This page is for statements regarding the proposed decision, not discussion. Therefore, with the exception of arbitrators and clerks, all editors must create a section for their statement and comment only in their own section.

This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched To request an amendment or clarification of an arbitration decision, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment. To report a violation of an arbitration decision, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To request the assistance of an arbitration clerk, see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks.

Wikipedia Arbitration
About arbitration Talk Arbitration policy (CU/OS) Guide to arbitration Noticeboard +  Talk Search archived proceedings Ban appeals Report
Open proceedings All open requests Case requests Clarification and Amendment requests Arbitrator motion requests Enforcement requests
Active sanctions Contentious topics ( Log) General sanctions Editor sanctions
Arbitration Committee Discuss + Contact Members Procedures Elections Talk History Clerks +  Talk Clerk procedures
Audit Talk Statistics Talk Reports (pre-2016)
Track related changes
v t e

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

To update this listing, edit this template and scroll down until you find the right list of arbitrators. If updates to this listing do not immediately show, try purging the cache.

Active:

1. Aoidh ( talk · contribs)
2. Barkeep49 ( talk · contribs)
3. Cabayi ( talk · contribs)
4. CaptainEek ( talk · contribs)
5. Firefly ( talk · contribs)
6. Guerillero ( talk · contribs)
7. HJ Mitchell ( talk · contribs)
8. Maxim ( talk · contribs)
9. Moneytrees ( talk · contribs)
10. Sdrqaz ( talk · contribs)
11. Z1720 ( talk · contribs)

Inactive:

1. L235 ( talk · contribs)

Recused:

1. Primefac ( talk · contribs)
2. ToBeFree ( talk · contribs)

I had thought the committee should include a principle regarding evidence obtained from other wikimedia projects since that was a decent concern expressed during the case, even by an arbitrator during the workshop. Noah, AA ^Talk 18:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Iffy: My understanding of that fact as it is written is that he was paid to perform the edits while he was an employee, not that he is being accused of paid editing simply because he was an employee. Noah, AA ^Talk 21:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Another consideration is that Nihonjoe be topic banned from editing and participating in discussions related to the articles in which he has had a conflict of interest, except in cases where the discussion is relating to his conduct. Noah, AA ^Talk 21:12, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Aoidh: Pinging you since you added the proposed decision. Have you or the other drafters thought about either of the two things I mention here? In regards to the first, principle four only mentions evidence from Wikipedia, which leaves out other Wikimedia projects such as commons, data, news, etc. Noah, AA ^Talk 23:55, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Speaking for myself it didn't seem to be a point of major contention within the scope of this case. - Aoidh ( talk) 00:20, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I just asked since people had mentioned Nihonjoe's wikidata contributions multiple times in evidence and some other places. The question arose whether this would be allowable evidence for public posting or it would violate WP:OUTING. HJ Mitchell had specifically asked for a principle regarding it (and some other things) so I figured it would be worth asking. Noah, AA ^Talk 00:29, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

There's the 2019 RfC. For me it's immaterial to the case at hand given what actually happened rather than some other hypothetical and so there's no need for me to interpret how it applies here. Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

About Proposed Remedy 1, New VRT queue established, you might want to spell out Volunteer Response Team in the first sentence of the text. Also, Barkeep49 asked for feedback, so I'll say that I think this is a good idea (and said so in my evidence). The only issue that I can think of in the proposal is whether admins, as opposed to functionaries, should be involved at all. But I think that the requirement for a "functionary-like" appointment process solves that concern to my satisfaction. One alternative that I can think of is to make ArbCom itself the body to receive reports, but I agree that ArbCom taking this on alone might be an excessive commitment. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 19:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I try to address the concern about administrators having access to paid-en-wp in my vote for that remedy, as I have quite a lot of sympathy for it. Sdrqaz ( talk) 03:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I largely agree with Tryptofish, although both the VRT and ANPDP acronyms in remedy 1 need expanding and/or linking (a link the latter case would be particularly useful).<br/ The new queue does seem like a good idea (as I think I said on the functionaries list) and the proposed appointment process seems sensible. If the existing queue is archived it would be a good idea (if technically possible) to either auto-forward new emails to that address to the new list and/or decline them with a pointer to the new list. Alternatively, I guess the existing list could be renamed paid-en-wp-old and the new list take it's place?
For anyone wondering, my understanding of why the existing list cannot just be broadened is that the archives include checkuser data that may not be shared with non-checkusers. Thryduulf ( talk) 19:55, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Re-reading, I agree with Firefly and Guerillero that the final sentence of principle 3 is important and worth highlighting, I also wish to highlight Guerillero's comment on principle 4 as important. Thryduulf ( talk) 20:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Dennis Brown: Removing 'crat but not sysop is definitely something ArbCom could do. One thing to consider when thinking about whether they should do it here is that (at least as far as I recall from the public evidence) while Nihonjoe did a small amount of COI admining they did not do any COI cratting. It could therefore be argued that he abused the trust placed in him as an admin but not the trust placed in him as a crat. I don't know whether I would support that argument (or indeed whether I support a desysopping at all) but it's not one I'm prepared to dismiss out of hand. Thryduulf ( talk) 03:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Dennis Brown yeah, I don't think removing admin but not crat is a sensible thing to do (although there is no policy-based reason I'm aware of saying it can't be done). After mulling it over, I don't support removing just 'crat in this instance as it would be a supermario-type situation where being a 'crat prevented them from losing the admin rights in a situation where someone who was only an admin would have done.

