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How is it that an administrator can make a demonstrably poor block at WP:AE and disappear, forcing the 'defendant' to wade through an overly bureaucratic appeals process? (Dangerous Panda has not responded to an email sent by Lecen) Relevant links:
Technically, this is not the correct location, but since we are here... DangerousPanda can you post here when you've sorted things out with Lecen. Hopefully, given the circumstances pointed out here, that won't take too long. Best for everyone else to hold back on escalating things for now. Carcharoth ( talk) 20:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
DangerousPanda, what appears to have happened here is a good reason why a blocked editor appealing to the original blocking administrator sometimes makes things worse, and why there are systems in place to ensure that appeals can be made to someone other than the original blocking administrator. You engaging in e-mail conversation with Lecen and giving secondhand reporting of what he is saying doesn't really help - we have no way to verify any of this. If Lecen were to make a calm appeal to another adminstrator, or to ArbCom, maybe this could be resolved. Your statement that he was insulting to you could be taken into account, but I see poor conduct here on your part as well. You have not responded to the points made above that Lecen removed the text before the block was imposed. If the block expires before this can be resolved, ArbCom may have to take a closer look at what happened here on both sides. My personal view is that the whole case may need to be reopened, as this has kept coming back to AE too many times (as Sandstein noted at the AE report). One thing ArbCom could usefully do here is not only look at the conduct of those reported at AE, but also at whether the AE admins and others commenting at the AE reports helped or made things worse. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:41, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
If this incident was a one off, Carcharoth's advice to "hold back on escalating" would be appropriate. Unfortunately, it's not, so I've drafted Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DangerousPanda-EatsShootsAndLeaves. NE Ent 16:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Carcharoth: Finally, what would probably solve a lot of this would be to ban those parties to this case that are under an interaction ban from even mentioning the arbitration case. You really don't need to be able to refer to an arbitration case to just get on with normal editing. While that might work in this specific case, I don't think that it is something that should be adopted as a general point. There are legitimate reasons why a sanctioned editor may need to refer to an arbitration case in the context of normal editing, particularly advising another editor who does not appear to be aware of the sanction why they are unable to do something. For example if editor A is topic banned from weather and is asked by editor B to take a look at a newly-expanded article about a settlement in Belize because editor A has previously worked on several Good Articles about cities in Central America. It is reasonable for editor A to explain that they are not able to do any work to the Climate section of the article due to the topic ban imposed in the arbitration case. Similarly if editor A is under an interaction ban with editor C, they should be able to legitimately explain they are unable to partake in an RfC about a similar article because it is about content editor C added to the article and is defending in the RfC. (There are also shades of super injunctions, but I haven't thought through this fully though) Thryduulf ( talk) 01:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Nominations for the 2014 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are officially open. The nomination period runs from Sunday 00:01, 9 November (UTC) until Tuesday 23:59, 18 November (UTC). Editors interested in running should review the eligibility criteria listed at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2014/Candidates then create a candidate page following the instructions there. Mike V • Talk 01:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
Can someone remind me which case was amended by motion to have a remedy placing all BLPs ++ under discretionary sanctions? All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 02:07, 11 November 2014 (UTC).
Looking over a case, I see as an example of what constitutes a majority as (for example) "For this case there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 1 who is inactive, so 7 support or oppose votes are a majority". That is only a 58.33 percentage majority if its a simple 7-5 straight up vote. The standard to sysop is usually above 70 percentage points and to promote to crat even higher. My point is, if we're going to desysop then shouldn't the committee be expected to also achieve a 70 percentage points super majority? Taking away someone's tools or site banning them is a BIG DEAL. I know I am missing something here, but why are we not seeking a super majority of at least 65 percentage points before we desysop or site ban?-- MONGO 04:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
We're not going to limit the number of admin slots to 435 and force every admin to fight for the seat every two years ( United States House of Representatives ). Not a reasonable argument / analogy. NE Ent 21:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
If anyone is interested: WP:VPR#RfC: Should ArbCom be broken up into smaller boards. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 12:52, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Interested users are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:35, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Interested users are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Re [4] Concur with specially -> specifically (was actually thinking about changing that myself). I had also originally removed the "Note" intro, but restored it because I think it reads better with it -- indicating a transition from specific content about how the committee handles things to a more general note about email in general. (The can / may wording is a tossup, and although traditional, possibly archaic, American usage would prefer "can" in that context - "can" meaning ability and "may" meaning permission.) NE Ent 15:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
This recent (competent) edit by Tryptofish prompted me to look at WP:FUNC. Since Elen of the Roads has been inactive on en.wiki for over a year, why is she still listed? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:26, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
This has got me thinking about something. In the near future I will not be an arb anymore. I have been a member of the oversight team since 2010. Will I be listed under "former arbitrators" or "advanced permission operators"? Do I have any say in the matter? etc?
I'm going to guess that @ Roger Davies: can answer these questions. (he seems to always know all this stuff) Beeblebrox ( talk) 01:58, 2 December 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 Sandstein at 16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Today, John Vandenberg, an administrator, alerted me about the discretionary sanctions applying to the Eastern Europe topic area, and logged this as a "notification" on the case page, which he later changed to a "warning". Judging by an earlier comment, he did so to register his disapproval of my speedy deletion of an article created by a sock of a banned user. After I removed the alert after having read it, it was immediately reinstated by an anonymous user, 41.223.50.67.
Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts the purpose of such alerts is to advise an editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for an area of conflict. I am and have been active as an administrator by issuing discretionary sanctions in this topic area, and am therefore perfectly aware of the existence of these sanctions, as John Vandenberg confirmed he knew. The alert therefore served no procedure-based purpose. This also applies to the unneeded logging on the case page: Unlike earlier notifications, alerts are not logged on a case page because they can be searched for with an edit filter. John Vandenberg knew this because he used the correct alert template as provided for in WP:AC/DS.
It therefore appears that John Vandenberg used the alert procedure and the log entry not to actually inform me about discretionary sanctions, but that he misused the alerts procedure to mark his disapproval of a deletion I made and to deter me from making further admin actions in this area with which he disagrees. That is disruptive because this is not the purpose of alerts, and it is not how admins are expected to communicate with each other about disagreements concerning each other's actions. It is also disruptive because it has had the effect, whether intended or not, to create the incorrect impression in another administrator that I am disqualified from acting as an admin in this topic area because I received this alert.
To the extent the now-"warning" is meant as a sanction in and of itself, it is meritless and disruptive: The speedy deletion I made was compliant with WP:CSD#G5, and does not conflict with the prior AfD because the ban evasion issue was not considered there. Any concerns about this deletion should have been discussed at deletion review.
Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts, "any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned". Nobody other than the Arbitration Committee is authorized to issue such sanctions. I therefore ask the Committee to clarify that alerts should not be used for any other than their intended purpose, and to take such actions (e.g., issuing a warning) as it deems appropriate to ensure that John Vandenberg will not continue to issue alerts disruptively. By way of appeal of discretionary sanctions, I also ask the Committee to remove the "warning" from the log as being without merit.
Prior to making this request, I discussed the issue with John Vandenberg, but we failed to reach an understanding, and he invited me to submit this matter to this forum for review. Sandstein 16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
As concerns the "warning", either it is meant as a discretionary sanction for misconduct (as the warning by me he cites was) and in this case is appealed here as meritless and disruptive, or it is not and has therefore no place in a log under the new procedures. Sandstein 18:30, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
This episode indicates, to me, that this whole alerts system is unworkably cludgy and may need to be scrapped if even former arbitrators can't understand it, and that perhaps general clarification is needed that discretionary sanctions and alerts are, shall we we say, not the ideal way to respond to concerns about admin actions - such concerns are normally a matter for the Committee alone. Sandstein 21:51, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
To my mind, Sandstein is obviously ' WP:INVOLVED' in the current DRV about Polandball, however not surprisingly he claims to be uninvolved. To quickly recap, he is the admin who deleted the article at DRV; when notified of the DRV, he decided to issue a DS alert to the person who initiated the DRV, and speedy delete another related article which had survived an AFD and was mentioned on the current DRV. When User:Nick undid the speedy deletion, Sandstein also demanded that Nick redelete it. IMO, this is fairly clear battleground mentality, only including the use of admin buttons for good measure. All quite unnecessary, as a sizable chunk of the community would participate in the DRV, so his voice there would be heard. It is very strange logic that Sandstein felt he had to alert user:Josve05a about discretionary sanctions, but objects to me feeling the same way about his own editing/admining in this topical area. He claims his alert to user:Josve05a was not an admin action (otherwise he would surely run afoul of ' WP:INVOLVED'), but then cant see he is participating as a normal contributor. Maybe he considers a DS alert to be a friendly chat, when he gives one to someone else ...
Anyway, the nature of this clarification is the use of alerts and the logging of them on case pages. Obviously some serious saber rattling would have quickly occurred had I sanctioned Sandstein, so I went with an alert only with a stern message with the hope he could see how others were viewing it. He didnt; he continued to post aggressively. When I found the right DS alert template and posted it, the edit filter notice reminded me to check if he had been notified any time in the last 12 months, and press Save again if I was sure it had not occurred. As I didnt find any prior notices (in edit filter log or on talk page archives), I proceeded to save the alert. I then went to the relevant arbcase to log it as is the usual procedure. I knew DS had been standardised earlier this year, and was pleasantly surprised by the edit filter logging, but it didnt occur to me that alerts would not be logged. The arbcase log for the EE case had all the signs of logging being part of the standard procedure.
Since Sandstein objected to the logging, I went and had a look at other cases and found quite a few examples of the log including notifications and warnings; I did offer to give Sandstein examples of such notices and warnings, but we are here now. Here are the ones that I've quickly found in arbcom case logs since April 2014.
