→ Important notes for all contributors to this case
This case is highly contentious, and has the ability to devolve very quickly. So, this is a heads up on the procedures we will be using. A) First off, we will be running under a "single warning" system. The clerks, myself and other arbitrators will be monitoring this case. Uncivil comments or accusations that are not backed up with explicit diffs will be removed on sight. Clerks have been given authority to remove such comments and give the commenter a single warning. If such issues happen again after a participant has been warned, the participant will either be barred from further participation in this arbitration case, or the person will be blocked for a period of time at the clerk's discretion. This applies to everyone. That includes the parties, involved onlookers, semi-involved onlookers, and people who wander in randomly (whether it is truly random or not). B) There will be NO speculations allowed. This includes the following:
If you're not sure whether a statement will fall afoul of these policies, ask a clerk before hand. Don't think it's "better to ask for forgiveness then it is permission". It's not. These rules will apply on all case-related pages, which explicitly include talk pages. We will be using the just-ratified limits on evidence (to wit, 1000 words/100 diffs for direct parties, 500/50 for non-parties to this case). If you're going to exceed either, ask myself or another arbitrator (on the /Evidence talk page) before you do so. To prevent "drive-by" attacks and attempts to devolve this case, we are taking additional measures to limit disruption. The case pages will be semi-protected and there will be additional scrutiny paid to accounts who haven't participated in this dispute beforehand. In other words, don't expect to try to avoid scrutiny with an IP address or an alternate, undeclared account. It will be counterproductive. If a new editor or an IP editor truly has something that needs to be said, they can ask a clerk to post for them. Finally, after I take the first few days to review the initial evidence and workshop postings, I will be posting a series of questions on the workshop page that I would like the parties to answer. I am primarily interested in what the parties have to say in response. This should be aimed solely at answering my questions and not going back and forth with other people's answers. Thank you for your attention, and hopefully, your compliance with these directives. For the Committee, SirFozzie ( talk) 19:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC) |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This confrontation stems from Fae's controversial RFA and subsequent user RFC. Views at the RFC were divided over the legitamacy of Fae's adminship when it was alleged that heleft his previous account "under a cloud". Questions were raised about the scope of ArbCom's involvement in the RFA (Fae stated that it was sanctioned by ArbCom; John Vandenberg stated that Fae was mistaken and that only he endorsed the RFA). Compounding the difficulty of the situation are allegations of harrassment, outing, and tendentious editing. I think there have been more than enough attempts at dispute resolution, documented above by MBisanz, to warrant an in-depth look. The committee should accept the case to examine the procedure of Fae's original RFA and post-RFA behaviour, as well as general user conduct in the dispute resolution process. Them From Space 23:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
In my spare time I have delved into this a fair amount. It is fairly clear that had all the information been available at the time that the original RFA would not have passed, but then again the original RFA voters also knew that something was up and still passed it anyway. This was probably an error of judgment on their part, just as Fae and John V erred in judgment in not fully disclosing Fae's history, but errors in judgment do happen, and, well, it's hard to see how a mutual balls-up is cause for desysopping.
The broader issue seems to be that Fae feels persecuted by the WR crowd, who now seem to have migrated to Wikipediocracy (although Wikipediocracy does seem like a significant step up from WR). I can sympathise, as I've had Paul Wehage aka one half of User:Musikfabrik (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jean-Thierry Boisseau) aka the fieryangel aka oscarlechien opening threads in these various places criticizing my every decision for 4 years, and calling me some rather nasty names in the bargain, almost regardless of whether what I was doing had any merit or not. It doesn't feel terribly pleasant, particularly when your fellow Wikipedians are apt to show a distinct lack of DefendEachOther. As a result, Fae seems to react extremely badly, causing large dramaboard threads where Fae and various Wikipediocracy posters (many of whom edit here in all good faith) snipe at each other. This is not helped by the ongoing controversy over the toxic culture and content at Commons, with which Fae seems to have become associated.
Now, it is my impression that although in quite a few of these dramaboard threads Fae is behaving quite badly, and too often resorts to a kind of catty tone that's both provoking, patronising, and not conducive to a collegial atmosphere, this does not really rise to the level of a desysopping, and I think that if ArbCom takes this case all they will do is succeed in giving Fae a slap on the wrists, which hardly seems worth the time and drama of a full case. IMHO the thing to do is pass a couple of open motions telling Fae to calm the bleep down and react much more coolly, and in a manner more befitting a sysop, to questions about his actions, even if he feels the questioners may not be acting in the best of good faith.
My own advice to Fae is this: 50 percent of what people say about you at WR et al is simply driven by hurt vanity: 40 percent is based on misinformation provided by those of the hurt vanity, and 10 percent (at best) might be fair criticism of some validity. If you can't filter out the white noise it's better not to read the threads at all, and just keep working quietly here without starting vast drama-filled BADSITES AN threads in which you then go make yourself look awful. Moreschi ( talk) 00:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
“ | Hi Guerillero, can you pass on the fact that I am travelling tomorrow to attend the funeral of my 20 year old niece on Friday. Hopefully others can explain why this Arbitration request suffers from a lack of evidence of any Wikipedia dispute resolution raised since his last failed Arbitration request. I do not have time or the inclination to look into the matter this week for obvious reasons. The fact that the person raising this case has written on Wikipediocracy, this month, about his private meeting with Eric Barbour should be of interest to many and appears to directly relate to the nature of his complaints about matters off Wikipedia. Thanks -- Fæ ( talk) 22:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC) | ” |
-- Guerillero | My Talk 00:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
If this case is accepted, could the scope please be set to include editors who made ad hominem and other personal attacks during the Fae RfC and in other forums in support of Fae? Some of the behavior from involved editors has really crossed the line, and I think should be examined. Cla68 ( talk) 01:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll repeat what I wrote in the discussion following my attempted redirect of User:Ash to User:Fæ:
I don't necessarily have an issue with clean starts. There are certainly legitimate reasons one might need a clean start. But if it's truly a clean start and you've left your old account for being an asshat, it shouldn't be possible for others to figure out who your old account was or want to associate you with it. If it is possible or they do, it's almost certain you're still being an asshat. And that indicates that you need to either leave or start again. If you choose the latter, you have to change your behavior in the next reincarnation so that nobody is able to figure out who your former nasty self was and it's truly a clean start.
As true then as now. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 02:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed drama in a few places on wiki which might be more suited for the evidence page. However, the events on Jimbo's talk page leading up to this post should be worth delving into. I don't always agree with Jimbo but the opinion he expresses there tallies with the one I have independently formed of Fae's actions.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 04:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
While Fae has always been quite civil and collegial when addressing me individually, he does seem to have a bad habit of assuming bad faith on the part of people who associate with people whom he feels have done him wrong ( his initial response to this case is a very good and current example).
A minor thing that bothers me about Fae is his insistence that we as a community must forget what he did as "Ash", because I don't see anything wrong with owning up to personal growth, and simply acknowledging that your opinions have "evolved". The major thing that bothers me about Fae is that he's very quick to accuse people who disagree with him of having a homophobic agenda. The other major thing that bothers me about him is that he doesn't intervene when his "defenders" are clearly being unfair and inappropriate.
This all comes down to a question of "conduct becoming of an administrator"... admins should (at least in my idealistic view) try to keep drama to a minimum, because drama distracts from the mission (writing and improving an encyclopedia). Admins should not create dramas that distracts from the mission, full stop.
There is also a simmering and seething undercurrent involved here, because apparently more than a few people believe that there was something deceptive about Fae's RfA. That issue really needs to be addressed here, because (if I understand correctly) ArbCom was perceived to have endorsed the view that "what happened before was no biggie", but it's pretty clear now that the "no biggie" would have been a serious issue for some of the RfA voters. I realize that the comment in question was just a committee member voicing his own opinion of the matter, but perhaps in the future the members of the committee might resolve to discuss such issues privately, and not comment as individuals on such matters unless there is some consensus on the matter (or offer a "minority opinion" if a committee member feels strongly that they need to speak against the majority). I understand the committee's reluctance to expand the case, but I really do think that it should expand it in this direction.
As far as results go, I would like to urge the committee to force Fae to do a "redo" of his RfA, in the interests of putting that part of the issue behind us. FWIW, I would vote in his favor, because I absolutely trust him not to use the buttons inappropriately. Let's have closure and move on, please. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 20:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
After reading some of the comments below (including Fae's, but not just his), I hope that a "principle" of this case will make clear that "Assuming Good Faith" implies not attributing malicious intent to those who provide criticism. This should especially apply to accusing people of bigotry, because that's an extremely offensive thing to be accused of if you don't happen to be a bigot. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Please only accept this case if you, the committee, are prepared to fiercely curate the case pages for relevance and civility. I see several issues:
You may want to address Fæ's fitness to edit BLPs, which is still an open question.
Perhaps ArbCom should have insisted he return and complete the RfC/U before agreeing to a clean start.
The obvious right thing to do, given his (possibly inadvertent) misleading evidence at his RfA, would be for Fæ to ask the community to reconfirm his adminship. It is argued that the value he adds to the project as an admin is too great to jeopardise with a reconfirmation RfA. You'll have to decide this.
Anthonyhcole ( talk) 02:29, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
I am of the school of thought that while obviously the diffs cited in this case are less than ideal, that Fae has done nothing wrong or actionable, and is being hounded far more than other editors who do exactly the same thing. With that said, I urge the ArbCom to take this case and resolve it quickly, which will hopefully lance the drama boil and clear the air sufficiently that everyone can get back to writing articles and creating content, rather than stirring up drama and being internet detectives. Lankiveil ( speak to me) 11:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC).