When an admin does something that results in sanction by arbcom there are three possibilities regarding community trust: They either clearly still have that trust, clearly no longer have that trust or it's unclear. In the first two cases arbitrator's decision regarding desysopping is relatively easy - no trust = desysop, trust = no desysop. However it's more difficult when it's not clear. It seems to me that this case falls into tha third category.

If the community had a high opinion of and well-defined and supported process for reconfirmation RFAs then requiring the admin to undertake one would be appropriate in many cases, however we do not live in that world and reconfirmation RFAs are controversial and at least some attract oppose votes based on opposition to the process rather than opposition to the candidate meaning they probably aren't a fair remedy. Another possibility would be temporary desysopping with automatic restoration after a given period. However it has been many years since such a remedy was passed, and for good reason (it's purely punitive, and if they don't have trust to be an admin now why will they automatically have that trust in x weeks or months?) so I would not support doing that.

While it is clear that there are some very vocal members of the community who have lost trust in Nihonjoe, but there is a not insignificant overlap between those people and members of the community who hold relatively extreme views regarding paid editing. Some of those views are, in my opinion, actually actively harmful to the encyclopaedia, so I do not wish to legitimise them. Even disregarding those concerns, the most vocal members of the community are not always representative of the broader community so one always needs to look deeper than the surface when considering what is right.

On balance I think I do support a desysop. Not because of the nature of the COI edits themselves - if the same edits or admin actions had been made by someone without a COI then most of them would be accepted as good edits and even the worst of those that weren't wouldn't rise beyond a talk page message - so desysopping for that is grossly disproportionate. I'm also not convinced, based on the public evidence, that Joe has engaged in PAID editing, so that's also not grounds to desysop in my view. However not making the COI disclosures until after the 11th hour, and even then not completely, is in my opinion enough to warrant a desysop for failure to meet the expected behavioural standards of an administrator. I do hope though that if a desysop is passed that reapplication at RFA is allowed at any time. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Pppery: if a process for granting adminship other than RFA is implemented, all arbcom needs to do is to pass a single resolution saying that in every remedy regarding regaining the admin tools, "a successful request for adminship" or equivalent wording means either the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process or any alternative process by which an editor may become an administrator that has community consensus. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Is there any evidence to support Finding of fact 3 that is stronger than the fact that Nihonjoe was employed by Aquaveo at the time of the edits? If there isn't, then this finding of fact as currently written (using the term "paid editing") is accusing Nihonjoe of breaking WP:PAID and it should be reworded to clarify that this isn't the case. I'd suggest something simple like Nihonjoe edited Aquaveo, GMS (software), and SMS (hydrology software) without disclosing that he was employed by Aquaveo. If you are accusing Nihonjoe of breaking WP:PAID, then frankly the proposed sanctions aren't severe enough. Iffy★ Chat -- 20:55, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I didn't take part in the discussion (evidence phase) for two reasons: (1) I see my role more as pointing out irregularities rather than deliberating on how to fix them – we have wiser people to do that. (2) Those wiser people have already brought up many if not most of the points that were of concern to me in this saga, and did it in a much better way that I would ever do.

Here, I'll only point out that apart from editing articles while having COI, what is not mentioned is that Nihonjoe also nominated some of those articles to DYK (i.e., Main Page) – Leading Edge, Sandra Tayler, Aquaveo – which to me appears as a promotional activity qualitatively different to "minor uncontroversial edits". Does this fact have a bearing on the overall assessment? I apologise for not registering this in the evidence phase.

@ Moneytrees: I sometimes use Google Maps Street View as supporting evidence in notability-related discussions. Would you be able to confirm that that's not allowed? Cheers, — kashmīrī  ^TALK 22:23, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

There is zero reason to use Google maps or street view at AfD because they are not high quality reliable sources that contribute to notability -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Yeah, unless you've never seen unbelievable puffery and sponsored sources at AfD. In such circumstances, a Street View reality check can be sobering. — kashmīrī  ^TALK 19:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Kashmiri: I think that the issue here is that when someone has declared a COI with a company and you've provided the Street View of that location, while it may not exactly be private information, it seems excessive and may lead to malicious actors causing trouble more easily. Sdrqaz ( talk) 03:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Yes, what Sdrqaz has said. Moneytrees🏝️ (Talk) 18:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC) reply

