informal pledge to avoid abstain votes if at all possible, so I'm assuming there is a compelling reason to vote in that manner. 204.101.237.139 ( talk) 16:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
About your questions, I abstained on the "banned editors" principle because part of it is not entirely supported by the relevant policy, in my opinion – I refer in particular to "such restoration should be undertaken rarely". Now, I understand where my colleagues are coming from and I partly agree with the underlying idea that once a user has been banned, that user should be discouraged from editing Wikipedia at all for his participation was deemed especially problematic and reverting all his edits regardless of their merit accomplishes that purpose. Then again, we are here to create an encyclopaedia and one of the pillars allows us to ignore a rule when doing so allows us to improve the project, so an overly mechanical approach to the issue could lead to us cutting off our collective nose to spite our face. But, anyway, as I said, in my opinion policy does not completely support this principle, merely requiring that editors restoring an edit by a banned user "are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits", and since I don't believe it's our place to modify policy, I'm abstaining (although I've been wondering whether I should move to an outright oppose).
I also abstained on three remedies, because, as I said before the case opened, I believe this proceeding to have been entirely superfluous, an exercise in overreaction. If an admin, any admin had imposed a couple of short blocks to stop the edit war, we would not be here and the disruption would have been solved very quickly. As it happens, no blocks were issued and here we are, but this doesn't change the fact that I still think neither formal remedies nor sanctions are required, although I have chosen to only oppose the ban proposal because I consider that to be particularly overkill. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Carcharoth:, are you aware that I did do just that, albeit belatedly? After the 25-revert spat with Smallbones, I did a minor rewording, which was reverted by HiaB once, twice. A few hours later (after temp full protection was placed on Jimbo's page...again, no blocks were ever issued), I 100% re-wrote the supposed-banned editor's words into my own post, and was reverted by Johnuniq, and he was reverted by an uninvolved editor. After that point, discussion on my post proceeded normally and without rancor. Tarc ( talk) 00:19, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Specifically I'm curious to know what actions is Carcharoth talking about? As far as being banned from Jimbo's page that's not a huge loss I'm just curious if this is because of my 4 or so reverts or because I used "inflammatory" language? Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 01:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
While I applaud Carcharoth for at least mentioning this, it would be really helpful if ArbCom could clarify whether
The former issue at least has been discussed for over two years with no clear resolution; had there been one this whole case could potentially have been avoided. Nikkimaria ( talk) 04:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd love a discussion on exactly what NYB thinks needs cleaned up but he has ignored my other attempts of engagement for advice. Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 22:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Since you split out #1.2 to specifically call foe a vote on Jimbo's talk page, did you still mean to leave the "...nor User talk:Jimbo Wales..." clause in #1? It still seems a bit weird to bar someone from someone else's talk page absent that person's request. Tarc ( talk) 12:30, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Seeing that a page-ban proposal for Tarc is currently passing, I'm looking at the diffs here for Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Proposed decision#Tarc.27s conduct, and I'm just not seeing they support the conclusion "Tarc continually edit-warred to include the content, to prove a point rather than on the merits of including the content itself."