This proceeding is the outcome of a widespread political conflict in Wikipedia over whether "offensive" and especially sexual topics should be covered, which governs everything from what the Ash RfC was about to why many of these accusers have been calling for the destruction of Wikimedia Commons on Jimbo Wales' home page. Cla68 and Anthonyhcole have called for a narrow focus on Fae and those making accusations of homophobia. But a proper arbitration should examine both sides with equal scrutiny, including WP:Harassment#Off-wiki harassment itself, WP:OUTING of Fae based on WHOIS sleuthing, WP:CANVASSING of editors on off-wiki sites, even the violation of WP:Child protection by false allegations that Ash kept an image of a naked child on his page, a situation curiously occurring by the alteration of a Commons file a few days after that account ceased editing. I do not want it to be that Wikipedia editors' first consideration, even above Wikipedia policy, should be to think of how it will look for their name to be plastered all over the Internet next to a selection of anything embarrassing that can be extracted from their entire editing history by a few dozen editors dedicated to suppressing coverage of certain topics - nonetheless that is absolutely so, and it will continue to be the case unless ArbCom makes some wise and seemingly unexpected choices as this proceeding progresses. Wnt ( talk) 15:25, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
It may be that you are right - that you were not suggesting to discriminate against Fae for homosexuality or (assumed) risk of HIV, rather for a perceived interest in bondage. [3] Does that make a difference? And I don't think that is how your original comment on WR would have been interpreted by a reader. In any case, you accused an editor of "sex in a public place" based entirely on a PG-rated photo showing one person in a closed room - because it was convenient to you to say that he put himself at "legal risk" to explain away your own comment - then played the victim of personal attacks because people interpreted your comment about how "risky behavior" makes someone unfit to hold Wikimedia office as being anti-gay! Wnt ( talk) 16:26, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
To me the important question is this: can an administrator ignore dispute resolution processes, or otherwise fail to answer community concerns, and still keep the bit? I think the answer ought to be no. Fæ offered no substantive response to the (admittedly messy) RFC. On his talk page, I raised a particular concern to give him an opportunity to address it outside the context of the RFC, but he chose not to reply. Admins must be accountable; that's policy. This is sufficient grounds for a desysop. ReverendWayne ( talk) 20:58, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Inserting for reference my comment at the RFC/U:
And my summary of the entire RFC/U at [4] which I regard as accurate in all respects. Collect ( talk) 14:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Should the committee decide to hear this case it is important that they remember the basic principles pertaining to the case which I have already spoken to them about.
Moreover, while action on Wikipedia is important, should the scope of the case tend far enough to include all the matters raised by the person bringing the case, then the action of other editors to act as a concert party, contrary to WP:CANVASS and WP:MEATPUPPET should be considered as necessary, just as it was in the Eastern Europe email list case.
Arbitrators should also take note that there has been no attempt at 3rd opinion, mediation or other DR per se.
Rich
Farmbrough, 22:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC).
Having reviewed the above comments, and actually waiting for Fae to respond, my hope is that if Arbcom takes this, it's only to put an end to the harassment of Fae once and for all. Coming into this just recently as an observer, and not being caught up in all the emotion of the buildup, much of the stated history here (especially off-wiki - I know that is outside of "scope" - but hard not to take it into consideration here) comes off as either blatant homophobia or sexphobia - neither of which has any place in an encyclopedic setting or wiki community. The ongoing rants about changing identities seem both silly and bring up arguments already addressed repeatedly in the past and with other examples. The policies on enWP users ability to do this seem pretty clear and this does not strike me as a violation - even considering the timing of nominations, etc. The attacks on Fæ outside of enWP and in real life seem to be obvious examples of crossing the line from concerned Wikimedian to obsessed bully. If enWP truly wants to be a safe space for LGBT editors and for folks looking to be free of relentless bullies that only stop (maybe?) when you have been thrown out of a community they are eager to sabotage. As I've said before, I will concede that like most people involved in this incident, Fæ could benefit from taking a longer pause before replying to wikidramas and focusing on areas of greater need - like chapter development and Wikimedia outreach. However, as I've also said, I'm empathetic to the reality that it's hard to resist conversations that you're baited into entering and mentioned or attacked by name. Especially when it's so relentless, on and off wiki, and discriminatory in nature. While I do hope some users involved in this incident are reprimanded - it is not Fæ. If Arbcom does see fit to take some action against or send a statement to Fæ regarding this - I will be very disappointed if an even stronger action is not taken against the cyberbullies involved. -- Varnent ( talk) 09:22, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
There's some ludicrous paralipsis here; more generally, this arena is pernicious; please, " Eh! Eh! Alright! Alright! Calm down! Calm down!" [5], Maculosae tegmine lyncis ( talk) 09:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I feel like I am being placed in an uncomfortable position here. There is the warning from ArbCom about evidence which states "No speculation of off-wiki lifestyle, behavior, orientation and/or private life will be allowed". Yet, at the same time, Roger Davies, an Arb, is asking if I "could clarify whether or not you have commented on Fae's sex life, here or elsewhere, and if so in what context". Roger's question relates to Fæ's original statement in this case, which was later redacted to remove serious unsubstantiated allegations against me. I am willing to answer Roger's question, but I fear it will be impossible for me to do so in a meaningful way without breaking the rules of evidence for this case. I made a rather long statement in February in response to similar allegations from an editor known for flights of fancy, so seems like a waste of effort. At the same time, I don't wish for people to accept Fæ's allegations against me simply because I do not refute them here, but ArbCom has tied my hands. What am I to do? Delicious carbuncle ( talk) 11:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
(od) No, DC, it was a very general question. I asked it because you quoted a some text but only emphatically denied the HIV part saying nothing about the personal life aspect of the quoted text. As very specific denials like that can be read as tacit admissions, and I didn't think that was your intention, I was wondering what you had to say about the part of Fæ's allegation to which you hadn't responded. Roger Davies talk 19:22, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm probably far less informed about how arbcom works than insiders might think, so I'm curious what Lord Roem meant when he notified me of a case "involving" me. Am I a party to the case?
I don't mind being a party, if that's what I am, but I'm not at all sure what's expected of me if that's the case. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Why were Delicious carbuncle and Michaeldsuarez added as parties? Nobody Ent 23:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The Committee always states that we will look at all issues brought to our attention as part of a case. Right now, evidence has been posted that made me decide to add Michaeldsuarez and DC as parties to this case: DC, if you have evidence to post/rebut other people's evidence, please do so over this weekend. SirFozzie (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I have briefly reviewed this case, and in my opinion it would have been hard for the committee to get the case more wrong if they had tried. I cannot understand the dynamic at work here, unless it is that the committee fear that interaction with the WMF will expose their poorly thought-out position on privacy. I despair of any good coming form this committee.
Rich
Farmbrough, 07:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC).
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
This request was first raised two months ago at AC/N link when I was advised to re-raise it here after the elections.
At the beginning of last year Arbcom accepted my appeal but at that point introduced the restrictions: [6]
I am requesting that the restrictions are lifted as not being of practical benefit to the project, in particular they are a key reason why I am avoiding offering my experience and volunteer time for training events or content creation projects that would improve the English Wikipedia. As an example of how difficult these broad restrictions are to comply with, in November 2013 I ran a one-off presentation and workshop with Kings College London as part of a UK "Women in Science" series of events [7]; these events are widely seen as a positive step by the Wikipedia community and a positive story by the global press with regard to addressing perceived systematic gender bias for Wikipedia content. During the event I created a stub [8] for Susan Lea, a professor of psychology at the college, as suggested by attendees, during the same event this was developed. It never occurred to me this may be an issue and it was only later that I realized that Lea's research covers sexual violence and rape.
Due to my past stressful experience of being harassed, I focused my volunteer time during 2013 on Wikimedia Commons, where I have uploaded over 160,000 photographs, and on request supported the Welsh Wikipedia where a continuing cooperative project has resulted in my uploading 2,700 requested book covers with 700 new articles about authors being created (some are authors on LGBT topics, though I have not created the articles). Apart from a handful of related image renames or behind the scenes OTRS work, I remained retired as a Wikipedian during 2013.
I have a long running interest in LGBT history and archives and I am at an informal exploratory discussion stage with a London college and planning to contact an independent library/archive I helped a few years ago, for a volunteer project I hope get off the ground in early 2014 (in advance of Wikimania 2014) that would help English Wikipedia content with media and previously unpublished source material, and could itself support the case for funding of an academic placement of a Wikipedian in Residence. I aim to get a proposal completed by February. By its nature a LGBT project would involve articles about events and living people (being from the 1950s to the current time) and LGBT material would be considered under the broad topic of sexuality.
Note, I have an approved project grant from WMUK [9] which supports Commons batch upload projects during 2014. Should there be a suitable opportunity to batch upload LGBT archive material, it is likely that it would be covered by the current grant.
I hope this request can be handled in a respectful way, especially considering the off-wiki attention that this topic tends to attract. Thanks -- Fæ ( talk) 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Fæ, I would recommend that if you wish to return to full editing on en.wp that you spend some time between now and march formulating a request to narrow the scope of your topic bans rather than removing them entirely. After at least 6-9 months of successfully working with no problems within those restrictions, the committee is more likely to look favourably on a further relaxation of restrictions or removing them entirely.
When you make that request (and don't make it shortly after midnight on the 1st) I suggest you focus on what you want to do, specifically, not what broad categories of material you might have worked on. "Sexuality" is a very broad topic, so there is scope for narrowing it. Identify something specific that you want to improve that is on the edge of the "Sexuality" topic area and propose a rewording of the article topic ban that leaves the core area you were sanctioned for within the scope but allows you to edit your proposed borderline articles. Propose also the addition of a second clause to the image ban along the lines of "excluding images directly related to X", where X is the article topic area you want to work on.