 Comment: By bringing up the case, I did not intend for Nihonjoe to be dragged to ARBCOM. I expected him – I prodded him gently several times – to post something along the lines of: "I'm realising that I edited a fair number of articles while having an undeclared COI – I've now learned from this mistake and won't make it again, however it would be unfair to continue serving as a bureaucrat, and so I resign my hat." I'm quite sure that would have been it, hardly anybody outside the few most active functionnaires would have noticed that resignation. Yet, Nihonjoe chose a path of half-truths and deceipt, even as his RL identity was becoming known to more and more editors. I'm sorry for Nihonjoe. It didn't have to end this way, as he is a very productive editor and experienced admin who enjoyed significant trust of the community. If the motion succeeds, I'll need to see a fundamental change in his attitude to editing before I support them in any potential RfA. Trust once shattered is not easily rebuilt. — kashmīrī  ^TALK 19:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Finding of fact number 5 (Content of Nihonjoe’s conflict of interest editing) is giving me real "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play" vibes for lack of a better term. Even if it is technically correct that the edits were fine (I share Kashmiri's belief that putting the company you work for on the main page is not innocuous) stating so rubs me the wrong way in light of all the other findings. His participation at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Heritage_Internet_Technologies is also a concern. ~~ Jessintime ( talk) 22:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Doesn't Nihonjoe's relationship with Hemelein Publications constitute WP:PAID editing, given his relationship to that company? Levivich ( talk) 22:43, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Levivich: I think so and had meant to address this. I'll add a proposed FoF concerning this. - Aoidh ( talk) 23:21, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Maxim: can you elaborate on why you see this as a stretch? I don't understand how someone in a CEO-like position at a company could edit about that company and not be considered a paid editor? When the CEO is directing the CEO to edit, and the CEO pays the CEO, that's paid editing. Same with a sole proprietor. Same with a founder. No? Levivich ( talk) 00:17, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

That's a fair but difficult request, as a candid discussion of the specific case is not entirely suitable for a public forum per policy. Paid editing implies tangible financial compensation that will be promptly received in exchange for the edit. The situation you describe is closer to COI editing (and/or self-promotional editing). To a considerable extent, I see the difference between those three "types" of editing as somewhat academic, but as far as our policies and guidelines are set up at the present, it seems to make a difference. To conclude "paid editing" is not unreasonable, but it's not my first choice.

I wonder if it would cleaner to have a clear financial COI policy (in addition to the COI guideline and PAID policy) that spells out what is permissible. While slightly on a tangent to the original query, making edits with a financial COI, even when disclosed, is so frowned upon that a certain point it may as well be prohibited (especially with users in positions of trust). To dictate where the line(s) is(are) would probably be a community project, as opposed to an ArbCom decision. Maxim ( talk) 01:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Thanks for that elaboration, I see where you're coming from. To ground it in this particular case, I feel that Nihonjoe's relationship with Aquaveo and his relationship with Hemelein Publications are so different, in my view, that it doesn't make much sense to put them into the same category ("COI").

I see three broad categories:

1. rank-and-file employee who is not paid or directed to edit but does so on their own volition (a "regular COI"), which is the Aquaveo situation
2. rank-and-file employee who is paid or directed to edit (a WP:PAID editor), which I think is not a situation here at all
3. "the boss", which is how I'd describe the Hemelein situation

If you're "the boss," however defined (owner, manager, sole proprietor, etc.), and you edit about your own company, then that, again in my view, is something even worse than regular COI or WP:PAID: more significant and direct financial gain, more culpable, more loss of trust, and the boss is calling the shots, not a rank-and-file person, so you don't have the "just following orders" or "I didn't know" defense. I think perhaps self-promotion may indeed be the accurate descriptor. But broader, it's like the difference between when a Private does something wrong and when a General does something wrong. Levivich ( talk) 01:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Just to wax a little bit more on this: as a business owner, it f'ing kills me every time I see someone putting their own business on Wikipedia. I would love to put my business on Wikipedia, or to edit articles about its products or the technologies it uses... it would be so f'ing helpful, I would make so much more money, if I could make that happen, and I could make that happen, but I don't, because integrity (and because the blowback when I was caught would be bad for the brand). So when I see other businesses doing this (not limited to Nihonjoe of course), and they "get away" with it (meaning the articles continue on anyway, despite what happens to the editor), and the blowback isn't "that bad," it just kind of makes me jealous tbh. Levivich ( talk) 01:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I largely agree with your three categories and analysis of how they apply in this situation. When weighing appropriate remedies the only edit I'm aware of - and I just did a search through all my public and private evidence for more - that touched on Hemelein is this edit which I feel like would lead me to "hey you don't do that, you must disclose any such edits going forward, and really you should only be making any further edits like that by making an edit request" no matter who it is. Maybe it's because I'm a bit of a softy when it comes to sanctions and maybe that's not the response the community/most admin would have. Barkeep49 ( talk) 15:35, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I'll say at the outset that I totally defer to arbs about what the evidence shows since they see evidence I don't see. And I think, yeah, "maybe it's PAID but it's not a lot of PAID" is a valid point.

Here comes the but: I think it's more than just that one edit? First, Nihonjoe created that article ( Michael R. Collings), and I'm inferring that this happened years before any Hemelein-related COI arose, so it's not a policy violation. But I do wonder whether there is "reverse-COI" or "reverse-PAID" in the sense of "Hey I wrote your wikipedia bio, can I publish your book?" Idk if that's even a thing Wikipedia policy addresses. But aside from the article creation, this shows 2019 edits to that article, which I think maybe cover the COI period (I'm not sure, and it may be a matter of private evidence).

Then, aside from that one article, there is a second article at D. J. Butler which includes Special:Diff/1064157907, which I think is definitely a COI (or PAID) edit, and there are many others edits to that page (I haven't looked at any others).

I note in those two article histories, I see various BYU and AML folks, and though I understand arbcom has voted that it's not in scope of this case, I mention it because this is an example of what I see as the nexus between Hemelein-AML-BYU COIs.

And there's a third userspace draft at User:Nihonjoe/Lee Allred, which was not published to mainspace.