If it is no longer appropriate to log alerts/notices/warnings on the arbcom case, an edit filter should be added to ensure admins are aware of this change. John Vandenberg ( chat) 17:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
I've nothing to add to the clarification and amendment section, but I will state, as I have repeatedly said, I'm really getting fed up watching good content be deleted and destroyed as a result of battleground mentality. It genuinely makes me sad watching material that people have put their heart and soul into, being deleted because it was written by this week's bogeyman. Nick ( talk) 17:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
If the DS alert is going to be used without a sting it has to be used for everyone all the time. Its common for editors to know an article is under DS, but this isn't something one can assume. Of course, the use of the alert can been abused and can be seen as threatening. Use that is universal will over time render the warning as commonplace and standard, will de sting. Whether it was used in this instance as an implied threat, I don't know or care. Behind many of the actions I've seen against editors over the years are threats, some so complex as to be almost invisible. I know how that feels, so am not condoning anything that threatens but unless we deal with the surface level of an action and ignore assumption we will never get to supportive editing situations.( Littleolive oil ( talk) 19:04, 1 November 2014 (UTC))
One of the goals of the recent reforms which turned "warnings" to "alerts" was to remove the stigma of the warning/alert. Apparently, that stigma is alive and well. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 22:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Giving a "warning" is an administrative function. Its only purpose is administration of the website. No, a User does not have to have privileges to do much of administration on Wikipedia. The idea is anathema to the community, which expects good users to administer, even to requiring such at RfAdmin, moreover, the website would not function, if users did not step up. So no, giving a warning does not mean one is INVOLVED. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
John Vandenberg's actions in this case are wrong on so many levels at once it's hard to know where to start. About his technical misunderstanding of the nature of alerts and the non-logging of "warnings", I think all has been said. More importantly, his warning was wrong on its merits. As for the speedying of Why didn't you invest in Eastern Poland? (the only issue he actually mentioned in the warning), Sandstein was processing a valid G5 speedy; the fact that there had been an earlier "keep" AfD is obviously irrelevant as long as the facts justifying the speedy weren't known and discussed during the AfD. As for Sandstein's actions in the Polandball issue, which seems to be what John Vandenberg is really more concerned about, the claim that he was showing an inadmissable battleground attitude is utter nonsense when you look at his actual, very measured and balanced, comments in that DRV. Finally, the "warning", whether logged or not, was also out of process. A "warning" under DS means that I, an administrator, will hand out a block or topic ban to you, the person I am warning, if you repeat the behaviour I am warning you over. Does John Vandenberg seriously believe he would be entitled to block Sandstein if he did a G5 speedy like this again in the future? That beggars belief. Even if John Vandenberg had legitimate reasons to be concerned over Sandstein's actions, then his recourse would be not to impose "sanctions" on him, but to ask Arbcom to review Sandstein's actions; that, however, is not in any way inside the scope of what the DS are about, and therefore also doesn't belong in the DS logs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
This request is eerily similar to this one made some time ago, where four editors were given "civility warnings" by Sandstein, apparently at random. The result of the clarification request was a delinking of the four names in the ARBATC case page. If any action other than delinking is recommended for the current situation, it would only be reasonable to revisit the other situation as well. — Neotarf ( talk) 02:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps AGK needs to take a step back and reconsider what it is that is being said rather than apparently typing rash replies. I am sure it would not be difficult to demonstrate how involved they have been in this "DS" rewrite project (on or off wiki), and maybe that is why he is naturally inclined to be defensive of it (even bordering what people term as ownership mentality - eg "I have spent hours editing this....").
I recall he previously said in relation to this topic (but on a separate matter) 'I will not have it said that any issue relating to DS has been rashly dismissed, particularly after an exhausting, year-long consultation. I'm sorry to have to point out that you are not coming in at the eleventh hour, but a year and a half late.' But the simple fact is, there is genuine concern or criticism regarding how convoluted and time-consuming the DS system is to the vast majority of users, and even if it is now two years later, I am sorry to say his replies below do seem to me to rashly dismiss those concerns ( [5] [6]) and are not consistent with what is expected here.
It is so patently obvious that a number of editors, administrators, and for that matter, former arbitrators and current arbitrators have in fact needed to take quite a bit of time to go through this 'system', and that it is by no means 'simple', 'easy to use', or 'working' by extension. Now that this reality is finally noted, I would suggest at least the rest of Committee rectifies the issue. It would be good if that happened. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 16:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
On the complaint of JV about Sandstein, my position is that it cannot be heard in this venue. With the procedural confusion clarified (not that there should have been any in the first place), I suggest JV take this complaint up, perhaps with a handful of other administrators, directly with Sandstein. Neither party appears to have made an adequate effort to resolve this together, despite, as administrators, being obliged to do so. Should those attempts prove futile, a proper case request should then be filed. AGK [•] 12:31, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
More to the point, the new system is working. Let us leave it at that. AGK [•] 06:14, 25 November 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.
Motion text
A central log ("log") of all sanctions placed under the discretionary sanctions procedure is to be established by the Arbitration clerks on a page designated for that purpose ( Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log). The log transcludes annual log sub-pages (e.g. [/Log/2015], [/Log/2014]) in reverse chronological order, with the sub-pages arranged by topic, then by month within each topic. An annual log sub-page shall be courtesy blanked once five years have elapsed since the date of the imposition of the last sanction recorded on it, though any active sanctions remain in force. Notifications and warnings issued prior to the introduction of the current procedure on 3 May 2014 are not sanctions and remain on the individual case page logs.
1. Additional section to be added
2. The "Authorisation" section is amended with the following addition:
3. The "Guidance for editors" section is amended with the following addition:
4. The "Alerts" subsection is amended with the following addition:
5. The "Logging" subsection is amended with the following replacements:
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Suggested edits:
"Where there is a conflict between any individual provision enacted prior to 2015 authorising standard discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict and any provision in the standard procedure, the provision in the standard procedure will control." because no committee can constrain future versions of the same committee, but it can make taking a desired action an unnecessary hassle. With the phrase, a future committee that comes upon circumstances such that they wish to tailor discretionary sanctions (DS) can easily do so. Without it, they can still do so, they just have to #1) pass a motion modifying the standards DS and #2) then pass the custom DS. Other than hand, if ya'll insert the phrase now "worst case" scenario is it's never invoked. NE Ent 10:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Change "broadly but reasonably construed" to the long-standing traditional "broadly construed." The trouble with "broadly but reasonably construed" is that it doesn't actually mean anything, or, perhaps more precisely, it's never going mean the same thing to multiple editors, including those who with administrator WP:UAL responding to requests at WP:AE. While well-intentioned, such a phrase is more likely to provide a " nucleation" site for wiki-lawyering than useful guidance to the community. NE Ent 11:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Is there a reason for "five calendar years" and not just "five years"? The result is that the theoretical average for "five calendar years" is about "five years and six months from date of last use" -- which seems a rather arcane system unless one really wants all such requests for blanking to be made in January <g>. Collect ( talk) 15:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
What exactly is the definition of a discretionary sanction on Wikipedia? The nutshell template has a bit about what these are good for, but it's not really a definition. Can a clerk please add it to the Definitions section? Thanks! — Sebastian 18:47, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
On a related note, the definition of "sanction" is self-referential. — Sebastian 19:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I'm posting here on Callanecc's suggestion on my talk page, because I e-mailed the Arbitration Committee about an offline threat I received, and haven't received a response. Has the e-mail been received, and should I expect a reply? Cordless Larry ( talk) 17:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
What is the best way to improve the clarity of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions? I notice that some edits aimed at improving clarity have been reverted and the edit summary included the line "Please do not change this page without the committee's authorisation." Another option would be to discuss changes at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. But that page redirects to this talk page. Tweaks to wording seem too noodly to discuss here... plus they'd probably get archived more quickly than would be useful.
Yaris678 ( talk) 15:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
This is extremely minuscule, but at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Logging the link to the log is dead. I found the real one and I was going to fix it, but the edit notice scared me away. Kharkiv07 Talk 00:34, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The notice I received about this case included Given the legal, privacy and BLP implications of holding the case in public the Committee has decided to run the case completely in camera, to that effect there will be no public evidence submission or workshop. Editors with direct knowledge of the events and related evidence are requested to email their to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org by May 7, 2015 which is when evidence submission will close. I took this to mean that I should avoid making any further public statements and instead present my evidence by email to Arbcom.
However I see that the subject of the case has made a detailed statement today to The Guardian, mentioning the case underway, at Wikipedia volunteer who blocked 'Grant Shapps' account: I stand by my decision.
I cannot see the point of asking for evidence in camera when a party to the case is unapologetic about their actions, and repeats damaging claims that the account for which a check user was run is Grant Shapps, or someone working with him. No matter how much support there is for the difficult task of managing vandalism on Wikipedia, this cannot excuse someone with the highest trusted rights on Wikipedia, continuing to using the credibility of that position as part of collaborating with The Guardian journalists, generating coverage of Grant Shapps and influencing public opinion about his character, just before the election. This article will serve to keep the story running for another day, rather than letting the evidence speak for itself and the story die out (which anyone who did not want to be pursued by journalists would surely do).
I hope that the highly public stance now taken, just as Arbcom's case starts, for the original statement made to The Guardian and published by them, which says far more than the technical evidence could possibly justify, will outweigh any apology, hand-wringing, and statements of good character which may be going on in camera.