Once you have decided what you want to work on, get some edits to a related area that is outside the scope of the topic ban but which is adjacent to it. For example if you want to improve the coverage of living openly gay UK MPs, first improve an article like Nicholas Eden, 2nd Earl of Avon (died 1985, so clearly not a BLP subject), but make sure you don't work with images for the article. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:28, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
At the risk of seeming rude/ungrateful Fæ, I'd suggest that the uploads to Commons you highlight in your request have had an undue emphasis on quantity over quality. I've recently been working with some of the IWM images you uploaded of British naval operations off Norway, and the fact that they were all uploaded as "File:The Royal Navy during the Second World War" followed by the relevant IWM catalogue number made them difficult to use. The minimal categorisation of the images you've been uploading also do not contribute to these images ever actually being used (for instance, you originally placed these IWM images in only the very broad "Royal Naval photographer" category, and images of aircraft you uploaded in November were placed only in a category for the airport, and not the plane type/serial number which is typically a much more useful classification). While your work in uploading all these images is clearly very valuable and contributed to "my" most recent FA ( Operation Tungsten) and what I hope will be my next GA ( Operation Mascot), the lack of basic follow through with categorisation to encourage their use raises some concerns in my mind (quite possibly unfairly) about how carefully you'd edit BLPs as it is suggestive of an attitude of prioritising "adding stuff" over "adding useful stuff". In short, I'd suggest that as part of the next unban request you be in a stronger position to demonstrate the quality of your contributions, and not just the quantity of them. Nick-D ( talk) 11:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
During the arbitration I commented that people interpreting outing policy focused too much on whether personal information was literally secret, as opposed to whether "opposition research" bringing it up at every opportunity was improper. My argument was rejected at the time, yet ArbCom has since changed course - ironically enough, in regard to someone with an opposing opinion during the Fae arbitration - finding that unduly focusing on another user's personal information was indeed highly inappropriate. [12] I might even say that decision has gone too far the other way. Given the decisive change in how this policy is interpreted, I think it is quite appropriate to consider an early end to a topic ban based on it. Wnt ( talk) 07:13, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 12:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The restrictions were stated as:
I would like the committee to remove the restrictions. They are so broad that they remain blight major barrier to my return to productive work as a Wikipedian editor, my future employment as a Wikipedian in Residence, and ensure I cannot create proposals for, nor take a lead in, future Wikipedia projects.
Failing removal, replacing with a narrow and well-specified restriction that is relevant to the original complaint in 2011 (which never went to dispute resolution as it was resolved amicably with the other editor), would prove far less damaging, such as restricted from adding external links on BLP articles to sites featuring sexually graphic material, excluding external links to germane non-profit/charity archives with educational medical or political material, such as the Wellcome Digital Library, British Library or similar respected archive or museum. However even this seems excessive, when there are sufficient members of the Wikipedia community closely following my edits to ensure that any problematic link would be rapidly challenged and widely discussed for consensus.
The previous discussion confirmed that members of Arbcom are not of one mind on how to read the restrictions, leaving them interpreted as broadly as technically possible. This stops editing where there would be any way of interpreting the topic relating to sexuality, women's rights, or of LGBT cultural interest. Specific examples included:
Specific projects that these restrictions have made impossible, damaging content improvement for Wikipedia:
In January it was suggested that I create new BLPs to demonstrate my competence (I improved several hundred before the Arbcom case). I have created the following articles in the last couple of months, mostly on living women:
Two of these, along with my photograph, were featured on Signpost as part of promoting Wikipedia's improvement during Women's History Month.
I believe the broad restriction was partly in place out of concern for my welfare. My interactions on controversial LGBT topics, LGBT safety rating for Wikimania bids and Ticket:2014033110012549, show that I can handle difficult discussion on LGBT topics and BLPs without inflaming debate.
Fae's statement implies that the committee decision is affecting his real-life employment. This does not mean the ban was unjustified, and I am not impressed he would claim otherwise (or by the tone of his statement in general). As this subtextual martyrdom is the same sort of conduct that led to Fae's ban in the first place, I question whether he has reformed. AGK [•] 07:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The Committee is explicitly required to act in the best interests of the English Wikipedia - it is not in their remit to consider how their decisions may or may not affect someone's personal life. In my opinion, this amendment request should succeed or fail solely on the basis of whether the Committee believes that removing or relaxing Fæ's restrictions will be a good or bad thing for the Encyclopaedia. Whichever they decide though, it is important that the reasoning is explained so that all parties may understand why that decision was reached. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I guess input from the Committee other interested people about questions 2 and 3 might be useful to. Thryduulf ( talk) 08:47, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Partly per Seraphimblade, I don't think that this is very well worded motion as it is not easy to interpret. I think it would be clearer to replace the second restriction, "topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed", with something like
(I realise that these options differ in whether the single year 1000 AD is allowed or not allowed, but unless Fæ indicates otherwise I highly doubt this will be significant). Thryduulf ( talk) 07:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
The question that ArbCom needs to address is how they are to manage restrictions on editors. If the intention is that certain editors are to carry restrictions forever, then be honest and say so. It is cruel to offer false hope and the editor affected at least can make a decision on whether they wish to continue editing at all under those restrictions or whether they will channel their energies into something else.
On the other hand, if Arbcom believes that no-one is irredeemable, then it would make sense to encourage whatever processes of rehabilitation are considered suitable. For infinitely banned users we have the standard offer, but I am unaware of any similar guidance for indefinitely restricted users. Were I in your position, I would be looking for clearly defined milestones that a user could aim toward in order to show that they no longer need restrictions to be able to edit productively and without undue conflict. If you are serious about bringing editors back into 'normal' editing, then you ought to be marking out timescales and expectations for targets that restricted editors could achieve to demonstrate their progress. Simply leaving them without any direction and having to guess how to demonstrate their progress is just not good enough. If that's too much work for ArbCom - and heaven knows your workload is heavy enough - then find some reliable way of delegating the tutoring of restricted editors back into full editorship. -- RexxS ( talk) 19:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Has Fae ever fully disclosed every single one of his sock accounts to the Committee as he was required to do? If so, please tell us that he has so the community can let that matter drop. Cla68 ( talk) 01:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
The text of the original decision, with which I strongly disagreed, nonetheless finds only that "Fæ has added poor quality material to biographies of living people and, on one occasion, added a highly inappropriate link." So far as I understand, the link referred to is one which related a film "Superhead" to the person who comes up if you search that term on Google. I have to ask: why is such an anemic finding as this used to place Fae in what sounds like a very special category of people who are viewed as unrehabilitable? The repeated use of the term "at the moment" below seems out of place for a two year old case. How many years is does a moment last? Also, Arbcom has failed to explain how any editor is supposed to know when WP:WELLKNOWN does not really apply to information which is well known. So far as I know, no one has actually written any policy against providing information about porn stars, yet the clear lesson here is that Wikipedia is not a trustworthy competitor to Google on this sort of information.
The message I infer from this is that ArbCom believes it has to take a realistic view toward political issues, which includes such necessities as ensuring that articles about famous people don't include unpleasant information about them. Truth must take a backseat to power, and a part of that is that it is essential never to say it openly. Nonetheless, even assuming this unalterable reality, it's not clear why Fae has to take the brunt of it. And is there any reason why ArbCom would need to restrict Fae's editing about academic sexuality? Surely the prohibition could be limited to BLPs of sexual performers, while permitting him to do good work with BLPs of researchers doing sexuality studies or people advocating on LGBT issues, etc., without preventing anyone from keeping their unmentionables unmentioned.
Wikipedia's treatment of one of its best admins and prolific editors, which ignored and worked hand in glove with a cyberbullying campaign off-site, is appalling. Even so, it doesn't matter that much. Wikipedia remains firmly on a downward course in editing and readership and I fear the end may not be that far off. I hope that Fae will find a way to get involved in a successor prepared to take up the cause after Wikipedia's final foundering. Wnt ( talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly distance myself from a statement I made in 2012 following ArbCom's decision to ban Fæ from editing Wikipedia. In retrospect, I would say that I found him to be very aggressive towards other users at times, and that he handled criticism rather poorly. But the parts where I said that I have "absolutely no confidence in Fæ's honour, or his integrity", and that he will "never regain even a modicum of the trust necessary to be welcomed back here"? I don't stand by those statements today at all. I suppose I was responding more out of emotion than anything, and was upset by his attempt to subvert the committee through requesting a WMF official to intercede (at least, that's how it was presented). However, looking back, I believe he was on a downward spiral at the time. We all go through hard times where we say things we really shouldn't have. It's also unfair to cast all of the blame on him; he was the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment, after all.
So the question is, should we consider relaxing the restrictions at this time? I think there needs to be a demonstrated understanding of what constitutes a reliable third-party source, and how important it is that the citations used in an article assert precisely what they are referencing. This threshold is obviously amplified for BLPs. If Fæ can show that he has learned from his past mistakes, then it would serve no real purpose to keep the topic ban in place. For now, I think it would be best if he took the time to develop a better track record of conscientious article writing, and then return here in October-November to submit a second appeal. Once he has shown a greater understanding of his past issues, I would support lifting the active sanctions against him. Kurtis (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
There are 4.5m+ articles on Wikipedia. Fewer than 1% of those involve the restrictions that Fae is barred from, yet many of those are amongst the most controversial and prone to problematic content. Fae - via his current, and previous accounts - has previously proved that he cannot be trusted to edit BLPs in this area (nor, indeed, to deal with relevant images in those areas), so I don't see any reason for Wikipedia to expose itself (again) to possible problems with no upside whatsoever. Black Kite ( talk) 18:25, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Now, I'm open to a relaxation, but not a removal at the moment. I will need to think about what relaxation would be appropriate - and would be interested in hearing from other committee members to see if one is even worth proposing. WormTT( talk) 07:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
On top of this, you've implied that you are restricted from areas that you don't appear to be. Suffrage, for example, is about gender, not sexuality - and if you cannot tell the difference between those terms, you should not be working in either area. LGBT cultural outreach should not require you to be editing the BLPs. If you are leading by example, there are many non-BLP LGBT articles. The Assyrian statue you checked with us that it was outside the scope of the restriction, we agreed. There wasn't confusion there, no Arbs suggested it was a problem.
@ Cla68: per this, Fae needed to pass the committee a list of his accounts prior to being unbanned. I, for one, was satisfied with his disclosures and consider the matter resolved. WormTT( talk) 12:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators, not counting 2 who are inactive and 2 who are recused, so 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Proposed:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 11:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This request is to have the one account restriction placed on me in 2012, amended to permit bot accounts, i.e. specialized accounts with an authorized bot flag. These would be linked on my main user account pages to show that I am an operator/maintainer and responsible for maintaining them within their community agreed scope. It seems sensible to make this a one-off request rather than coming back for an Arbcom decision for every possible future projects where I am operating or co-operating a bot account. As my edits to Wikipedia continue to be scrutinized by multiple users, I believe Arbcom can be reassured that any potential issue would be flagged early.