I'll say again: even putting all of that together, maybe it's not a lot, like not worthy of any severe sanction, and there may be other stuff I'm unaware of that has been submitted privately that would change my view of things. Levivich ( talk) 16:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Sdrqaz: "must have been done with the intention of getting public notice" -- doesn't putting Aquaveo on the main page count? Levivich ( talk) 13:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

While I am weighing the DYK nomination in finding five ("Content of Nihonjoe's conflict of interest editing"), my vote in finding three refers to Aoidh's vote, which itself refers to Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure § Additional notes on who must disclose ("Users who are compensated for any publicity efforts related to the subject of their Wikipedia contributions are deemed to be paid editors"). I do not think that Nihonjoe was paid for publicity efforts (or at least we haven't received sufficient evidence for that). Sdrqaz ( talk) 14:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

It seems that two (mildly inappropriate) protections happened but not any violation of editing policies, so the main problem was disclosure. This brings up a conundrum. If Nehonjoe was only an admin, this would likely result in a strong admonishment only. Maybe desysop, but at least as likely an admonishment. But Crats have a higher standard of conduct, so the admin bit seems to be getting dragged along. It is possible for Arb to remove the Crat bit, but leave the Admin bit, because Crat has a higher standard for conduct. I've never seen that before, but I'm wondering if this is that kind of case, given the primary issue was one of disclosure, not content of the edits. I don't have access to the private data, obviously, so I can't say "you should do this", I can only say "Don't be afraid to do this, if it is warranted". Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:48, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Excellent points, Thryduulf. I don't have any idea of what a good solution is here, since I don't have full access to the evidence. Obviously, my main concern was making sure they didn't overstep in defining COI, which was a real possibility, but it seems they have taken the concerns to heart and the what I have seen in the proposals seems fairly sane. I tend to think that if the admin bit goes, the crat bit must go simply because it is a higher trust position, but that isn't a given. Again, if he only did a couple of unnecessary protections, that isn't something you would normally see someone get desysopped for, although I do want to stress again, I won't judge the outcome either way as I don't have access to the real evidence, and only going by what I see on these pages. Regardless, it isn't a simple "he did this, so this must be the outcome" situation. All shades of grey. We have no choice but to trust them, and can only judge by the process itself. I hate to say I lean in any direction, really I'm just thinking outloud. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 06:47, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Thryduulf, I appreciate your analysis. I think you've summed it up well in the detailed comment, and I agree that it was the handling of the COI, denying first, then disclosing but it was too late. That is really the trust issue. I've done some mental gymnastics to try to find a better solution but the math just doesn't work. A few are still beating the drum that virtually all COI is the same as paid editing, but it looks like Arb is showing some clue by rejecting that claim. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:07, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Two concerns.

• It seems the Committee has decided, rightly or wrongly, to ignore the issue of the chilling effect of stifling of community discussion. In general, I do not think the community benefits from any reinforcement, whether explicit or by silence, of the notion that holders of advanced permissions are a protected class (administrative "wagon circling"), particularly since requests for arbitration are routinely rejected for not having first exhausted the possibilities of the noticeboards. I note the proposed new venue for reporting suspected COI, but I also don't see any statement about the evidence concerning reports to Arbcom that were not actioned (or my proposal at the workshop about collective responsibility on the analogy of the editing process). I believe too much has been carved off in drafting the proposed decision.
• Concerning Proposed finding of fact 5 and arbitrators' votes, evidence from as recently as 2023 appears to have been elided. Yngvadottir ( talk) 01:35, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  @ Yngvadottir: I'm thinking over your first point. Regarding your second, I think that that evidence may have been taken into consideration for the proposed findings that Nihonjoe engaged in paid editing – it's just that members of the Committee disagree on whether the content of the edits themselves violated the "other content policies or guidelines" in finding five. Sdrqaz ( talk) 03:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Moneytrees: can you clarify this comment: The AN thread was not outing. I was surprised not to see a FoF that Kashmiri outed Nihonjoe twice over (and a lack of remedy for the one who outed him twice even when there was a remedy for someone who did the same thing later, but indelicately).

So, after providing a direct link to doxing at the AfD, and three days after PhilKnight clarified such a link was outing, Kashmiri started a thread at AN that starts with "It was recently brought to the community's attention – through an external online publication which I won't link to here but which can be easily Googled up – that Nihonjoe has been editing articles in which he has a significant conflict of interest. These are articles about his employer, which Nihonjoe has significantly expanded mostly with promotional material, and three articles about his employer's products." [emphasis mine]. Could you elaborate on how initiating a conversation predicated on instructions for how to find personal information (and mentioning a subset of that personal information directly) is substantially different from directly linking to it (in terms of effect/harm)? I would've hoped for a FoF documenting how the community failed to adequately deal with said outing at AN. Instead we have a principle that outing is prohibited even in cases of COI, but a finding of fact that it's ok to give people instructions on where to find the information, doing a little bit of outing, and having a conversation that assumes everyone has followed your instructions. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