Taking the diffs in order (bolding is mine):
Just to mention, yes, I saw his thing in the Manning case, which was supposed to be some sort of reductio ad absurdum but unfortunately it's very hard on the internet to tell the difference between someone espousing an extreme position to show how outrageous it is, and someone espousing an extreme position because they're extreme. There was also something about race a while back, and to this day I'm not sure whether or not Tarc is black. Both situations inexcusable, but this doesn't seem to me to be the same thing. In this situation, he seems genuinely interested in having the discussion play out, even as he seems aware that he's not taking the WMF party line in the issue. — Neotarf ( talk) 21:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Off topic. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:22, 10 October 2014 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
It seems remedy 1.2 on Tarc is going to pass, I presume in conjunction with remedy 1. What I am curious about with remedy 1.2 is the statement "Tarc is prohibited from reinstating edits or comments that were made or apparently made by a banned user and were reverted for that reason by another editor, regardless of any exception to the applicable policy that might otherwise apply." Such phrasing would seem to imply that if someone wrongly restores obvious BLP violations or vandalism that Tarc would not be allowed to revert the action. This should be clarified as to whether it applies to all edits made by banned editors or just those that do not fall into the typical exceptions to restrictions on editors. Also, how would this apply to a question or comment if Tarc simply asked the same question or made the same comment after the one by an allegedly banned editor was removed? That happened in this case as well.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:17, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Time to close, notify and implement. DHeyward ( talk) 08:43, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
From
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction; "The Committee has no jurisdiction over: (i) official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff"
From
WP:JIMBO; "Across the year, he maintains a very active talk page, more watched than the village pumps, which he uses as a noticeboard to publish his occasional "decrees" or announcements and where he facilitates discussion on all sorts of Wikimedia projects matters that he welcomes (from the broadest to the most specific; relating to Wikipedia in all languages, Wikimedia, Commons etc.); the latter often include appropriate notification of current or future discussions on the English Wikipedia or elsewhere to solicit more participation from the talk page's followers."
If the primary role of Jimbo's talk page is publishing decrees and facilitating discussion, those are roles that Mr. Wales is conducting in his official capacity as the nominal founder of the project, as well as in his role as WMF member. As such, attempting to ban people from there may be barred by the wording of part i of Arbcom's jurisdiction. Tarc ( talk) 17:47, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it looks like ArbCom has been ignoring some rules yet again, but then Tarc is allowed to do the same, provided doing so helps to improve or maintain Wikipedia. :) . Count Iblis ( talk) 19:29, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Please note comment at clerks' notice board. As this was implemented with a margin of just one vote, would someone double check this? — Neotarf ( talk) 18:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
![]() | This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched
|
Case clerks: Hahc21 ( Talk) & Callanecc ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Worm That Turned ( Talk) & David Fuchs ( Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
---|
![]() |
|
Track related changes |
Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.
I guess I'll post here cause it's the only talk page without a scary red warning edit notice.
Everything relevant about this case is in Wales' statement Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning_Policy#Statement_by_Jimbo_Wales. He states "There is fairly universal agreement and understanding" which is concurrently very true and not true. There's understanding that it's somehow different, but know one actually knows how it's different. Vague and contradictory phrases like "openness to criticism and debate" and "ending useless conversations with people who have no interest in actually fixing anything " and the fact that he's not onwiki everyday mean it's inevitable there are going to be chronic issues on the page -- conflict between the iar crowd and "banned is banned" crowd. I empathize and understand both positions, and can't fault anyone for either viewpoint. The committee can't fix that, only Wales can, assuming he prioritizes fixing the problem rather than maintaining his wiki-guru founder status. Concretely, he ought to simply find some admins he thinks have reasonable judgement to clerk the page. NE Ent 19:50, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