Was there discussion with Arbcom before this public statement was made, and is Arbcom prepared to say something about wisdom of using trial by press rather than waiting for Arbcom's decision, before the UK election finishes on 7th May (at which time journalists will no longer be interested)? -- Fæ ( talk) 20:05, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Addendum: It is worth highlighting that Chase me has changed his Wikipedia user page to advertize his detailed Guardian article which repeats the allegations against Shapps. A user page promoting this off wiki statement, appears against the spirit of in camera and contradicting the statement in the Arbcom case to be trying to avoid the press when his actions are to continue feeding journalists to increase media impact. [8] -- Fæ ( talk) 23:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
@ AGK, Floquenbeam, DGG, DeltaQuad, Euryalus, Thryduulf, and Yunshui: when admins make statements directed at other editors, even ones you don't like, such as Floquenbeam did here where they called one a "Loon", here where they left Fuck in the permanent history of the article history and in that same statement where they were rude and insulting to a follow functionary, it is a violation of policy. These are not isolated incidents either, Floquenbeam has a shown a pattern of misconduct when it comes to their treatment of other editors and a history of making unnecessarily provocative statements to editors against policy. I know they are a functionary, a former arbitrator and its unlikely anything will happen, but it is not at all acceptable, it violates policy and it makes the project look really, really stupid when nothing is done about it. I am letting you know because you are new to the Arbitration committee and I still have faith you will investigate this, look at their edit history and see what I am talking about is valid. The project doesn't need admins like this performing actions that guarantee a negative impression on the project. PositiveContributor ( talk) 10:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
I seriously doubt there is any impropriety here, but given the impression created in this matter, it may be something to discuss internally. (No, I am not interested in publicly pursuing this any further, other than noting that I seem to have been caught in the middle of two admins disagreeing over adminly things that I don't make it my business to understand, that is, speedy deletion.) SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:34, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I just wanted to post a follow-up to this issue. I never received a reply to my e-mail, when I reported an offline threat that I had received in relation to editing a Wikipedia article. I didn't really expect the ArbCom to be able to do much - there was no evidence linking the threat to any specific editor, for example - but it would have been nice to receive a reply stating that the issue had been noted at least. The whole experience was quite frightening and I would have benefitted from the acknowledgement. Perhaps this is something that can be reflected upon, so that if this happens to someone else in future, they at least get a reply? Cordless Larry ( talk) 20:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Just to clarify on the topic of moderation touched on by DuncanHill—the mailing list has an "auto-accept" list, but mails from senders not on that list are held in moderation. Because the vast majority of the mail held for moderation is spam, it is possible mail may be accidentally discarded. In addition, to cut down on the amount of spam received, filters are put in place that auto-discard mail that matches certain patterns. It seems that was the case here with the initial mail sent. Anyway, thanks for the ping Cordless Larry; it has now been brought to the attention of the Committee. L Faraone 18:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
It looks like, according to WP:EDR, that Ohconfucius's suspended topic ban expired and it looks like it was never reinstated. Could someone do the necessary changes on WP:EDR? Armbrust The Homunculus 21:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
An editor has to be alerted before action can be taken. What do we do when articles are subject to more than one kind of DS? There are aspects of articles that might be covered by one but not the other.
It would be helpful to have a template to which we could add multiple DS alerts, but at the moment (I believe) all we can do is add more than one template to article and user talk, which looks heavy-handed and repetitive (especially as the templates all appear to say the same thing unless you click on the links). Or is warning about one set of DS sufficient for action to be taken under any of them? Sarah (SV) (talk) 01:55, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
@ GorillaWarfare: Could you (or someone else) please post the formal statement and notices as required by the desysop procedure please? Or clarify that this wasn't done on behalf of the Committee, in which case this would be a fairly new occurrence wouldn't it (someone gets desysoped at the request of a different admin)? Thanks, Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:30, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Kevin was unblocked earlier today. Any comments about his regaining admin tools belong at the Bureaucrat's Noticeboard. Thryduulf ( talk) 22:38, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Could somebody please clarify to me the activity requirements for advanced permissions? This motion seems to indicate that it's 5 actions in 3 months for each tool, however these statistics seem to indicate that some (non-exempt) functionaries don't meet these requirements, am I misunderstanding something? Kharkiv07 ( T) 16:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I've proposed a small change to the blocking policy that would require admins to put enough information in the block log for others to be able to see why the block was made. If you have any thoughts on this accountability/transparency measure, I'd appreciate reading them at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Transparency. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 18:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
The subpage Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions doesn't list the American Politics 2 case or the American Politics topic area as subject to discretionary sanctions. Please make the appropriate updates. Robert McClenon ( talk) 22:49, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
On the outset of the case GW was approached by User:Ched for possible bias on this subject [ [10]] (It's the section formal request link wasn't working for me). She declined to do this. Recently she made a controversial action as "an admin" with regards to Eric Corbett which currently has an open arb case request. She has made demeaning comments to myself, she has also shown her bias in overriding another administrator actions without consultation and she has attacked fellow arb and basically accused them of being sexist too. The one tying factor to all of these is the GGTF case, this case and those involved and her ideas of how to fix the gender gap. That is a particularly important piece of information if they are as I suspect using this case and their admin actions to accomplish their goal or lost perspective during. They have been approached on their talkpage and this was her response [ [11]]. I do think input from the community is needed and not just a private discussion among arbs, although I understand the merits may be discussed in private. Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 14:28, 27 June 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.
FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Arbitration_enforcement.2C_the_limits_of_WP:INVOLVED.2C_and_.28inevitably.29_Eric_Corbett. I've let Reaper Eternal know that doing so carries the possibility of being desysopped. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I can think of two now, EncycloPetey and Technical13. Obviously many have left after a case disillusioned, and I believe even non-parties (such as User:Dpmuk) have left or "gone IP". Are there more?
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
23:55, 2 July 2015 (UTC).
The really remarkable thing is that anyone at all sticks around after involvement with the ArbCom. It's an utterly toxic, destructive process. Everyking ( talk) 00:29, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Hereupdated it was said that a mammoth clean-up was due to happen in May. Has this happened? All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
19:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC).
I've made a change to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/History with this edit. Part of the reasoning for doing this is to make this a complete listing of all arbitrators past and present (though I was unsure whether to include User:28bytes or not). Another reason for doing this is to make clearer when current arbs were first elected, as for current arbs you have to peer at the graph to work this out, and for Roger and Salvio and Courcelles and AGK you have to peer at the larger graph to work this out - much easier to have it stated in text form. Doing it this way might make updates in the future easier as well (previously, errors had crept in). I also noticed that election details need updating, though that would take a fair amount of time to sort out. As I said in the edit summary, apologies for pinging all the arbs (except Courcelles) with that edit! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 01:22, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
The notice above says, "This page is focused on discussing the information on the page attached to this one..." However there are many redirects from other arb-related talk pages to this talk page. [12] I came here from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions looking to discuss discretionary sanctions. Is this the place? Manul ~ talk 23:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
This passage at
WP:ACDS seems problematic: Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned.
. How is anyone to "ensure" that? People can remove templates from their talk pages at any time, and there's no guarantee any edit summary will mention the template. Are we expected to look individually at every single edit made to someone's talk page for a whole year? This rule should be void if the templated editor deleted the template rather than left it in place or archived it in a sequential archive page linked to from their talk page. Given that it seems to imply that an error in this regard can lead to sanctions, its present wording seems unreasonable and
WP:GAMEable. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
23:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
To answer the original question, you are expected to ensure you don't do so by paying attention to the following message, which is displayed when you try to alert somebody:
It was designed to be as obtrusive as possible so that people could not skirt this obligation, but I suppose it also may render redundant the above discussion about whether the obligation itself is reasonable. It certainly seems reasonable when it is made this easy… AGK [•] 00:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Members of the community are invited to give their thoughts at a request for comment to discuss Wikipedians' alternatives to consensus, and the formation of a proposed Regulation Committee. Thank you, -- ceradon ( talk • edits) 04:30, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there any recourse at all with regard to already-expired blocks? I.e. a short block was issued, others agreed it was an improper block, but the block expired before the unblock request was responded to. I just accepted it and moved on at the time, but it keeps being used against me in discussions, in a "not-very-veiled threat to see you pilloried vexatiously" manner. It's happened repeatedly, and again only a day or two ago. I'm under the impression blocks cannot be cleared from the log, but that when blocks are overturned there's some record of this. I have no interest in seeing the admin sanctioned (I don't even remember their username), and it was long enough ago (and there were enough immediate negative responses to it) I doubt the same admin would issue the same kind of "block one side in a dispute at the request of the other side so they can 'win'" block again. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:16, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Now-moot discussion of where to ask this question.
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SMcCandlish: Please see this page's editnotice. This page is to be used for discussion of formal announcements by the Arbitration Committee; general discussion should be held at
WT:AC. Would you like me to move this section there?
L235 (
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ping in reply)
23:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
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The yearly Arbitration Committee Election request for comment is now open. All editors are invited to participate. Mike V • Talk 04:18, 28 August 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 Dolovis at 18:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
I have not been given any explanation as to why the Arb Board has forced me to accept an interaction restriction with User/Admin:DJSasso. I am aware of no complaint against me asking for or requiring such a restriction. As such, I request that such restriction be removed.
Not really sure I have much to say here other than Dolovis's past blocks for sock puppeting were all caused by him targeting me (and others) for harassment. Using sock puppets for good hand bad hand while targeting my edits and articles I either created or heavily edited. He has a pretty well documented history of activity which is clearly geared at disrupting me and my editing. Seems like a pretty reasonable restriction for removing the most recent block. To be honest with his history I am surprised he was unblocked in the first place, even with this restriction. - DJSasso ( talk) 03:00, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
I would be rather curious to know how this came about as well, actually. I simply assumed that this was generated by BASC of its own accord given DJSasso was a target of Dolovis' latest run of sockpuppetry. But IIRC, Ravenswing was also targeted by Dolovis' latest socks, so I never understood why one but not both.