In the past two and a half years since the Arbcom case, my many projects for images have needed non-bot changes using tools (e.g. batch using VisualFileChange), such as filename corrections, which have affected and improved Wikipedia and many other projects, however it was always within conventions for cross-project/global improvements to be implemented using my single editing account. The project to take the User:Commons fair use upload bot and migrate it to WMFlabs, after the operator recently had their accounts blocked, has brought this to a head as this was an established bot task that would be fully automated. I would like to get this running within a few weeks and then promote it again as a service that benefits Wikipedia as it is an easy way to copy files from Commons when their local use can be justified under a Fair Use rationale, most often when a group deletion request on Commons is likely to make photographs or scans unavailable on Wikipedia in multiple languages. At the current time, users either give up and let images vanish from articles or have the complexity of doing local uploads manually. At times this causes delays meaning deletion requests are closed by the time they get around to it, creating work for Commons administrators to undelete and redelete, rather than simply templating the file for a bot to handle it.
As my various bot projects have been mainly focused on images for the last three years, I cannot imagine a situation where anyone would confuse bot accounts with editors, or editing using my single non-bot account, which would remain the only one used for making edits to English Wikipedia pages not marked as bot edits. At the time of the one-account restriction I was new to creating bot projects, I do not believe it was ever Arbcom's intention to deter me from extending these community supported projects to improving the English Wikipedia as this was not an issue in 2012 and has not been in the years since.
Related links:
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}
For this motion, there are 14 active arbitrators, not counting one who is recused, so 8 support or oppose votes is a majority.
Proposed:
The Fæ case is amended to add Remedy 2.1 as follows: "Notwithstanding remedy 2, Fæ is permitted to operate bot accounts, edits from which are only to be made in accordance with Bot Approvals Group approved tasks, or an authorised trial of one."
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 11:07, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Xaosflux at 14:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Greetings, I am a
WP:BAG member and we are currently reviewing a BRFA (
Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Commons_fair_use_upload_bot_3) operated by
User:Fæ. Seeking clarification on Remedy 2.1, to determine if BAG may authorize Fæ's bot (assuming it meet's all other qualifications) to perform tasks that may run afoul of his topic ban regarding "images relating to sexuality, broadly construed" - as the bot may potentially interact with "images relating to sexuality". —
xaosflux
Talk 14:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC); (removals and additions —
xaosflux
Talk 15:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC))
Firstly, I suggest everyone keep in mind that User:Commons fair use upload bot is a good thing, intended to help sustain Wikipedia content and avoid the deletion of images on Commons with demonstrable educational value from being lost to Wikipedia. Any decision or outcome here should be positive for the encyclopedia.
I summarized the technical situation in the BAG request linked above. The request here is slightly misleadingly worded. The Commons fair use upload bot does not "edit" images, nor does it insert them into Wikipedia or Wikipedia articles, it can only ensure images continue to be on Wikipedia unchanged in a way that the reader would never notice.
Though I do not believe a further motion is needed, this does raise a more general issue that Arbcom may wish to clarify, in that this topic ban or future modified versions on my single editing account cannot be relevant to authorized bots, given that BAG decisions over the last few years show that no bot would be acting as an article editor. I would be highly concerned if the "broadly construed" subject of sexuality were to apply to automated bots targeted at general maintenance, as this effectively reverses the Arbcom decision to allow me to be a bot operator by making automated action almost impossible without an advance human review on each action. One might imagine that if the operators of fully automatic archiving bots were to receive a topic or interaction ban on their main account that they would have to abandon such bots for the duration of a the ban, which would be an unintended damaging consequence if bans are intended to be precautionary rather than punitive.
I read the Arbcom placed topic ban placed after I was unbanned as already requiring me to avoid deliberately by-passing the topic ban using other accounts, just as it would require me to avoid 'directing' other editors in a manner that would be interpreted as meat puppetry. Were the operation of a bot be potentially interpreted as being able to by-pass the ban, say because myself as the operator were able to direct its actions making it an oddly Heath Robinson editing tool, then I am sure this would come up at the BAG discussion and a flag would be refused until this were made impossible. -- Fæ ( talk) 15:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I think the arbs who have already commented should reconsider. Actions taken by the bot where Fae has no editorial input or decision making should not be subject to the ban. The analogy to the archiving bots is quite apt. However, if the bot were discovered to have special logic in it to apply in the banned area differently or preferentially, that would be a very severe issue as it would indicate deliberate circumvention of the ban. Gaijin42 ( talk) 19:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Pass this with the stipulation that the code remain open source ( https://github.com/wikigit/Commons-fair-use-upload-bot); simpler than trying to infer the logic from a log. NE Ent 01:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
{{
Cite web}}
- it will undoubtedly affect sexuality related articles, but not in an intentional manner. It should be speedily allowed.All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 18:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC).
Strongly agree with Rich Farmbrough. Speedy allow with the aim of ending restrictions in the future. Victuallers ( talk) 10:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I have worked with Fae on various projects including several things in recent years on Commons, Fae is a very useful, skilful and prolific contributor. If Fae was running an archive bot that any editor could opt into would we hold him responsible as to which editors chose his bot to archive their talkpages? If not then why would we be concerned about this particular bot? Ϣere SpielChequers 21:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
"Despite the restrictions on his editing images related to sexuality, Fæ may operate the Commons fair use upload bot if the Bot Approvals Group approves it.
The bot may upload sexuality images that would, if Fæ himself had uploaded them to the English Wikipedia, breach Fæ's restriction, only if the upload is requested by a third party.
The bot shall maintain a log of: the images it uploads; the names of the articles on the English Wikipedia where the images appear at the time of upload; and the username of the Commons editor requesting the transfer to the English Wikipedia."
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 01:09, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ at 11:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
An earlier version of this query was emailed to the Arbcom list on 25 November, I have raised it here as requested by the committee.
Dear Arbcom,
I have been interpreting the remaining restrictions on my account[1], in particular "editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed" as applying to BLP articles in the article namespace, and excluding the LGBT+ studies discussion group, being part of the Wikipedia/Wikipedia Talk namespace, which I have contributed to several times in the past few years (as an example to the LGBT studies guidelines), or other LGBT+ related discussions in talk namespace which may refer to biographies but are not edits in main/article namespace. In addition I have created the BDP for Ramchandra Siras, being notable for the legal case Siras fought in India against his being penalised as a result of being homosexual, and continued my Commons projects almost all of which are post AD 1000 works.
Is my interpretation okay? I ask as a result of the request on 25 November, to help another contributor by setting up a proposed change to the article for the writer Milo Yiannopoulos, controversial for their anti-trans statements. Though contributing on analysing reliable sources using my LexisNexis research access, I neither made the proposal to change the article text, nor am I in any dispute with anyone, nor do I intend to edit the article. My objective was to help with the process for gaining a consensus and no more than that.[2][3] It has only occurred to me on reflection that being involved in the details, may be an issue in the context of the outstanding Arbcom restrictions from March 2013.
If I am astray and should be avoiding these discussions, in addition to not editing BLPs relating to sexuality, please do advise. My apologies if I have misunderstood how the restrictions were intended to work. As a precaution I'll avoid making any further comment on-wiki for the above proposal on the presumption that it may be an issue. I regret doing anything that may be perceived as going close to the boundaries of the Arbcom restriction, as I am planning on making a more properly thought out amendment request in a few months time, with the intention of giving more freedom to engage on Wikipedia with the results of positive content projects I am directly involved with, like m:Grants:Project/Rapid/LGBT/Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture drive 2016, and would not want a thoughtless mistake to blot my copybook with the Committee before then.
Thank you, Fæ ( talk) 11:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Respected Arbs,
I am the editor who made the request for assistance in setting up an RfC or similar structured discussion as referred to by
Fæ, above. I was not aware of the restrictions when I made the request, and have only become aware of them as a result of this clarification request; I would not have made the request had I been so aware. I wish to express my appreciation of & gratitude for Fæ's assistance, and for their calm and reasoned input into the discussion which provoked my request.
Should the committee decide that the creation of the article Talk page discussion is within the scope of the restrictions, I would implore them to take no further action regarding it; I firmly believe that the action was taken entirely in good faith, and with intent to improve the encyclopedia.
Separate to the question of Fæ's action in light of the restrictions, I would, however, express my grave concerns with the use of WikiProjects to hold "off-page discussions" on the content of individual articles. This is firmly outside the goals and scope of this, or any other WikiProject, and intersects poorly with WP:CANVASS, WP:TAGTEAM/WP:GANG. I request the committee to confirm that such discussions should take place on the Talk pages of the articles involved; augmented by discussion at the various noticeboards (NPOVN, RSN, BLPN, etc), as required.
Thanks in advance for your consideration on this matter. -
Ryk72
'c.s.n.s.' 11:53, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Fæ's restriction currently reads: "Fæ is topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed.". I encourage the Committee to revise that to one of the following options to clarify the intent:
I do not (at present) have a preference between the options. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
The other restrictions, "Fæ is topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed." and it's loosening amendment "Notwithstanding the existing restrictions on his editing, Fæ is permitted to edit regarding images of sexuality in ancient and medieval times, up to A.D. 1000. This permission may be withdrawn at any time by further motion of this Committee." and those relating to automated editing, all seem (to me at least) to clearly apply in all namespaces and I don't think clarification of those is needed, but appending the sentence "This restriction applies to all namespaces." would I think be sufficient if desired. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Dear Arbcom, several years have passed since any edits that this topic ban was based on. Does this topic ban serve any ongoing purpose? I rather think Wikipedia would benefit if you simply removed the restrictions on Fæ. Ϣere SpielChequers 20:33, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
First a disclosure. Fae and I do not get on. Anyone with any long standing knowledge of our interactions can attest to that.
That said, the behaviour sanctioned was a wiki aeon ago. These restrictions no longer serve a purpose and doubt fae would even want to repeat the behaviours that cost him dear now. Policy on blp is much clearer and easier to enforce these days. There is no harm in lifting fae's restrictions.
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
Remedy 5: Fæ banned (March 2013) in which Fae was unblocked with the conditions that he was topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed as well as topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed is suspended for a period of six months. During the period of suspension, this restriction may be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator as an arbitration enforcement action should Fæ fail to adhere to Wikipedia editing standards in these areas, broadly construed. Appeal of such a reinstatement would follow the normal arbitration enforcement appeals process. After six months from the date this motion is enacted, if the restriction has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the restriction will automatically lapse.