@ Rhododendrites Sorry, I've been busy the past week. I supported the finding because I was focusing on Nihonjoe's disclosure about Aquaveo at the associated AfD. I thought about this comment more, and I've decided to abstain on the finding. Even if the finding technically jives with what's written at WP:OUTTING, I feel I can't say that providing step like that isn't basically the same as linking to something that is outing-- I mean honestly that feels silly and it's the sort of silliness that has pervaded this situation since the start. But in that same breath, I think saying it is outing is on the same brand of silliness-- I mean, this is not something hard to find. I feel like there's been too much theatre around this case and I'm tired of it, so I'll just abstain-- the rest of my comment still applies. Moneytrees🏝️ (Talk) 06:01, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

this is not something hard to find - Yes, if someone says "hey everyone, user x has been outed/doxed here at this exact address" followed by "hey everyone, user x has been outed/doxed and you can just google it", then it's true it's not hard to find. Of course, how many people would actually know to search for that without someone linking to it (directly or indirectly) on-wiki? "Outing is bad even if it's easy to find" and "drawing lots of attention to harmful material that otherwise only a small portion of Wikipedians would see" are not things that would've struck me as controversial before this case. Arbcom has taken the evidence and rather than do anything at all about outing, has just endorsed the "doxing is fine as long as you just point off-wiki and as long as it catches someone with a COI" approach to user privacy. VRT stuff is fine and all, but at the same time you (this is generally a collective "you", not moneytrees in particular btw) have shown that there will be no consequences for failing to actually use it. We already had the expectation of doing this privately, after all. Sigh. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:51, 13 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I think the committee is seriously misreading policy and community consensus in principle #3 (emphasis added): Paid editing, which involves editing Wikipedia in exchange for money or inducements, requires proper disclosure of employer, client, and affiliation. Users who are paid by an entity for publicity are considered paid editors, regardless of whether the payment was specifically for editing Wikipedia. This is taken from WP:PAID, but that offers only a minimal definition of paid contributions in respect to the WMF Terms of Use. The ToU allows individual communities to expand upon that definition, and enwiki has done so at WP:PAY: it makes it clear that paid editing is coterminous with editing with a financial conflict of interest, and an FCOI arises More generally, an editor has a financial conflict of interest whenever they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship.

This unfortunately looks like it's going to result in the committee stopping short of calling Nihonjoe's edits "undisclosed paid editing" (FoF #3), when it's a virtual certainty that a less-privileged editor doing the same thing would be indefinitely blocked for UPE. –  Joe ( talk) 07:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• Relatedly, @ Maxim: you've stated above (Levivich's section) that paid editing implies tangible financial compensation that will be promptly received in exchange for the edit – where are you getting that from? And when you say I wonder if it would cleaner to have a clear financial COI policy (in addition to the COI guideline and PAID policy) that spells out what is permissible, don't we have exactly this at WP:PAY? Which is oddly absent from this decision... –  Joe ( talk) 07:49, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply
• @ Caeciliusinhorto-public: Note that the heading of the section with the shortcut WP:PAY, in which a "financial conflict of interest" is defined, is "paid editing". –  Joe ( talk) 11:02, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  To answer your first question, that's the spirit of what paid editing entails the vast majority of the time. There is an implication that money will change hands; with self-promotion involving a financial conflict of interest, there may be more money coming as a result (or an increase in equity). Equating the provisions of WP:PAY and WP:PAID is an interesting take (that is to say, good arguments can be made for and against). If we accept them as coterminous, why do we have a parallel policy and guideline on the same subject?

  You bring up super mario. We block new editors engaging in self promotion, or undisclosed COI or PAID editing, all the time, because as new editors, that's the only kind of editing they do. Whereas for experienced editors, if discovered, that results in a huge outcry to the point where even disclosed COI or PAID contributions are so discouraged they may as well be prohibited. Note that the "may as well prohibited" is not exactly wording used in a relevant policy or guideline, but I think that's something for the community to consider. Maxim ( talk) 13:10, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  Just to expand on Super Mario effect, we wouldn't be having this case if the subject was a less-privileged editor. It would be resolved at a noticeboard, possibly involving ArbCom or a checkuser being sent the stuff that can't be posted on-wiki. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  @ Maxim and HJ Mitchell: I think it's dangerous for arbs to go by their sense of the 'spirit' of a guideline rather than what it says, because that is always subjective. We have a parallel policy and guideline because one is linked to the WMF ToU and one is not; note that WP:PAID is not the "paid editing" policy, it is specifically the "paid-contribution disclosure" policy. I can see now that this is causing confusion and it's probably something we'll need to tidy up after this case is closed.