Also a topic of curiosity is why Dolovis wants the restriction lifted. This seems to be a "just because" request. And for an editor who has been the subject of at least three edit restrictions - and so far as I know, they are all still active - I would suggest there needs to be a much better reason given before any of them are given consideration for lifting. Reso lute 03:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
IMHO, the restriction should be lifted & Dolovis given a chance to demonstrate that it's no longer required. There's a fine line between Preventative & Punitive, where restrictions are involved. GoodDay ( talk) 11:29, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
To address Resolute's query about why I wasn't included in the restriction, I wouldn't think it was necessary. DJSasso and I edit many of the same articles, and in any event, Dolovis' targeting of DJSasso was far more comprehensive than his targeting of me, which mostly revolved around creating socks to file AfDs on articles I created.
As far as this restriction goes, it is high time Dolovis was held to his word. No one "forced" him to agree to anything, and if he felt such stipulations to be injurious to his dignity, he could have always walked away ... and can do so now, as Salvio suggests. I want a far better reason from Dolovis for reneging on his word than that he fails to understand something about which he had the opportunity to ask in the first place. Ravenswing 15:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
04:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC).
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
Here is as good a place as any to give advance notice of early retirement from the Arbitration Committee at the end of this year. It's been an entirely worthwhile experience, but it takes too much time away from what I enjoy a lot more, which is the writing of obscure articles on eighteenth century shipping and colonial figures. I have Wikipedia hours for either Arbcom or articles - after a year doing Arbcom I'd like to get back to the topics I left behind.
Am flagging this early to encourage anyone thinking of running in the upcoming elections, on the basis that there will now be an extra spot available. Some advice to anyone contemplating a run - the volume of work is high, most issues require more detailed analysis than time permits, and the outcomes aren't always cheerfully received. Further, consensus decision-making is essential but understandably causes delays and compromise. More positively, Arbcom offers an excellent opportunity to address some major issues facing Wikipedia. If you like dispute resolution, think there's work to do to improve the editing environment, and have plenty of time on your hands, then you should nominate for election and see how you go.
I'll be staying on the Committee until the end of the year and have plenty more to do in that time. But in the spirit of this message, thanks to all the case participants (and members of the Committee) for what has been an interesting experience since January 1. -- Euryalus ( talk) 08:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The numbers on the DS page (e.g. 7.4) are not a good idea, because:
AGK, Timotheus Canens: okay, it's been five days -- given that no one thinks this is a bad idea, you don't really want me to file a pita, bureaucratic WP:ARCA, do ya? Then ya'll would all have to do that voting and clerking stuff for something that really shouldn't be that big a deal. NE Ent 17:48, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
I have recently been listed as a party at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically modified organisms. I am currently under a topic ban for pages which will almost certainly come under discussion here. Some other editors have recently been extremely "inventive" in playing "Gotcha" and suggesting that I have broken my Topic Ban, meaning that I am constantly "editing on egg shells". I am requesting that my topic ban is lifted for the purposes of this case so that I do not need to worry about this and can present succinct and clear evidence to this committee. I am suggesting the ban lif would apply only to the ArbCom pages, not mainspace articles or elsewhere.DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 28 September 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 NE Ent at 01:43, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
The numbers on the DS page (e.g. 7.4) are not a good idea, because: a) they make the page look too much like code of statutes, and WP:NOTSTATUTE, of course, and b) If you provide anchors, someone might wiklink to them. And then someday some committee might revise the procedures, and then "7.4" might not be the fourth section, so then you have hyperlinks pointing to the wrong section, or sections numbered like 7.2, 7.3 7.31, 7.4, or 7.2, 7.4
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
There's a substituted template (somewhere) that is used at the top of proposed decision pages:
{{ombox | type = style | image = [[File:Nuvola apps important orange.svg|45px|link=]] | text = '''Under no circumstances may this page be edited by anyone other than members of the Arbitration Committee and the clerks.'''<p>Please submit comments on the proposed decision in your own section on the [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk page]]. }}
Its |text=
should actually read "Under no circumstances may this page be edited by anyone other than members of the Arbitration Committee or the clerks." The "and" there is ungrammatical, implying either that there are people who are members of both the AC and of the clerks simultaneously, or alternatively that the AC and the clerks have to both edit it together. I could probably track the tag down, but I'd expect that the template documentation for it also says that mere editors cannot touch it, since I see similar notices at other AC-related templates. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
10:31, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The RfC to appoint 3 individuals to the 2015 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission has begun. Nominations will be accepted through 23:59 (UTC), 16 October 2015. Following the nomination period, comments will be welcomed to discuss the suitability of the candidates.
Best regards, Mike V • Talk 01:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Those interested in the all things ArbCom might be interested in the apparent community opinion of the Committee as expressed at
WikiConference USA (questions and comments). All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
02:01, 13 October 2015 (UTC).
It's amazing how arbitrators, once the elections are over, seem to have so little interest in doing their job and so little time to spend on it. It's also amazing how other people, who are not arbitrators, seem to have a great deal of interest in the ArbCom's doings and plenty of time to worry about how badly they are doing their jobs. I guess it's kind of like volunteering to feed animals at a rescue—everyone thinks it's such a swell thing that you're doing it, except you're not really doing it, because you lose interest and you're busy with other things. The animals who are going hungry, on the other hand, are quite preoccupied by the subject, and have plenty of time to dwell on it. Everyking ( talk) 06:07, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
I've just watched this. Apparently I was not paying close enough attention to my watchlist, because I'm a bit late responding here. I'm not the kind of person who typically has the time or attention span to watch a 1+ hour video (though I often do read video transcripts, so thanks to all who are trying to provide one). That said, this talk was very much worth the time spent watching it. I wish I had been there to talk to her in person. GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:50, 22 October 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.
Due to how closely related the topic areas of several of the existing sanctions are,
The post-1929 date is to keep Opus Dei, a fairly-mainstream Catholic movement from being encompassed. -- Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Are the clerks authorized to update the active/inactive list at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee and at each case to reflect unannounced absences per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Unannounced_arbitrator_absence? If not, they should be; and also to update case information to indicate that there is no drafting arbitrator or schedule in case the drafting arbitrator is absent and not communicating. It is understandable and an unavoidable reality that arbitrators have other demands on their time and must sometimes be unexpectedly inactive. The important thing is for realistic information to be communicated to the parties and other users. For obvious reasons, we can't depend on someone who's absent to update the info. For this reason, the clerks should be able to take silence into account when updating case and activity info, rather than waiting for positive information that's not forthcoming. -- Amble ( talk) 19:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
For this reason, the clerks should be able to take silence into account when updating case and activity info, rather than waiting for positive information that's not forthcomingimplies that if clerks don't hear from an arbitrator, we should decide ourselves that they are functionally inactive, even if they are marked as active, and change the arbitration members list along with the list of arbitrators reviewing cases. This would be a subjective decision where there might not even be agreement among clerks and I don't think arbitrators would appreciate us taking that initiative. I would hope that arbitrators would themselves notice when an arbitrator has gone inactive and then inform clerks who could update the members list. Liz Read! Talk! 20:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
The procedure indicates that an arbitrator will be deemed inactive if he or she hasn't posted in "the usual venues" for seven days. I always took the ArbCom-l mailing list as one of those venues. If this is still the interpretation, then there is no way the Clerks can monitor inactivity on their own, as they have no access to that list. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
How about, if you don't have the time or the willingness to be active, you resign, or be considered dismissed by the community for not doing the job it elected you to do? And let's consider inactivity on a strictly on-wiki basis. If you can't be bothered to do anything on-wiki, but you're still whispering in smoky backrooms, you are part of the problem, even more so than an arbitrator who does nothing at all. I suspect we'd see a lot more work from these arbitrators who are always so sidelined by real-life demands (but curiously, had a blissfully wide-open schedule at the time of their election) if they knew they'd lose their precious title if they didn't put in some hours to justify it. Everyking ( talk) 06:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
I am very innocent of exactly the limits, if any, to Arbcom power. But I did not think that banning a user by arbitrary motion was part of it. Was I wrong?
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
23:52, 26 October 2015 (UTC).
IMHO, restrictions shouldn't include an editor's talkpage. GoodDay ( talk) 12:07, 27 October 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.
To prevent confusion and overlap between existing sanctions,
Enacted – Mini apolis 13:30, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Nominations for the 2015 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are officially open. The nomination period runs from Sunday 00:00, 8 November (UTC) until Tuesday 23:59, 17 November (UTC). Editors interested in running should review the eligibility criteria listed at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates then create a candidate page following the instructions there. Mike V • Talk 00:11, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on recent committee actions at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 51#Arbitration Committee marginalising community.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
05:24, 8 November 2015 (UTC).
Is it just me or does WP:ACDS not explain what 'discretionary sanctions' are? The "this page in a nutshell" banner is surprisingly unhelpful - it explains what the discretionary sanctions are supposed to do, but not what they actually are - and the rest of the page is not much help. Banedon ( talk) 00:52, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I placed a {{subst:alert|a-i}} on a talk page, expecting I would get the standard message to check for past notifications when I clicked save. Not only didn't I get that message, no tag was added to the edit summary. [19] What's up? -- NeilN talk to me 21:39, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Should consist of AUSC plus two mailing list admins. The three bolded are not on AUSC according.
AGK, Callanecc, Courcelles, Dougweller, Guerillero, Joe Decker, LFaraone, MBisanz, NativeForeigner, and Roger Davies
Also it should not be necessary for the mailing list admins to be on the list - but that may be a technical limitation of the system.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
00:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC).