"There's absolutely no question that the person behind the MyWikiBiz/The Kohser accounts is not welcome on Jimbo's talk page, period"is a falsehood, as I have amply demonstrated with facts presented in Workshop & Evidence. You're making a statement that there is "Zero Tolerance", when in fact there is "Some Tolerance". The two do not exist in a quantum state; if one is true, the other one is false. As Jimbo and others have engaged with this user on that talk page, the latter is the true position. Period. Smallbones actions in this situation have shown a particular rigidity of thinking that is wholly unsuitable for dealing with the nuance and complexity of the problem at hand. Tarc ( talk) 20:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Just to note that the PD will probably be posted a day or so late, to allow a bit more scrutiny. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs( talk) 02:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Propose adding a line "except on issues which he is directly involved in", as the current proposal is vague and misleading. Worm That Turned Seraphimblade KonveyorBelt 16:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I'll probably suggest some tweaking of the language when I vote on the case (tomorrow or Saturday). Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, this is at least the third time now that your approach has been to visit the site of a fire in progress and throw gasoline on it. What remedy do you think we could adopt that would prevent you from doing this again short of throwing you out on your ear? Newyorkbrad ( talk) 12:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
For my thoughts (just my own, and I'd like my colleagues to weigh in as well), I would see "administrative noticeboard" to mean just that: noticeboards primarily intended to bring matters to the attention of administrators or request administrative action, i.e., AN(I), ANEW, AE, etc. A board like BLPN is intended to bring matters to the attention of the community, not just administrators, so I would not see that being included under that restriction. AIV is intended to deal with blatant vandalism, and topic bans make an exception for dealing with obvious vandalism, so I would not see posting standard vandal reports there to violate the ban. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
The proposed principle says edits by banned editors should be restored "rarely and with extreme caution" but, while I agree that people should be cautious, I feel the first part is neither appropriate nor necessary. Each edit should be assessed on its own with no implicit limitation on how many edits or how often edits can be restored. If a banned editor makes numerous quality contributions that are reverted solely on the basis of the editor being banned, we should not suggest that only some of these edits can be restored. This does not really pertain to the case at hand, but ArbCom principles are regularly cited on policy pages and in discussions. Our only limitation should be on whether the contribution is constructive.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Given that these banned editors have got to the point of "ban", they need additional disincentives to help them move on from the encyclopedia. One of the main ones we have is removal of their edits, even if constructive. It should be extremely rare to restore one of their edits, and the person who does so should be cautious about doing so as many banned users have ulterior motives. Personally, I'd rather we weren't looking at whether the contribution is constructive, but if its very absence is destructive. WormTT( talk) 12:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Salvio has abstained in four votes, and most oddly, three of the four remedy votes. I don't see an obvious reason why (recusing?). It seems strange they would agree entirely with the facts, but be so out of step for the remedies. I ask that they elaborate on their position a little. Are you planning to put forth alternates? What would it take to move them to a definitive vote? Remember that arbcom made an informal pledge to avoid abstain votes if at all possible, so I'm assuming there is a compelling reason to vote in that manner. 204.101.237.139 ( talk) 16:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
About your questions, I abstained on the "banned editors" principle because part of it is not entirely supported by the relevant policy, in my opinion – I refer in particular to "such restoration should be undertaken rarely". Now, I understand where my colleagues are coming from and I partly agree with the underlying idea that once a user has been banned, that user should be discouraged from editing Wikipedia at all for his participation was deemed especially problematic and reverting all his edits regardless of their merit accomplishes that purpose. Then again, we are here to create an encyclopaedia and one of the pillars allows us to ignore a rule when doing so allows us to improve the project, so an overly mechanical approach to the issue could lead to us cutting off our collective nose to spite our face. But, anyway, as I said, in my opinion policy does not completely support this principle, merely requiring that editors restoring an edit by a banned user "are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits", and since I don't believe it's our place to modify policy, I'm abstaining (although I've been wondering whether I should move to an outright oppose).