  Re. super mario: yes, resolved by blocking them for undisclosed paid editing. –  Joe ( talk) 10:13, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  Reading WP:PAY – "Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial COI; it places the paid editor in a conflict between their employer's goals and Wikipedia's goals." [ emphasis added – leads to the exact opposite conclusion of your assertion that all financial COIs are paid editing. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 18:57, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  Am I the only one that can see that the heading under which that text is written is "paid editing", or what? –  Joe ( talk) 10:07, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  I personally think that the second paragraph of that section starting with "more generally" makes it clear that paid editing is a subset of financial COI, in addition to what people are saying here regarding "one form of financial COI". Sdrqaz ( talk) 14:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• Levivich, without addressing your broader point, I think there are more caveats to your category 1. A rank and file employee who works in a small company where everyone is likely to be friends, and talk to each other on a regular basis, where the boss is likely to be easily accessible, would seem to have more than COI but perhaps less than PAID, even if marketing/PR isn't their job. A rank and file employee in a large corporation, where they're likely to be working for middle management that doesn't care about little bitty things like which of their underlings may be adding flattery to the bosses' or company's Wikipedia pages, is where there would be no more than a COI. In every kind of organisation, if the person's role is public relations or marketing, then that would be PAID too. Which one was Joe? Usedtobecool  ☎️ 08:17, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply
• Regarding the proposed VRT queue, my opinion is that a lack of a private venue was never the problem. There are multiple ways already available: arbcom, paid editing mailing list and functionaries are available as formal places to report. And informally, to workshop and have conversations, other admins and experienced UPE patrollers are available as well. The problem is a lack of a way to track progress, to get a response and to know whether it has been checked at all [insert conspiracy theories]. A VRT queue may be an improvement, and if it works like UTRS, where user talk pages receive notification that a report is being considered or has been considered, maybe it'll solve most of our problems, but we should consider that an onwiki venue to talk about matters involving private evidence may be of help too, somewhere we can say, "I have just made a private report to X about Y so we should keep an eye out but not do anything publicly while we wait for an answer" or "I reported about Y a month ago, why is nothing happening?", a place for arbs/functionaries to say, "we've received a private report about Y and we're investigating" if it's a big deal, or to say "we've investigated Y and found it to have merit" otherwise. —  Usedtobecool  ☎️ 08:17, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  A VRTS queue would be an improvement in some ways. It generates a ticket number that anyone with the appropriate permissions can access. Whereas ArbCom email all goes to one distribution list where the volume of email we get and the committee's disparate responsibilities with varying levels of urgency mean that things too easily get buried in our inboxes. The hope is also that the people who volunteer for this new role will have an active interest in it—arbs are not necessarily interested in or good at investigating these kinds of complaints. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:48, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  If the people who end up volunteering for this queue feel that such an onwiki place would be helpful I would support its creation (if necessary in Arb space). Barkeep49 ( talk) 17:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  I am for keeping on wiki records for things as much as practicable, in general, on principle. We also wouldn't want VRT to receive 35 reports about the same editor/article in the first week they appear, nor would we want the same case reported 35 times over ten years. At a minimum that would require multiple volunteers to read all the cases and take fulltime jobs merging cases.

  It would have to be a separate and scary space such as arb space, and employ scary banners to tell people what they choose to disclose may result in an immediate boomerang. Sloppy disclosures are less likely to happen that way, in my opinion, than if a choice were left between posting it somewhere publicly and filing to an opaque process and hoping. —  Usedtobecool  ☎️ 19:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  To be honest no on wiki records might be what is practicable here. At the moment we're struggling to have enough capacity to handle these issues and if we add stringent paperwork requirements I worry that would discourage the additional capacity building we hope to do here. Barkeep49 ( talk) 19:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  That would probably depend on the volume and complexity of cases. I see an analogy with SPI; most socking does not get there and does not need to, but we couldn't do without it for many that do, even though most of it is just waiting for stuff to happen passively or privately. I wonder what percentage of reports will start just going to individuals who volunteer for the queue instead of the queue itself. But you're right, we'll figure it out once we start doing. To that end, looking at the wording of the proposed decision,

  1. When you say WP:OUTING, I wonder whether that should apply to new accounts with handful of edits just the same as long-term established editors. Currently, we routinely, and without hesitation, drop the Uw-autobiography warning template to talk pages. Isn't that technically OUTing too? Are we supposed to seek permission before doing that? Most of the time, there isn't even any evidence to share, reading the draft makes it clear the user is writing about themself.
  2. The queue membership is to be decided by the Arbitration Committee and is open to any functionary and to any administrator by request to the Committee and who passes a functionary-like appointment process (including signing the ANPDP).) Assuming you're saying functionaries have automatic access, admins have access by application and non-admins have no access, it appears the last "and" is trying to join a "by ..." with a "who ..." unsuccessfully. I bring it up because first, I tried adding "anyone" after the "and" and ended up with a completely different thing.
  3. an example of a situation where a ticket should be referred to the committee is when there is a credible report involving an administrator. Is that really a "should", or was "may" or "can" intended?