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 |
How is it that an administrator can make a demonstrably poor block at WP:AE and disappear, forcing the 'defendant' to wade through an overly bureaucratic appeals process? (Dangerous Panda has not responded to an email sent by Lecen) Relevant links:
Technically, this is not the correct location, but since we are here... DangerousPanda can you post here when you've sorted things out with Lecen. Hopefully, given the circumstances pointed out here, that won't take too long. Best for everyone else to hold back on escalating things for now. Carcharoth ( talk) 20:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
DangerousPanda, what appears to have happened here is a good reason why a blocked editor appealing to the original blocking administrator sometimes makes things worse, and why there are systems in place to ensure that appeals can be made to someone other than the original blocking administrator. You engaging in e-mail conversation with Lecen and giving secondhand reporting of what he is saying doesn't really help - we have no way to verify any of this. If Lecen were to make a calm appeal to another adminstrator, or to ArbCom, maybe this could be resolved. Your statement that he was insulting to you could be taken into account, but I see poor conduct here on your part as well. You have not responded to the points made above that Lecen removed the text before the block was imposed. If the block expires before this can be resolved, ArbCom may have to take a closer look at what happened here on both sides. My personal view is that the whole case may need to be reopened, as this has kept coming back to AE too many times (as Sandstein noted at the AE report). One thing ArbCom could usefully do here is not only look at the conduct of those reported at AE, but also at whether the AE admins and others commenting at the AE reports helped or made things worse. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:41, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
If this incident was a one off, Carcharoth's advice to "hold back on escalating" would be appropriate. Unfortunately, it's not, so I've drafted Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DangerousPanda-EatsShootsAndLeaves. NE Ent 16:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Carcharoth: Finally, what would probably solve a lot of this would be to ban those parties to this case that are under an interaction ban from even mentioning the arbitration case. You really don't need to be able to refer to an arbitration case to just get on with normal editing. While that might work in this specific case, I don't think that it is something that should be adopted as a general point. There are legitimate reasons why a sanctioned editor may need to refer to an arbitration case in the context of normal editing, particularly advising another editor who does not appear to be aware of the sanction why they are unable to do something. For example if editor A is topic banned from weather and is asked by editor B to take a look at a newly-expanded article about a settlement in Belize because editor A has previously worked on several Good Articles about cities in Central America. It is reasonable for editor A to explain that they are not able to do any work to the Climate section of the article due to the topic ban imposed in the arbitration case. Similarly if editor A is under an interaction ban with editor C, they should be able to legitimately explain they are unable to partake in an RfC about a similar article because it is about content editor C added to the article and is defending in the RfC. (There are also shades of super injunctions, but I haven't thought through this fully though) Thryduulf ( talk) 01:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Nominations for the 2014 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are officially open. The nomination period runs from Sunday 00:01, 9 November (UTC) until Tuesday 23:59, 18 November (UTC). Editors interested in running should review the eligibility criteria listed at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2014/Candidates then create a candidate page following the instructions there. Mike V • Talk 01:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
Can someone remind me which case was amended by motion to have a remedy placing all BLPs ++ under discretionary sanctions? All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 02:07, 11 November 2014 (UTC).
Looking over a case, I see as an example of what constitutes a majority as (for example) "For this case there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 1 who is inactive, so 7 support or oppose votes are a majority". That is only a 58.33 percentage majority if its a simple 7-5 straight up vote. The standard to sysop is usually above 70 percentage points and to promote to crat even higher. My point is, if we're going to desysop then shouldn't the committee be expected to also achieve a 70 percentage points super majority? Taking away someone's tools or site banning them is a BIG DEAL. I know I am missing something here, but why are we not seeking a super majority of at least 65 percentage points before we desysop or site ban?-- MONGO 04:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
We're not going to limit the number of admin slots to 435 and force every admin to fight for the seat every two years ( United States House of Representatives ). Not a reasonable argument / analogy. NE Ent 21:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
If anyone is interested: WP:VPR#RfC: Should ArbCom be broken up into smaller boards. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 12:52, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
Interested users are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:35, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Interested users are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators/RfC for an Admin Review Board. -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 04:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Re [4] Concur with specially -> specifically (was actually thinking about changing that myself). I had also originally removed the "Note" intro, but restored it because I think it reads better with it -- indicating a transition from specific content about how the committee handles things to a more general note about email in general. (The can / may wording is a tossup, and although traditional, possibly archaic, American usage would prefer "can" in that context - "can" meaning ability and "may" meaning permission.) NE Ent 15:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
This recent (competent) edit by Tryptofish prompted me to look at WP:FUNC. Since Elen of the Roads has been inactive on en.wiki for over a year, why is she still listed? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:26, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
This has got me thinking about something. In the near future I will not be an arb anymore. I have been a member of the oversight team since 2010. Will I be listed under "former arbitrators" or "advanced permission operators"? Do I have any say in the matter? etc?
I'm going to guess that @ Roger Davies: can answer these questions. (he seems to always know all this stuff) Beeblebrox ( talk) 01:58, 2 December 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 Sandstein at 16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
Today, John Vandenberg, an administrator, alerted me about the discretionary sanctions applying to the Eastern Europe topic area, and logged this as a "notification" on the case page, which he later changed to a "warning". Judging by an earlier comment, he did so to register his disapproval of my speedy deletion of an article created by a sock of a banned user. After I removed the alert after having read it, it was immediately reinstated by an anonymous user, 41.223.50.67.
Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts the purpose of such alerts is to advise an editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for an area of conflict. I am and have been active as an administrator by issuing discretionary sanctions in this topic area, and am therefore perfectly aware of the existence of these sanctions, as John Vandenberg confirmed he knew. The alert therefore served no procedure-based purpose. This also applies to the unneeded logging on the case page: Unlike earlier notifications, alerts are not logged on a case page because they can be searched for with an edit filter. John Vandenberg knew this because he used the correct alert template as provided for in WP:AC/DS.
It therefore appears that John Vandenberg used the alert procedure and the log entry not to actually inform me about discretionary sanctions, but that he misused the alerts procedure to mark his disapproval of a deletion I made and to deter me from making further admin actions in this area with which he disagrees. That is disruptive because this is not the purpose of alerts, and it is not how admins are expected to communicate with each other about disagreements concerning each other's actions. It is also disruptive because it has had the effect, whether intended or not, to create the incorrect impression in another administrator that I am disqualified from acting as an admin in this topic area because I received this alert.
To the extent the now-"warning" is meant as a sanction in and of itself, it is meritless and disruptive: The speedy deletion I made was compliant with WP:CSD#G5, and does not conflict with the prior AfD because the ban evasion issue was not considered there. Any concerns about this deletion should have been discussed at deletion review.
Per WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts, "any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned". Nobody other than the Arbitration Committee is authorized to issue such sanctions. I therefore ask the Committee to clarify that alerts should not be used for any other than their intended purpose, and to take such actions (e.g., issuing a warning) as it deems appropriate to ensure that John Vandenberg will not continue to issue alerts disruptively. By way of appeal of discretionary sanctions, I also ask the Committee to remove the "warning" from the log as being without merit.
Prior to making this request, I discussed the issue with John Vandenberg, but we failed to reach an understanding, and he invited me to submit this matter to this forum for review. Sandstein 16:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
As concerns the "warning", either it is meant as a discretionary sanction for misconduct (as the warning by me he cites was) and in this case is appealed here as meritless and disruptive, or it is not and has therefore no place in a log under the new procedures. Sandstein 18:30, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
This episode indicates, to me, that this whole alerts system is unworkably cludgy and may need to be scrapped if even former arbitrators can't understand it, and that perhaps general clarification is needed that discretionary sanctions and alerts are, shall we we say, not the ideal way to respond to concerns about admin actions - such concerns are normally a matter for the Committee alone. Sandstein 21:51, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
To my mind, Sandstein is obviously ' WP:INVOLVED' in the current DRV about Polandball, however not surprisingly he claims to be uninvolved. To quickly recap, he is the admin who deleted the article at DRV; when notified of the DRV, he decided to issue a DS alert to the person who initiated the DRV, and speedy delete another related article which had survived an AFD and was mentioned on the current DRV. When User:Nick undid the speedy deletion, Sandstein also demanded that Nick redelete it. IMO, this is fairly clear battleground mentality, only including the use of admin buttons for good measure. All quite unnecessary, as a sizable chunk of the community would participate in the DRV, so his voice there would be heard. It is very strange logic that Sandstein felt he had to alert user:Josve05a about discretionary sanctions, but objects to me feeling the same way about his own editing/admining in this topical area. He claims his alert to user:Josve05a was not an admin action (otherwise he would surely run afoul of ' WP:INVOLVED'), but then cant see he is participating as a normal contributor. Maybe he considers a DS alert to be a friendly chat, when he gives one to someone else ...
Anyway, the nature of this clarification is the use of alerts and the logging of them on case pages. Obviously some serious saber rattling would have quickly occurred had I sanctioned Sandstein, so I went with an alert only with a stern message with the hope he could see how others were viewing it. He didnt; he continued to post aggressively. When I found the right DS alert template and posted it, the edit filter notice reminded me to check if he had been notified any time in the last 12 months, and press Save again if I was sure it had not occurred. As I didnt find any prior notices (in edit filter log or on talk page archives), I proceeded to save the alert. I then went to the relevant arbcase to log it as is the usual procedure. I knew DS had been standardised earlier this year, and was pleasantly surprised by the edit filter logging, but it didnt occur to me that alerts would not be logged. The arbcase log for the EE case had all the signs of logging being part of the standard procedure.
Since Sandstein objected to the logging, I went and had a look at other cases and found quite a few examples of the log including notifications and warnings; I did offer to give Sandstein examples of such notices and warnings, but we are here now. Here are the ones that I've quickly found in arbcom case logs since April 2014.