Enacted - Mini apolis 22:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
→ Important notes for all contributors to this case
This case is highly contentious, and has the ability to devolve very quickly. So, this is a heads up on the procedures we will be using. A) First off, we will be running under a "single warning" system. The clerks, myself and other arbitrators will be monitoring this case. Uncivil comments or accusations that are not backed up with explicit diffs will be removed on sight. Clerks have been given authority to remove such comments and give the commenter a single warning. If such issues happen again after a participant has been warned, the participant will either be barred from further participation in this arbitration case, or the person will be blocked for a period of time at the clerk's discretion. This applies to everyone. That includes the parties, involved onlookers, semi-involved onlookers, and people who wander in randomly (whether it is truly random or not). B) There will be NO speculations allowed. This includes the following:
If you're not sure whether a statement will fall afoul of these policies, ask a clerk before hand. Don't think it's "better to ask for forgiveness then it is permission". It's not. These rules will apply on all case-related pages, which explicitly include talk pages. We will be using the just-ratified limits on evidence (to wit, 1000 words/100 diffs for direct parties, 500/50 for non-parties to this case). If you're going to exceed either, ask myself or another arbitrator (on the /Evidence talk page) before you do so. To prevent "drive-by" attacks and attempts to devolve this case, we are taking additional measures to limit disruption. The case pages will be semi-protected and there will be additional scrutiny paid to accounts who haven't participated in this dispute beforehand. In other words, don't expect to try to avoid scrutiny with an IP address or an alternate, undeclared account. It will be counterproductive. If a new editor or an IP editor truly has something that needs to be said, they can ask a clerk to post for them. Finally, after I take the first few days to review the initial evidence and workshop postings, I will be posting a series of questions on the workshop page that I would like the parties to answer. I am primarily interested in what the parties have to say in response. This should be aimed solely at answering my questions and not going back and forth with other people's answers. Thank you for your attention, and hopefully, your compliance with these directives. For the Committee, SirFozzie ( talk) 19:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC) |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This confrontation stems from Fae's controversial RFA and subsequent user RFC. Views at the RFC were divided over the legitamacy of Fae's adminship when it was alleged that heleft his previous account "under a cloud". Questions were raised about the scope of ArbCom's involvement in the RFA (Fae stated that it was sanctioned by ArbCom; John Vandenberg stated that Fae was mistaken and that only he endorsed the RFA). Compounding the difficulty of the situation are allegations of harrassment, outing, and tendentious editing. I think there have been more than enough attempts at dispute resolution, documented above by MBisanz, to warrant an in-depth look. The committee should accept the case to examine the procedure of Fae's original RFA and post-RFA behaviour, as well as general user conduct in the dispute resolution process. Them From Space 23:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
In my spare time I have delved into this a fair amount. It is fairly clear that had all the information been available at the time that the original RFA would not have passed, but then again the original RFA voters also knew that something was up and still passed it anyway. This was probably an error of judgment on their part, just as Fae and John V erred in judgment in not fully disclosing Fae's history, but errors in judgment do happen, and, well, it's hard to see how a mutual balls-up is cause for desysopping.
The broader issue seems to be that Fae feels persecuted by the WR crowd, who now seem to have migrated to Wikipediocracy (although Wikipediocracy does seem like a significant step up from WR). I can sympathise, as I've had Paul Wehage aka one half of User:Musikfabrik (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jean-Thierry Boisseau) aka the fieryangel aka oscarlechien opening threads in these various places criticizing my every decision for 4 years, and calling me some rather nasty names in the bargain, almost regardless of whether what I was doing had any merit or not. It doesn't feel terribly pleasant, particularly when your fellow Wikipedians are apt to show a distinct lack of DefendEachOther. As a result, Fae seems to react extremely badly, causing large dramaboard threads where Fae and various Wikipediocracy posters (many of whom edit here in all good faith) snipe at each other. This is not helped by the ongoing controversy over the toxic culture and content at Commons, with which Fae seems to have become associated.
Now, it is my impression that although in quite a few of these dramaboard threads Fae is behaving quite badly, and too often resorts to a kind of catty tone that's both provoking, patronising, and not conducive to a collegial atmosphere, this does not really rise to the level of a desysopping, and I think that if ArbCom takes this case all they will do is succeed in giving Fae a slap on the wrists, which hardly seems worth the time and drama of a full case. IMHO the thing to do is pass a couple of open motions telling Fae to calm the bleep down and react much more coolly, and in a manner more befitting a sysop, to questions about his actions, even if he feels the questioners may not be acting in the best of good faith.
My own advice to Fae is this: 50 percent of what people say about you at WR et al is simply driven by hurt vanity: 40 percent is based on misinformation provided by those of the hurt vanity, and 10 percent (at best) might be fair criticism of some validity. If you can't filter out the white noise it's better not to read the threads at all, and just keep working quietly here without starting vast drama-filled BADSITES AN threads in which you then go make yourself look awful. Moreschi ( talk) 00:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
“ | Hi Guerillero, can you pass on the fact that I am travelling tomorrow to attend the funeral of my 20 year old niece on Friday. Hopefully others can explain why this Arbitration request suffers from a lack of evidence of any Wikipedia dispute resolution raised since his last failed Arbitration request. I do not have time or the inclination to look into the matter this week for obvious reasons. The fact that the person raising this case has written on Wikipediocracy, this month, about his private meeting with Eric Barbour should be of interest to many and appears to directly relate to the nature of his complaints about matters off Wikipedia. Thanks -- Fæ ( talk) 22:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC) | ” |
-- Guerillero | My Talk 00:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
If this case is accepted, could the scope please be set to include editors who made ad hominem and other personal attacks during the Fae RfC and in other forums in support of Fae? Some of the behavior from involved editors has really crossed the line, and I think should be examined. Cla68 ( talk) 01:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll repeat what I wrote in the discussion following my attempted redirect of User:Ash to User:Fæ:
I don't necessarily have an issue with clean starts. There are certainly legitimate reasons one might need a clean start. But if it's truly a clean start and you've left your old account for being an asshat, it shouldn't be possible for others to figure out who your old account was or want to associate you with it. If it is possible or they do, it's almost certain you're still being an asshat. And that indicates that you need to either leave or start again. If you choose the latter, you have to change your behavior in the next reincarnation so that nobody is able to figure out who your former nasty self was and it's truly a clean start.
As true then as now. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 02:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed drama in a few places on wiki which might be more suited for the evidence page. However, the events on Jimbo's talk page leading up to this post should be worth delving into. I don't always agree with Jimbo but the opinion he expresses there tallies with the one I have independently formed of Fae's actions.-- Peter cohen ( talk) 04:17, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
While Fae has always been quite civil and collegial when addressing me individually, he does seem to have a bad habit of assuming bad faith on the part of people who associate with people whom he feels have done him wrong ( his initial response to this case is a very good and current example).
A minor thing that bothers me about Fae is his insistence that we as a community must forget what he did as "Ash", because I don't see anything wrong with owning up to personal growth, and simply acknowledging that your opinions have "evolved". The major thing that bothers me about Fae is that he's very quick to accuse people who disagree with him of having a homophobic agenda. The other major thing that bothers me about him is that he doesn't intervene when his "defenders" are clearly being unfair and inappropriate.
This all comes down to a question of "conduct becoming of an administrator"... admins should (at least in my idealistic view) try to keep drama to a minimum, because drama distracts from the mission (writing and improving an encyclopedia). Admins should not create dramas that distracts from the mission, full stop.
There is also a simmering and seething undercurrent involved here, because apparently more than a few people believe that there was something deceptive about Fae's RfA. That issue really needs to be addressed here, because (if I understand correctly) ArbCom was perceived to have endorsed the view that "what happened before was no biggie", but it's pretty clear now that the "no biggie" would have been a serious issue for some of the RfA voters. I realize that the comment in question was just a committee member voicing his own opinion of the matter, but perhaps in the future the members of the committee might resolve to discuss such issues privately, and not comment as individuals on such matters unless there is some consensus on the matter (or offer a "minority opinion" if a committee member feels strongly that they need to speak against the majority). I understand the committee's reluctance to expand the case, but I really do think that it should expand it in this direction.
As far as results go, I would like to urge the committee to force Fae to do a "redo" of his RfA, in the interests of putting that part of the issue behind us. FWIW, I would vote in his favor, because I absolutely trust him not to use the buttons inappropriately. Let's have closure and move on, please. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 20:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
After reading some of the comments below (including Fae's, but not just his), I hope that a "principle" of this case will make clear that "Assuming Good Faith" implies not attributing malicious intent to those who provide criticism. This should especially apply to accusing people of bigotry, because that's an extremely offensive thing to be accused of if you don't happen to be a bigot. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Please only accept this case if you, the committee, are prepared to fiercely curate the case pages for relevance and civility. I see several issues:
You may want to address Fæ's fitness to edit BLPs, which is still an open question.
Perhaps ArbCom should have insisted he return and complete the RfC/U before agreeing to a clean start.
The obvious right thing to do, given his (possibly inadvertent) misleading evidence at his RfA, would be for Fæ to ask the community to reconfirm his adminship. It is argued that the value he adds to the project as an admin is too great to jeopardise with a reconfirmation RfA. You'll have to decide this.
Anthonyhcole ( talk) 02:29, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
I am of the school of thought that while obviously the diffs cited in this case are less than ideal, that Fae has done nothing wrong or actionable, and is being hounded far more than other editors who do exactly the same thing. With that said, I urge the ArbCom to take this case and resolve it quickly, which will hopefully lance the drama boil and clear the air sufficiently that everyone can get back to writing articles and creating content, rather than stirring up drama and being internet detectives. Lankiveil ( speak to me) 11:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC).