I also abstained on three remedies, because, as I said before the case opened, I believe this proceeding to have been entirely superfluous, an exercise in overreaction. If an admin, any admin had imposed a couple of short blocks to stop the edit war, we would not be here and the disruption would have been solved very quickly. As it happens, no blocks were issued and here we are, but this doesn't change the fact that I still think neither formal remedies nor sanctions are required, although I have chosen to only oppose the ban proposal because I consider that to be particularly overkill. Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Carcharoth:, are you aware that I did do just that, albeit belatedly? After the 25-revert spat with Smallbones, I did a minor rewording, which was reverted by HiaB once, twice. A few hours later (after temp full protection was placed on Jimbo's page...again, no blocks were ever issued), I 100% re-wrote the supposed-banned editor's words into my own post, and was reverted by Johnuniq, and he was reverted by an uninvolved editor. After that point, discussion on my post proceeded normally and without rancor. Tarc ( talk) 00:19, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Specifically I'm curious to know what actions is Carcharoth talking about? As far as being banned from Jimbo's page that's not a huge loss I'm just curious if this is because of my 4 or so reverts or because I used "inflammatory" language? Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 01:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
While I applaud Carcharoth for at least mentioning this, it would be really helpful if ArbCom could clarify whether
The former issue at least has been discussed for over two years with no clear resolution; had there been one this whole case could potentially have been avoided. Nikkimaria ( talk) 04:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd love a discussion on exactly what NYB thinks needs cleaned up but he has ignored my other attempts of engagement for advice. Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 22:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Since you split out #1.2 to specifically call foe a vote on Jimbo's talk page, did you still mean to leave the "...nor User talk:Jimbo Wales..." clause in #1? It still seems a bit weird to bar someone from someone else's talk page absent that person's request. Tarc ( talk) 12:30, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Seeing that a page-ban proposal for Tarc is currently passing, I'm looking at the diffs here for Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Proposed decision#Tarc.27s conduct, and I'm just not seeing they support the conclusion "Tarc continually edit-warred to include the content, to prove a point rather than on the merits of including the content itself."
Taking the diffs in order (bolding is mine):
Just to mention, yes, I saw his thing in the Manning case, which was supposed to be some sort of reductio ad absurdum but unfortunately it's very hard on the internet to tell the difference between someone espousing an extreme position to show how outrageous it is, and someone espousing an extreme position because they're extreme. There was also something about race a while back, and to this day I'm not sure whether or not Tarc is black. Both situations inexcusable, but this doesn't seem to me to be the same thing. In this situation, he seems genuinely interested in having the discussion play out, even as he seems aware that he's not taking the WMF party line in the issue. — Neotarf ( talk) 21:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Off topic. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:22, 10 October 2014 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
It seems remedy 1.2 on Tarc is going to pass, I presume in conjunction with remedy 1. What I am curious about with remedy 1.2 is the statement "Tarc is prohibited from reinstating edits or comments that were made or apparently made by a banned user and were reverted for that reason by another editor, regardless of any exception to the applicable policy that might otherwise apply." Such phrasing would seem to imply that if someone wrongly restores obvious BLP violations or vandalism that Tarc would not be allowed to revert the action. This should be clarified as to whether it applies to all edits made by banned editors or just those that do not fall into the typical exceptions to restrictions on editors. Also, how would this apply to a question or comment if Tarc simply asked the same question or made the same comment after the one by an allegedly banned editor was removed? That happened in this case as well.-- The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 22:17, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Time to close, notify and implement. DHeyward ( talk) 08:43, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
From
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Jurisdiction; "The Committee has no jurisdiction over: (i) official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff"
From
WP:JIMBO; "Across the year, he maintains a very active talk page, more watched than the village pumps, which he uses as a noticeboard to publish his occasional "decrees" or announcements and where he facilitates discussion on all sorts of Wikimedia projects matters that he welcomes (from the broadest to the most specific; relating to Wikipedia in all languages, Wikimedia, Commons etc.); the latter often include appropriate notification of current or future discussions on the English Wikipedia or elsewhere to solicit more participation from the talk page's followers."
If the primary role of Jimbo's talk page is publishing decrees and facilitating discussion, those are roles that Mr. Wales is conducting in his official capacity as the nominal founder of the project, as well as in his role as WMF member. As such, attempting to ban people from there may be barred by the wording of part i of Arbcom's jurisdiction. Tarc ( talk) 17:47, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it looks like ArbCom has been ignoring some rules yet again, but then Tarc is allowed to do the same, provided doing so helps to improve or maintain Wikipedia. :) . Count Iblis ( talk) 19:29, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Please note comment at clerks' notice board. As this was implemented with a margin of just one vote, would someone double check this? — Neotarf ( talk) 18:10, 12 October 2014 (UTC)