If it is no longer appropriate to log alerts/notices/warnings on the arbcom case, an edit filter should be added to ensure admins are aware of this change. John Vandenberg ( chat) 17:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
I've nothing to add to the clarification and amendment section, but I will state, as I have repeatedly said, I'm really getting fed up watching good content be deleted and destroyed as a result of battleground mentality. It genuinely makes me sad watching material that people have put their heart and soul into, being deleted because it was written by this week's bogeyman. Nick ( talk) 17:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
If the DS alert is going to be used without a sting it has to be used for everyone all the time. Its common for editors to know an article is under DS, but this isn't something one can assume. Of course, the use of the alert can been abused and can be seen as threatening. Use that is universal will over time render the warning as commonplace and standard, will de sting. Whether it was used in this instance as an implied threat, I don't know or care. Behind many of the actions I've seen against editors over the years are threats, some so complex as to be almost invisible. I know how that feels, so am not condoning anything that threatens but unless we deal with the surface level of an action and ignore assumption we will never get to supportive editing situations.( Littleolive oil ( talk) 19:04, 1 November 2014 (UTC))
One of the goals of the recent reforms which turned "warnings" to "alerts" was to remove the stigma of the warning/alert. Apparently, that stigma is alive and well. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 22:57, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Giving a "warning" is an administrative function. Its only purpose is administration of the website. No, a User does not have to have privileges to do much of administration on Wikipedia. The idea is anathema to the community, which expects good users to administer, even to requiring such at RfAdmin, moreover, the website would not function, if users did not step up. So no, giving a warning does not mean one is INVOLVED. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 01:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
John Vandenberg's actions in this case are wrong on so many levels at once it's hard to know where to start. About his technical misunderstanding of the nature of alerts and the non-logging of "warnings", I think all has been said. More importantly, his warning was wrong on its merits. As for the speedying of Why didn't you invest in Eastern Poland? (the only issue he actually mentioned in the warning), Sandstein was processing a valid G5 speedy; the fact that there had been an earlier "keep" AfD is obviously irrelevant as long as the facts justifying the speedy weren't known and discussed during the AfD. As for Sandstein's actions in the Polandball issue, which seems to be what John Vandenberg is really more concerned about, the claim that he was showing an inadmissable battleground attitude is utter nonsense when you look at his actual, very measured and balanced, comments in that DRV. Finally, the "warning", whether logged or not, was also out of process. A "warning" under DS means that I, an administrator, will hand out a block or topic ban to you, the person I am warning, if you repeat the behaviour I am warning you over. Does John Vandenberg seriously believe he would be entitled to block Sandstein if he did a G5 speedy like this again in the future? That beggars belief. Even if John Vandenberg had legitimate reasons to be concerned over Sandstein's actions, then his recourse would be not to impose "sanctions" on him, but to ask Arbcom to review Sandstein's actions; that, however, is not in any way inside the scope of what the DS are about, and therefore also doesn't belong in the DS logs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
This request is eerily similar to this one made some time ago, where four editors were given "civility warnings" by Sandstein, apparently at random. The result of the clarification request was a delinking of the four names in the ARBATC case page. If any action other than delinking is recommended for the current situation, it would only be reasonable to revisit the other situation as well. — Neotarf ( talk) 02:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps AGK needs to take a step back and reconsider what it is that is being said rather than apparently typing rash replies. I am sure it would not be difficult to demonstrate how involved they have been in this "DS" rewrite project (on or off wiki), and maybe that is why he is naturally inclined to be defensive of it (even bordering what people term as ownership mentality - eg "I have spent hours editing this....").
I recall he previously said in relation to this topic (but on a separate matter) 'I will not have it said that any issue relating to DS has been rashly dismissed, particularly after an exhausting, year-long consultation. I'm sorry to have to point out that you are not coming in at the eleventh hour, but a year and a half late.' But the simple fact is, there is genuine concern or criticism regarding how convoluted and time-consuming the DS system is to the vast majority of users, and even if it is now two years later, I am sorry to say his replies below do seem to me to rashly dismiss those concerns ( [5] [6]) and are not consistent with what is expected here.
It is so patently obvious that a number of editors, administrators, and for that matter, former arbitrators and current arbitrators have in fact needed to take quite a bit of time to go through this 'system', and that it is by no means 'simple', 'easy to use', or 'working' by extension. Now that this reality is finally noted, I would suggest at least the rest of Committee rectifies the issue. It would be good if that happened. Ncmvocalist ( talk) 16:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
On the complaint of JV about Sandstein, my position is that it cannot be heard in this venue. With the procedural confusion clarified (not that there should have been any in the first place), I suggest JV take this complaint up, perhaps with a handful of other administrators, directly with Sandstein. Neither party appears to have made an adequate effort to resolve this together, despite, as administrators, being obliged to do so. Should those attempts prove futile, a proper case request should then be filed. AGK [•] 12:31, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
More to the point, the new system is working. Let us leave it at that. AGK [•] 06:14, 25 November 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.
Motion text
A central log ("log") of all sanctions placed under the discretionary sanctions procedure is to be established by the Arbitration clerks on a page designated for that purpose ( Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log). The log transcludes annual log sub-pages (e.g. [/Log/2015], [/Log/2014]) in reverse chronological order, with the sub-pages arranged by topic, then by month within each topic. An annual log sub-page shall be courtesy blanked once five years have elapsed since the date of the imposition of the last sanction recorded on it, though any active sanctions remain in force. Notifications and warnings issued prior to the introduction of the current procedure on 3 May 2014 are not sanctions and remain on the individual case page logs.
1. Additional section to be added
2. The "Authorisation" section is amended with the following addition:
3. The "Guidance for editors" section is amended with the following addition:
4. The "Alerts" subsection is amended with the following addition:
5. The "Logging" subsection is amended with the following replacements:
Enacted - Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Suggested edits:
"Where there is a conflict between any individual provision enacted prior to 2015 authorising standard discretionary sanctions for an area of conflict and any provision in the standard procedure, the provision in the standard procedure will control." because no committee can constrain future versions of the same committee, but it can make taking a desired action an unnecessary hassle. With the phrase, a future committee that comes upon circumstances such that they wish to tailor discretionary sanctions (DS) can easily do so. Without it, they can still do so, they just have to #1) pass a motion modifying the standards DS and #2) then pass the custom DS. Other than hand, if ya'll insert the phrase now "worst case" scenario is it's never invoked. NE Ent 10:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Change "broadly but reasonably construed" to the long-standing traditional "broadly construed." The trouble with "broadly but reasonably construed" is that it doesn't actually mean anything, or, perhaps more precisely, it's never going mean the same thing to multiple editors, including those who with administrator WP:UAL responding to requests at WP:AE. While well-intentioned, such a phrase is more likely to provide a " nucleation" site for wiki-lawyering than useful guidance to the community. NE Ent 11:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Is there a reason for "five calendar years" and not just "five years"? The result is that the theoretical average for "five calendar years" is about "five years and six months from date of last use" -- which seems a rather arcane system unless one really wants all such requests for blanking to be made in January <g>. Collect ( talk) 15:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
What exactly is the definition of a discretionary sanction on Wikipedia? The nutshell template has a bit about what these are good for, but it's not really a definition. Can a clerk please add it to the Definitions section? Thanks! — Sebastian 18:47, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
On a related note, the definition of "sanction" is self-referential. — Sebastian 19:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I'm posting here on Callanecc's suggestion on my talk page, because I e-mailed the Arbitration Committee about an offline threat I received, and haven't received a response. Has the e-mail been received, and should I expect a reply? Cordless Larry ( talk) 17:32, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
What is the best way to improve the clarity of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions? I notice that some edits aimed at improving clarity have been reverted and the edit summary included the line "Please do not change this page without the committee's authorisation." Another option would be to discuss changes at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. But that page redirects to this talk page. Tweaks to wording seem too noodly to discuss here... plus they'd probably get archived more quickly than would be useful.
Yaris678 ( talk) 15:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
This is extremely minuscule, but at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Logging the link to the log is dead. I found the real one and I was going to fix it, but the edit notice scared me away. Kharkiv07 Talk 00:34, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
The notice I received about this case included Given the legal, privacy and BLP implications of holding the case in public the Committee has decided to run the case completely in camera, to that effect there will be no public evidence submission or workshop. Editors with direct knowledge of the events and related evidence are requested to email their to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org by May 7, 2015 which is when evidence submission will close. I took this to mean that I should avoid making any further public statements and instead present my evidence by email to Arbcom.
However I see that the subject of the case has made a detailed statement today to The Guardian, mentioning the case underway, at Wikipedia volunteer who blocked 'Grant Shapps' account: I stand by my decision.
I cannot see the point of asking for evidence in camera when a party to the case is unapologetic about their actions, and repeats damaging claims that the account for which a check user was run is Grant Shapps, or someone working with him. No matter how much support there is for the difficult task of managing vandalism on Wikipedia, this cannot excuse someone with the highest trusted rights on Wikipedia, continuing to using the credibility of that position as part of collaborating with The Guardian journalists, generating coverage of Grant Shapps and influencing public opinion about his character, just before the election. This article will serve to keep the story running for another day, rather than letting the evidence speak for itself and the story die out (which anyone who did not want to be pursued by journalists would surely do).
I hope that the highly public stance now taken, just as Arbcom's case starts, for the original statement made to The Guardian and published by them, which says far more than the technical evidence could possibly justify, will outweigh any apology, hand-wringing, and statements of good character which may be going on in camera.