This proceeding is the outcome of a widespread political conflict in Wikipedia over whether "offensive" and especially sexual topics should be covered, which governs everything from what the Ash RfC was about to why many of these accusers have been calling for the destruction of Wikimedia Commons on Jimbo Wales' home page. Cla68 and Anthonyhcole have called for a narrow focus on Fae and those making accusations of homophobia. But a proper arbitration should examine both sides with equal scrutiny, including WP:Harassment#Off-wiki harassment itself, WP:OUTING of Fae based on WHOIS sleuthing, WP:CANVASSING of editors on off-wiki sites, even the violation of WP:Child protection by false allegations that Ash kept an image of a naked child on his page, a situation curiously occurring by the alteration of a Commons file a few days after that account ceased editing. I do not want it to be that Wikipedia editors' first consideration, even above Wikipedia policy, should be to think of how it will look for their name to be plastered all over the Internet next to a selection of anything embarrassing that can be extracted from their entire editing history by a few dozen editors dedicated to suppressing coverage of certain topics - nonetheless that is absolutely so, and it will continue to be the case unless ArbCom makes some wise and seemingly unexpected choices as this proceeding progresses. Wnt ( talk) 15:25, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
It may be that you are right - that you were not suggesting to discriminate against Fae for homosexuality or (assumed) risk of HIV, rather for a perceived interest in bondage. [3] Does that make a difference? And I don't think that is how your original comment on WR would have been interpreted by a reader. In any case, you accused an editor of "sex in a public place" based entirely on a PG-rated photo showing one person in a closed room - because it was convenient to you to say that he put himself at "legal risk" to explain away your own comment - then played the victim of personal attacks because people interpreted your comment about how "risky behavior" makes someone unfit to hold Wikimedia office as being anti-gay! Wnt ( talk) 16:26, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
To me the important question is this: can an administrator ignore dispute resolution processes, or otherwise fail to answer community concerns, and still keep the bit? I think the answer ought to be no. Fæ offered no substantive response to the (admittedly messy) RFC. On his talk page, I raised a particular concern to give him an opportunity to address it outside the context of the RFC, but he chose not to reply. Admins must be accountable; that's policy. This is sufficient grounds for a desysop. ReverendWayne ( talk) 20:58, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Inserting for reference my comment at the RFC/U:
And my summary of the entire RFC/U at [4] which I regard as accurate in all respects. Collect ( talk) 14:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Should the committee decide to hear this case it is important that they remember the basic principles pertaining to the case which I have already spoken to them about.
Moreover, while action on Wikipedia is important, should the scope of the case tend far enough to include all the matters raised by the person bringing the case, then the action of other editors to act as a concert party, contrary to WP:CANVASS and WP:MEATPUPPET should be considered as necessary, just as it was in the Eastern Europe email list case.
Arbitrators should also take note that there has been no attempt at 3rd opinion, mediation or other DR per se.
Rich
Farmbrough, 22:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC).
Having reviewed the above comments, and actually waiting for Fae to respond, my hope is that if Arbcom takes this, it's only to put an end to the harassment of Fae once and for all. Coming into this just recently as an observer, and not being caught up in all the emotion of the buildup, much of the stated history here (especially off-wiki - I know that is outside of "scope" - but hard not to take it into consideration here) comes off as either blatant homophobia or sexphobia - neither of which has any place in an encyclopedic setting or wiki community. The ongoing rants about changing identities seem both silly and bring up arguments already addressed repeatedly in the past and with other examples. The policies on enWP users ability to do this seem pretty clear and this does not strike me as a violation - even considering the timing of nominations, etc. The attacks on Fæ outside of enWP and in real life seem to be obvious examples of crossing the line from concerned Wikimedian to obsessed bully. If enWP truly wants to be a safe space for LGBT editors and for folks looking to be free of relentless bullies that only stop (maybe?) when you have been thrown out of a community they are eager to sabotage. As I've said before, I will concede that like most people involved in this incident, Fæ could benefit from taking a longer pause before replying to wikidramas and focusing on areas of greater need - like chapter development and Wikimedia outreach. However, as I've also said, I'm empathetic to the reality that it's hard to resist conversations that you're baited into entering and mentioned or attacked by name. Especially when it's so relentless, on and off wiki, and discriminatory in nature. While I do hope some users involved in this incident are reprimanded - it is not Fæ. If Arbcom does see fit to take some action against or send a statement to Fæ regarding this - I will be very disappointed if an even stronger action is not taken against the cyberbullies involved. -- Varnent ( talk) 09:22, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
There's some ludicrous paralipsis here; more generally, this arena is pernicious; please, " Eh! Eh! Alright! Alright! Calm down! Calm down!" [5], Maculosae tegmine lyncis ( talk) 09:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I feel like I am being placed in an uncomfortable position here. There is the warning from ArbCom about evidence which states "No speculation of off-wiki lifestyle, behavior, orientation and/or private life will be allowed". Yet, at the same time, Roger Davies, an Arb, is asking if I "could clarify whether or not you have commented on Fae's sex life, here or elsewhere, and if so in what context". Roger's question relates to Fæ's original statement in this case, which was later redacted to remove serious unsubstantiated allegations against me. I am willing to answer Roger's question, but I fear it will be impossible for me to do so in a meaningful way without breaking the rules of evidence for this case. I made a rather long statement in February in response to similar allegations from an editor known for flights of fancy, so seems like a waste of effort. At the same time, I don't wish for people to accept Fæ's allegations against me simply because I do not refute them here, but ArbCom has tied my hands. What am I to do? Delicious carbuncle ( talk) 11:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
(od) No, DC, it was a very general question. I asked it because you quoted a some text but only emphatically denied the HIV part saying nothing about the personal life aspect of the quoted text. As very specific denials like that can be read as tacit admissions, and I didn't think that was your intention, I was wondering what you had to say about the part of Fæ's allegation to which you hadn't responded. Roger Davies talk 19:22, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm probably far less informed about how arbcom works than insiders might think, so I'm curious what Lord Roem meant when he notified me of a case "involving" me. Am I a party to the case?
I don't mind being a party, if that's what I am, but I'm not at all sure what's expected of me if that's the case. -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Why were Delicious carbuncle and Michaeldsuarez added as parties? Nobody Ent 23:31, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The Committee always states that we will look at all issues brought to our attention as part of a case. Right now, evidence has been posted that made me decide to add Michaeldsuarez and DC as parties to this case: DC, if you have evidence to post/rebut other people's evidence, please do so over this weekend. SirFozzie (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I have briefly reviewed this case, and in my opinion it would have been hard for the committee to get the case more wrong if they had tried. I cannot understand the dynamic at work here, unless it is that the committee fear that interaction with the WMF will expose their poorly thought-out position on privacy. I despair of any good coming form this committee.
Rich
Farmbrough, 07:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC).
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
This request was first raised two months ago at AC/N link when I was advised to re-raise it here after the elections.
At the beginning of last year Arbcom accepted my appeal but at that point introduced the restrictions: [6]
I am requesting that the restrictions are lifted as not being of practical benefit to the project, in particular they are a key reason why I am avoiding offering my experience and volunteer time for training events or content creation projects that would improve the English Wikipedia. As an example of how difficult these broad restrictions are to comply with, in November 2013 I ran a one-off presentation and workshop with Kings College London as part of a UK "Women in Science" series of events [7]; these events are widely seen as a positive step by the Wikipedia community and a positive story by the global press with regard to addressing perceived systematic gender bias for Wikipedia content. During the event I created a stub [8] for Susan Lea, a professor of psychology at the college, as suggested by attendees, during the same event this was developed. It never occurred to me this may be an issue and it was only later that I realized that Lea's research covers sexual violence and rape.
Due to my past stressful experience of being harassed, I focused my volunteer time during 2013 on Wikimedia Commons, where I have uploaded over 160,000 photographs, and on request supported the Welsh Wikipedia where a continuing cooperative project has resulted in my uploading 2,700 requested book covers with 700 new articles about authors being created (some are authors on LGBT topics, though I have not created the articles). Apart from a handful of related image renames or behind the scenes OTRS work, I remained retired as a Wikipedian during 2013.
I have a long running interest in LGBT history and archives and I am at an informal exploratory discussion stage with a London college and planning to contact an independent library/archive I helped a few years ago, for a volunteer project I hope get off the ground in early 2014 (in advance of Wikimania 2014) that would help English Wikipedia content with media and previously unpublished source material, and could itself support the case for funding of an academic placement of a Wikipedian in Residence. I aim to get a proposal completed by February. By its nature a LGBT project would involve articles about events and living people (being from the 1950s to the current time) and LGBT material would be considered under the broad topic of sexuality.
Note, I have an approved project grant from WMUK [9] which supports Commons batch upload projects during 2014. Should there be a suitable opportunity to batch upload LGBT archive material, it is likely that it would be covered by the current grant.
I hope this request can be handled in a respectful way, especially considering the off-wiki attention that this topic tends to attract. Thanks -- Fæ ( talk) 13:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Fæ, I would recommend that if you wish to return to full editing on en.wp that you spend some time between now and march formulating a request to narrow the scope of your topic bans rather than removing them entirely. After at least 6-9 months of successfully working with no problems within those restrictions, the committee is more likely to look favourably on a further relaxation of restrictions or removing them entirely.
When you make that request (and don't make it shortly after midnight on the 1st) I suggest you focus on what you want to do, specifically, not what broad categories of material you might have worked on. "Sexuality" is a very broad topic, so there is scope for narrowing it. Identify something specific that you want to improve that is on the edge of the "Sexuality" topic area and propose a rewording of the article topic ban that leaves the core area you were sanctioned for within the scope but allows you to edit your proposed borderline articles. Propose also the addition of a second clause to the image ban along the lines of "excluding images directly related to X", where X is the article topic area you want to work on.
Once you have decided what you want to work on, get some edits to a related area that is outside the scope of the topic ban but which is adjacent to it. For example if you want to improve the coverage of living openly gay UK MPs, first improve an article like Nicholas Eden, 2nd Earl of Avon (died 1985, so clearly not a BLP subject), but make sure you don't work with images for the article. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:28, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
At the risk of seeming rude/ungrateful Fæ, I'd suggest that the uploads to Commons you highlight in your request have had an undue emphasis on quantity over quality. I've recently been working with some of the IWM images you uploaded of British naval operations off Norway, and the fact that they were all uploaded as "File:The Royal Navy during the Second World War" followed by the relevant IWM catalogue number made them difficult to use. The minimal categorisation of the images you've been uploading also do not contribute to these images ever actually being used (for instance, you originally placed these IWM images in only the very broad "Royal Naval photographer" category, and images of aircraft you uploaded in November were placed only in a category for the airport, and not the plane type/serial number which is typically a much more useful classification). While your work in uploading all these images is clearly very valuable and contributed to "my" most recent FA ( Operation Tungsten) and what I hope will be my next GA ( Operation Mascot), the lack of basic follow through with categorisation to encourage their use raises some concerns in my mind (quite possibly unfairly) about how carefully you'd edit BLPs as it is suggestive of an attitude of prioritising "adding stuff" over "adding useful stuff". In short, I'd suggest that as part of the next unban request you be in a stronger position to demonstrate the quality of your contributions, and not just the quantity of them. Nick-D ( talk) 11:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
During the arbitration I commented that people interpreting outing policy focused too much on whether personal information was literally secret, as opposed to whether "opposition research" bringing it up at every opportunity was improper. My argument was rejected at the time, yet ArbCom has since changed course - ironically enough, in regard to someone with an opposing opinion during the Fae arbitration - finding that unduly focusing on another user's personal information was indeed highly inappropriate. [12] I might even say that decision has gone too far the other way. Given the decisive change in how this policy is interpreted, I think it is quite appropriate to consider an early end to a topic ban based on it. Wnt ( talk) 07:13, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 12:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The restrictions were stated as:
I would like the committee to remove the restrictions. They are so broad that they remain blight major barrier to my return to productive work as a Wikipedian editor, my future employment as a Wikipedian in Residence, and ensure I cannot create proposals for, nor take a lead in, future Wikipedia projects.