  —  Usedtobecool  ☎️ 21:05, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• Joe Roe cites WP:PAY as saying that paid editing is coterminous with editing with a "financial conflict of interest". This is a pretty tortured reading of WP:PAY, which begins Being paid to contribute to Wikipedia is one form of financial COI [my emphasis]. It goes on to define financial conflict of interest: More generally, an editor has a financial conflict of interest whenever they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. So the policy that Joe cites says that 1. paid editing is one form of financial COI, and 2. financial COI is more general than just being paid to edit Wikipedia. It's hard to see how ArbCom errs in concluding that this means that financial COI and paid editing are not coterminous. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 10:57, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply
  • @ Joe Roe: Yes, "financial conflict of interest" is defined as separate from "paid editing" in the section called "paid editing". Just like our policy saying that bold editing is not vandalism is part of WP:VANDALISM. This is a common way for our policies to be organised. Maybe there's an argument to reorganise the COI policy so it's clearer, but the only reasonable interpretation of the actual text of the section is that editing with a financial COI and paid editing are not the same. Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 11:22, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply
• Re. the proposed VRT queue, I see editors above saying they think it would be an improvement, so there's clearly something there, but I don't really understand how it differs from the current paid-en-wp queue which is would apparently be replacing? If an editor doesn't use the current queue (whether because they don't know what the correct procedure is, or don't trust it, or for some other reason) why do we think that a different queue would change that? Caeciliusinhorto-public ( talk) 11:01, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  We seem to treat PAID editing and COI editing oftentimes differently. The paid-en-wp queue seems very specific to undisclosed paid editing reports. ArbCom gets some reports. Individual functionaries or administrators get reports. I'm sure even with one "master queue" for PAID and COI of various flavours, reports will be sent many places, but having the master queue would serve to have a place to aggregate these reports, and to circulate them amongst a group of trusted editors who have an interest in investigating and dealing with these reports. Maxim ( talk) 13:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• To me, the key issue is how Nihonjoe responded to enquiries. Had they disclosed their COI, they would have been operating within the confines of policy. But once they were asked about it, evading the question was beyond the pale.
  There is a concept in law ( IANAL) that "the rules are a shield, not a sword". The application here is that WP:OUTING is protection from people prying into your private life. That's the shield. But it's not to be used to enable you to violate WP:PAGs such as WP:COI with impunity. Once you've taken the step to violate COI, you can't use the OUTING shield as an excuse to refuse to answer questions; that's the forbidden sword. If you are concerned that people might infer who your employer is by analyzing which articles you edit, then don't edit those articles. Once you chose to edit, you've taken a step closer to the line and you owe people asking you about your actions the same latitude. RoySmith (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• On another topic, HJ Mitchell wrote the suppression log is private so it doesn't really matter who does the suppression which I think misses the point. The reason we have WP:INVOLVED isn't because we're concerned how things look in the logs, but because when people are too close to an issue, it's difficult to make make truly impartial judgement calls. I'm sure HJ knows this and was just imprecise in how he stated things, but it's worth noting. RoySmith (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply

JoeRoe, your reading of the PAID/COI relationship is completely wrong, the committee is correctly (and so far unanimously) voting that it's wrong, and indeed multiple arbitrators are using their votes to specifically emphasize its wrongness. Many people have tried to explain to you over the years that a section titled "X" that includes the sentence "X is a proper subset of Y" means what it says, not the contradictory statement "X and Y are the same"; I'm glad it's happening in this very visible forum, so that hopefully you will stop repeating your wrong understanding in the future. -- JBL ( talk) 17:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

In proposed finding of fact 12a, "any reasonable oversight" should be "any reasonable oversighter". There's also a typo in proposed remedy 2a – "harrasment" should be "harassment". DanCherek ( talk) 22:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Fixed - thanks! firefly ( t · c ) 22:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

You should be clear about whether, assuming it gets consensus, Nihonjoe can stand as a candidate at the proposed admin elections process. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I would rather not because that would imply no one else who we haven't said it for could. ArbCom would be better off with a general clarification once an election process has consensus (for instance it may or may not be called RfA; it was all rfa just two choices, we wouldn't need to clarify anything). Barkeep49 ( talk) 23:00, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I don't see why our traditional wording about RfA would be affected by RfA reform: its still RfA. Though if there is a question post-RfA reform initiation, it could be brought up at ARCA and discussed separately. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} ⚓ 23:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC) reply

The implementation notes are missing proposed remedy 2a (Fram admonished). – FlyingAce ^✈hello 14:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I've hopefully updated all of the implementation notes correctly. Thanks for pointing this out. Sdrqaz ( talk) 03:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Two remarks:

• my reply to HJMitchells question wasn´t meant as "the end justifies the means", but that if a "government" is disfunctional, e.g. is more concerned about protecting their colleagues than about "governing" fairly, then civil fisobedience may become more important than continuing to follow the law.
• I´m rather confused why I was blocked for linking to Hemelein when Nihonjoe hadn´t formally declared that COI on enwiki (but had created the Wikidata page and had linked to the publications on enwiki), but apparently now we can freely discuss Hemelein even though I don´t see it mentioned by name on their page of COI declarations. What tipped the balance between blockable outing and no problem to mention it? Fram ( talk) 16:12, 5 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  What tipped the balance between blockable outing and no problem to mention it?

  There is a difference between stating that a COI exists between an editor and an entity (or that you believe one exists), and detailing why that COI exists - in doing so connecting an editor to an off-wiki identity. firefly ( t · c ) 17:38, 5 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  I'd agree with Firefly on the difference.