Was there discussion with Arbcom before this public statement was made, and is Arbcom prepared to say something about wisdom of using trial by press rather than waiting for Arbcom's decision, before the UK election finishes on 7th May (at which time journalists will no longer be interested)? -- Fæ ( talk) 20:05, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Addendum: It is worth highlighting that Chase me has changed his Wikipedia user page to advertize his detailed Guardian article which repeats the allegations against Shapps. A user page promoting this off wiki statement, appears against the spirit of in camera and contradicting the statement in the Arbcom case to be trying to avoid the press when his actions are to continue feeding journalists to increase media impact. [8] -- Fæ ( talk) 23:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
@ AGK, Floquenbeam, DGG, DeltaQuad, Euryalus, Thryduulf, and Yunshui: when admins make statements directed at other editors, even ones you don't like, such as Floquenbeam did here where they called one a "Loon", here where they left Fuck in the permanent history of the article history and in that same statement where they were rude and insulting to a follow functionary, it is a violation of policy. These are not isolated incidents either, Floquenbeam has a shown a pattern of misconduct when it comes to their treatment of other editors and a history of making unnecessarily provocative statements to editors against policy. I know they are a functionary, a former arbitrator and its unlikely anything will happen, but it is not at all acceptable, it violates policy and it makes the project look really, really stupid when nothing is done about it. I am letting you know because you are new to the Arbitration committee and I still have faith you will investigate this, look at their edit history and see what I am talking about is valid. The project doesn't need admins like this performing actions that guarantee a negative impression on the project. PositiveContributor ( talk) 10:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
I seriously doubt there is any impropriety here, but given the impression created in this matter, it may be something to discuss internally. (No, I am not interested in publicly pursuing this any further, other than noting that I seem to have been caught in the middle of two admins disagreeing over adminly things that I don't make it my business to understand, that is, speedy deletion.) SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:34, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I just wanted to post a follow-up to this issue. I never received a reply to my e-mail, when I reported an offline threat that I had received in relation to editing a Wikipedia article. I didn't really expect the ArbCom to be able to do much - there was no evidence linking the threat to any specific editor, for example - but it would have been nice to receive a reply stating that the issue had been noted at least. The whole experience was quite frightening and I would have benefitted from the acknowledgement. Perhaps this is something that can be reflected upon, so that if this happens to someone else in future, they at least get a reply? Cordless Larry ( talk) 20:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Just to clarify on the topic of moderation touched on by DuncanHill—the mailing list has an "auto-accept" list, but mails from senders not on that list are held in moderation. Because the vast majority of the mail held for moderation is spam, it is possible mail may be accidentally discarded. In addition, to cut down on the amount of spam received, filters are put in place that auto-discard mail that matches certain patterns. It seems that was the case here with the initial mail sent. Anyway, thanks for the ping Cordless Larry; it has now been brought to the attention of the Committee. L Faraone 18:19, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
It looks like, according to WP:EDR, that Ohconfucius's suspended topic ban expired and it looks like it was never reinstated. Could someone do the necessary changes on WP:EDR? Armbrust The Homunculus 21:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
An editor has to be alerted before action can be taken. What do we do when articles are subject to more than one kind of DS? There are aspects of articles that might be covered by one but not the other.
It would be helpful to have a template to which we could add multiple DS alerts, but at the moment (I believe) all we can do is add more than one template to article and user talk, which looks heavy-handed and repetitive (especially as the templates all appear to say the same thing unless you click on the links). Or is warning about one set of DS sufficient for action to be taken under any of them? Sarah (SV) (talk) 01:55, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
@ GorillaWarfare: Could you (or someone else) please post the formal statement and notices as required by the desysop procedure please? Or clarify that this wasn't done on behalf of the Committee, in which case this would be a fairly new occurrence wouldn't it (someone gets desysoped at the request of a different admin)? Thanks, Callanecc ( talk • contribs • logs) 02:30, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Kevin was unblocked earlier today. Any comments about his regaining admin tools belong at the Bureaucrat's Noticeboard. Thryduulf ( talk) 22:38, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Could somebody please clarify to me the activity requirements for advanced permissions? This motion seems to indicate that it's 5 actions in 3 months for each tool, however these statistics seem to indicate that some (non-exempt) functionaries don't meet these requirements, am I misunderstanding something? Kharkiv07 ( T) 16:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I've proposed a small change to the blocking policy that would require admins to put enough information in the block log for others to be able to see why the block was made. If you have any thoughts on this accountability/transparency measure, I'd appreciate reading them at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Transparency. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk · contribs · email) 18:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
The subpage Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions doesn't list the American Politics 2 case or the American Politics topic area as subject to discretionary sanctions. Please make the appropriate updates. Robert McClenon ( talk) 22:49, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
On the outset of the case GW was approached by User:Ched for possible bias on this subject [ [10]] (It's the section formal request link wasn't working for me). She declined to do this. Recently she made a controversial action as "an admin" with regards to Eric Corbett which currently has an open arb case request. She has made demeaning comments to myself, she has also shown her bias in overriding another administrator actions without consultation and she has attacked fellow arb and basically accused them of being sexist too. The one tying factor to all of these is the GGTF case, this case and those involved and her ideas of how to fix the gender gap. That is a particularly important piece of information if they are as I suspect using this case and their admin actions to accomplish their goal or lost perspective during. They have been approached on their talkpage and this was her response [ [11]]. I do think input from the community is needed and not just a private discussion among arbs, although I understand the merits may be discussed in private. Hell in a Bucket ( talk) 14:28, 27 June 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.
FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Arbitration_enforcement.2C_the_limits_of_WP:INVOLVED.2C_and_.28inevitably.29_Eric_Corbett. I've let Reaper Eternal know that doing so carries the possibility of being desysopped. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I can think of two now, EncycloPetey and Technical13. Obviously many have left after a case disillusioned, and I believe even non-parties (such as User:Dpmuk) have left or "gone IP". Are there more?
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
23:55, 2 July 2015 (UTC).
The really remarkable thing is that anyone at all sticks around after involvement with the ArbCom. It's an utterly toxic, destructive process. Everyking ( talk) 00:29, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Hereupdated it was said that a mammoth clean-up was due to happen in May. Has this happened? All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
19:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC).
I've made a change to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/History with this edit. Part of the reasoning for doing this is to make this a complete listing of all arbitrators past and present (though I was unsure whether to include User:28bytes or not). Another reason for doing this is to make clearer when current arbs were first elected, as for current arbs you have to peer at the graph to work this out, and for Roger and Salvio and Courcelles and AGK you have to peer at the larger graph to work this out - much easier to have it stated in text form. Doing it this way might make updates in the future easier as well (previously, errors had crept in). I also noticed that election details need updating, though that would take a fair amount of time to sort out. As I said in the edit summary, apologies for pinging all the arbs (except Courcelles) with that edit! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 01:22, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
The notice above says, "This page is focused on discussing the information on the page attached to this one..." However there are many redirects from other arb-related talk pages to this talk page. [12] I came here from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions looking to discuss discretionary sanctions. Is this the place? Manul ~ talk 23:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
This passage at
WP:ACDS seems problematic: Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned.
. How is anyone to "ensure" that? People can remove templates from their talk pages at any time, and there's no guarantee any edit summary will mention the template. Are we expected to look individually at every single edit made to someone's talk page for a whole year? This rule should be void if the templated editor deleted the template rather than left it in place or archived it in a sequential archive page linked to from their talk page. Given that it seems to imply that an error in this regard can lead to sanctions, its present wording seems unreasonable and
WP:GAMEable. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
23:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
To answer the original question, you are expected to ensure you don't do so by paying attention to the following message, which is displayed when you try to alert somebody:
It was designed to be as obtrusive as possible so that people could not skirt this obligation, but I suppose it also may render redundant the above discussion about whether the obligation itself is reasonable. It certainly seems reasonable when it is made this easy… AGK [•] 00:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Members of the community are invited to give their thoughts at a request for comment to discuss Wikipedians' alternatives to consensus, and the formation of a proposed Regulation Committee. Thank you, -- ceradon ( talk • edits) 04:30, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Is there any recourse at all with regard to already-expired blocks? I.e. a short block was issued, others agreed it was an improper block, but the block expired before the unblock request was responded to. I just accepted it and moved on at the time, but it keeps being used against me in discussions, in a "not-very-veiled threat to see you pilloried vexatiously" manner. It's happened repeatedly, and again only a day or two ago. I'm under the impression blocks cannot be cleared from the log, but that when blocks are overturned there's some record of this. I have no interest in seeing the admin sanctioned (I don't even remember their username), and it was long enough ago (and there were enough immediate negative responses to it) I doubt the same admin would issue the same kind of "block one side in a dispute at the request of the other side so they can 'win'" block again. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:16, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Now-moot discussion of where to ask this question.
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SMcCandlish: Please see this page's editnotice. This page is to be used for discussion of formal announcements by the Arbitration Committee; general discussion should be held at
WT:AC. Would you like me to move this section there?
L235 (
t /
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ping in reply)
23:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
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The yearly Arbitration Committee Election request for comment is now open. All editors are invited to participate. Mike V • Talk 04:18, 28 August 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 Dolovis at 18:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
I have not been given any explanation as to why the Arb Board has forced me to accept an interaction restriction with User/Admin:DJSasso. I am aware of no complaint against me asking for or requiring such a restriction. As such, I request that such restriction be removed.
Not really sure I have much to say here other than Dolovis's past blocks for sock puppeting were all caused by him targeting me (and others) for harassment. Using sock puppets for good hand bad hand while targeting my edits and articles I either created or heavily edited. He has a pretty well documented history of activity which is clearly geared at disrupting me and my editing. Seems like a pretty reasonable restriction for removing the most recent block. To be honest with his history I am surprised he was unblocked in the first place, even with this restriction. - DJSasso ( talk) 03:00, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
I would be rather curious to know how this came about as well, actually. I simply assumed that this was generated by BASC of its own accord given DJSasso was a target of Dolovis' latest run of sockpuppetry. But IIRC, Ravenswing was also targeted by Dolovis' latest socks, so I never understood why one but not both.