Failing removal, replacing with a narrow and well-specified restriction that is relevant to the original complaint in 2011 (which never went to dispute resolution as it was resolved amicably with the other editor), would prove far less damaging, such as restricted from adding external links on BLP articles to sites featuring sexually graphic material, excluding external links to germane non-profit/charity archives with educational medical or political material, such as the Wellcome Digital Library, British Library or similar respected archive or museum. However even this seems excessive, when there are sufficient members of the Wikipedia community closely following my edits to ensure that any problematic link would be rapidly challenged and widely discussed for consensus.
The previous discussion confirmed that members of Arbcom are not of one mind on how to read the restrictions, leaving them interpreted as broadly as technically possible. This stops editing where there would be any way of interpreting the topic relating to sexuality, women's rights, or of LGBT cultural interest. Specific examples included:
Specific projects that these restrictions have made impossible, damaging content improvement for Wikipedia:
In January it was suggested that I create new BLPs to demonstrate my competence (I improved several hundred before the Arbcom case). I have created the following articles in the last couple of months, mostly on living women:
Two of these, along with my photograph, were featured on Signpost as part of promoting Wikipedia's improvement during Women's History Month.
I believe the broad restriction was partly in place out of concern for my welfare. My interactions on controversial LGBT topics, LGBT safety rating for Wikimania bids and Ticket:2014033110012549, show that I can handle difficult discussion on LGBT topics and BLPs without inflaming debate.
Fae's statement implies that the committee decision is affecting his real-life employment. This does not mean the ban was unjustified, and I am not impressed he would claim otherwise (or by the tone of his statement in general). As this subtextual martyrdom is the same sort of conduct that led to Fae's ban in the first place, I question whether he has reformed. AGK [•] 07:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The Committee is explicitly required to act in the best interests of the English Wikipedia - it is not in their remit to consider how their decisions may or may not affect someone's personal life. In my opinion, this amendment request should succeed or fail solely on the basis of whether the Committee believes that removing or relaxing Fæ's restrictions will be a good or bad thing for the Encyclopaedia. Whichever they decide though, it is important that the reasoning is explained so that all parties may understand why that decision was reached. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I guess input from the Committee other interested people about questions 2 and 3 might be useful to. Thryduulf ( talk) 08:47, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Partly per Seraphimblade, I don't think that this is very well worded motion as it is not easy to interpret. I think it would be clearer to replace the second restriction, "topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed", with something like
(I realise that these options differ in whether the single year 1000 AD is allowed or not allowed, but unless Fæ indicates otherwise I highly doubt this will be significant). Thryduulf ( talk) 07:22, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
The question that ArbCom needs to address is how they are to manage restrictions on editors. If the intention is that certain editors are to carry restrictions forever, then be honest and say so. It is cruel to offer false hope and the editor affected at least can make a decision on whether they wish to continue editing at all under those restrictions or whether they will channel their energies into something else.
On the other hand, if Arbcom believes that no-one is irredeemable, then it would make sense to encourage whatever processes of rehabilitation are considered suitable. For infinitely banned users we have the standard offer, but I am unaware of any similar guidance for indefinitely restricted users. Were I in your position, I would be looking for clearly defined milestones that a user could aim toward in order to show that they no longer need restrictions to be able to edit productively and without undue conflict. If you are serious about bringing editors back into 'normal' editing, then you ought to be marking out timescales and expectations for targets that restricted editors could achieve to demonstrate their progress. Simply leaving them without any direction and having to guess how to demonstrate their progress is just not good enough. If that's too much work for ArbCom - and heaven knows your workload is heavy enough - then find some reliable way of delegating the tutoring of restricted editors back into full editorship. -- RexxS ( talk) 19:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Has Fae ever fully disclosed every single one of his sock accounts to the Committee as he was required to do? If so, please tell us that he has so the community can let that matter drop. Cla68 ( talk) 01:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
The text of the original decision, with which I strongly disagreed, nonetheless finds only that "Fæ has added poor quality material to biographies of living people and, on one occasion, added a highly inappropriate link." So far as I understand, the link referred to is one which related a film "Superhead" to the person who comes up if you search that term on Google. I have to ask: why is such an anemic finding as this used to place Fae in what sounds like a very special category of people who are viewed as unrehabilitable? The repeated use of the term "at the moment" below seems out of place for a two year old case. How many years is does a moment last? Also, Arbcom has failed to explain how any editor is supposed to know when WP:WELLKNOWN does not really apply to information which is well known. So far as I know, no one has actually written any policy against providing information about porn stars, yet the clear lesson here is that Wikipedia is not a trustworthy competitor to Google on this sort of information.
The message I infer from this is that ArbCom believes it has to take a realistic view toward political issues, which includes such necessities as ensuring that articles about famous people don't include unpleasant information about them. Truth must take a backseat to power, and a part of that is that it is essential never to say it openly. Nonetheless, even assuming this unalterable reality, it's not clear why Fae has to take the brunt of it. And is there any reason why ArbCom would need to restrict Fae's editing about academic sexuality? Surely the prohibition could be limited to BLPs of sexual performers, while permitting him to do good work with BLPs of researchers doing sexuality studies or people advocating on LGBT issues, etc., without preventing anyone from keeping their unmentionables unmentioned.
Wikipedia's treatment of one of its best admins and prolific editors, which ignored and worked hand in glove with a cyberbullying campaign off-site, is appalling. Even so, it doesn't matter that much. Wikipedia remains firmly on a downward course in editing and readership and I fear the end may not be that far off. I hope that Fae will find a way to get involved in a successor prepared to take up the cause after Wikipedia's final foundering. Wnt ( talk) 05:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly distance myself from a statement I made in 2012 following ArbCom's decision to ban Fæ from editing Wikipedia. In retrospect, I would say that I found him to be very aggressive towards other users at times, and that he handled criticism rather poorly. But the parts where I said that I have "absolutely no confidence in Fæ's honour, or his integrity", and that he will "never regain even a modicum of the trust necessary to be welcomed back here"? I don't stand by those statements today at all. I suppose I was responding more out of emotion than anything, and was upset by his attempt to subvert the committee through requesting a WMF official to intercede (at least, that's how it was presented). However, looking back, I believe he was on a downward spiral at the time. We all go through hard times where we say things we really shouldn't have. It's also unfair to cast all of the blame on him; he was the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment, after all.
So the question is, should we consider relaxing the restrictions at this time? I think there needs to be a demonstrated understanding of what constitutes a reliable third-party source, and how important it is that the citations used in an article assert precisely what they are referencing. This threshold is obviously amplified for BLPs. If Fæ can show that he has learned from his past mistakes, then it would serve no real purpose to keep the topic ban in place. For now, I think it would be best if he took the time to develop a better track record of conscientious article writing, and then return here in October-November to submit a second appeal. Once he has shown a greater understanding of his past issues, I would support lifting the active sanctions against him. Kurtis (talk) 18:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
There are 4.5m+ articles on Wikipedia. Fewer than 1% of those involve the restrictions that Fae is barred from, yet many of those are amongst the most controversial and prone to problematic content. Fae - via his current, and previous accounts - has previously proved that he cannot be trusted to edit BLPs in this area (nor, indeed, to deal with relevant images in those areas), so I don't see any reason for Wikipedia to expose itself (again) to possible problems with no upside whatsoever. Black Kite ( talk) 18:25, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Now, I'm open to a relaxation, but not a removal at the moment. I will need to think about what relaxation would be appropriate - and would be interested in hearing from other committee members to see if one is even worth proposing. WormTT( talk) 07:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
On top of this, you've implied that you are restricted from areas that you don't appear to be. Suffrage, for example, is about gender, not sexuality - and if you cannot tell the difference between those terms, you should not be working in either area. LGBT cultural outreach should not require you to be editing the BLPs. If you are leading by example, there are many non-BLP LGBT articles. The Assyrian statue you checked with us that it was outside the scope of the restriction, we agreed. There wasn't confusion there, no Arbs suggested it was a problem.
@ Cla68: per this, Fae needed to pass the committee a list of his accounts prior to being unbanned. I, for one, was satisfied with his disclosures and consider the matter resolved. WormTT( talk) 12:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators, not counting 2 who are inactive and 2 who are recused, so 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Proposed:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ ( talk) at 11:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
This request is to have the one account restriction placed on me in 2012, amended to permit bot accounts, i.e. specialized accounts with an authorized bot flag. These would be linked on my main user account pages to show that I am an operator/maintainer and responsible for maintaining them within their community agreed scope. It seems sensible to make this a one-off request rather than coming back for an Arbcom decision for every possible future projects where I am operating or co-operating a bot account. As my edits to Wikipedia continue to be scrutinized by multiple users, I believe Arbcom can be reassured that any potential issue would be flagged early.
In the past two and a half years since the Arbcom case, my many projects for images have needed non-bot changes using tools (e.g. batch using VisualFileChange), such as filename corrections, which have affected and improved Wikipedia and many other projects, however it was always within conventions for cross-project/global improvements to be implemented using my single editing account. The project to take the User:Commons fair use upload bot and migrate it to WMFlabs, after the operator recently had their accounts blocked, has brought this to a head as this was an established bot task that would be fully automated. I would like to get this running within a few weeks and then promote it again as a service that benefits Wikipedia as it is an easy way to copy files from Commons when their local use can be justified under a Fair Use rationale, most often when a group deletion request on Commons is likely to make photographs or scans unavailable on Wikipedia in multiple languages. At the current time, users either give up and let images vanish from articles or have the complexity of doing local uploads manually. At times this causes delays meaning deletion requests are closed by the time they get around to it, creating work for Commons administrators to undelete and redelete, rather than simply templating the file for a bot to handle it.
As my various bot projects have been mainly focused on images for the last three years, I cannot imagine a situation where anyone would confuse bot accounts with editors, or editing using my single non-bot account, which would remain the only one used for making edits to English Wikipedia pages not marked as bot edits. At the time of the one-account restriction I was new to creating bot projects, I do not believe it was ever Arbcom's intention to deter me from extending these community supported projects to improving the English Wikipedia as this was not an issue in 2012 and has not been in the years since.
Related links:
{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}
For this motion, there are 14 active arbitrators, not counting one who is recused, so 8 support or oppose votes is a majority.
Proposed:
The Fæ case is amended to add Remedy 2.1 as follows: "Notwithstanding remedy 2, Fæ is permitted to operate bot accounts, edits from which are only to be made in accordance with Bot Approvals Group approved tasks, or an authorised trial of one."
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 11:07, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Xaosflux at 14:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Greetings, I am a
WP:BAG member and we are currently reviewing a BRFA (
Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Commons_fair_use_upload_bot_3) operated by
User:Fæ. Seeking clarification on Remedy 2.1, to determine if BAG may authorize Fæ's bot (assuming it meet's all other qualifications) to perform tasks that may run afoul of his topic ban regarding "images relating to sexuality, broadly construed" - as the bot may potentially interact with "images relating to sexuality". —
xaosflux
Talk 14:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC); (removals and additions —
xaosflux
Talk 15:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC))
Firstly, I suggest everyone keep in mind that User:Commons fair use upload bot is a good thing, intended to help sustain Wikipedia content and avoid the deletion of images on Commons with demonstrable educational value from being lost to Wikipedia. Any decision or outcome here should be positive for the encyclopedia.
I summarized the technical situation in the BAG request linked above. The request here is slightly misleadingly worded. The Commons fair use upload bot does not "edit" images, nor does it insert them into Wikipedia or Wikipedia articles, it can only ensure images continue to be on Wikipedia unchanged in a way that the reader would never notice.
Though I do not believe a further motion is needed, this does raise a more general issue that Arbcom may wish to clarify, in that this topic ban or future modified versions on my single editing account cannot be relevant to authorized bots, given that BAG decisions over the last few years show that no bot would be acting as an article editor. I would be highly concerned if the "broadly construed" subject of sexuality were to apply to automated bots targeted at general maintenance, as this effectively reverses the Arbcom decision to allow me to be a bot operator by making automated action almost impossible without an advance human review on each action. One might imagine that if the operators of fully automatic archiving bots were to receive a topic or interaction ban on their main account that they would have to abandon such bots for the duration of a the ban, which would be an unintended damaging consequence if bans are intended to be precautionary rather than punitive.
I read the Arbcom placed topic ban placed after I was unbanned as already requiring me to avoid deliberately by-passing the topic ban using other accounts, just as it would require me to avoid 'directing' other editors in a manner that would be interpreted as meat puppetry. Were the operation of a bot be potentially interpreted as being able to by-pass the ban, say because myself as the operator were able to direct its actions making it an oddly Heath Robinson editing tool, then I am sure this would come up at the BAG discussion and a flag would be refused until this were made impossible. -- Fæ ( talk) 15:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
I think the arbs who have already commented should reconsider. Actions taken by the bot where Fae has no editorial input or decision making should not be subject to the ban. The analogy to the archiving bots is quite apt. However, if the bot were discovered to have special logic in it to apply in the banned area differently or preferentially, that would be a very severe issue as it would indicate deliberate circumvention of the ban. Gaijin42 ( talk) 19:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Pass this with the stipulation that the code remain open source ( https://github.com/wikigit/Commons-fair-use-upload-bot); simpler than trying to infer the logic from a log. NE Ent 01:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
{{
Cite web}}
- it will undoubtedly affect sexuality related articles, but not in an intentional manner. It should be speedily allowed.All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 18:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC).
Strongly agree with Rich Farmbrough. Speedy allow with the aim of ending restrictions in the future. Victuallers ( talk) 10:15, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I have worked with Fae on various projects including several things in recent years on Commons, Fae is a very useful, skilful and prolific contributor. If Fae was running an archive bot that any editor could opt into would we hold him responsible as to which editors chose his bot to archive their talkpages? If not then why would we be concerned about this particular bot? Ϣere SpielChequers 21:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
"Despite the restrictions on his editing images related to sexuality, Fæ may operate the Commons fair use upload bot if the Bot Approvals Group approves it.
The bot may upload sexuality images that would, if Fæ himself had uploaded them to the English Wikipedia, breach Fæ's restriction, only if the upload is requested by a third party.
The bot shall maintain a log of: the images it uploads; the names of the articles on the English Wikipedia where the images appear at the time of upload; and the username of the Commons editor requesting the transfer to the English Wikipedia."
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 01:09, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Fæ at 11:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
An earlier version of this query was emailed to the Arbcom list on 25 November, I have raised it here as requested by the committee.
Dear Arbcom,
I have been interpreting the remaining restrictions on my account[1], in particular "editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed" as applying to BLP articles in the article namespace, and excluding the LGBT+ studies discussion group, being part of the Wikipedia/Wikipedia Talk namespace, which I have contributed to several times in the past few years (as an example to the LGBT studies guidelines), or other LGBT+ related discussions in talk namespace which may refer to biographies but are not edits in main/article namespace. In addition I have created the BDP for Ramchandra Siras, being notable for the legal case Siras fought in India against his being penalised as a result of being homosexual, and continued my Commons projects almost all of which are post AD 1000 works.
Is my interpretation okay? I ask as a result of the request on 25 November, to help another contributor by setting up a proposed change to the article for the writer Milo Yiannopoulos, controversial for their anti-trans statements. Though contributing on analysing reliable sources using my LexisNexis research access, I neither made the proposal to change the article text, nor am I in any dispute with anyone, nor do I intend to edit the article. My objective was to help with the process for gaining a consensus and no more than that.[2][3] It has only occurred to me on reflection that being involved in the details, may be an issue in the context of the outstanding Arbcom restrictions from March 2013.
If I am astray and should be avoiding these discussions, in addition to not editing BLPs relating to sexuality, please do advise. My apologies if I have misunderstood how the restrictions were intended to work. As a precaution I'll avoid making any further comment on-wiki for the above proposal on the presumption that it may be an issue. I regret doing anything that may be perceived as going close to the boundaries of the Arbcom restriction, as I am planning on making a more properly thought out amendment request in a few months time, with the intention of giving more freedom to engage on Wikipedia with the results of positive content projects I am directly involved with, like m:Grants:Project/Rapid/LGBT/Wiki Loves Pride Featured Picture drive 2016, and would not want a thoughtless mistake to blot my copybook with the Committee before then.
Thank you, Fæ ( talk) 11:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Respected Arbs,
I am the editor who made the request for assistance in setting up an RfC or similar structured discussion as referred to by
Fæ, above. I was not aware of the restrictions when I made the request, and have only become aware of them as a result of this clarification request; I would not have made the request had I been so aware. I wish to express my appreciation of & gratitude for Fæ's assistance, and for their calm and reasoned input into the discussion which provoked my request.
Should the committee decide that the creation of the article Talk page discussion is within the scope of the restrictions, I would implore them to take no further action regarding it; I firmly believe that the action was taken entirely in good faith, and with intent to improve the encyclopedia.
Separate to the question of Fæ's action in light of the restrictions, I would, however, express my grave concerns with the use of WikiProjects to hold "off-page discussions" on the content of individual articles. This is firmly outside the goals and scope of this, or any other WikiProject, and intersects poorly with WP:CANVASS, WP:TAGTEAM/WP:GANG. I request the committee to confirm that such discussions should take place on the Talk pages of the articles involved; augmented by discussion at the various noticeboards (NPOVN, RSN, BLPN, etc), as required.
Thanks in advance for your consideration on this matter. -
Ryk72
'c.s.n.s.' 11:53, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Fæ's restriction currently reads: "Fæ is topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed.". I encourage the Committee to revise that to one of the following options to clarify the intent:
I do not (at present) have a preference between the options. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
The other restrictions, "Fæ is topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed." and it's loosening amendment "Notwithstanding the existing restrictions on his editing, Fæ is permitted to edit regarding images of sexuality in ancient and medieval times, up to A.D. 1000. This permission may be withdrawn at any time by further motion of this Committee." and those relating to automated editing, all seem (to me at least) to clearly apply in all namespaces and I don't think clarification of those is needed, but appending the sentence "This restriction applies to all namespaces." would I think be sufficient if desired. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Dear Arbcom, several years have passed since any edits that this topic ban was based on. Does this topic ban serve any ongoing purpose? I rather think Wikipedia would benefit if you simply removed the restrictions on Fæ. Ϣere SpielChequers 20:33, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
First a disclosure. Fae and I do not get on. Anyone with any long standing knowledge of our interactions can attest to that.
That said, the behaviour sanctioned was a wiki aeon ago. These restrictions no longer serve a purpose and doubt fae would even want to repeat the behaviours that cost him dear now. Policy on blp is much clearer and easier to enforce these days. There is no harm in lifting fae's restrictions.
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.
Remedy 5: Fæ banned (March 2013) in which Fae was unblocked with the conditions that he was topic banned from editing BLPs relating to sexuality, broadly construed as well as topic banned from images relating to sexuality, broadly construed is suspended for a period of six months. During the period of suspension, this restriction may be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator as an arbitration enforcement action should Fæ fail to adhere to Wikipedia editing standards in these areas, broadly construed. Appeal of such a reinstatement would follow the normal arbitration enforcement appeals process. After six months from the date this motion is enacted, if the restriction has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the restriction will automatically lapse.
Enacted - Mini apolis 22:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)