  I'd come into this PD really expecting to vote for an equivalent remedy for you and PF and my preference was no remedy, just the FoF noting what happened and ArbCom's interpretation of how policy applies to it. But I was reminded of response to HJM's questions at the workshop and then I read that first bullet point. So I have to weigh I will stop posting WP:OUTING material and send it to ArbCom instead. That's a general commitment, not just about Nihonjoe... against As long as the believe is there that ArbCom will do what it needs to do, then there is no need to WP:IAR things in such situations and I have no issue with following policy and if a "government" is disfunctional, e.g. is more concerned about protecting their colleagues than about "governing" fairly, then civil fisobedience may become more important than continuing to follow the law. Neither of those statements (nor the any number of other quotes from that first post including ...the strong impression that we shouldn't rely on ArbCom to do the right thing, but instead that they... were actively trying to protect Nihonjoe...to silence critics and to shut down all discussion. Perhaps that image was wrong, perhaps the continued pressure and the outings had success, perhaps the until then silent members of ArbCom have reined in the other ones, I don't know, but somewhat reluctantly ArbCom eventually did the right thing) suggests there's not any sort of actual general commitment to stop outing. Instead all of this suggests a commitment to stop violating policies (in this case outing but as the second quote seems to imply policies more widely) as long as you approve of what ArbCom does. That's a pretty contingent commitment which, for me, is not really any meaningful commitment at all. Now I do also give some credit for the second bullet point which in my good faith reading is you genuinely trying to understand where the line is so you don't cross it again. Absent some kind of credible response here I feel like I'm going to have to consider the 4.5 year old (unprecedented and strangely structured) ArbCom case after all to push me one way or another rather than just focusing on recent (and more relevant) conduct. Barkeep49 ( talk) 03:50, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  No, not just "as long as I approve of what Arbcom does". There are many things I don´t agree with, but believe are well within the limis of what Arbcom may do or should do. To go back to my term above, I don´t support civil disobedience for every political decision you don´t agree with, that´s unworkable and selfish. But I do believe that there are limits to what one should tolerate from those in charge, and we have a moral obligation to protest e.g. injustice. So no, I will not post outing stuff (even if it is stating the obvious, as here) under any normal circumstances. I refuse to make it a "no, never, under any circumstances" promise as that way totalitarianism lays. If that means some harsher remedy here, so be it.

  As for the Hemelein thing, I´m still completely baffled. If, for example, you say on your user page that you are a university lecturer in astrophysics, but without naming yourself or the institution; wouldn´t it then be serious outing if I were to say that you have a Coi with the University of Smallville, West Dorset? What Arbcom seems to say is that no, that´s fine, as long as you don´t add a mink to the homepage of the pnly astrophysicist at that Uni. Which is not protecting people from outing but is pure hypocrisy. Fram ( talk) 05:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  @ Fram: I think that the important thing is what Firefly wrote about saying that a COI exists vs detailing why you think it exists (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § How to handle conflicts of interest, specifically the "reporting" and "avoid outing" subsections). If we take your example, I think that an appropriate statement about the astrophysicist (a) would be "a has a COI with Smallville" as they could have that COI through their spouse's occupation, their educational background, their family etc.

  Is that a strange situation? Maybe. But the Community has the ability to alter the COI guideline and harassment policy if it wishes – actually altering policy is beyond the Committee's remit. A precedent worth noting is the Committee saying that someone had a COI before giving them a topic ban ( the 2021 Tenebrae motion). Sdrqaz ( talk) 02:24, 13 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• Re. 6a: "Nihonjoe's response to COI accusations"
  I don't quite get the confusion over outright denials of several conflicts of interest.
  Firstly, I don't see where, in WP:COI it says there has to be an explicit denial of COI for there to be such a conflict; and
  Secondly, the more usual definition of someone who doesn't make an outright denial of something later found to be the case—or as is put here, skipping around the question rather than [making] outright denials—is that they were either gaslighting or lying by omission.
  Me speaking personally: I also don't think semantics should be a lodestone at this point; the important thing is not so much whether Nohinjoe response ranged from the "evasive" to "outright denials" but that when the truth came out it was only the result of it being forced, metaphorically, kicking and screaming. ——Serial Number 54129 12:32, 6 April 2024 (UTC) reply

  I do not believe that "there has to be an explicit denial of COI for there to be such a conflict" – conflicts of interest exist regardless of whether someone admits to them or not. The reason why I proposed the alternative finding was that I wanted us (as a Committee) to be more precise. Sdrqaz ( talk) 14:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC) reply

• @ Joe Roe: " There are none so blind..." ——Serial Number 54129 11:10, 9 April 2024 (UTC) reply

HJ Mitchell wrote the suppression log is private so it doesn't really matter who does the suppression. But when - as in many cases, and what looks like the overwhelming majority of suppressions on pages like WP:AN to us peons - there's a handful or bunch of suppressed revisions in the history, and the first visible one is an overseer's edit with summary "redact" or " sigh" or " what the fuck", it doesn't take rocket science to figure out who did it. — Cryptic 15:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply

(Also, for the exactly nothing it's worth, if you're goading Fram to throw himself on his sword again, it's probably you that's the bad guy.) — Cryptic 15:48, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply

I'm really surprised to see the de-crat remedy. Losing tools for not abusing that particular set of tools (yes, as far as admin tool are concerned, the protections were not a good idea, but as said by others, I think it's easily possible that an admonishment could be just as appropriate.)

Also, just as a technicality - an editor doesn't "have" to be an admin to become a bureaucrat. So even if you want to desysop over the protections, no crat tool were used.

That said, I get the point about commuity trust. But I think Maxim's points are well taken.

Basically, you all are standing on a fence. And discerning minds could argue falling on either side of that fence.

This almost seems to be coming down to subjective whim of each arb. But this isn't like deciding what punctuation to use in an article, or what color a template should be. This is a person.

So I dunno if this is what we want from Arbcom. Maybe it is - but does this fall under: "do the things that community can't seem to"? Because I think the community has shown many times in the past that they can "vote" personal subjective whims.

Just something to think about I guess. - jc37 18:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC) reply

Propsoed remedy 2.1 states that [c]oncerns about policy violations based on private evidence must be sent to the appropriate off-wiki venue; is that meant to be "concerns about guideline or policy violations"? Hydrangeans ( she/her | talk | edits) 17:31, 12 April 2024 (UTC) reply