Also a topic of curiosity is why Dolovis wants the restriction lifted. This seems to be a "just because" request. And for an editor who has been the subject of at least three edit restrictions - and so far as I know, they are all still active - I would suggest there needs to be a much better reason given before any of them are given consideration for lifting. Reso lute 03:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
IMHO, the restriction should be lifted & Dolovis given a chance to demonstrate that it's no longer required. There's a fine line between Preventative & Punitive, where restrictions are involved. GoodDay ( talk) 11:29, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
To address Resolute's query about why I wasn't included in the restriction, I wouldn't think it was necessary. DJSasso and I edit many of the same articles, and in any event, Dolovis' targeting of DJSasso was far more comprehensive than his targeting of me, which mostly revolved around creating socks to file AfDs on articles I created.
As far as this restriction goes, it is high time Dolovis was held to his word. No one "forced" him to agree to anything, and if he felt such stipulations to be injurious to his dignity, he could have always walked away ... and can do so now, as Salvio suggests. I want a far better reason from Dolovis for reneging on his word than that he fails to understand something about which he had the opportunity to ask in the first place. Ravenswing 15:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
04:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC).
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
Here is as good a place as any to give advance notice of early retirement from the Arbitration Committee at the end of this year. It's been an entirely worthwhile experience, but it takes too much time away from what I enjoy a lot more, which is the writing of obscure articles on eighteenth century shipping and colonial figures. I have Wikipedia hours for either Arbcom or articles - after a year doing Arbcom I'd like to get back to the topics I left behind.
Am flagging this early to encourage anyone thinking of running in the upcoming elections, on the basis that there will now be an extra spot available. Some advice to anyone contemplating a run - the volume of work is high, most issues require more detailed analysis than time permits, and the outcomes aren't always cheerfully received. Further, consensus decision-making is essential but understandably causes delays and compromise. More positively, Arbcom offers an excellent opportunity to address some major issues facing Wikipedia. If you like dispute resolution, think there's work to do to improve the editing environment, and have plenty of time on your hands, then you should nominate for election and see how you go.
I'll be staying on the Committee until the end of the year and have plenty more to do in that time. But in the spirit of this message, thanks to all the case participants (and members of the Committee) for what has been an interesting experience since January 1. -- Euryalus ( talk) 08:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The numbers on the DS page (e.g. 7.4) are not a good idea, because:
AGK, Timotheus Canens: okay, it's been five days -- given that no one thinks this is a bad idea, you don't really want me to file a pita, bureaucratic WP:ARCA, do ya? Then ya'll would all have to do that voting and clerking stuff for something that really shouldn't be that big a deal. NE Ent 17:48, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
I have recently been listed as a party at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Genetically modified organisms. I am currently under a topic ban for pages which will almost certainly come under discussion here. Some other editors have recently been extremely "inventive" in playing "Gotcha" and suggesting that I have broken my Topic Ban, meaning that I am constantly "editing on egg shells". I am requesting that my topic ban is lifted for the purposes of this case so that I do not need to worry about this and can present succinct and clear evidence to this committee. I am suggesting the ban lif would apply only to the ArbCom pages, not mainspace articles or elsewhere.DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 28 September 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 NE Ent at 01:43, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
The numbers on the DS page (e.g. 7.4) are not a good idea, because: a) they make the page look too much like code of statutes, and WP:NOTSTATUTE, of course, and b) If you provide anchors, someone might wiklink to them. And then someday some committee might revise the procedures, and then "7.4" might not be the fourth section, so then you have hyperlinks pointing to the wrong section, or sections numbered like 7.2, 7.3 7.31, 7.4, or 7.2, 7.4
Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.
There's a substituted template (somewhere) that is used at the top of proposed decision pages:
{{ombox | type = style | image = [[File:Nuvola apps important orange.svg|45px|link=]] | text = '''Under no circumstances may this page be edited by anyone other than members of the Arbitration Committee and the clerks.'''<p>Please submit comments on the proposed decision in your own section on the [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk page]]. }}
Its |text=
should actually read "Under no circumstances may this page be edited by anyone other than members of the Arbitration Committee or the clerks." The "and" there is ungrammatical, implying either that there are people who are members of both the AC and of the clerks simultaneously, or alternatively that the AC and the clerks have to both edit it together. I could probably track the tag down, but I'd expect that the template documentation for it also says that mere editors cannot touch it, since I see similar notices at other AC-related templates. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
10:31, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The RfC to appoint 3 individuals to the 2015 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission has begun. Nominations will be accepted through 23:59 (UTC), 16 October 2015. Following the nomination period, comments will be welcomed to discuss the suitability of the candidates.
Best regards, Mike V • Talk 01:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Those interested in the all things ArbCom might be interested in the apparent community opinion of the Committee as expressed at
WikiConference USA (questions and comments). All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
02:01, 13 October 2015 (UTC).
It's amazing how arbitrators, once the elections are over, seem to have so little interest in doing their job and so little time to spend on it. It's also amazing how other people, who are not arbitrators, seem to have a great deal of interest in the ArbCom's doings and plenty of time to worry about how badly they are doing their jobs. I guess it's kind of like volunteering to feed animals at a rescue—everyone thinks it's such a swell thing that you're doing it, except you're not really doing it, because you lose interest and you're busy with other things. The animals who are going hungry, on the other hand, are quite preoccupied by the subject, and have plenty of time to dwell on it. Everyking ( talk) 06:07, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
I've just watched this. Apparently I was not paying close enough attention to my watchlist, because I'm a bit late responding here. I'm not the kind of person who typically has the time or attention span to watch a 1+ hour video (though I often do read video transcripts, so thanks to all who are trying to provide one). That said, this talk was very much worth the time spent watching it. I wish I had been there to talk to her in person. GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:50, 22 October 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.
Due to how closely related the topic areas of several of the existing sanctions are,
The post-1929 date is to keep Opus Dei, a fairly-mainstream Catholic movement from being encompassed. -- Guerillero | Parlez Moi 15:06, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Are the clerks authorized to update the active/inactive list at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee and at each case to reflect unannounced absences per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Unannounced_arbitrator_absence? If not, they should be; and also to update case information to indicate that there is no drafting arbitrator or schedule in case the drafting arbitrator is absent and not communicating. It is understandable and an unavoidable reality that arbitrators have other demands on their time and must sometimes be unexpectedly inactive. The important thing is for realistic information to be communicated to the parties and other users. For obvious reasons, we can't depend on someone who's absent to update the info. For this reason, the clerks should be able to take silence into account when updating case and activity info, rather than waiting for positive information that's not forthcoming. -- Amble ( talk) 19:46, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
For this reason, the clerks should be able to take silence into account when updating case and activity info, rather than waiting for positive information that's not forthcomingimplies that if clerks don't hear from an arbitrator, we should decide ourselves that they are functionally inactive, even if they are marked as active, and change the arbitration members list along with the list of arbitrators reviewing cases. This would be a subjective decision where there might not even be agreement among clerks and I don't think arbitrators would appreciate us taking that initiative. I would hope that arbitrators would themselves notice when an arbitrator has gone inactive and then inform clerks who could update the members list. Liz Read! Talk! 20:38, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
The procedure indicates that an arbitrator will be deemed inactive if he or she hasn't posted in "the usual venues" for seven days. I always took the ArbCom-l mailing list as one of those venues. If this is still the interpretation, then there is no way the Clerks can monitor inactivity on their own, as they have no access to that list. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 00:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
How about, if you don't have the time or the willingness to be active, you resign, or be considered dismissed by the community for not doing the job it elected you to do? And let's consider inactivity on a strictly on-wiki basis. If you can't be bothered to do anything on-wiki, but you're still whispering in smoky backrooms, you are part of the problem, even more so than an arbitrator who does nothing at all. I suspect we'd see a lot more work from these arbitrators who are always so sidelined by real-life demands (but curiously, had a blissfully wide-open schedule at the time of their election) if they knew they'd lose their precious title if they didn't put in some hours to justify it. Everyking ( talk) 06:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
I am very innocent of exactly the limits, if any, to Arbcom power. But I did not think that banning a user by arbitrary motion was part of it. Was I wrong?
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
23:52, 26 October 2015 (UTC).
IMHO, restrictions shouldn't include an editor's talkpage. GoodDay ( talk) 12:07, 27 October 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.
To prevent confusion and overlap between existing sanctions,
Enacted – Mini apolis 13:30, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Nominations for the 2015 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are officially open. The nomination period runs from Sunday 00:00, 8 November (UTC) until Tuesday 23:59, 17 November (UTC). Editors interested in running should review the eligibility criteria listed at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2015/Candidates then create a candidate page following the instructions there. Mike V • Talk 00:11, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
I have started a discussion on recent committee actions at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 51#Arbitration Committee marginalising community.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
05:24, 8 November 2015 (UTC).
Is it just me or does WP:ACDS not explain what 'discretionary sanctions' are? The "this page in a nutshell" banner is surprisingly unhelpful - it explains what the discretionary sanctions are supposed to do, but not what they actually are - and the rest of the page is not much help. Banedon ( talk) 00:52, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I placed a {{subst:alert|a-i}} on a talk page, expecting I would get the standard message to check for past notifications when I clicked save. Not only didn't I get that message, no tag was added to the edit summary. [19] What's up? -- NeilN talk to me 21:39, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Should consist of AUSC plus two mailing list admins. The three bolded are not on AUSC according.
AGK, Callanecc, Courcelles, Dougweller, Guerillero, Joe Decker, LFaraone, MBisanz, NativeForeigner, and Roger Davies
Also it should not be necessary for the mailing list admins to be on the list - but that may be a technical limitation of the system.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough,
00:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC).